Life and Death With the Long Ball: Phillies 2008 Postseason Homers

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The Phils have been criticized in the past for their reliance on hitting home runs to generate offense. In a small park, it's not the worst problem to have, but we'd all agree the team was clearly at its best when it could mix in some small ball between the dingers, because when the latter goes cold, it can get ugly.

But in the 2008 postseason, the Phils chose life and found their strokes, getting timely blasts up and down their lineup. Ryan Howard. Pat Burrell. Chase Effing Utley. Shane Vic! Jayson Werth. Carlos Ruiz? Yep. All 'em. And Matt Stairs. And Jimmy Rollins. Eric Bruntlett. Joe Blanton! In 14 games, they went deep 19 times. Some broke ties, some put a period at the end of a starter's death sentence. Some barely cleared the fence, and others rose slow and fell fast, white and against a dark sky or hardly visible among a cresting wave of CBP fans.

After the jump, every Phillies 2008 playoff homer in all its glory.

Now I know this has been covered handily by the commenters and posters here, but man, can Joe Buck ever suck the life out of a long ball. For half of them, it's like he barely looked up in time from whatever he was talking about in order to see it clear the fence. (Although I will give him credit for not talking over the subsequent crowd reactions.) If someone wants to give me the perfect Christmas gift, I'd love to see each of these videos recut with Harry or Scott calling them...

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