My Team: The Phillies from Session 11 to Here

I'm not going to write this one as Kian Davies.

It's Session 11. The Phillies are 4-7 after a brutal come-from-behind defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Everyone's feeling a little hopeless. I'm offering people the chance to play in other teams, playoff teams, to go somewhere with a bit more of a chance instead of staying in Philly, to perhaps resign the following season.

Not a single person even gives me the time of day. The Phillies Discord has about 30,000 messages, it's pretty active for a subgroup of a larger entity, but it goes quiet for the rest of the night. Another conversation is picked up, and we move on from the loss.

This is around the time where the Split was happening. I had just left the main Discord because finals were happening and because a lot of people were angry at me. Things were pretty dismal; we weren't playing too well, people were threatening the league's health. After a week or so of quarantining myself in the team Discord, Pie reported to the team chat. As an OotC member, he was going to each team and asking them who was leaving for the newly-created MLN. 

As with my trade proposal, not a single person said they were leaving. Actually, they expressed support the opposite way. Player after player stood by me while the Split was happening, encouraging me and being good friends. The Phillies stayed intact after the Split, without a single person abandoning the team.

When Session 12 began, we were back into it. The league had made it to its next batch of games, with new GMs helming teams and an overall optimistic top-end. Our scouting department, obsessed with arctic birds, had begun to make strides in technological development. Combined with a crippled Athletics team, we were able to scrape by with a win and take advantage of the matchup. Our record was 5-7/ 

Session 13 was a more-difficult opponent: The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. After a failed debut from new pitcher Noah Koufax, whose career is summed up by one auto-walk, Harvey Bargeparge held on in his only appearance as a Phil... enough. Pip Squires crushed a home run to flip the score, and we held on. The score was 4-3. Our record was now 6-7.

We were kind of incredulous. We were still reeling from crushing losses to Colorado and Los Angeles and were surprised things were working so well. Our pitching was on point. Our scouting was starting to both prevent and produce runs. We were elated, thinking we were on to something, until we looked to the schedule and saw a certain name looking back at us.

Darth Vader.

There was a bit of an unfortunate meme around the Phillies Discord around Darth Vader. We'd faced him in an earlier session, Zack Andersen concocting an amazing meme mocking him. We never got to use it. He shut us out.

If there was a stopper to our little pocket of sunshine, it would be Darth Vader. But Zack Andersen, our head scout, was positive he had the secret to him. And well, if GMs wanna DM me for it with trade offer, you can, because we beat him. 

We didn't just beat him. We beat him by 4 runs while shutting out his team.

Around this time, I had committed to trading away Hudson Quin. Some paranoia got the best of me and I sold him in a terrible market, but the return was okay and it opened up holes for two guys: free agent Joel Embiid and veteran ex-National Hudson Hildebrandt. The first guy I signed pretty easily. His ties to Philly were written in his name. 

Hildebrandt, I was outright shocked. I assumed he was in the Discord because he didn't bother to leave it. I messaged him, and not only did he answer, but he agreed to pitch for my team and take a roster spot left by Ethan Franklin. These two new pitchers combined for 4 shutout innings in the Pirates game. We were back to .500 for the first time since our 4-4 record. 

The Phillies sit one game outside of the wildcard. We need a lot of things to go right if we want to compete for a playoff spot. Win or lose, however, I did not expect to get a family with this league. I expected it to be a fun game as a general manager dealing with real people, but the sense of comradery in my clubhouse is palpable. Perhaps that's why I'm so into this game, even after all the drama and the chaos in the year it's been a thing. We're in this, baby, and even if we fail, we know it's been a good run.

But we're not going to fail. We're gonna win this whole fucking thing. Again.