Jim Salisbury | Wanted: One Win

Jamie Moyer knows what a championship parade in Philadelphia looks, feels and sounds like.

He was a senior at Souderton High School in Montgomery County when the Phillies won the World Series in 1980. He got so caught up in the euphoria of his favorite team's winning it all that he played hooky and headed down to the big city to be part of the victory celebration.

(What's the statute of limitations on truancy, anyway?)

All these years later, Moyer is still one of you. He's a Philadelphia sports fan. And today, on fan appreciation day, he holds your sporting dreams - and his - in his left hand.

This riveting, six-month Phillies drama has come down to the last day, to Game 162, and all eyes will be on Moyer, a native son, as he climbs the pitcher's mound in front of a packed house at Citizens Bank Park for the 551st start of his career.

And maybe the biggest.

"It's a good place to be," Moyer said of the pressure-packed assignment. "I'd rather have a uniform on and be out there doing it than sitting in the stands watching it."

Call it the Old Man and the Season. Moyer, the third-eldest player in the major leagues at 44, will pitch against the Washington Nationals, and the stakes are huge.

After giving up sole possession of the lead in the National League East with a 4-2 loss to Washington yesterday, the Phils are in a tie for first place with the New York Mets.

A victory today will give the Phillies the division title, or at least ensure a one-game playoff with the Mets tomorrow. A loss will leave the Phils praying for the Mets to lose today in New York. We'll spare you the potential wild-card scenarios, which resemble a Rubik's cube.

In short, the Phils' best route to the postseason is a little ol' self-reliance: Win today.

They need to hit and field better than they did yesterday. And they need better starting pitching than Adam Eaton provided. Everything in baseball begins with starting pitching, and after 21 seasons, Moyer knows that.

"There's no reason to be tight," he said. "This is what it's all about. You go out, prepare, play the game, have fun and leave it all on the field."

This isn't the first time a Phillies season has come down to the last day. It did so in the torturous 1964 season and again in 2005. Both times the Phillies won the final game, but missed the playoffs.

In 1950, the year of the Whiz Kids, the Phils won the National League pennant on the final day, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers on Dick Sisler's three-run homer in the 10th.

Hall of Famer Robin Roberts pitched all 10 innings that day.

No one expects Moyer to go the distance today, but seven innings would be nice. Moyer did that three starts ago in a Phillies win over the Mets.

Despite a 13-12 record, Moyer has meant much to this team and this season. His contributions can't be measured in statistics. He has been a tremendous mentor to 23-year-old pitchers Cole Hamels and Kyle Kendrick, who have a combined 25 wins. And he's been a stern, fatherly voice when the team needed one.

Back in April, when they were 4-11, the Phils held a team meeting. Moyer stood up and said, "We're playing like a bunch of [wimps]."

Since then, the Phils are 84-62.

Moyer joined the Phillies in a late-season trade last year and re-signed because he has never won a World Series and he thought the Phillies had a chance to get there.

"I think winning a World Series at age 44 would be pretty cool," he said last winter.

It would be doubly cool to do it with his hometown team.

Though he has played most of his career in Seattle and lives there in the off-season, Moyer remains a Philadelphian at heart.

He knows what it means to have a cheesesteak wit. He knows it's always Center City, never Downtown.

He grew up watching Big Al call Big Five games on television. He remembers when everyone fell in love with the Flyers and that floppy-haired, gap-toothed kid named Bobby Clarke.

He went to St. Joseph's University, starting off in the night school.

He grew up idolizing Steve Carlton.

Need any more proof of how Philadelphia this guy is?

Moyer's wife, Karen, and his children will be in the stands today. So will his parents, Jim and Joan. (They gave him permission to skip school back in 1980, by the way.)

As he left the clubhouse last night, Moyer said he hadn't given any thought to how the biggest start of the Phillies' season had fallen into the lap of a hometown guy. But he did admit to thinking it fitting that that this season had come down to the last day.

"We've had so many ups and downs and we've battled through them," he said. "Maybe this is the way it's supposed to come down."

in Sports, Section D.EndText