J.C. Romero was the winning pitcher when the Phillies won the 2008 World Series. He couldn’t retire until his daughter said OK.

J.C. Romero had to attend a wedding near Philadelphia, providing him the perfect excuse in the summer of 2016 to bring his family to Citizens Bank Park and tour his old workplace.

Romero pitched five seasons with the Phillies, providing a steady hand in 2007, when they broke a 14-year postseason drought, and earned the win the night they won the 2008 World Series. Five years later, Romero was finished. He signed with the Nationals in 2013, tweaked his shoulder, and soon decided to walk away.

Once a dominant reliever, Romero had no interest in being the last guy on a roster. He was content with ending his career.

He brought his family to the clubhouse, where Romero remembered being welcomed in June 2007 by players such as Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Jimmy Rollins. He showed them the bullpen, where Romero warmed up nearly every night in September 2007 as the Phils chased down the Mets.

They stopped in the dugout, where Romero sat frozen 15 years ago while his teammates rushed the field after winning it all. And he showed them the pitcher’s mound where Romero picked up four crucial outs on that October night before the Phillies were finally champions again.

“Then we went to the family room and the daycare and my daughter starts seeing pictures of herself when she was little,” Romero said. “She was almost teary-eyed. She said, ‘I don’t remember any of this.’ She pretty much said, ‘Dad, can you play again?’ I was like, ‘Damn.’”

The Phillies won in 2008 with four franchise icons but it was the other moves — like signing Jayson Werth off his couch, claiming Greg Dobbs off waivers, trading for Brad Lidge, and grabbing Matt Stairs in the season’s final weeks —that molded them into champions. And when it came to signing Romero, no one could get hold of general manager Pat Gillick.

“Pat was a tough guy to get in contact with because he often didn’t answer his phone,” said Ruben Amaro Jr., then one of Gillick’s assistants.

Romero cleared waivers after Boston removed him from its roster, making him a free agent. The Phillies signed Romero in June 2007 to a minor-league deal, sent him to Florida to work with Carlos Arroyo, and brought him to the majors at the end of the month. He appeared in 20 of the team’s final 27 games — “Rich Dubee asked every day how we were feeling and we said, ‘We rest at Christmas,’” Romero said — and the Phils rallied for an improbable division title. The Phillies acquired an integral piece of their bullpen without the GM signing off on it.

“There were times when Pat would tell me, ‘Hey, if you think it’s the right thing to do, go ahead and do it’,” Amaro said. “I’m like, ‘Dude, it’s not my money. I’m not the GM. I’m the assistant GM.’ Pat was pretty awesome about autonomy. He believed in his people. He believed in us.

“If he wasn’t available, I would just leave him a voicemail because he checked his voicemail all the time. ‘Hey, we picked up a guy.’”

Romero did it again in 2008, posting the fifth-best ERA in the National League among left-handed relievers, and pitching nearly as often again in September as the Phils sped past the Mets a second time. He didn’t allow a run in eight 2008 postseason appearances and pitched in four of the five World Series games, two of which finished with his earning a win.

Howard was the muscle, Rollins was the engine, Utley set the tone, and Hamels was the MVP. But the Phils may not have won it all without guys like Romero.

“Pat always had this thought process that you could do something special with a marginal move,” Amaro said. “Sometimes, those marginal moves work out. He always believed on working on the margins. By and large, he did a great job. We used to joke that everything he touched turned to gold. Pat always believed in creativity and believed in the people who worked for him. That’s the beauty of what made him a Hall of Famer. He’s not just a brilliant baseball man but someone who thought about the importance of all the people on his staff from the area scout to the assistant GM. He believed that there was someone who could bring value to your organization.”

Romero knew he was going to pitch when Game 5 of the 2008 World Series finally resumed. But that didn’t make the wait any easier. The game was suspended by rain and postponed the following day before finally resuming on Oct. 29 in the bottom of the sixth inning.

“For a whole day, you’re visualizing,” Romero said. “I was trying to visualize me being in a tough situation with the game on the line. That’s the way I used to work. I always wanted to put myself mentally in a tough situation so I kind of lived that before it happened. Then I wouldn’t crumble under pressure. That’s the way I used to like to operate.”

The Rays tied the game in the seventh with a homer off Ryan Madson, who then allowed a single before being swapped for Romero with two outs and a runner on second. The go-ahead run was in scoring position and the Rays had the top of their lineup coming up. It was the stressful situation Romero visualized.

Romero’s second pitch to Akinori Iwamura was grounded softly toward second base, sending the pitcher toward first base to back up the play. But then he realized Utley was positioned more toward first base, forcing Utley to backhand the grounder and costing him a chance at throwing out the speedy Iwamura.

“I peeked out of the corner of my eye and saw Jason Bartlett coming home,” Romero said. “I was like, ‘Oh, you better get behind home plate.’”

The play — Utley pump faked to first base and fired home to get Bartlett for the third out — is now an iconic moment in franchise history. It’s “The Utley Play” and it fooled nearly everyone except Romero. Once Romero knew Utley didn’t have a play at first, he was thinking right along with the second baseman.

“I just happened to see the pump fake and I’m like, ‘Oh shoot, it’s coming home,’” Romero said. “Everything on the field happens fast and you have to think about ‘what happens next, what happens next.’ It was an amazing play.”

Carlos Ruiz grabbed the throw, tagged Bartlett, and the inning was over. The Phillies took the lead moments later. First, Romero had to get out of the way as Iwamura nearly slid into him after being tagged out. Romero leaped over Iwamura and landed as the umpire called him out. He did his job and the Phillies would soon be world champions.

“That was a survival jump,” Romero said. “If you stay there, they’re going to chop your legs off. Jump, get out of the way.”

Romero’s eighth inning was less eventful as he needed just 12 pitches to retire the heart of Tampa Bay’s lineup. An inning later, he was on the bench when Brad Lidge dropped to his knees after striking out Eric Hinske.

“I had to be one of the last players out of the dugout,” Romero said. “I just sat there. [Director of travel and clubhouse services] Frank Coppenbarger said, ‘We did it, man. Go celebrate with your friends.’ I was just thinking about all the hard work, and everything we did in the offseason. This is what we play for.”

Romero laid in his apartment two days later after the Broad Street parade and tried to recover before flying home to Alabama. The month was a whirlwind — “a wild ride,” Romero said — and now his head was pounding.

“I could feel my head literally throbbing,” Romero said. “I was like, ‘Wow, these people are really amazing.’ The energy was crazy. It was literally three-plus hours of screaming.”

He left the Phillies three years later, something Romero still regrets because his release in 2011 came after he refused a minor-league assignment. The rest of his career, Romero said, was “pit stops.” He pitched for three teams in two seasons and spent a year rehabbing his shoulder. He played 2015 in independent ball before deciding it was time. Then his daughter challenged him in the family room.

Romero started training kids at his own facility in 2013, sharing with them the secrets that helped him spend 14 years in the big leagues.

“This is what you want to do when you retire,” said Romero, whose facility is near his home in Fairhope, Ala. “You don’t call this a job. At least, for me. It’s a passion. Seeing these kids evolve and learn, that’s very rewarding. I’m very thankful because I didn’t have these opportunities when I was younger. I learned as I went. I had an amazing dad who took me to the field but didn’t play pro or anything like that. I wasn’t exposed to guys who were playing in the big leagues.”

“I’m not afraid to tell them how hard it is and how many times you’re going to fail or struggle. That’s what changes the perspective for these kids.”

» READ MORE: Tom Gordon was the first member of the 2008 Phillies to retire. But he never left the game.

Now the teacher had to get back on the mound and tune up his arm again. He was 40 years old and the majors had passed him by. But Romero still knew he could grant his daughter’s wish. He pitched for Puerto Rico in the 2014 World Baseball Classic, so he returned to the island to pitch for the team in 2017. It wasn’t the majors, but the tournament was the 40-year-old’s chance for his daughter to see him pitch again in big-league ballparks against big-league stars.

“I embraced every minute,” Romero said.

Romero pitched a scoreless inning in the early rounds before he was called on in the championship game against Team USA at a sold-out Dodger Stadium. It had been nine years since Romero came through in 2008 and five years since he pitched in the majors. He was back on the big stage with his daughter, Jazlyn, and wife, Erin, watching.

“Being able to share that with my daughter was very special. The only thing that didn’t go the way I wanted to was I didn’t get my lefty out. But that’s part of the game,” said Romero, who allowed a two-run single as Puerto Rico fell in the final. “She got to experience both sides of the coin.”

She was too young to remember 2008, but those games with Puerto Rico provided his daughter something to hold on to. Romero was always content with his career. And now his family was, too.

“After that, I said, ‘Are you OK? Are you good?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah.’ That was it. I was done,” Romero said. “I call it a wild ride, but I learned so much. I wouldn’t change anything.”