What this Phillies season meant to five fans: From a nun to an ice cream man to an 88-year-old baseball lifer and more

It’s been about a week since the Phillies lost Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. Since then, their shorter-than-expected playoff run has been analyzed and dissected in every way possible. How could a team as resilient as this one suddenly give up its fight? How could a lineup as talented as this one suddenly go so cold?

There might not be clear answers — and even if there are, those answers won’t feel satisfying to fans. This was a team that was expected to win it all. Instead, the Phillies lost four of their last five games to ensure that they didn’t get the chance.

» READ MORE: Bryce Harper vows the Phillies will be back in 2024, but they face plenty of questions first

It was disappointing to many, but for some, it also felt personal. They felt connected to this Phillies team in a way that they hadn’t in a long time. These Phillies showed you how much they cared, both about each other and about the city. You could see it in how they lined up on the top step of the dugout, in the ice water they joyfully dumped on their teammates’ heads, in the way they talked about their fans, as if they were part of the group, rather than spectators.

But on Oct. 24, it all came to an unceremonious end. After surveying hundreds of reader responses, here is a look at how fans of all backgrounds have responded to this loss.

As they walked into Citizens Bank Park on Oct. 23, John Marron was asked a question by his father, Hank.

“What do you think?” he said. “I’m a little bit nervous.”

They were about to attend Game 6 of the NLCS. The Phillies had a 3-2 series lead but Hank, an 88-year-old lifelong Phillies fan from Germantown, knew better. He had vivid memories of the 1950 World Series loss to the Yankees. He was at Connie Mack Stadium when Chico Ruiz stole home in 1964, and watched that team collapse over its next 11 games.

He experienced “Black Friday” at the Vet in person in 1977. The lesson?

“Don’t get excited until the game is over,” he said.

The Phillies lost Game 6 to the Diamondbacks, 5-1. They combined for six hits. By the later innings, Hank was well aware of what was unfolding.

» READ MORE: I said goodbye to the Phillies in 2009. This team made me fall in love with baseball again.

“I just felt like I had seen this before,” he said. “For me, it’s frustrating. There are so many periods of bad times with this franchise. And then they would get a good team, and you’d get yourself so excited, but something unusual happens. Something strange or fluky that would cost them taking that next step.

“In my opinion, coming home on Monday and Tuesday night and not being able to win one of those two games is kind of fluky.”

Hank watched every game this season from the recliner in his living room. Like many ballplayers, he is superstitious. He wore the same Red October shirt all postseason and only washed it last Friday. It was for naught. But despite the disappointing ending — which he ranks “just behind 1964″ in the annals of Phillies collapses — he will be back, if only on principle.

“They’re with you every day,” Hank said. “Something good happens or something bad happens, but something happens almost every day to hold your interest in the game. I thought this team had some interesting personalities. It was a fun season. It was a shame that it ended the way it did. I liked [Bryce] Harper. As much as he struck out and his low batting average, I thought [Kyle] Schwarber was a good solid team player.

“So, you wait till next year.”

When Sravan Emany’s father, Rao, moved from India to Reading in the late 1970s, he gravitated toward the Phillies. Rao played cricket growing up and baseball had some similar characteristics. By the time the Phillies won the World Series in 1980, he was hooked.

So, Rao passed his fandom on to his son. Sravan moved to Reading a few years later. They were one of the first Indian families to emigrate to the area — which wasn’t easy for a young kid — but the Phillies gave him something to talk about. A way to connect.

Sravan devoured the sports section of the Reading Eagle, reading it cover to cover every morning. He played Little League baseball and idolized Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt and John Kruk. His fandom didn’t come without a cost. In the late 1980s, he endured “some terrible Phillies baseball.” But in many ways, 2023 has been the best of them all.

This year, Emany’s three daughters — Leela, Ambika and Mira — started watching games with him and his wife, Betsy. Mira, 14, said it is because the players “really like each other.”

“I think it’s the encouragement they have for each other,” Mira said. “After someone does something, they get a hit or a home run, the entire team is really happy for them.”

» READ MORE: What’s your walk-up song? Famous Philadelphians share their hypothetical baseball intro music.

It resonated with the girls, who started to listen to players’ walk-up songs in the car on the way to school. They joke that one day, they’ll take their father to games when he’s in a wheelchair.

“They complain about my sad dad rock,” Sravan said. “They complain about a lot of different things. But the fact that they’ve picked baseball has been a gift. And this team helped in that way. And that’s the part that I’m thankful for more than anything else.

“If this team was more like the Dodgers — good but not as personable, without this connection with the fan base — I don’t know how much my daughters would be into it.”

For the Emanys, their reason for being disappointed is simple.

This love was beamed into our lives on a daily basis for the last six months. Now ... it’s gone. What we feel in our household is the loss of this love and it leaves a real hole in our lives.

“I think we will miss this team because we love that they love each other so much,” Sravan said. “I have never enjoyed a Philadelphia sports team as much as this Phillies team. They are imperfect just like us — they make terrible mistakes, they get into terrible slumps — but they always bounce back. Their support for each other and their love of another is so authentic it is infectious to anyone who watches them regularly.

“And they willingly shared their love of each other with us. We felt like we had a relationship with the Day Care, with Nick and Liam [Castellanos], and with Rhys/Kyle/Bryce/Trea. This love was beamed into our lives on a daily basis for the last six months. Now ... it’s gone. What we feel in our household is the loss of this love and it leaves a real hole in our lives.”

Frank Mazzuca, the Phillies’ 82-year-old press box ice cream man, called in an order a few days before the conclusion of the NLCS. He was confident that the Phillies would advance to the World Series, and wanted to make sure he was fully stocked with ice cream.

But he did so with a caveat.

“I gave my chef the order of ice cream, and he said, ‘You’re sure you want to order it?’” Mazzuca said. “And I said, ‘Let me put it this way. Order it if they win only. If they don’t, I’ll have to use whatever I have left over and offer it to the employees.’

“They did put a hold on it, thank God. If they hadn’t, we would’ve had a lot of ice cream to eat.”

Mazzuca, who goes by the nickname “Frankie Two Scoops,” has worked for the Phillies for 24 years. He grew up just a few blocks away from Citizens Bank Park but now lives in Northeast Philadelphia. Like most Phillies fans, he has spent his life straddling a line between confident and distraught.

» READ MORE: Phillies fans ‘live for next year’ as they cope with yet another heartbreak

This season has been no different. The night before Game 7, Mazzuca couldn’t sleep. He was worried about the slumping hitters, the bullpen, and the potential of spending his winter devouring gallons of frozen dessert. He watched TV until 3 in the morning until he dozed off.

The next day, his worst fears were realized.

“This rookie pitcher, [the Diamondbacks’ Brandon Pfaadt],” Mazzuca said. “Now this guy must have had ice water in his veins. This guy gets eight strikeouts in six innings and shuts out the Phillies? Come on, Phils, it’s like the old days when they faced a lefty and just went into a cocoon. They couldn’t do anything.

“People say wait till next year. Big deal, next year. I might get a heart attack, slip on the snow. Who the hell knows?”

Mazzuca said the Phillies were planning to host a screening of the first two World Series games if they had advanced, since they would’ve been playing the Rangers in Texas. He’ll still come into work this week to serve lunches to staff, but he will miss seeing his everyday customers in the media, broadcast booth, and his coworkers.

People say wait till next year. Big deal, next year. I might get a heart attack, slip on the snow. Who the hell knows?

“We help each other,” he said. “I take my break or what have you and somebody pinch-hits for me or somebody else, you know, I’ll pinch-hit for them. It’s a matter of togetherness, and that’s the way it should be. I miss it so damn much. I should not be here. I mean, we had plans that if they would have won.

“We would have the games in Texas on the big screen, and it’s a perfect night for that. But instead, they lost at home. You had the best ice cream in the world and you let it melt. It doesn’t make sense.”

When Kellie Flanagan, a social worker from Philadelphia, began working at a retirement community a few months ago, she connected with her clients over baseball. This surprised her a little bit, since most of her clients were retired nuns.

But she quickly realized that many of the nuns had suffered just as much as she had. Most of them watched Phillies games their entire lives, and continued to watch together in their community room at the retirement home. Some went to games dressed in full Phillies garb. Those who weren’t familiar with the sport were promptly educated.

“One of the sisters doesn’t know baseball well, and has kind of been jumping on the bandwagon,” Flanagan said. “And she came up to me the other day and says, ‘The referees weren’t calling a good game the other night.’ And one of the other sisters said, ‘They’re umpires. What are you talking about?’ She was like, ‘I’ve got to teach her everything.’”

Before Flanagan left work ahead of Game 7, she asked her clients for a favor.

“I said, double the prayers for us, please,” Flanagan said. “We need all the help we can get.”

The nuns agreed, but in retrospect, they feel that some of their prayers may have been “misdirected.”

“The next day after the loss, I mean, it was like one after the other,” Flanagan said. “Oh my gosh, what happened? ‘I wanted to turn the TV off.’ One of the nuns who curses was like, ‘What the hell happened there?’

» READ MORE: To the 2023 Phillies: It was so fun while it lasted

“They were just frustrated in general. They were like, ‘I don’t think they even wanted to play that game.’ They were just upset. You think they are supposed to be kind — and they are kind, of course — but they were just as upset as us common folk.

“One of the sisters said, ‘I should have just turned that game off after the second inning. I can’t even believe what I saw last night.’ She was so frustrated. She basically said she shouldn’t have even watched that thing because it was not worth watching.”

They’ll be back next year, but only begrudgingly.

“They’ve decided that they will continue on and suffer like the rest of us,” Flanagan said.

This has been a difficult time for Michael Schaeffer and his 12-year-old stepson, Maverick Bower, who was diagnosed with epilepsy in April. Schaeffer estimates that Maverick has had about 200 seizures since then.

Sometimes, the seizures come in the morning. Sometimes they come at night. Sometimes they come in bunches — one after another — and sometimes they don’t come for weeks. It has been a year rife with uncertainty. Schaeffer’s wife isn’t able to work a full-time job anymore. She drives for Uber when she can to make ends meet, but needs to be available to take care of her son.

Most pre-teens spend their nights at sleepovers or school functions, but Maverick isn’t able to do that. He needs 10 hours of sleep a night and his parents have to monitor his movements to submit a report back to his doctors. It is exhausting for everyone involved, but this season, they found comfort and camaraderie in the Phillies.

» READ MORE: A lot of kid Phillies fans earned their stripes with the team’s loss. Here’s how parents are helping with their ‘weird initiation.’

Schaeffer and Maverick, who live in Bucks County, watched the Phillies every night. Maverick would fall asleep and excitedly ask about the outcome of the game over breakfast the next morning.

“It’s been hard for him to find excitement in anything,” Schaeffer said, “which made baseball cool. It was the one thing he would ask about, you know? It was the one thing he was waiting for in the morning.”

For 162 games — and a playoff run — the Phillies provided a nightly companion for Maverick. They were there, good or bad. Schaeffer noticed that his stepson had trouble falling asleep on the nights there wasn’t a game on, like most Sundays and during the All-Star break.

“A lot of his seizures are at night,” Schaeffer said. “So, when this all started … this poor kid, you’re telling him he needs sleep, but when he goes to sleep, that’s when the seizures are happening. So, we’ve tried a lot of different things and medications and calming devices. But the one constant that worked was baseball.”

They like to take the same one-day-at-a-time approach that the ballplayers do. Every night, Schaeffer and Maverick focus on going “1-0.” They don’t think about how long it’s been since he last had a seizure, or the possibility of him having another one. They just focus on the game in front of them.

When Schaeffer watched the Game 7 loss, he was upset, but not mad. He and his family feel gratitude more than anything else. This team gave them a lot of joy in a year when they needed it.

“I’ve seen people say this team is a disappointment, and I’m like, ‘No,’” Schaeffer said. “I’m going to absolutely look back and enjoy the heck out of the connection this team provided us. There’s something about sports, when you’re going through things in life, that distracts you. It brings you happiness and joy and heartbreak. Nick [Castellanos] flipping the bat, hitting home runs off [the Braves’ Spencer] Strider. Brandon Marsh is just all energy. Bryce learning first base on the fly. Those are the little moments that you remember. You just saw how resilient this group was.

“They gave us reason to smile, connect, and enjoy the moments that will last forever. I’ll miss this team more than any other for those reasons.”