Phillies podcast: Best moments, players and plays from Game 4 of 2008 NLCS

Opening day is postponed, but we’re still rolling. Join us for the ride every Thursday with the Extra Innings podcast, featuring Matt Breen, Bob Brookover and Scott Lauber. This week, we look back at Game 4 of the 2008 NLCS. The Extra Innings podcast is available on iTunes and SoundCloud.

Matt Breen (MB): So obviously there’s no baseball. And if you’ve been with us the last few weeks, we’ve picked a game in Phillies history. … They’ve been iconic games.

We did the ‘93 clincher against the Braves. We did Game 5 of the NLCS in 1980. And today we are doing Game 4 of the 2008 NLCS.

It wasn’t a clincher, but I think it was, in theory, the game that clinched the pennant for the Phillies. The night before, we go back Games 3, and the Dodgers were up against Phillies two games to nothing. The Dodgers really outclassed the Phillies. Game 3 at Dodger Stadium and I remember watching the game thinking alright it’s not going to be a cakewalk. It’s going to be a series. The next game, you have the Matt Stairs, Shane Victorino’s home runs, and from that point on, that moment, I could say that this team is going to win the World Series.

I know a lot of people go back to the Victorino grand slam against CC Sabathia in the [division series], but I think it really was this night in the NLCS that you could say this team is ready to win the World Series.

Scott Lauber (SL): Yeah, I think I agree with that.

So I was there at Dodger Stadium that night writing for the Wilmington News Journal, and I’ll share that they went from being down in the game to tying it on the Victorino homer and going ahead on the Stairs homer. And in the span of a couple of innings, you went from thinking the series is going to be even to Joe Torre saying after the game the Dodgers weren’t going to work out the next day on the off day. And the Dodgers just seemed so stunned at what had happened.

We talked last week in the 1980 Game 5 against the Astros, the comeback against Nolan Ryan and how fast it happened. It was three pitches, they loaded the bases and Pete Rose walked and off they went and they were back. And it didn’t happen quite that quickly here, but it felt like it was really, really quick in the inning where Victorino and Stairs homered.

It just felt like in the eighth inning there was quite a turn of events and the whole series turned on that inning.

Bob Brookover (BB): For me, this was the first time watching this game in its entirety because I had been covering the Eagles at the time. And the Eagles had played Sunday in San Francisco. And two things I remember about that trip, one is running into Gary Papa of Channel 6 on the streets. We crossed by each other. And he said, ‘What do you think about the Phillies?’ And I say, ‘Gary, I think they are going to win the World Series.’ And he says, ‘Me too, I can’t believe it.’ I remember that, which is a nice memory about a nice man.

But I also was exhausted when I got back from San Francisco on a red-eye the next day. So I got home, I went to the Eagles news conference at noon and by game time I was just dead tired and fell asleep. I woke up in like the sixth inning, went downstairs, and was like, ‘OK, let’s watch this game from here.’ And that’s really where the game starts developing into what it became.

But I just remember watching those two home runs … the Victorino home run, it had to clear the fence by about a centimeter. It was just a straight line drive. The Matt Stairs home run just cleared the stadium. And I’d been the Dodger Stadium many times. I don’t think I ever saw a home run hit that deep into those bleachers in my life.

And it really is an iconic game and as Matt said, it’s the game where you said, well this team is ready to win a World Series.