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'See Ball, Hit Ball'
Oct. 7th, 2025 01:05 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
metafilter_feedBaseball's Brett Phillips will never be a Hall of Famer. He was never an MVP or an all-star or even remotely the best player on his team. His career batting average is under the Mendoza Line. But the outfielder (and occasonally pitcher) who announced his retirement today will forever be my favorite player. And after you read this, I hope he'll be one of your favorite players, too. Here's why.
So yes, Phillips was... not a good hitter. But he was fast, which allowed him to cover a ton of ground in the outfield and steal a base when needed. He had a great arm (more on that later) and as a left-handed hitter with the strength to hit a home run (when he actually connected) he had enough value to play seven seasons in the majors. One glorious moment in those seven years captures the essence of Brett Phillips: The 2020 World Series, Game 4, ninth inning, two outs, his Tampa Bays Rays down a run to the formidable LA Dodgers – but the Rays have runners on first and second. And Phillips is at the plate. He's facing Kenley Jansen, one of the toughest pitchers in the game, and he battles, but he is soon down to his last strike. Then it happened, what the announcers would call "one of the most unlikely endings to a World Series game in the history of baseball." Stop reading this and watch what happened. Here's the short version but watch the longer version if you can. Even in baseball, where the infinitely improbable does sometimes happen, it was amazing. Phillips lines a base hit to right-center, scoring Kevin Kiermaier easily. But Randy Arozarena stumbles between third and home, seemingly a dead duck at the plate - but then the ball gets away and Arozarena scampers in, pounding on home plate with the winning run. Somehow, though, that's not the best part. What came next is. In celebration, Phillips runs through the outfield, arms outstretched like a little kid pretending to be an airplane, his teammates in pursuit like little kids themselves. Pure joy. Side note: Phillips and Arozarena also competed against each other – in a pair of dance battles that went viral (but have mostly been taken down for copyright reasons).. Final score, Phillips 1, Arozarena 1. (Check out that second one. They both brought their A games!) But there's so much more to love. Like the night before that game, in a moment that may have been prophetic. Phillips, always a jokester, took a pen and white board and drew up a Pictionary hitting strategy for teammate Willy Adames: "See ball, hit ball" – a saying that later became the senior yearbook quote for a certain young Tampa Bay Rays fan who lives under my roof. Or like the time Phillips was on Twitch and played that year's edition of Out of the Park Baseball (this poster's secret addiction) with the game's developers -- with his own Rays beating the Brewers for the World Series. Phillips celebrates in his own special way. Or maybe it's a you-can't-make-this-up moment from 2022, when Phillips met with young fan Chloe Grimes, who was undergoing treatment for a cancer relapse, and he promised to try to do something for her during the game. Chloe throws out the honorary first pitch to Phillips. Remember, I said you can't make this up: In the third inning, a TV crew interviews Chloe. She says Phillips is her favorite player because "he has the best smile. He's always having fun and I like how he does his airplane." And during the interview, Phillips launches a home run – one of just five he hit all year. (Good news update: Phillips met with Chloe again a year later when he came back to Tampa as a player for the Angels. And Chloe is now a sixth-grader and plays on a state champion softball team. Take that, cancer.) And there was the time that his manager brought Phillips to pitch, late in a hopeless blowout game. This is now fairly common, and the player usually lobs them in, takes his lumps, and that's that. Phillips stepped up, lobbed a few ...and unleashed a legit 94-mph fastball. (His manager, fearing Phillips would hurt himself or more likely a batter, immediately told him to cut that out.) Phillips always had a tremendous arm – here, he makes one of the strongest throws of any outfielder since MLB started tracking fielders' throwing speeds. That may be why Phillips, cut after the 2023 season, hoped he could pull off a comeback – as a pitcher. At first he wowed people, but it was not to be, giving up 11 runs in three innings with the minor league Kane County Cougars of Geneva, Illinois. Still, there's one moment that, to me, is the quintessential Brett Phillips. It comes in an utterly forgettable game from 2022. The Rays were down 9-1 to the Blue Jays in the eighth, an almost insurmountable lead, and so the team again let Phillips pitch and wrap up the game. This time he's just lobbing them in, but he's having fun and getting it done. Then a batter hits a popup into foul ground near the dugout. Phillips sprints full speed off the mound, then goes into a slide and makes the catch, skidding into the dugout wall – the level of effort you see with a pennant on the line, not in a hopeless blowout game. Then he gets up and tips his hat to the crowd. Why not, really? After all, as Phillips was fond of saying (and you can now have the words on his line of T-shirts and apparel): Baseball is fun. Farewell, Brett. You sure made it look that way, and we loved it.
So yes, Phillips was... not a good hitter. But he was fast, which allowed him to cover a ton of ground in the outfield and steal a base when needed. He had a great arm (more on that later) and as a left-handed hitter with the strength to hit a home run (when he actually connected) he had enough value to play seven seasons in the majors. One glorious moment in those seven years captures the essence of Brett Phillips: The 2020 World Series, Game 4, ninth inning, two outs, his Tampa Bays Rays down a run to the formidable LA Dodgers – but the Rays have runners on first and second. And Phillips is at the plate. He's facing Kenley Jansen, one of the toughest pitchers in the game, and he battles, but he is soon down to his last strike. Then it happened, what the announcers would call "one of the most unlikely endings to a World Series game in the history of baseball." Stop reading this and watch what happened. Here's the short version but watch the longer version if you can. Even in baseball, where the infinitely improbable does sometimes happen, it was amazing. Phillips lines a base hit to right-center, scoring Kevin Kiermaier easily. But Randy Arozarena stumbles between third and home, seemingly a dead duck at the plate - but then the ball gets away and Arozarena scampers in, pounding on home plate with the winning run. Somehow, though, that's not the best part. What came next is. In celebration, Phillips runs through the outfield, arms outstretched like a little kid pretending to be an airplane, his teammates in pursuit like little kids themselves. Pure joy. Side note: Phillips and Arozarena also competed against each other – in a pair of dance battles that went viral (but have mostly been taken down for copyright reasons).. Final score, Phillips 1, Arozarena 1. (Check out that second one. They both brought their A games!) But there's so much more to love. Like the night before that game, in a moment that may have been prophetic. Phillips, always a jokester, took a pen and white board and drew up a Pictionary hitting strategy for teammate Willy Adames: "See ball, hit ball" – a saying that later became the senior yearbook quote for a certain young Tampa Bay Rays fan who lives under my roof. Or like the time Phillips was on Twitch and played that year's edition of Out of the Park Baseball (this poster's secret addiction) with the game's developers -- with his own Rays beating the Brewers for the World Series. Phillips celebrates in his own special way. Or maybe it's a you-can't-make-this-up moment from 2022, when Phillips met with young fan Chloe Grimes, who was undergoing treatment for a cancer relapse, and he promised to try to do something for her during the game. Chloe throws out the honorary first pitch to Phillips. Remember, I said you can't make this up: In the third inning, a TV crew interviews Chloe. She says Phillips is her favorite player because "he has the best smile. He's always having fun and I like how he does his airplane." And during the interview, Phillips launches a home run – one of just five he hit all year. (Good news update: Phillips met with Chloe again a year later when he came back to Tampa as a player for the Angels. And Chloe is now a sixth-grader and plays on a state champion softball team. Take that, cancer.) And there was the time that his manager brought Phillips to pitch, late in a hopeless blowout game. This is now fairly common, and the player usually lobs them in, takes his lumps, and that's that. Phillips stepped up, lobbed a few ...and unleashed a legit 94-mph fastball. (His manager, fearing Phillips would hurt himself or more likely a batter, immediately told him to cut that out.) Phillips always had a tremendous arm – here, he makes one of the strongest throws of any outfielder since MLB started tracking fielders' throwing speeds. That may be why Phillips, cut after the 2023 season, hoped he could pull off a comeback – as a pitcher. At first he wowed people, but it was not to be, giving up 11 runs in three innings with the minor league Kane County Cougars of Geneva, Illinois. Still, there's one moment that, to me, is the quintessential Brett Phillips. It comes in an utterly forgettable game from 2022. The Rays were down 9-1 to the Blue Jays in the eighth, an almost insurmountable lead, and so the team again let Phillips pitch and wrap up the game. This time he's just lobbing them in, but he's having fun and getting it done. Then a batter hits a popup into foul ground near the dugout. Phillips sprints full speed off the mound, then goes into a slide and makes the catch, skidding into the dugout wall – the level of effort you see with a pennant on the line, not in a hopeless blowout game. Then he gets up and tips his hat to the crowd. Why not, really? After all, as Phillips was fond of saying (and you can now have the words on his line of T-shirts and apparel): Baseball is fun. Farewell, Brett. You sure made it look that way, and we loved it.
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