One of the biggest factors come October is home field advantage in the MLB postseason. The sellout crowds, especially in Philadelphia, can give their team the nudge it needs to win a game, a series, a championship.
But there was another homemade ingredient that gave the Phillies a boost for their most recent title in 2008.
Phillies legends Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard launched their 6-1-1 Podcast. The name is a amalgam of their two jersey numbers when they played in Philadelphia – six for Howard, eleven for Rollins.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Their first-ever guest on the pod was former big-league pitcher CC Sabathia, who, in 2008, was traded from the Indians to the Brewers, and was dominant for Milwaukee down the stretch. So much so, that he finished fifth in the NL Cy Young vote and sixth in the MVP vote, despite only playing the final two months with the Brew Crew.
The Phillies and Brewers battled in the NL Division Series in 2008, and Sabathia gave the Phillies plenty of credit for winning the series 3-1. But one factor in the first two games in Philadelphia carried a little more weight, to say the least.
Howard: Take us into the visiting dugout. The cheesesteak situation. Can you tell us a little bit-
Sabathia: I had never been in the National League before [in my career], right? One, I didn’t know you guys were that good, to be completely honest, because we hadn’t played you. First of all, the visiting clubhouse [at Citizens Bank Park] has the best cheesesteaks in Philly.
Phillies Analysis
Rollins: Period.
Sabathia: I don’t know if y’all know that.
Rollins: No, we do!
Sabathia: Hands down, that’s the best cheesesteak in the city.
Rollins: By the way, we couldn’t get them on the home side, because we knew what they did.
Sabathia: You didn’t want them on the home side! [Laughs]
Rollins: We had to sneak guys over, like ‘Hey, tell ‘em we want a cheesesteak for Jimmy, Ryan and Shane [Victorino].’ We couldn’t order them, we couldn’t get ‘em, for a good reason.
Sabathia: ‘Cause they were f---ing logs in your stomach. And we get to me, [Brewers 1B] Prince [Fielder], [Brewers RF] Corey Hart, we get to Philly, we’re feeling good. You know what I mean? Like, we just made the playoffs… We ordered so many cheesesteaks, bro, we couldn’t even move!
Howard: how many did y’all take down?
Sabathia: I think we took down 28-
Howard/Rollins: Woooooowwwwww…
Sabathia: In those three days.
Rollins: …and didn’t think nothing of it.
Sabathia: Nothing! We couldn’t move, bro! You can’t move when you eat those things! When we came back the next year in ’09 [with the Yankees in the World Series]-
Rollins: I heard. I heard.
Sabathia: [Yankees manager] Joe [Torre] took ‘em out of the clubhouse. I learned from my experience [laughs]
Having enjoyed a cheesesteak in my day, I can vouch for its effects, rendering your immobile after dining. I don’t know how many Brewers players took part in the cheesesteak chowdown, but 28 in three days is a *lot* of meat and cheese in a short span of time.
For those who don’t know or remember, the Phillies went 7-0 in the 2008 postseason on the way to a World Series Championship. Cole Hamels won the NLCS and World Series MVP.
We aren’t certain how many votes the visiting clubhouse cheesesteaks received, but they had more than a small hand in the Phillies title quest.