There's Not A Mascot In Professional Sports Who Knows Ball Better Than The Phanatic
The Phillies dick kicked the Dodgers last night by the tune of a 10-1 shellacking. They shoved the long ball up their hoop all damn night. Obviously what makes this team so fun to watch is that they pound the ball into smithereens on a nightly basis. There's a time and a place for small ball in baseball. That time is never and that place is nowhere. Dingers or die.
Now the only downside to the Phillies' brand of ball is that it comes with a lot of fans who can't tell the difference between a ball that was smashed halfway to Kensington, or a routine pop-up that dies before the warning track. They hear a loud pop from the bat and instantly start cheering like that ball is never coming back, only for the inning to be over 1.7 seconds later.
But if there's one soul in Citizens Bank Park who is undefeated when it comes to judging dingers, it's the Phanatic. This dude is an elite knower of ball.
The moment that ball makes contact with Marsh's bat, he immediately turns his head around and has that look in his eyes of "holy shit, Wet Jesus just spanked that thing".
Naturally there are going to be a few hands up in the air before the Phanatic's, but he's not going to make a fool of himself while standing on top of the dugout. He's not a hands up on contact kinda guy. He's going to make sure there's no doubt about that ball ending up in the 7th row before he waves goodbye to that thing.
And that's why he's the best in the biz. That's why he's batting 1.000 lifetime on home run calls. Blooper's dumbass probably gets caught losing his mind over a warning track ball 5 times a night. But not the Phanatic. The guy just gets it.
P.S. -- The best Phanatic reaction is always going to be after JT's blast in game 4 of the 2022 NLCS.