Today my family and I sat in the hot July sun just up the third base line (100-level seats! whoo!) and watched the Phillies beat the Washington Nationals 5-4 in 12 hot innings.

It. Was. Awesome.

Don’t get me wrong – the Phillies stil haven’t convinced me that they’ve even got a shot at climbing out of the basement and finishing even in a respectable 2nd place for the division. Despite their 12-of-13 winning streak earlier this season (a streak that made them the leaders of the wildcard all-too-temporarily) they’ve wrested defeat out of the jaws of victory enough times this season that today’s win was wholly unexpected.

In fact, I’ve already reached a point where I call my cousin just to rant about “those bums” (as generations of my family have done before), and a good portion of last week was spent muttering “Eight and sixteen… how did we ever win eight?”

Maybe that’s why today’s win was so sweet. It was messy – they stranded too many runners – and it was hot, and we ran out of lines on the scorecard and had to start writing the score information in the “at bats” and “runs” columns, but when it was all said and done it was a mark in the win column.