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2008 Philadelphia Phillies

2008 Sports: A Big Three-Point Shot & Traditional Franchises Win Championships

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This article offers a snapshot of 2008 sports, a year that saw a big Final Four three-point shot and four traditional franchises win pro sports titles.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
Start reading today. 


It was a power Final Four that gathered in San Antonio. Never before had all four #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four. Sports fans not only got to watch the best teams settle the national championship, but they watched a title game that would take place in college basketball lore.
Kansas trailed Memphis by nine points with 2:12 to go, rallied and tied the game with two seconds left on a three-pointer by Mario Challmes, then won in overtime.
Read more about the 2008 Final Four

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The world of professional sports saw four great sports towns with traditional franchises win championships…
*It had been 25 years since the city of Philadelphia won a sports championship of any kind and 28 years since that team had been the Phillies. This year changed all that. The team the Phils beat in the World Series had a special story of their own. The Tampa Bay Rays came out of nowhere to beat the Boston Red Sox and win the American League pennant.
Read more about the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies
Read more about the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays & The ALCS
*The Pittsburgh Steelers hadn’t gone a quarter-century without a championship—it had only been three years in fact. 2008 saw Pittsburgh win their record-setting sixth Super Bowl title. The Steelers were the 2-seed in the AFC and survived a wild playoff bracket, where the NFL postseason began to resemble March Madness.
Both #1 seeds (Tennessee Titans and New York Giants) lost in the divisional round, something that hadn’t happened since 1979. Both #6 seeds (Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles) made conference championship games, something that had never happened. Of the four teams that earned first-round byes, the Steelers were the only one to survive even one game. Survival was enough in 2008.
It was part of a great year for Pittsburgh sports fans, especially those oriented to the central part of the state. Penn State football won the Big Ten and went to the Rose Bowl, while the Pittsburgh Penguins reached the Stanley Cup Finals.
Read more about the year that was 2008 Central-West Pennsylvania Sports
*The Detroit Red Wings had won three Stanley Cups since 1997, but all had come under the leadership of the great head coach Scotty Bowman. Detroit showed they still had championship magic for third-year boss Mike Babcock. The Red Wings produced the best regular season record in the NHL and validated it with yet another Stanley Cup.
Read more about the 2008 Detroit Red Wings
*The Boston Celtics are the NBA’s most decorated franchise, but it had been 1986 since they last won a title and 1988 since they last seriously competed for one. A big offseason trade to bring Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to town and join Paul Pierce produced an immediate and smashing turnaround, as the Celtics won their league-record 17th NBA championship.
Read more about the 2008 Boston Celtics

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The Florida Gators won their second college football national title in three years, beating the Oklahoma Sooners in a good BCS National Championship Game. Read more about the 2008 Florida-Oklahoma game, from the paths both teams took to Miami to the game itself.
A lot of observers felt the real champion of 2008 was in the midmajors though. Utah went undefeated and beat up on Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, marking the Utes as the only team in the country with a perfect record. Read more about 2008 Utah football.

The 2008 Philadelphia Phillies End Their City’s 25-Year Drought

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It had been a long time coming for the great sports city of Philadelphia. The Phillies might have won the World Series back in 1980 and the 76ers taken the NBA title in 1983, but the intervening quarter-century had been title-less, in a town whose passion for sports is exceeded by none. The 2008 Philadelphia Phillies broke the 25-year slump and won the World Series.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
Start reading today. 


The Phillies had been a consistent winning team since 2003, but it wasn’t until 2007 that they turned winning years into a playoff appearance. The lineup was stacked and led by Ryan Howard, who hit 48 homes runs with 146 RBIs. Pat Burrell hit 33 homers of his own. Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino and Chase Utley were well-balanced offensive threats who got on base and drove the ball to the alleys. It added up to an offense that finished third in the National League in runs scored.

Pitching had been a problem in the non-playoff years, but was gradually improving and nearly matched the bats in 2008, coming in fourth in the league in ERA. Cole Hamels won 14 games with 3.09 ERA as the staff ace in a park that favored hitters. 45-year-old Jamie Moyer posted 16 victories with a 3.71 ERA and closer Brad Lidge was a perfect 41/41 on save opportunities.

Philadelphia was in a tight race in the NL East, trailing the New York Mets by two games at the start of September. The Phils went 17-8 in the final month and won the division by three games with a 92-70 record.

The wild-card Milwaukee Brewers were the opponent in the Division Series and Hamels set an immediate tone for the postseason by throwing eight shutout innings in a 3-1 win. The following afternoon, Victorino hit a second-inning grand slam off Brewer ace C.C. Sabathia to key a 5-2 victory.

Victorino’s heroics would take on added historical significance five years later when he hit another postseason grand slam, this one to win a pennant for the 2013 Boston Red Sox in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.

The series reverted to Milwaukee, and the Phils lost Game 3. But a four-homer barrage in Game 4, two by Burrell, keyed a 6-2 rout that wrapped up the series. Victorino went 5-for-14, drew three walks and would have been Division Series MVP if such awards were given in this round.

Philadelphia got homefield advantage for the 2008 National League Championship Series when the Los Angeles Dodgers upended the top seeded Chicago Cubs. Hamels again got the ball for Game 1, and was again sharp, going seven innings and giving up two runs. Philadelphia trailed 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth when an error was followed by a game-tying home run by Utley and then a solo shot from Burrell that gave the margin of victory.

Game 2 saw the Phillies offense pepper away. The scored eight runs in the second and third inning, doing it with nine hits and four walks, and they won the game 8-5. When the series went west, Philadelphia dropped Game 3 and trailed Game 4 by a 5-3 count in the eighth inning, when they got the momentum shift that won a pennant.

Howard singled and Victorino homered to tie the game. Then with two outs, catcher Carlos Ruiz singled and left-handed hitting specialist Matt Stairs hit another home run. Philadelphia won 7-5 and kept the momentum going into Game 5 the next night. Rollins homered to lead off that game, and Hamels seven strong innings keyed a 5-1 win, got him NLCS MVP and put his team in the World Series.

The Tampa Bay Rays were the darlings of America, having suddenly burst on the scene after having been nothing but terrible in their short existence. The Rays won the American League pennant over the Boston Red Sox and were riding a wave of momentum into the 2008 World Series.

Nothing stops momentum like pitching and Hamels did it again, with seven solid frames at Tropicana Field in Game 1. Utley hit a two-run homer and Philadelphia won 3-2. Even though the Rays grabbed Game 2, the Phillies had done what they needed to do in earning a split before the Fall Classic went north.

Game 3 saw the Philadelphia setup relievers cough up a 4-1 lead in the seventh and eighth innings. But in the bottom of the ninth, a hit batsman, wild pitch and two intentional walks gave Ruiz a chance to drive in the game winning run with an infield hit. It was the softest rally possible, but Philly again had the Series lead. Another home run barrage followed in Game 4, with the Phils going deep four times, twice by Howard, in a 10-2 rout.

The fifth game would be one of the strangest in World Series history. Victorino drove in two runs with a first-inning single, but Tampa chipped back and it was tied 3-3 going into the bottom of the sixth. At this point, the rain that had been threatening all night, came pouring down. The game had to be delayed that night and the following night, before play could be resumed in the bottom of the sixth.

Burrell doubled to lead off the seventh and moved to third on a productive out by Victorino. Pedro Feliz then drilled a single to center that gave Philly a 4-3 lead. Tampa Bay would get the tying run to second base with one out in the ninth, but Lidge slammed the door one more. It might have taken an interminable rain delay to get there, but the city of Philadelphia finally had a champion again.