Jim Bowden of The Athletic named Jonathan Loáisiga as a good fit for the Phillies. Coming off a great 26 with the Dbacks it would make perfect sense for the Phillies.

In 1899, the population of Philadelphia was 1.2 million people. That’s a lot of Phillies fans.

A baby born in 1899 into a household of generations of Phillies fans would have been 15 or 16 years old when the Phillies made their first ever playoff appearance. They even made it to the World Series that year, winning game 1 against Boston. However, after West Jersey resident Woodrow Wilson threw the ceremonial first pitch of game 2, the Phillies lost four straight to squander their massive series lead. A report in the Philadelphia Bulletin called the season a “collapse,” blaming the team’s overuse of computerized player projection models.

After witnessing that disaster in 1915, that baby had to live until age 50 to see their favorite baseball team play another postseason game. They lost all four games in that series.

Now at the age of 64 or 65, which is the average lifespan of a baby born in 1899 (who also reached age 18), the lifelong Phillies fan watched the team build a 6.5 game lead in the standings with only 12 to play before qualifying for another postseason appearance. Sadly, they did not make the playoffs, dooming the 1899 births to a lifetime of seeing only one Phillies playoff game end in a victory.

The babies who surpassed the lifespan average mostly died during the Reds dynasty of the mid-late 1970s.

This week we must think of those babies from 1899, who are long dead and buried, because they might reach through the ground and strangle you for complaining about seeing 5 playoff seasons in a row. Happy Halloween.

Watching William Contreras’ pinpoint challenges last night made me think about how great Chooch would have been in the ABS era. That man knew the strike zone in and out. As if his pitchers could have loved him any more!