Doctober (again)

We all learned something very important today. Namely, quoting Shakespeare leads to winning playoff baseball games. F’reals.

Twitter was abuzz (atweet?) yesterday afternoon when word spread that Roy Halladay had quoted Shakespeare in the pre-NLDS press conference. Specifically, Doc quoted the second line of Antony’s eulogy: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” Most people were a) impressed with Doc’s Shakespeare knowledge and b) certain that it boded well for the Phils in Game 1. I was a little less sanguine because I remembered that Antony was delivering a eulogy (which is to say, Caesar was already dead); I was concerned about the potential bad juju in eulogizing Game 1 before it had even been played.

My fears seemed slightly justified when Doc had a shaky first inning and the offense failed to get anything going the first time through the line-up, leading to a 3-0 Cardinals score going into the fourth inning. However, the bats woke up the second time through the order and the Phillies eventually routed the Cards to the tune of an 11-6 final score.

The moral of the story: quoting Shakespeare leads to winning playoff baseball games (at least if you’re Roy Halladay). There’s even a secondary moral: never doubt those Fightin’ Phils.