4 p.m.
That's the witching hour for the Phillies and the rest of baseball as the trade deadline dominates the conversation. After all that talk yesterday, and after calling up third baseman Cody Asche, fueling speculation that Michael Young would be dealt, the Phils stood pat. Young even homered.
But 4 is not the number that most interested me from last night's 7-3 win by the Phils.
It's not 8 either, the number of consecutive losses the Phils snapped by beating the Giants.
Nor 1, celebrating the 1st home run of the year from Carlos Ruiz, who is on the lips of many of those talking trades.
And not even 8, that would be the number of home runs for the guy at the top of all the trade speculation, third baseman Young.
The number that most interests me is 36,492. No, that's not the number of trade offers GM Ruben Amaro Jr. has received in the past week.
That's the number of people who went through the turnstiles at Citizens Bank Park last night.
This for a team coming off one of its worst road trips in recent memory, losers of 8 straight, pretty much slamming the door on any playoff hopes, swept by both the Cardinals and Tigers, and playing even worse than that record appeared.
Remember that number when people start talking about great sports towns. More than 36,000 people filed into that little gem of a stadium in South Philly last night to watch this fatally flawed team.
Maybe they were just glad to have baseball back in town.
More likely, it tells you everything you need to know about Philly as a sports town.
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