Bidding ‘aloha’ to Victorino, Phils fans wax philosophical

The major league baseball trade deadline has come and gone. In the midst of a disastrous season, watching the Phillies ownership break up a legendary team and put beloved players on the auction block is a painful painful process for fans.

Lifelong Phillies fan Liz Roscher called the Shane Victorino trade to the Dodgers “inevitable,” but said, “It’s still very bittersweet that he’s leaving. He’s responsible for some really great moments over the past five years.”

Still, Roscher said, the time had come. “The 2008 Phillies weren’t going to be together forever,” she said.

Then there are fans like Wilmington resident Will Negron who expected this year’s team to struggle.

“I’m an emotional fan myself, but I think that I was a little bit less surprised by this season than some fans, so I’m less emotional about it,” Negron said. “If you see something coming, it doesn’t really provoke the same response in you.”

There’s also the “taking lessons from the past” approach.

That’s the note struck by lifelong Phillies fan Tom Durso.

“I’m old enough to remember the early ’80s team and the early ’90s team, which had some success and then really went overboard about really awarding contracts, kind of out of loyalty,” Durso said, “when maybe some more clear-eyed decision making might have helped prolong those periods of success.”

Durso’s biggest challenge may be explaining to his daughter that Victorino is gone.

“I don’t think she’ll even understand the whole notion of a trade. I think the reason Shane Victorino became her favorite was simply the way that the name sounds when you’re 3 — which is about when she started being a Shane fan. She has the No. 8 t-shirt. She walks around saying ‘Flyin’ Hawaiian.'”

Durso has a plan to ease his young daughter’s sadness: ice cream at the next ballgame.

For some adults, though, it might not be so easy.