When Astros center fielder Chas McCormick takes the field in Philadelphia on Monday for Game 3 of the World Series, he will gaze up into the stands. He will see dozens of people who love him and want the best for him. Most of them will be rooting against him.
McCormick, 27, grew up in West Chester, Pa., about an hour west of Philadelphia, watching every Phillies game on TV. At Millersville University, two hours west of the city, he dreamed of one day starring at Citizens Bank Park. Now he is—for the team trying to knock out his beloved Phillies.
Kevin M. Cox/AP
When the Astros advanced to the World Series, just hours after the Phillies had done the same, McCormick’s group text with two of his best friends and college roommates, Alex Barr and Dan Neff, lit up: We hope you go 4-for-4 every night, they told him. And we hope the Phillies sweep you guys. McCormick shot back that he planned to hit a home run and shush the crowd.
He feels a little bad for his 13-year-old self. “He’d be heartbroken if he knew that he was gonna be older and try to beat the Phillies in the World Series,” he says. But he wants to shush that kid, too. McCormick lives on Buffalo chicken cheesesteaks from Wawa and peppers his language with the untranslatable noun “jawn” and wonders if he can sneak away to the Eagles game on the off-day before Game 6. His older brother Ryan, who grew up in the stands at Veterans Stadium, named his first son Rolen, after Philadelphia’s late-90s third baseman. But McCormick is not conflicted.
“I don’t want to lose another World Series,” he says. He was a rookie backup last season when the Astros fell in six games to Atlanta. (His friends were grateful for the matchup; they got to cheer for their friend and against a National League East opponent.) This year he is the starting center fielder, and he intends to key his team’s victory.
He bought his friends tickets to Game 4 despite their betrayal. (They might say it was he who betrayed them, trying to beat Bryce Harper and the rest of the Fightins.) They’ll be sitting in the Astros family section, so they have decided not to boo Houston “out of respect,” says Barr, for the older players who have made McCormick feel so comfortable, but they will definitely be wearing Phillies gear.
“We’re in a very tough spot,” Barr says. “I’m just hoping that every time he’s up, there’s no one on base and the Phillies are up by five runs, so he can hit a double or a home run and it’s not going to affect the outcome. I’m rooting for Chas every time he comes up, I’m just hoping it’s not in any super big spots where he could hurt the Phillies.”
Of that plan, McCormick says, grinning, “It is BS. I don’t like it.”
Neither does his mom, Nancy, who along with her husband, Bob, and their three other sons, Ryan, Sean and Jason, have cast aside their hometown team, at least for this week. Ryan calls the decision “gut-wrenching”; Nancy says, “If I heard my boys say [that they would root for Chas to do well but for the Phillies to win], they wouldn’t be going to Houston with me.” (She later finishes an interview with, “Go ‘Stros.” A few hours earlier, Barr had ended one with, “Go Phils.”)
Chas was responsible for securing tickets in Philadelphia only for immediate family and significant others, in part because his parents wanted to limit how much they asked of him and in part because they could not ensure that the allegiance of all their cousins would be so easily swayed. “I’d rather have him surrounded by Houston fans,” Nancy says, laughing.
That will be hard to achieve. McCormick got tickets for his Henderson High School head coach, Luke MacNichol, and two assistants; MacNichol ordered an Astros hoodie that arrived on Thursday, but the assistants will be wearing red. MacNichol acknowledges that this is probably the safer choice. He will root for McCormick, he says, but in deference to the kind of person who climbs light poles after a win and learned the seven words you can never say on television in the 700 level of Veterans Stadium, he will mostly “politely clap.” Many current Millersville Marauders baseball players are trying to get themselves tickets, hoping “Chas hits six homers and the Phillies win,” says coach Jon Shehan. (Shehan, who will attend Game 1 in Houston, himself grew up a Pirates fan and played in the Atlanta system, so he is comfortable rooting for the Astros.) The ones who can’t get in will try to hold an outdoor viewing party at the university’s Cooper Park.
Unfortunately for them, Cooper Park helped make McCormick the player who will try to break hearts at Citizens Bank Park. He was lightly recruited out of Henderson and ended up at Division II Millersville largely because Ryan had gone there. Chas was mostly talent and good attitude at that point, he says now. Shehan and his staff taught him the attention to detail and work ethic that brought him here.
Sue Ogrocki/AP
Indeed, Barr says McCormick’s is a story of Philadelphia, even if it comes at the expense of Philadelphia. “His whole journey through becoming a Houston Astro, being incredibly gritty, not being a huge prospect, and kind of grinding his way to where he is now, and then just kind of making the team, being on the Astros, battling for a starting spot the last two years and once he gets the opportunity, especially in the playoffs, Playoff Chas is just a different breed,” he says. “So I would say his demeanor and journey has been the most Philly thing he does.”
Well, there is one more Philly thing he could do. Would he ever consider following in Ryan’s footsteps once again and naming a child after a Phillie?
He considers this. “If we lose the World Series, no I won’t,” he says. “If we win, then yeah.” He laughs, and adds what he insists is a joke but doesn’t totally seem like one: “Maybe I’ll call him Bryce.”
