{"id":286915,"date":"2026-09-16T01:34:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/286915\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T01:34:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:34:29","slug":"its-been-a-long-seven-years-reading-fans-celebrate-fightin-phils-playoff-return-reading-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/286915\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;It&#8217;s been a long seven years&#8217;: Reading fans celebrate Fightin Phils&#8217; playoff return | Reading Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>READING, Pa. &#8211; It&#8217;s been seven years without a playoff game. But Reading fans never stopped believing.<\/p>\n<p>The team drew nearly 380,000 fans this season.<\/p>\n<p>And Tuesday night, those fans are getting something they haven&#8217;t seen since 2019: postseason baseball.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been seven years, and it was a long seven years,&#8221; said season ticket holder Maryann Jagielski.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an exciting day in Baseballtown.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s about time they get in,&#8221; said season ticket holder Steve Madl.<\/p>\n<p>The Reading Fightin Phils are entering the playoffs for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n<p>After six seasons, and their last outright championship win back in 1995, fans are excited to see them take the field.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve got Ford, the top prospect here this year, so it&#8217;s looking good,&#8221; said Madl.<\/p>\n<p>Especially fans like Francis &#8220;Ducky&#8221; Turner, a former Stadium Commissioner and longtime R-Phils fan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We got a pretty good team here, we might have a shot of it,&#8221; said Ducky.<\/p>\n<p>Even at 92 years old, he&#8217;ll be standing in section 6 like always, watching his favorite team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we&#8217;re very fortunate that this area, that the people that are involved just, just love the Reading Phillies,&#8221; said Ducky.<\/p>\n<p>And even after seven years of waiting, the Fightin Phils are still seeing strong attendance. Jagielski says it&#8217;s because of FirstEnergy Stadium&#8217;s perfect atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They cater to the younger generation; they cater to the kids. They make it fun for the kids. It&#8217;s a family day out,&#8221; said Jagielski.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. &#8211; It&#8217;s been seven years without a playoff game. But Reading fans never stopped believing. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12271,4662,18105,1510,11492,24584,10167,128,130,129,44158,119436],"class_list":["post-286915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-attendance","tag-baseball","tag-championship","tag-family","tag-fans","tag-firstenergy-stadium","tag-playoffs","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-fightin-phils","tag-season-ticket-holder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}