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This story was excerpted from Todd Zolecki’s Phillies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Before Jason Kelce chugged a beer in front of the Phanatic and a sellout crowd during Game 3 of the 2022 NLCS, he shot a hype video in a conference room just behind the Hall of Fame Club at Citizens Bank Park.
Kelce, who attended Game 1 of the 2023 NLCS with brother Travis, hollered. He cursed. He gesticulated.
He nailed it. Kelce’s video came to mind this week with the Eagles’ season ending Monday and Kelce reportedly telling teammates he plans to retire. It came to mind because nothing at the Bank gets a reaction from Phillies fans like Kelce appearing on Phanavision and him telling fans to lose their minds, which they do every time.
It is the Phillies’ best hype video. It is almost certainly one of the best in baseball.
“He really connects with the city,” Phillies video production director Sean Rainey said. “It is pretty cool to see how excited the fans get.”
Before Game 3, the Phillies’ video production team, including video content manager Mike Licisyn and video producer Emily Rutzen, brought Kelce into a conference room that sits between baseball operations and many of the front office’s vice presidents. Kelce stood in front of a green screen, wearing a red pinstripe Phillies jersey. The crew gave him an idea of what they wanted. He nodded.
Kelce took it from there.
“If you were standing anywhere nearby, you would have heard him,” Rainey said. “He was fantastic. We just said, ‘Jason, we want you to pump up the crowd.’ We asked him if he was comfortable cursing, telling him that we’d bleep it out. He was more than comfortable.”
Kelce’s video gets a more visceral reaction from fans than others, including the ones that Brian Dawkins, Charles Barkley, Rob McElhenney and Kaitlin Olson recorded in the past. The folks in the Phanavision booth realized this immediately. They started to save Kelce’s video for big moments in big games.
Phillies players recognized Kelce’s positive influence on fans, too. They wondered during a game late last season why Phanavision did not play Kelce earlier in what they considered to be the game’s most critical moment.
In other words, they want the Phillies to deploy Kelce when he needs to be deployed, even if it’s the fifth or sixth inning.
“We love it,” Rainey said. “It’s funny, because anytime we’re down and you want to get the fans up, you always want to go to that but you know you can’t. You’ve got to save it.”
Phillies fans will love it.
