No Blue ribbon / Phillies win the pennant behind Hamels, as Dodgers get a poor start and worse fielding

'In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened."

Once upon a time, Vin Scully used those words to accompany a Kirk Gibson home run.

Exactly 20 years later, on a sticky Wednesday night at the end of a frayed rope, those words worked again.

The improbable Dodgers were impossibly wobbly, impossibly clumsy, impossibly booed.

Exactly 20 years later, something else sailed out over the right-field fence to a chorus of shrieks and stares.

It was the Dodgers' season, knocked into next year by the Philadelphia Phillies, who did everything the Dodgers couldn't.

Like, you know, pitch and catch.

The final score was 5-1, the final NL Championship Series tally was four games to one, and the final question was a rhetorical one.

What is it with the goodbyes in this town?

First, the Lakers bid farewell by rolling over in Game 6 against the Boston Celtics.

Now this, the Dodgers leaving the room with a stumble and a stagger, falling out of view with a giant plop and an exhausted sigh.

"This was like a punch in the gut," Andre Ethier said.

As the Phillies hugged and danced and partied long into the night, Ethier was one of the few Dodgers to return to the field and wave to the fans, but you can't blame the ones who didn't.

They were probably worried for their safety in front of a crowd that spent the long evening lashing out like jilted lovers.

Dodgers fans booed in a way they've rarely booed before, from the leadoff homer by the Phillies' Jimmy Rollins to the final stranded runner by Nomar Garciaparra.

They booed sadly horrible Chad Billingsley, who couldn't survive three innings for the second time in a week, couldn't consistently throw inside again, his two worst performances in his two biggest games, and who knows when he'll recover?

"I tried to do everything I could," he said softly.

They booed the painfully awful Rafael Furcal, who tried to play with a sore neck and paid for it with three errors in one inning that led to two runs that finished them.

"To have this happen on the last game of the year, that is tough," he said, also softly.

They booed the just plain lousy Blake DeWitt, who hit into two double plays and ended the series hitting .077 before he was replaced by Jeff Kent.

Who stranded three runners by striking out twice.

It was like that.