Galveston Daily News - October 7, 1980

Phillies to atone mistakes

PHILADELPHIA (UPI) – The Philadelphia Phillies, confident that their grueling stretch drive has given then the impetus to atone for past playoff failures, Monday worked out in preparation for the National League championship series.

Steve Carlton, 24-9, and a virtual certainty to win the NL Cy Young Award, will open the best-of-five series Tuesday night.

The Phillies, despite being the only NL team to win three straight division titles, have never won a playoff series and have never even won a single playoff game in their own Veterans Stadium.

But first-year Manager Dallas Green spent the entire season attempting to toughen his club and judging by the stretch drive, his effort was successful.

The Phillies, needing two out of three victories in the the last weekend of the season to edge out the Expos for the NL East title, got them on successive nights at Montreal before losing a meaningless game on the last day of the season.

"I think the goals we worked on at the beginning of the season have been achieved," said Green. "There is much more intensity, much more desire. That's not to say they didn't want to win before. But I have never seen desire, enthusiasm and screaming on the bench like there was those two games in Montreal. They want to take the same drive and intensity they took to Montreal to the playoffs."