And on Saturday the Phillies win big: 18–8. They smack the Pirates down in the first two innings, scoring eleven runs. The Pirates keep climbing back into the game, proving they aren’t the team of last year, they’re fighters, but it’s to no avail. Afterward, the happy tribe of Phillies heads over to Juli’s house. There, Juli’s three children and the Phillies kids horse around in the above-ground pool, Danny throws a few of them in, lifting them up as easily as a bag of groceries. As it gets dark, the kids stage a dance-off, the adults cheering and egging them on. Juli’s wife, Rebecca, makes chicken wings and sausage and salads, and long after the kids have retired to the house to watch TV, Juli and Danny and one of the dads sit at the picnic table out back, drinking Coronas and shots of Patrón and discussing...baseball.

The championship game is on Sunday afternoon, back at Pyne Poynt, and a full crowd is in attendance again. A flock of geese works the outfield; wispy white feathers, looking like dryer fluff, cling to the grass, greenish-black droppings everywhere. Juli and Danny prep the fied, raking it smooth and then lining the bases.

Meanwhile, Frankie sits on a bucket of balls, watching. This enrages the Phillies parents. They get angrier and angrier, shouting, "We’re voting our coach ’Coach of the Year’! He brings the kids swimming, he fis the field! He’s like a mini-dad! How come none of their coaches are helping?" Last year, Frankie did most of the field prep, not that anyone but Bryan remembers, but this year it’s been almost entirely on Juli. When I ask Frankie what he’s doing sitting there, fully aware of the controversy he’s causing, he says evenly, "Just soaking in the atmosphere. You never know if this is gonna be your last time coaching, your last ball game, your last day on earth." I have no idea if he’s psyching the other side out or if he’s truly taking a Zen moment, reminding himself that this is a game, after all, it’s supposed to be fun, as he’s always telling his kids—and real life? Well, that’s the deadly serious stuff. But he sounds sincere when he says, "I never spend time just soaking it in, being here."

So then it begins, the championship game, in all its heated commotion. And there’s Bryan watching it all, arms folded across his chest, his head nodding up and down like a man agreeing with everything that’s going on in front of him. Yes to the screaming and shouting, to the kids looking sharp in their uniforms, crouched in the field, avideyed. Yes to the mothers who played for Las Muñecas twenty years ago and carried their teammate’s small casket, reunited now on the Phillies sideline, yelling like they’re the ones out there with the championship on the line. Yes to Tun-Tun’s father in his guayabera shirt, showing up for the first time to watch his son play, and yes to Sedale’s dad, who drove in from Philly and is standing next to his ex, Tanya, sharing her pride in their boy. "This is what small-town America values," Bryan says. "That’s quality family time. And you know what? I made that shit happen in the hood." So, yes to the coaches who rose from the streets of Camden and took 200 kids under their wings. Yes to their summer—they spent it playing outdoors in the most dangerous city in America. Yes to winning and yes to losing, because both are gonna happen today.

Movie Theaters in Camden: 0

Abandoned Buildings: 3,000

When it’s over, one team will explode in a happy, jumping, hooting, hugging, tumbling carnival. The other will gather in a miserable huddle, grimy, heartbroken. Those kids will weep. Which will make some of their mothers cry, too. Their coach will barely be able to speak because his eyes are full of tears and he doesn’t want them to fall, so his voice will be sliver-thin when he says, "It hurts, doesn’t it." Not even a question mark. And then, his voice held together by sheer resolve, all his weteyed boys turned to him, "I’m proud of you. You played your hearts out. Proud of you."

Now, on the field, the champions douse one another with Gatorade while their coaches stand like happy kings, having proved once again that practicing four times a week does indeed pay off. And there’s Bryan, making his way toward them, holding the championship trophy, a big-ass grin on his face and the bigger picture in his head:

Phillies won, 11–10. North Camden remains undefeated.

KATHY DOBIE’s last article for_ GQ_, Raider. QB Crusher. Murderer?, appeared in the February 2013 issue.