Visiting Utley made to feel at home

Chase Utley has a property for sale. Downtown Philly. Make an offer. “Nice condo,” he said. “Talk to me.” Somebody will buy it. It’s just a matter of the price. The Dodgers waited until the price last season was a couple of prospects, Darnell Sweeney and John Richy, then took Utley off the Phillies’ hands. By then, the Phils were just happy to rip down another sale sign.

Utley was back Tuesday night, dragging a .250 batting average and eight home runs into Citizens Bank Park, where he’d formed a career that will touch on Hall of Fame quality. The Dodgers were glad to have his experience and willingness to break up a double play at whatever violent cost as they remained high in the N.L. West race. The Phillies were okay with him coming back, if just for a series, to provide another gust of nostalgia just days after a Jim Thome plaque had been riveted onto their Wall of Fame.

“He’s the kind of player you want everybody to be like, that cares and wants to win, a smart player, just a great addition to any team,” Pete Mackanin said. “I know he is not hitting right now the way he hit in his prime, but I guarantee they are playing well because he has something to do with it. You talk about leadership. He’s not a very outspoken guy but he leads by his actions on the field. And everybody sees that.”

They see it in L.A., and they saw it in Philadelphia, which is why Utley received a standing ovation in his first at-bat in the ballpark while wearing a gray uniform. The fans didn’t need his traditional walk-up music, but the Phillies obliged anyway, playing Led Zeppe- lin’s Kashmir. Sound tracks make sentimental stories work.

“I’ll try to do my best in keeping my emotions to myself,” Utley said, before the game. “Obviously there are so manymemories, so many great times in this stadium in front of these great fans. I’ll try to keep it in.”

If there was a scent of melancholy it was because Utley provided a vivid reminder of what was, a five-season run of Phillies’ first-place finishes. But that ended years ago and there aren’t many of those Phillies still playing. And Utley is 37 with a lengthy history of knee trauma that makes it tough for him to sustain excellence from April through October. But he’ll try. He always tried.

“I never really made it look easy out there,” Utley said. “There are so many times I’d meet a father with his son or even a mother who would praise the way I played, and would tell me they want their son to play that way. To me, that’s a true complement.”

He gave the Phillies what he could, and that included a world championship. He prepared, not just before games, but after them, too, spending hours at the video screen analyzing why that one ball landed in the upper deck but the other dribbled to second. He worked the room as a leader, good with young players. When he was in his prime — and he did generate four consecutive triple-figure RBI seasons — that worked better than it did at the end, when he blocked a fresh generation of Phillies from growing into similar roles. But he was everything a franchise would crave, a successful first-round draft choice who would work and succeed and lean into any pitch and absorb a bruise if it might start a rally.

For that, the Phils were expecting about 6,000 more fans than usual Tuesday, with plenty likely to wear rep- lica Utley jerseys, there to honor the player, there to honor the era.

“It’s a little weird, to be honest with you,” Utley said. “It was a little awkward walking past the home clubhouse and going to the visiting side. I don’t think I spent more than 10 minutes on that side over the course of the years I was here. It’s definitely different. “But I’m sure excited to be back.” He will be back again, whenever the Phillies add him to that Wall of Fame. Nor would his No. 26 be out of place on that other wall, the one with all the retired numbers. But whenever it is, it will be different. By then, the Phillies hope to have resumed winning and will have added fans whose memories of Utley are fuzzy. That’s why he was thankful to return Tuesday as a functional Dodger, for the semi-formal goodbye that he was denied last summer, when he was traded late at night, long after a game.

“Everything happened kind of quickly last year,” he said.

Utley played 756 home games as a Phillie. They all went fast. So did his first at-bat Tuesday, a strikeout, looking, on a nasty pitch around the knees from Vince Velasquez. He is not signed for next season, but says he wants to keep playing. That real estate listing says it will not be in Philadelphia. But as long as the price is right, it will be someplace. If someone needs a winner, give him a call.

To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21st-centurymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery