How all those Phillies fans ended up making fun of Craig Kimbrel

The Philadelphia Phillies lost on Saturday night, which is nothing new and not really that funny, at least not funny in a standalone kind of way. But the hypnotizing appearance of an entire section of Craig Kimbrel impersonators delivered a hilarious sidebar to an otherwise standard late-season game.

Craig Kimbrel is a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves who pitches like a weirdo. Weirdo might be a strong way of saying that he has a very distinctive -- and very successful (47 saves this year!) -- style of pitching.

A bunch of Phillies fans did a great job pointing Kimbrel’s style out while being recorded on camera:

John Malloy was one of the fans who took part in mocking Kimbrel’s stance.

Coming to the stadium not knowing anyone, Malloy and his fiancée took their seats and made small talk with neighbors around them.

“We didn’t know anyone in that section, just were given some awesome tickets and went to the game,” Malloy said via email. “We spent the whole game talking to everyone around us, great group of people to watch a game with, then the 9th inning came and Kimbrel was in.”

Malloy, donning a grey sweatshirt and a two-tone Phillies hat, and an army of fans behind home plate capitalized on some prime real-estate by noticing Kimbrel’s unique (weird) set motion while pitching.

“The lady behind us was commenting on his stance and I think I said something along the lines of lets give it back to him.”

Like most great ideas, the initial reaction was sparse. But momentum picked up and a piece of Internet gold was born.

”It started pretty shaky, we were all like, ‘ok lets do it,’ but I don’t know how many people actually did it at first. Before you know it, I turned around and the whole section was doing it.

“It started with about eight of us in the front and took off from there.”

To make the event even better, an entire section of people impersonated Craig Kimbrel without any real coordination. Like everything the wave is not, the Kimbrel impersonators organically attached themselves to a hilarious idea that gave an otherwise normal night at a Phillies home game an unusual story.

”We just stood up and did it when he went into the stretch. No one was yelling, ‘now’ or anything. Everyone just kind of knew when to get up.

“It’s pretty funny, because now I have friends asking if it was me because they see it all over the Internet. I’m pretty proud to be a part of that.”