Quoted from philly.com and Todd Zolecki in bold from 9/12/08:

Charlie Manuel said he never meant the fans.

Manuel caused a stir yesterday with a comment he made after Wednesday’s 7-3 loss to the Florida Marlins at Citizens Bank Park.

Asked
about the team’s recent struggles, the Phillies’ manager said: “We won
a game here against the Mets in extra innings [on Aug. 26], and it
seemed like everyone in Philly got real high.

“The next night,
we lost and there was a big difference. People got flat. Now, the team
didn’t, but the whole environment was that way. And that has an effect
on the team and the players.”

Many took “people got flat” as Manuel’s blaming the fans, who have come in record numbers this year.

The problem is not with the fans, Charley and Phillies management. The
problem with motivating the crowd is the stuff that used to happen in
Veterans Stadium doesn’t happen at Citizens Bank Park.

There
is no organ music to get the crowd going in the ‘new’ ballpark, there
is nothing really going on sound wise that helps fans ‘get happy’ and
clap – like the old ‘clapping hands’ on the scoreboard you used to see
to pump up the crowd at the ballpark at Veterans Stadium. These types of things always
pumped up the crowd. I know because I was there and I remember all
those little things. You had a couple bigger scoreboards keeping fans
uptempo when the team needed a little extra help. It is no where to be
found at Citizens Bank Park! That is the problem.

There
isn’t any thing going on except for the Phillie Phanatic, and he
entertains some people but he can’t do it all. He gets people clapping,
but there’s no music to go along with that… this needs to be fixed.
You’ll see more activity from fans if Phillies management recognizes
that it is them that needs to do more to fix this.

Rich Baxter – Fightin Phillies blog