In the Mix

I went to my first Phillies parade two months after I moved to the city, celebrated the Andrew Toney-Dr. J Sixers' championship three years later, and have been waiting for another one, along with everybody else, for the last 25 years.

This year, I'd have to say that I've spent more time watching and listening to the Phillies than doing anything else, other than maybe sleeping. So it's gratifying, alright, to have all that time spent be not only so exciting and involving and rewarding in its own right, but also to add up to something meaningful that fills so many people with joy. "People only listen to the winners, that's how the world is," Jimmy Rollins said during the on-field celebration Wednesday. An astute observation, and it'll be nice to no longer be known as the long suffering town with the angry fans, and instead the winners to whom attention must be paid.

I'm also glad that it was the Phillies, and not the Eagles, that broke the drought. That's partly because the team is so lovable, flaws and all, from Charlie Manuel on down to Shane Victorino and Pedro Feliz. But it's also because the only thing that's been more annoying than the incessant talk about the quarter century of losing, has been the way the green religion that is the football industrial complex had taken over the sports culture in Philadelphia. That is, until the Howard-Utley-Rollins-Hamels Phils became too thrilling to ignore. Enough with E-A-G-L-E-S chants at rock concerts and Phillies games, and corporate-speak Andy Reid press conferences, and all-football, all-the-time sports talk radio.

For my money, baseball is the beautiful game, played without a clock, every day, all summer long - and this year, all the way into ice cold October. Now that the Phils have rolled over the competition with astonishing Moses Malone-like fo'-five-five ease, a Sixers championship is next on my wish list. And since the mini-me Billy Penn atop the Comcast Center has removed the curse, maybe that'll be coming along sooner rather than later. (Though with the way the new Elton Brand led squad looked in Wednesday's loss against Toronto, maybe not.) And if the Eagles want to go out and win the Super Bowl, good luck to them. I'm just delighted that the Phillies got there first. Like Pat Burrell said after his clutch double led to the winning run on Wednesday: "I'm just overwhelmed with happiness. And I'm going to enjoy it."