Are we ready for a championship ride?

"I have a hard time putting what this means into words. The people have been long-suffering, but they always stuck with us. They had great charity for us, and now there's a great warmth coming out of this town. You go anywhere in the city, and people are happy today."

- Jim Murray, then-Eagles GM, quoted in the "Washington Post" on Jan. 18, 1981.

What goes around comes around.

A sports-crazed city that was cursed for 25 seemingly endless years is fast discovering that not only is '08 a backwards '80 but that '09 may also be '60 upside down - that indeed the Phillies and now the Eagles are turning our whole world topsy-turvy.

Is 2008-09 really shaping up as a not-so-instant replay of 1980-81, the only time the Phillies were in the World Series and Eagles were in the big game consecutively - but with the added plot twist of a Super Bowl win for the Birds? And more importantly, are we ready for not one but two parades down Broad Street in less than four months?

Are you kidding me? Despite a frigid Monday, Philadelphia awoke yesterday to a massive civic buzz with a bounce in its step, and filled with the rare sound of happy people calling sports-talk radio.

Sports psychologists say that the Phillies' World Series win in October and now a run at a Super Bowl victory not only will make folks happier (duh!) but - based on actual scientific research - could also make our workers more productive and more likely to give to charity or to shop, even in a recession. Giddy longtime residents were waxing nostalgic for those halcyon days of 1980 (a year the Sixers also reached the NBA finals) and 1981 - starting with Fan No. 1.

"I liked the '80s," said Mayor Nutter - as if he didn't prove that with his rendition of "Rapper's Delight" at his 2008 inaugural ball - " . . . it was very exciting that the Phillies won the World Series and the Eagles with Dick Vermeil did go to the Super Bowl." (The Eagles' last title was 1960, the upside-down '09.)

The Eagles' run may present the cash-strapped Nutter administration with a kind of good news-bad news dilemma, facing what could be major policing and cleanup costs of not one but two parades in his first 13 months.

Who could anticipate such a thing? From a Sixers' title in 1983 through the Phillies' stirring World Series run this October, Philadelphia went 9,282 days without a major sports championship. But the next one could be little more than 2,200 hours from the last.

With the deflection skills of an Asante Samuel, city spokeswoman Maura Kennedy knocked away a question about whether the city could handle the financial strain of a Broad Street parade for the Eagles next month. "I think people are worried about jinxing things," she said.

Indeed, a number of fans on call-in shows and posting on blogs are worried about overconfidence going into Sunday's showdown with the Arizona Cardinals (trounced already by the Birds back on Thanksgiving). That's an emotion typically as common here in Philadelphia as cases of malaria.

"But some people are also saying that now that the curse is lifted we have to make up for those 25 years - and how about those first-place Flyers!" said Glen Macnow, a midday host on sports talk 610-WIP.

Some fans - baffled by our sudden bounty - wonder if that miniature Billy Penn placed atop the towering Comcast Center is still undoing the alleged curse when skyscrapers were allowed to surpass old, original City Hall Billy in 1987.

But while curses may or may not exist, two leading sports psychologists told the Daily News that the civic benefits that a winning sports run have provided us are quite real indeed.

Christian End, sports psychologist at Xavier University, said that he and a colleague were intrigued by data showing a "Super Bowl effect" in cities' winning NFL championships that translated into gains in the local economy.

"Even the small things, like with families that are Phillies and Eagles fans, there's going to be more talk around the dinner table," agreed Daniel Wann, a sports psychologist from Murray State University. He said that fans of winning teams even give more to charity.

It seems like there's little - at least for the sports-obsessed - that can bring Philly down these days. Well, OK, if you must, ponder this line from that same 1981 Post article:

Is it any wonder they are starting to call this town "The City of Champions," even if it may be a bit premature?

OK, OK, but that was then. Now it's 2009, and we're still enjoying the ride. *