Phillies have region rejoicing

At this time, in this city, it is difficult, nay, impossible to overstate the healing power of the Phillies' National League championship. A triumph so rare and so sweet, the city woke up delirious yesterday morning, as if the Santa Ana winds had blown in from Los Angeles, dusting the city with mood-elevating confectioners' sugar.

"It's an amazing euphoria," said Jeffrey Nerenberg, a 40-year-old lawyer from Plymouth Meeting.

He had sneaked away from his office, where he practices personal-injury law, to join the mob at the Modell's sporting-goods store on Chestnut Street in Center City.

"I wanted to feel the pulse," said Nerenberg, a lifelong Phillies fan. "And see the gear."

From the official shop at the stadium to the improvisational sidewalk sales in the thick of pedestrian traffic, Philadelphia celebrated by spending obscene amounts of cash on enough Phillies shirts, caps, car air fresheners, grill covers, baby bibs, pennants, sweatshirts, socks, wall clocks and fuzzy blankets to make up for the last 15 years of tsuris.

What? The word is not familiar? It's Yiddish for pain and suffering. And the feeling had been like one huge communal downer that cuts across every ethnicity, class, gender, and American Kennel Club breed.

The relief energized (almost) the entire region, inspiring even marginal fans to buy masses of useless junk.

"I promised myself if it went into the World Series, I'd buy a T-shirt," said Anita Rubin, who took a break from her job at a consulting firm to patronize a sidewalk concession across from City Hall.

Is she a big fan?

"Ah," she said. "You know," she said. "Sure." And with that, she handed over $20 for two shirts - one for her, one for her husband.

Ta Williams, 36, who has sold T-shirts at the stand since he was a teenager, said business had been hopping since the night before, when he and his coworkers plied Broad Street until 2 a.m. "I stopped counting after the 20th dozen."

His stand also carries a wide variety of Barack Obama shirts and one John McCain style. But yesterday, the shipments of Phillies shirts couldn't arrive soon enough. "It's time," Williams said, "to do a party."

Just before 7:30 yesterday morning, dozens of fans were gathered at Philadelphia International Airport when the World Series-bound Phillies' Delta charter landed. Soon, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and the rest of the hometown heroes filed off the plane to a cacophony of car horns.

Wearing a Rollins T-shirt and carrying a Fightin' Phillies towel, Kathy Ann Henhaffer, 50, of Glendora, arrived with fiance John Rowan, 45. After the previous night's series clincher against the Los Angeles Dodgers, she confessed, "I don't have any fingernails."

She said they had watched until the final out, woken up early, and decided, "Come on, we're going to watch them land."

George Ganley of Southwest Philadelphia made a detour from his night-shift job at the Food Distribution Center to cheer the conquerors.

"Happy isn't the word. Exhilarated is," said Ganley, who will turn 34 on Wednesday, the day of the World Series opener. "It's the perfect birthday present. Hopefully someone will buy me tickets."

From the airport, the Phillies took a bus to Citizens Bank Park, where they were saluted by about 75 fans. Among them was Mayor Nutter, who declared that "it's a wonderful time in the city."

He had watched the last game at Chickie's & Pete's sports bar in South Philadelphia. "It was totally crazy," he said. "The building may have slightly moved." - Sam Wood

Rivals give us a mouthful

Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. was gloating about the second bet he had won over council members in opposing cities, first Milwaukee and now Los Angeles.

Having already collected a cooler of Usinger's sausages from Milwaukee Alderman Robert J. Bauman, Jones awaits his reward from Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge: a sampling of famous Dodger Dogs sold at Dodger Stadium, pumpkin bread baked by nuns at the Monastery of the Angels, and nine books about Los Angeles. The volumes will go to libraries in Jones' Fourth District in West Philadelphia, Roxborough, Manayunk and East Falls.

"We bet them some of Philadelphia's fine tradition, such as Tastykakes and cheesesteaks, and informed them they would have the opportunity to smell it," Jones said. "But they would never have an opportunity to taste it."

He then handed out Phillies caps, donated by the team, to his Council colleagues. - Jeff Shields

At Ponzio's restaurant on Route 70 East in Cherry Hill, bartender Kathi Fleming, 50, said she had been a Phillies fan since she moved from Harrisburg to South Philadelphia in 1986. On game nights, the customers can count on her to alert them to major developments.

"The first thing they hear is me screaming," she said yesterday. "That's how they know something is going on."

The personalities in this year's Phillies lineup have made the victories especially joyous for Fleming.

"They seem like a nice group of guys, hardworking and not arrogant," she said. "They're the kind of guys you want to pull for, and you know Philly likes a team with a lot of heart." - Allison Steele

"I know nothing about the Phillies," confessed Sheila Wilson, a registered nurse from West Philadelphia. She waited more than 15 minutes at Modell's on Chestnut Street, in a line stretching from the cash registers to the doors, for her turn to shell out $24.99 for a T-shirt, hot off the press with the championship logo.

"It's overpriced, but I'm buying this for my partner so he can brag about the Phillies," Wilson said.

She was sure that her great-grandson, 7-year-old Asante William IV, would love a T-shirt, too. "But I'm not getting him one. I wouldn't want to deny his grandmother the privilege." - Melissa Dribben

In small-town Hatboro, LeRoy's Flowers found an innovative angle for capitalizing on World Series mania: a Phillies Phever bouquet of carnations and chrysanthemums for $4.95.

Sales, said clerk Nina Webb, have been blossoming since the arrangement was introduced for the playoff run.

"It's just red and white," Webb said. She called them "passion colors."

A few doors down North York Street, the Fightin's' National League pennant drew a stream of fans to a baseball shrine. It happened to be the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society, but no matter. Cole Hamels jerseys hang on the same sales rack as Ozzie Van Brabant replicas, and the Athletics loyalists adopted the Phillies.

After the Athletics "left town in 1954, it took a couple years before I decided, 'Well, the Phillies are what we have,' " said David Jordan, chairman of the society, which has had a storefront in Hatboro for 10 years.

He's fully dedicated now. Proof: Wednesday night's game conflicted with Jordan's tickets to see the opera Fidelio at the Academy of Music. But he found a way.

"I took my radio and earphones," Jordan said, "and, luckily, the opera was over by the sixth inning."

Jordan and fellow society volunteer Steve Harlem spent yesterday hanging out amid the artifacts of a bygone era and showing new-school Phillies fans the modern merchandise the nonprofit had for sale.

They chuckled when asked if a World Series victory would push the Phillies past the Athletics as, historically, Philadelphia's most successful baseball team. The A's took five World Series before leaving town, they pointed out; the Fightin's have only the 1980 crown. So far.

"The Phillies have a ways to go," Harlem said, "and they didn't win this one yet." - Derrick Nunnally