Phillie Phanaticism is forever

ISAT IN MY seat, unnerved. The sold-out crowd couldn't have asked for a more ideal evening for a baseball game in March: temperature in the mid-70s, the slightest breeze, no threat of rain in clear Florida skies. I was on vacation, far from the snow and cold pestering my home in Philadelphia.

This was the first time since October, when I'd watched the beginning of the end in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, that I was attending a live Major League Baseball game.

So what was wrong?

The sound of a ball hit foul echoed through the stadium, and off the stone walls that towered behind home plate. As the noise diminished, I became acutely aware of another audio sensation. The silence was deafening.

I surveyed the scene of navy caps and pinstripe jerseys from my seat in Section 120, high and outside on the third-base line in Steinbrenner Field. Presumably, they were people like me: die-hard fans drawn to the magic of spring training, taking a short vacation to catch an early glimpse of their favorite team before opening day.

But these were Yankee fans - and I'm a Phillies fan, and over the course of nine exhibition innings, I realized what made us so distinctly different.

I grew up on the south side of the invisible border that separates Yankee and Red Sox territories in Connecticut, surrounded by Bronx Bomber enthusiasts throughout my childhood.

I SUFFERED through four championships and six World Series appearances, all the time loathing "the home team" and everything it stood for. I resented the obscene amount of money spent to compile rosters destined for a dynasty, and the perennial success that inevitably ensued. I once wrote that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for Walmart.

As I waited for the postgame fireworks two Fridays ago, I realized that what bothered me the most about Yankee fans wasn't what they were rooting for, but how they were rooting. There's a sense of entitlement among pinstripe followers. Their assumption of victory results in an odd apathy throughout most of the season. Games aren't nightly events, but merely the inevitabilities that have to be endured until autumn - when the stakes are raised.

I thought back to earlier in the afternoon when I watched the Braves and Phils in Clearwater, Fla., and how much more comfortable I was sitting cross-legged on the left field berm - my rear kept dry from dew by a broken-down Bud Light cardboard box.

When the fans weren't cheering or chanting, they were talking - about baseball, about their Phillies. They talked about returning to sold-out games and raucous crowds at Citizens Bank Park, and they talked about Joe Blanton's masterful command on the mound that afternoon.

Not that Phillies fans are simply more chatty. But Bright House Field had an intoxicating energy. Despite what may become the greatest starting rotation in the history of baseball, and having won four consecutive division pennants, there's no complacency in Philadelphia. Every game in 2011 will be intently watched and eagerly anticipated.

The unbridled elation is understandable. For the club that boasts more total losses than any other franchise in the history of American professional sports (10,232 - almost 1,100 games under .500), the Phils are still in their infancy as winners.

The City of Brotherly Love will now paint itself red through September (maybe even October), and fans will transform into Phanatics for a minimum of 162 games. Our towels will be seen and our voices heard throughout the baseball universe as we dream of another celebration on Broad Street.

But what happens if this unaccustomed trend of winning persists? Philadelphia's love and passion for its teams, in many ways, is born out of its perennial suffering and desperate yearning for a championship. If we are so fortunate, how will we Phillies fans handle having the team that spends so many millions, the club that compiles the dream roster? How will we handle the challenge of victory?

No matter how large the division lead, no matter how early a postseason berth may be clinched, Phillies fans must never sit idly by, biding our time for the next game that really means something. We must continue to descend on Citizens Bank Park with a rabid craving for each and every win.

Whereas Yankee fans have always known prosperity, let our history of futility be not in vain. Even if the Phillies win every World Series for the next decade, there may always be another century-long drought.

As the 2011 season begins, here's to never losing our exquisite zeal for winning.

Since graduating from Penn in 2009, Eric Karlan has been a freelance writer and recently founded Ivy Experience, a local tutoring, test prep, and essay consulting company. To read more of Eric's writing, visit www.erickarlan.com.