I wanna be a part of it...

By Tim McManus

One longtime knock on Philly is that it suffers from a Napoleon complex.

With the epicenter of the world just a DeMarcus Russell's throw to the north,the claim is that Philadelphia is filled with envy and a bit of little-brother syndrome.

When it comes to baseball, I've gotta say, they have a point.

Growing up it was always a little anticlimactic to go to a Phillies game. The anticipation was at a screaming high by the end of the car ride, but by the time you scaled the Vet's ramp, found your way into your barren section and watched a Padres' batter bang a grounder off Steve Jeltz's leg, your juice was pretty-well drained.

And yet you dreamed, as you took to the diamond yourself later that week, that one day you too would play on that hallowed concrete in front of a sparse and prickly crowd.

How it must have been to grow up in the Bronx.

I'd imagine that I would be one of those kids in the street playing stick ball (I'm always Italian in this daydream for some reason), with Yankees Stadium casting a shadow all the way down to the end of my block.

After a 4-for-4 performance with a pair of homers over the wire, and the sun still high up at 6:30, we'd take the short walk to the most storied stadium in baseball to catch a midweek game.
The faces of The Babe and Joe D down to my right, Bob Shepherd calling my favorite player to the plate, the lights gradually replacing the sun...

Last summer I lived a little of that, as I stood amongst the "Bleacher Creatures" in right field at Yankees Stadium for a New York-Boston game.It wasn't exactly how I envisioned it. I half expected the crowd to still be wearing trench coats and jeff caps, complete with a 1950's demeanor. Not so much.

Instead it was a group of profanity-yelling, finger-gesturing hooligans, quicker to insult your girlfriend than shake your hand. If you wore someone else's jersey, they'd make you fear for your life before ridiculing you en mass. If you lost consciousness and had to be carried out (some poor guy a few rows up), the entire section counted to 10 in unison before screaming, "You're out!" I soon found out that they actually banned this area from being served alcohol because of the trouble they'd consistently get into. Good times.

Not only were these people characters, but they were actually celebrities-- at least within the confines of the first base line. Each was greeted by name and with applause as they took their normal station, and could garner the attention of the crowd with a slight lift in voice or raise of hand. And every regular served a role, whether it was to carry on part of a multi-faceted chant, to start a role call (one of the coolest experiences ever at a sporting event), or to pound on a cow bell as an entire stadium reacted.

I said I'd root for Boston before heading up (went to college in New England) but I abandoned that idea a half-inning in. The Yanks crushed Josh Beckett and the Sox that night, and I was up yelling and slapping hands for each of the 11 hits and 13 runs that the Pinstripes had.

All I could think of after leaving that game was, 'That was the first true baseball game I've ever been to."

The jealousy started well before that, though.

Nevermind that the Phils countered Roger Clemens with Nick Coggin, or that the Yanks have a quarter-century more championships than the home team. It has more to do with days like today than it does with October nights.

Baseball never dies in New York. Maybe it's just an ember come December, but it's always relevant. And now with football fading, the basketball team sagging and hockey a complete afterthought, the fans' minds will be in Spring Training even before the pitchers and catchers get there.

Traditionally in Philadelphia, no one shifts their focus to the Phillies until all the other sports have wilted and fallen off. And even then, it's filler until the real act comes to town in September.
At least, until this year.

Even with football in full swing and Allen Iverson being shipped out, talk radio and various publications have been filled with Phillies talk through this fall and winter. Thanks to Ryan Howard's MVP season, Cole Hamel's change-up and Pat Gillick's offseason moves, baseball means something again.

And when this god-awful cold breaks and the season starts, this place is actually going to transform back into a baseball town, complete with a gorgeous stadium and a level of optimism and ability that few cities can boast.

Of course, it's impossible to match the Yankees' history, and the subsequent atmosphere that it generates. The experience will never be as overwhelming or historically humbling as a night in right field in the Bronx.

But for once, there's a chance that New York will be the one that is envious once summer turns to fall.

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Tim appears on this page every Thursday. You can contact him at tmcmanus@phanaticmag.com