Joy in Mudville

Taking a break from all this baby talk and complaining, my Philadelphia Phillies clinched the National League Pennant last night, beating the stinkin' Los Angeles Dodgers and the insufferable Manny Ramirez in 5 games, in their own ballpark!

Frank and I stayed up for the whole game which was pretty good for us since it lasted until almost 11:30. Where we come from, it's tradition to go out on your front step and bang pots and pans and holler and carry on after a win like that. Unfortunately, we live in a yuppie neighborhood now where people don't do that. So we just cheered inside our apartment.

But oh, the joy of it! The Phillies haven't been to the World Series since I was 16 years old. No Philadelphia team has won a championship in 25 years. The last time the Phillies won - the only time the Phillies won - I was 3 years old. There have been 100 losing seasons of professional sports in my town. We are due for a victory.

The last time the Phillies were in the Series, Frank and I were in high school and actually had just started dating. He was a senior and I was a junior and we were together at a friend's 16th birthday party that fateful game 6 night when the Phillies lost the Series to Toronto. Here we are, 15 years later, together again, rooting for the Phils in the World Series.

Hopefully the outcome will be different this time and I can tell my kid he was there when the Phillies won it all. The way sports go in this city, it may be the only one we get in my lifetime or his.