Let's Go, Phillies!

As unlikely as it may sound to seasoned observers of the city of Philadelphia, some 5,000 citizens waited two hours at the airport the other night to greet the homebound Phillies, the surprise team of the National League this year. "Last I remember something like this," said a harassed policeman as the crowd surged forward to envelop its returning heroes, "was the Whiz Kids in 1950." Horns and bugles blared, flags waved and poets tore passions to tatters with banners announcing:

YOU MAKE US A NERVOUS WRECK
BUT AS LONG AS YOU WIN
WHAT THE HECK!

Not to mention:

THE REST OF THE TEAMS ARE OUT THE DOOR
IT'S THE CHAMPION PHILLIES IN '64

A young man held up a placard proclaiming: CASTRO NO! ROJAS SI! in flamboyant tribute to the Phillies' Cuban-born Cookie, who is the team's third-string shortstop, second-string center fielder, second-string second baseman, third-string catcher and third-string left fielder. CALLISON FOR PRESIDENT! said another sign, inspiring the Phillies' right fielder (see cover) to observe in puzzlement: "Gee, this is the first time I've been mentioned for the White House!" At the last minute, a 12-car caravan from the 3500 block of Joyce Street screeched into the parking lot, where its 19-year-old leader explained that he had been driving around recruiting his neighbors, something that is not going to be done on Park Avenue if the Yankees win the pennant. Some Beatle fans chanted, "Hey, Phillies, we love you! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" The 9200 block of Frankford Avenue was represented by a delegation bearing a sign, GO, PHILLIES, GO!, thus putting itself one up on the 9100 block. For 45 minutes there was chaos, and the fans stayed on to cheer long after Rojas and Callison and Pitcher Jim Bunning and Manager Gene Mauch and the rest of the Phillies had been rushed to safety by wedges of law. The Philadelphia Inquirer , the oldest daily newspaper in the U.S. and one that usually practices decent restraint, summed up: "It was Caesar's victorious legions marching into Rome; it was Douglas MacArthur going down Broadway in a storm of ticker tape. It was the winners coming home."

The next night a visitor to Philadelphia, himself a former inmate of the city who had been brought up on the inept Phillies and the hapless A's, on pitchers like Line Drive Nelson and Boom Boom Beck, went to the ball park. Out of the dim recesses of memory, the visitor recalled that there were only two courses of activity open on a week night in Philadelphia: one could go to the ball park, or one could go to Linton's restaurant and watch the conveyor belt. He had seen the conveyor belt and found it lacking in programmatic content, and now he was perched in a seat at Connie Mack Stadium, traditional scene of more botched ground balls and hanging curve balls than any baseball arena east or west of the Jones Junior High in Toledo. The visitor watched apathetically as the St. Louis Cardinals sent up a speedy little center fielder named Curt Flood, who promptly opened the game with a hot smash into right field. Johnny Callison did a Keystone Kops in the wet grass and the ball squirted away as Flood sprinted for an extra base. Callison recovered his dignity and the ball simultaneously, and threw Flood out at second.

Then Lou Brock hit a cannon shot up the middle. Pitcher Chris Short deflected the ball in sheer self-defense, and Cookie Rojas charged across from shortstop so fast that his red-and-white uniform looked like a blob of pink. He barehanded the ball and threw Brock out by the thickness of a Connie Mack Stadium hamburger, 1-6-3 if you're scoring. To complete the half inning on the same dazzling plane, Dick Groat smacked a screamer about four feet over the head of Third Baseman Richie Allen, who clawed upward into the air, using everything but pitons, and pulled the ball down quicker than you can say Ray Ripplemeyer,

"Excuse me," said the visitor to a man sitting next to him. "Don't you ever have any normal outs here?"

"Nope," said the Philadelphian. "Here, every out's an adventure."

Adventure is not a word that comes immediately to mind when one thinks of Philadelphia or its Phillies. W. C. Fields once insisted that his tombstone bear the inscription: "I'd rather be here than in Philadelphia," moving John Barrymore, a native-born Philadelphian, to compliment Fields on his "rare insight." Generations of traveling salesmen have wowed the folks back in Bridgeport and Paramus by ad libbing, "I spent a week in Philadelphia yesterday," or "I went to Philadelphia last Thursday, but it was closed."