YONG KIM / Staff photographer
Phillies' Ryan Howard holds up a copy of the Daily News after beating the Dodgers.
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Ed Barkowitz: Dodgers' Torre sees similarities in Phillies, his Yankees teams
THE PHILLIES are on the verge of something special, according to one guy who knows a little about doing something special.
Dodgers manager Joe Torre, the skipper of baseball's last dynasty, sees a few similarities to this Phillies club and the Yankees teams he used to manage. New York won the World Series in 1996 and three more from 1998 through 2000. They also claimed American League pennants in 2001 and 2003. His Yankees teams were as much a fixture in October as pumpkins and Halloween costumes.
"There's a fearlessness, and that's what I had in New York," Torre explained. "In fact, they taught me that."
The Phils need to win three more World Series to equal what the Yanks did in that stretch, of course. But Torre's observation was interesting nonetheless.
"I see a lot of similarities with the Yankee-Phillie thing, because they have a lot of confidence," he said. "When I sent them out there to play, I didn't really worry about if they were going to get lost."
Series' 3 stars
* Ryan Howard, Phillies: The legend grows. Hit .333 with eight RBI and was named the series MVP.
* Cliff Lee, Phillies: Eight shutout innings, three hits allowed in Game 2.
* Jimmy Rollins, Phillies: With apologies to Carlos Ruiz, can't leave off the guy who got the most important hit of the series.
Series' 3 stiffs
* George Sherrill, Dodgers: Gave up three runs in Game 1. Contributed to the Game 4 implosion by failing to close out the eighth inning. Hit Shane Victorino with the bases juiced in the fourth last night.
* Hiroki Kuroda, Dodgers: Overwhelmed in Game 3 with six earned runs in 1 1/3 innings.
* Rafael Furcal, Dodgers: Leadoff hitter had three hits in 21 at-bats.
On the field
* Dallas Green (1980) tossed out the first pitch to Charlie Manuel (2008) in a ceremony involving the only managers to lead the Phillies to World Series titles. Green, a Phillies pitcher in the '60s, lobbed one into Manuel, who took the toss on one knee.
* Sensing that last night could finish off the Dodgers, the Citizens Bank Park operations crew played Billy Joel's "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" while public address announcer Dan Baker introduced LA's starting lineup.
* Jayson Werth not only gave his loyal rightfield fans a souvenir with a first-inning home run, the normally reserved Werth raised his hands to the crowd when he took his position in the top of the second. The crowd went nuts . . . again. Werth spread the joy around by homering to left-center in the seventh.
