DELAWARE COUNTY native Lawrence Bloom has practiced law for years in Skowhegan, Maine - 506 miles from Citizens Bank Park - but his true Phillies heart makes him a Downeast Diehard.

How small is Skowhegan? "Jayson Werth could throw a ball from my law office - which displays the Phillies jersey I hung in the front window after wearing it to watch them win the National League Championship - and hit the Empire Grill, roughly the distance from right field to homeplate," Bloom said. "The runner, of course, would be out!"

Bloom got to Maine by way of Fairbanks, Alaska, where he moved a couple of months before the Phillies won the 1980 World Series.

Thrilled by the historic victory, Bloom was ready to watch the champagne-soaked locker room celebration when his TV cut to "Little House on the Prairie."

"I marched two blocks down the street, stormed into the local TV station to demand an explanation - and was told that they had only rented satellite time for the game and the time had expired!

"So I got Michael Landon instead of Michael Jack Schmidt."

A Mainer since 1992, Bloom is not the only Phillies fan among Skowhegan's 8,824 residents.

He recently walked into Bull Moose Music to buy a DVD, and was startled to see the clerk, Matt Clark, 25, of nearby Oakland (487 miles from Citizens Bank Park), wearing a Shane Victorino T-shirt.

"What shocks me is that he is a legit Phillies fan - as opposed to a Red Sox Nation 'anti-Yankees' fan," Bloom said.

"As a kid, he fell in love with the '93 Phillies - Kruk, Daulton, Dykstra, Schilling, Morandini - despite their losing the World Series."

Clark's girlfriend, hotel clerk Crystal Pomeroy, 32, gave him a Christmas 2008 present of tickets for both of them to the first three 2009 Phillies home games, including the World Series champions' ring ceremony.

"She's a 'kee-pah' as we say 'hee-yah' in Maine," Bloom said.

The phanatic attorney - who has been known to wear a Phillies tie in court and tell clients "you're getting a Philadelphia lawyer at Maine rates" - has a 2008 World Championship banner hanging above the 115-year-old staircase in his Victorian home. "I have a supportive wife," he explained.

His Red Sox Nation neighbors, Bloom said, "are all Phillies fans at the moment.

"As their T-shirts exclaim, they love two teams: 'The Red Sox and any team playing the Yankees!' "

GOT PHILLIES? Send your phanaticism tales to me at Phillies@phillynews.com.