Prior to today, the greatest day in Philadelphia sports history was Sunday, October 19, 1980. It was a day that began as this one did, with an astounding Eagles victory.

This one in 2009 -- Eagles 40, Giants 17 -- was borderline absurd. I mean, nobody saw this coming. This was a game for first place in the NFC East. This was a game between evenly-matched rivals. This was a game between a Giants team that had lost two straight games and an Eagles team that could make explosive plays but couldn’t really sustain anything on offense.

The suspicion -- and by that I mean, everybody’s suspicion -- was for a train wreck kind of a game, with both teams hitting each other in the head and staggering around, trying to hit on something. Playing without running back Brian Westbrook (concussion), their historic Giant-killer, and with an offense line that has been mix-and-match, and with a quarterback (Donovan McNabb) who hadn’t looked very sharp the last two games, it was hard to see the Eagles doing anything really methodical on offense.

So, of course, what happened was the Eagles’ defense put clamps on Giants quarterback Eli Manning, forced a bunch of turnovers and bad throws, and then absolutely sliced open the Giants’ defense with a handful of huge plays. Fullback Leonard Weaver had a 41-yard touchdown. Wide receiver DeSean Jackson had a 54-yarder. Rookie running back LeSean McCoy had a 66-yarder.

For the Giants, it was an astounding, breathtaking defeat. For the Eagles, it meant first place in the NFC East. And for anyone who was wandering around a Philadelphia newspaper office in 1980, as I was, it brought back memories.

Because on that October day in 1980, two great events took place: the Phillies won Game 5 of the World Series, putting them one win away from the franchise’s first World Championship, and the Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys at Veterans Stadium in the first divisional showdown between rival teams, back when beating the Cowboys was still something of a rarity.

So, that day in the office, the debate raged: how to play the two huge events on the back page of the Daily News?

It really was a debate, too -- that is how big a win over Dallas was back then. (Remember, this was only months before the Eagles would beat the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game and go to the Super Bowl.) Sports editor Mike Rathet, a big football guy, was actually considering playing the two games as a kind of co-lead for a while.

The World Series ultimately prevailed. As a consolation prize, The Eagles got what was known in the business as a “big tease” on the bottom of the back page, a bigger-than-usual box pointing readers to stories about the Eagles-Cowboys inside.

Twenty-nine years later, if you asked people about a “big tease,” they would probably think you were talking about Cole Hamels. Which is another matter.

On the latest, greatest day in Philadelphia sports history, the Eagles help up their end -- shockingly so.

Poll: What was the biggest touchdown play for the Eagles against the Giants? (1487 votes)

Everybody did the same thing in their own way, playing out the World Series in their head before it started. If you were from Philadelphia, you spent your time trying to map out a way for the Phillies to win four games.

This was my personal map: Cliff Lee wins Game 1 and Game 5; the Phillies’ hitters get to CC Sabathia in a raucous, all-hands-on-deck Game 7 at Yankee Stadium; and, in between, they clobber Andy Pettitte one time, ideally in Game 3.

Well, scratch that.

My map-to-four really did not mention the name Cole Hamels. The reason is that I did not see the possibility of Hamels pitching a gem -- not at this point, not after all of these months. I just didn’t see how it could happen against this potent a lineup. That it did not happen in Game 3 should shock no one. That Hamels circled the drain early, again, was always the likely outcome.

His pitching line: 4 1/3 innings and 5 runs allowed. A lot of it was just Hamels being Hamels in the 2009 version. He was very good for three innings and then, well: adversity, lost concentration, you know. “Things kind of started snowballing on him,” said Phils manager Charlie Manuel, who also went out of his way to say that he did not question Hamels’ mental toughness.

The result of this was that they were going to need to hit Pettitte and they were going to need to hit him hard. And it looked like it was going to happen, too. The Phillies had his pitch count into the 50s after only the second inning, and they had a 3-0 lead. But then Pettitte settled down. The adversity did not get to him, unlike Hamels. The difficult parts of the game did not submerge him. But for an error by third baseman Alex Rodriguez, Pettitte would have retired nine straight Phillies before Jayson Werth’s home run in the sixth inning. Dire trouble, a really difficult night, cruised instead toward a comfortable conclusion for Pettitte: six innings, four runs. He had seven strikeouts, all of them on sliders.

For the Phillies, it just wasn’t enough. “He shut us down,” Manuel said. “The biggest thing for Pettitte was, he closed down our lefthanded hitters.”

The Phils are now hitting .216 in the series as a team. Chase Utley and Shane Victorino are both 2-for-11 (Utley’s were both huge Game 1 homers). Pedro Feliz is 1-for-11. Ryan Howard is 2-for-13.

After Hamels, they did the serial bullpen dance, with J.A. Happ, Chad Durbin and Brett Myers each allowing single runs along the way. It was 8-4 as the Phillies got to the back end of the Yankees’ bullpen. But the energy had been sucked out of the ballpark and out of the lineup by then. You could see the red tail lights headed in the direction of the Walt Whitman Bridge as the Yankees batted in the top of the ninth inning. Carlos Ruiz hit a ninth-inning homer but it didn’t matter. The only good thing for the Phillies was that it caused Yankees manager Joe Girardi to go to the bullpen for closer Mariano Rivera to get the final two outs on a night that they would have preferred to give Rivera a rest.

And now, Sabathia vs. Joe Blanton in Game 4. Sabathia vs. Blanton in the game that will either even the series or push the Phillies to the precipice. There are people who wanted to see Lee in Game 4 on short rest but it really would have been a panic move. There are people who would have rather seen Happ in this starting spot in the playoffs instead of Blanton, and that will be the great off-season debate if this all goes badly. There are arguments both ways -- because Happ was so good for so long on the one hand, but also because Happ hasn’t seen the seventh inning since August, before he suffered that oblique injury. The answer there is unknown and unknowable.

This is what they are left with, Sabathia vs. Blanton. And I have to tell you, I don’t know a lot of people who had them winning this one as they drew up their own personal roadmaps to a repeat championship. And, well, as Manuel said, “If we’re going to get going, it’s time for us to do it.”

Meanwhile, a single voice loudly shouted as the fans filed past the press box toward the exits: “Seven-game series, folks. Seven-game series.”
 

You thought it was going to be a hitters' World Series between the Phillies and the Yankees. I thought it was going to be a hitters' World Series. Phils manager Charlie Manuel thought it was going to be a hitters' World Series. So far, though...

"I thought, if you had asked me before the series, I thought...this was going to be a series were one of either two teams hit," Manuel said before Game 3. I felt like whoever won the series...that the team was going to kind of hit a lot and score a lot of runs. So far, on both teams, it's been -- the pitching has been very good. It's been outstanding. And when I say that, the pitching has been what you call World Series or playoff pitching..."

For Game 3, though, that could change.

The history is somewhat limited, but a few Yankees have eye-popping numbers against Phillies starter Cole Hamels -- not a lot of power, but a lot of contact. Johnny Damon has hit .600 against Hamels in 7 plate appearances, Derek Jeter .571 in 7 PA, and Melky Cabrera .500 in 6 PA. Mark Teixeira has hit .294 against Hamels with 2 HR and 5 RBI in 17 PA. Again, very limited numbers -- but it's all we have. As a team, the Yankees have hit .286 off of Hamels.

As for the Phillies, their numbers against Yankees starter Andy Pettitte are a little bit more extensive, but only a little -- and they are grimmer. The Phillies have a team batting average of .219 against Pettitte. Ryan Howard is 1-for-9 lifetime, Jayson Werth 1-for-13 (a home run). Werth, Raul Ibanez, Jimmy Rollins and Carlos Ruiz each have a single home run off of Pettitte. And that's about it.

If the Phillies are going to get to Pettitte -- and they are going to have to get to him, or likely have a real problem winning this series -- it will be by killing him with patience, hoping that home plate umpire Brian Gorman doesn't have too generous a strike zone, and then pouncing on the mistakes that will not arrive with a lot of velocity.

Again: the Phillies' bats awaken tonight or this gets very, very difficult.

One leftover from Monday night was a late post-game conversation with Michael Vick. The whole Wildcat thing has been a bit on the underwhelming side, you might have noticed. Vick completed one pass for 5 yards against the Redskins and ran three times for 9 yards with a long of 9 -- a run around the left end in which he actually, kind of looked like his old self. It has been one of the first times.

There are two theories operative now about the Eagles and Vick and the Wildcat. One is that it just hasn't looked very good in practice, and therefore hasn't looked very good in the games, and therefore they aren't using it that much with Vick in the game. The other theory is that they are keeping a bunch of stuff in their back pockets, stuff that will be unfurled starting with Sunday's game against the Giants.

So I asked Vick if they were hiding stuff for the Giants, and he said, "No, we're not hiding anything. Every week, we come up with something new. Next week, we'll have some different looks in and some different plays."

A couple of other things:

On that 9-yard run around the end: "It was the first time I was able to get out on the edge. They had been boxing me up. This time, we hit them with a different look, a shift and a quick count, and they really couldn't get adjusted to what we were trying to do. So it felt good to get out on the edge, good to open up a little bit."

On if he needs more playing time to get better: "I don't think I need to play more. Obviously, you want to play more. I wish I could play quarterback but that's not going to happen here right now."

On the job defenses have been doing so far against him: "They have to spend extra time getting ready for me, and it's tough on them sometimes -- but they've been doing a good job."

After the game, Eagles coach Andy Reid talked about how the Redskins were kind of crowding the line of scrimmage against their Wildcat looks. There are two ways to deal with that: get the running back outside rather than between the tackles, or throw the ball. And, well, we'll see. The Wildcat, like the rest of the Eagles' team, gets its first real test on Sunday.

WASHINGTON -- The Eagles beat the Redskins by 27-17.

So why don't you feel better?

The Eagles got out to a big lead against the poor, pitiful Redskins and then just kind of staved off disaster for the rest of the night, winning easily.

So why don't you feel better?

The Giants are coming, the Giants are coming, and the Eagles' offense just doesn't look very sharp. For the second week in a row, quarterback Donovan McNabb was underwhelming. And now, on top of everything, running back Brian Westbrook suffered what appeared to be a pretty serious concussion in the first quarter of the game, taking an accidental knee in the back of the neck from Redskins linebacker London Fletcher and appearing to get knocked cold.

With that, the Eagles are about to enter the really tough part of their schedule without their premier running back. With that, an off-season of preparing rookie Shady McCoy for just this possibility will now receive a severe test.

The good news in this game was the play of new middle linebacker Will Witherspoon, who scored a touchdown on a 9-yard interception return of a pass batted by blitzing safety Quintin Mikell, and who also had a sack and forced fumble of Washington quarterback Jason Campbell. He joins Buffalo’s Sam Adams as the only player to have a sack and an interception return for a TD in their first game with a team.

That was the good news.

The rest of it, though, felt kind of ominous.

It was a nightmare in the Black Hole. The Eagles were beaten and they were beaten up by the Oakland Raiders, 13-9. They are now 3-2 and they are entirely open to questioning -- about just about everything.

Yes, it was that bad.

It is hard to believe that the simple loss of left tackle Jason Peters could lead to such a terrible tumbling of the dominoes for the Eagles, but that is all of the available evidence at this point. Peter went down with a knee injury in the first quarter and was replaced by King Dunlap. The Eagles were already leaky up front and it became a flood after that. It was fair in the middle of the second quarter to wonder if McNabb was going to finish the game on his feet. By the end, he was sacked six times.

But there were questions everywhere.

David Akers missed two field goals, of 43 and 47 yards.

Jeremiah Trotter, trying to make a comeback at middle linebacker after being out of the game for more than a year, was tortured and abused on an 86-yard touchdown to Raiders tight end Zach Miller. And he was beaten on a 12-yard pass to Gary Russell at the 2-minute warning, a huge play.

McNabb, killed by the pressure, still probably held the ball too long a couple of times -- but, then again, he was desperate to make some kind of play, any kind of play, just to try to get this thing jump-started.

Oh, and his receivers weren’t open much all day.

And the defense gave up a raft of the kind of plays that people worried about all season, plays by the tight end and the running backs, plays in the middle of the field.

Other than that, it was a nice trip.
 

If the Phillies had lost Game 1 to the Dodgers, the gamble would have been more obvious, the question neatly crystallized. When Charlie Manuel decided to pitch Pedro Martinez in Game 2 of this series, he was rolling the dice again, in a big way. It will be great drama, a fine show, as Martinez comes home to where he started, to Dodger Stadium, and attempts to shake off a topcoat of rust on the game's biggest stage. And now I guess it isn't such a big deal -- because if it blows up, or he blows up, well, they did already win Game 1.

But logic says this is going to be another bullpen game. How many more can the Phillies hope to survive?

Watching the way Manuel used his bullpen in Game 1, one thing stands out: Scott Eyre. The only true, experienced situational lefty in the bullpen, pitching in pain with a loose body floating around in his elbow, did not pitch. Manuel used a couple of former lefthanded starters, J.A. Happ and Antonio Bastardo, out of the bullpen and never got to Eyre. Maybe it was just strategy. Or maybe the injury is starting to dictate some things.

Another bullpen thing stands out: Ryan Madson is scuffling. He is a supremely important piece of the Phillies' road to the ninth inning, and he is just struggling right now. You wonder who might pitch the eighth inning in Game 2. It could be Joe Blanton -- unless, of course, they have to go get Martinez really quickly.

Oh, and either Happ or Blanton presumeably will start Game 4 -- so the way they are used today should determine that, you would think.

If this comes across as stream of consciousness, that's because it is. Long, ridiculously-tense nights leave you that way, your mind just racing and wondering. Game 1 was such a huge win for the Phillies. If they can get Game 2, with Cliff Lee on the mound for Game 3, they would hold an enormous advantage. But the concerns still nag. If Cole Hamels is going to be a six-inning, four-run pitcher for the rest of October, how is this bullpen going to survive?

It is the question of the series now. And Pedro Martinez, trying to reach back and recapture glory, will provide the next answer.

Charlie Manuel, in the hours before Game 1: "We need to score some runs early."

It will the the story of this NLCS -- whether or not the Phillies can score early runs off of the Dodgers' starting pitchers, beginning with Clayton Kershaw.  Everybody can see it. Everybody knows it. There is little mystery here, no great insight. The imperative is obvious. The Phillies need to win the games before the Dodgers' formidable bullpen becomes an issue.

"It's important for us to go out and get the lead," Manuel said, speaking in the pre-game interview room at Dodger Stadium. "I think that definitely helps our starters..."

And then he talked about the lefty-laden Dodgers bullpen, backed up by closer Jonathan Broxton. It is the strength of the Los Angeles team. And the dynamic is different this time because the Dodgers have the homefield advantage. The Phillies need to grab a game here in the first two -- and seeing as how Pedro Martinez is starting Game 2, a huge gamble by gambling Charlie Manuel, the imperatives for Game 1 continue to grow.

"I think whenever we play in Citizens Bank Park, I think we love to play there and that's an advantage for us, and I think the same here for the Dodgers," Manuel said. "...At the same time, it all depends on the starting pitching and also...we need to score some runs early. I think if we do both of those things, that's how you quiet the crowd -- take the crowd out of it or keep them calm or whatever, and I think good pitching will stop that, just like it will stop good hitting."

Bill Rhoden of the New York Times offers up a little snack to fuel the fires until the Phillies and Dodgers drop the puck on Thursday night.

In a column the other day, Rhoden offered up a thesis that, truth be told, is probably the majority view in the country (and especially in the part of the country where television executives live). Along the way, he acknowledges that a Yankees-Phillies World Series would be "intriguing," as would all of the other potential matchps, for that matter.

Now for the big however:

Still, what Major League Baseball needs is a great World Series, a Series for the ages. And with all due respect to those two other potential matchups, it’s a Yankees-Dodgers World Series that could take the game back to its roots at a time when baseball desperately needs to recover a portion of the trust, if not the innocence, that it has lost in the steroid era.

You know, with all due respect.

Baseball needs a World Series for the ages, one that reinforces its roots and, yes, its relative purity. Granted, this is a lot to ask one World Series matchup to accomplish, but baseball needs an authentic fall classic.

It needs Yankees-Dodgers, for the good of the game.

You know, for the good of the game.

Yeesh.