Broad Street Billy: Phillies give these fans a warm feeling

GATHERED IN FRONT of the Piazza at Schmidt's 26-by-16-foot outdoor screen on 2nd Street near Germantown Avenue, about 200 pumped-up Phillies fans and two dogs in overcoats brought their do-or-die ballpark spirit to Northern Liberties for World Series Game 6 last night.

PIAZZA PHANATICS: 3rd Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue were well-represented by Chris Heyliges, 31, his cousin, Marcus Rolon, 19, and a dozen friends and neighbors. Heyliges said during the fourth inning they'd been watching the playoffs at the Piazza since the NLCS against the Dodgers.

"The Phillies finally brought it to the city," Heyliges said. "They brought us a championship. Here's how much they meant to me: That Eagles loss to Oakland? That would have upset me, man. I mean, upset me. But I was so caught up in the Phillies, it didn't even, like, bother me."

Yasin Celep, 26, nodded in agreement.

"I've missed about 15 minutes of an Eagles game my entire life," Celep said. "But when they played the Giants last Sunday - I'm talking about the Giants! - I didn't watch them. I'm too into the Phillies."

His cousin, Hakan Ibisi, suddenly broke into an uncanny impression of Phils manager Charlie Manuel. "Why do we win?" Ibisi said in his version of a West Virginia accent. "Because we love to play baseball. It's not philosophical. We just love the game."

"Rooting for the Eagles all these years," Celep said, "has been like having a bad relationship. I've shed tears over the Eagles over and over again. But the Phillies have been good to my heart."

GO PHIWWIES! "My younger brother Michael's first words were not 'Mommy' or 'Daddy,'" swears South Philly-raised Henry Yip, 41, of Meredith, N.H. "They were, 'Go Phiwwies!' - which he said when I used to push him in his stroller on the walkway at the top of the Vet's 700 level."

After the Phillies won the first game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, Michael phoned Yip from An Tua Nua, the Yankee-hating Red Sox fans' bar in Boston. "We sang 'High Hopes' together," Yip said. "Michael put me on speaker phone so I could be part of the anti-Yankee pro-Phillies celebration."

A LAUGH WITH TUG: When Phillies immortal pitcher, Tug McGraw, was the guest of honor at a New Hampshire baseball dinner in the winter of 2003, Yip and his brother Michael, dressed head to toe in Phillies gear, joined the end of a long line of Red Sox fans, waiting for autographs.

"Tug looks up from signing autographs, sees us, and says, 'Hey, guys. You're not here to see me, are you?' " Yip remembers. "Everybody in the place cracked up.

"We finally made it to Tug's table," Yip said. "I had photos he had signed for me as a kid after ballgames at the Vet. Tug says, 'Gee, I don't recognize you. You must have filled out since the last time I saw you.' Oh my God, did we laugh!

"Later that year at spring training, Tug was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Mike and I were at the last game at the Vet. When Tug got up there and recreated the last pitch of '80 World Series, I cried my butt off. So did everybody else at the Vet that day. We lost him that winter. He was such a great guy."