Yo! From the Sunshine State

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Just in case this is once-in-a lifetime stuff, South Jersey transplant Walt Kressler backed out of plans to come to Tropicana Field today with his adult friends and brought his two sons.

Phillies history has taught him the hard way to treasure any postseason moment.

"I still remember that my parents went to World Series Game 6 in 1980," said Kressler, now of Melbourne, Fla., "and I was at home."

He pulled on a baseball glove and started playing catch with sons Ryan, 11, and Drew, 9.

"I said 'I can't do that to them,'" said Kressler, whose Phillies t-shirt and cap drew fellow Phans from across the stadium parking lot this afternoon.

But when they met the Kresslers, Jeff Raudenbush and Matt McNally had to pause and mock-boo - Ryan and Drew Kressler, growing up in Florida, wore Tampa Bay Rays caps to the game.

"Really, it's the only team they get to see on a constant basis," the sole Phillies-fan Kressler explained.

So unfolded many similar storylines as the Phillies Diaspora reconsituted itself along Florida's west coast today for the World Series, as the numerous transplants to the Gulf Coast played host to roadtripping Phanatic brethren (and sistren) in sprawl-wracked Tampa's strip malls and parking lots.

"You guys are in the right place!" shouted Zach Kessler, formerly of Roxborough and now of Tampa, across the Doubletree hotel sports bar to two Phillies-clad newcomers fresh from the airport.

Lew Indellini of New Castle, Del., walked in wearing a Phillies T-shirt and red-plumed centurion's hat and grinned. He ordered a Yuengling - on tap, even - and, finding himself among allies, immediately questioned the Rays' World Series worthiness as an arriviste on a level where Phillies fans have suffered 28 years.

"Eleven years, you don't deserve a ring," Indellini said.

His traveling companion, Nick Panunto, also of New Castle, concurred. He found Tampa fans' cheers, cowbells and cutesy "RayHawk" haircuts amateurish, compared to his expectations for a major-league adversary.

"They had no cadence. I'm like, 'When did you come up with this, last week?'" Panunto said of hearing Rays cheers. "It's like being at a high-school football game and sitting next to a band parent."

Phillies fans had better get used to taking it seriously. The Rays are every bit these Phillies' match as a young, likable team capable of dispatching highly-regarded opponents, even if the sunshine-state cheeriness of the fan base is a polar opposite to Booing Philadelphia. Red October up north, meet sweaty street construction workers wearing the team haircut down here.

That said, no one has yet accused Rays fans of having a diaspora, but Philly partisans are quite at home down here. There's a reason why Tampadelphia refers to people claiming a chunk of Florida for the Keystone state.

"The Phillies started it when they came to Clearwater," explained Paul Parone, who moved here in 1993, runs the Tampadelphia.com website and organized today's party for Phanatic travelers in the Tampa Doubletree hotel bar.

Fans here, he said, have an easy time finding each other for Eagles road games and, this week, the Phils' first World Series trip in 15 years. There's a critical mass of transplants here, as obvious as the many greetings that red-clad retirees Dave and Pat Gledhill received in their lawn chairs waiting to enter Tropicana Field.

"We're Phillies fans and I don't want to tell you how long," said Pat Gledhill, knitting a yellow baby blanket in her chair, "except we can both can tell you about the 1950 team."

The blanket, she said, is for a pregnant cousin back in her hometown of Northampton, a Phanatic-to-be already bonded to this World Series. And that counts. Just ask Andrew Farrington of Collegeville, who picked up his Game 1 ticket this morning.

"I was born in 1981, so I mised '80 by a little bit," Farrington said. "But my mom was pregnant when she went to the championship celebration. So, technically, I've been to a Phillies parade before.

"But I'd like to see one."

Contact staff writer Derrick Nunnally at 610-313-8212 or dnunnally@phillynews.com.