"I've just been so emotional," said Joan Pollak, 61, proudly pointing out that she did not cry when she was at the Marlton ShopRite to get Shane Victorino's autograph.

While they sat in the lower deck, the Cherry Hill couple's son had to resort to eBay for a $49 ticket way up in the nosebleed seats. It doesn't matter, they said.

"Who knows whether we'll ever see something like this in our lifetime?" said Ron Pollak, 63. "I wanted to be here, to see and hear everything."

The best part of Lamont Henry's day? "Just being in the building," said Henry, 24, of Upper Darby.

His brother Damon Henry, 41, nodded. "This is the greatest place in the world," Damon Henry said. "I'm so proud to be a citizen of Philadelphia. I wouldn't be anywhere else."

Neither would Ruth Cramer, 83, who tucked her gray curls under her red Phillies cap and made her way from Northeast Philadelphia to the stadium with Helen Krushauskas, 57, her niece.

Illness kept Cramer from the World Series. But nothing would keep her from cheering her heroes. "They have a nice bunch of fellows," Cramer said. "I really appreciate them."

Krushauskas danced and clapped, waved her arms and whooped when four fans helped hoist the "2008" flag marking the team's championship.

"It's nice to have something good, with everything going on in the world," she said. "Wars. Police officers being killed. We need this."