Parade of stories along Phillies' route

In the end, it held dozens upon dozens of names, meticulously categorized by sport, of former Philadelphia athletes who had failed to cover the city in championship glory. Eagles Mike Mamula and Freddie Mitchell; Phillies Antonio Alfonseca and Mike Zagurski; 76ers Shawn Bradley and Matt Geiger; Flyers Joni Pitkanen and Roman Cechmanek; on and on, and on and on.

"Now, these guys don't matter," said O'Toole, 22, of East Falls. "This Phillies team has reversed the curse."

To celebrate the end of a bad spell, the city of champions filled to bursting, as hundreds of thousands of fans descended on it for a parade a quarter-century in the trying.

The throngs were so overwhelming that fans had to climb trees and lightposts to catch glimpses of their favorite players passing by. The anticipation was so intense that the crowds let loose a giant roar as a Parking Authority tow truck went down the parade route before the procession began. And the screaming was so relentless that one clever street vendor sold cough drops.

It was a dream come true for Phillies fans, each of whom had a story to tell.

At 11 a.m., Sylvia Boodis, 85, was making surprisingly fast progress with her walker, cutting through the crowd that grew thicker by the minute on 19th Street.

She had just left the beauty shop and was going back to her home in Kennedy House when a shirtless fan stumbled into her path.

"He said, 'Hello!' And I said, 'Oh, boy. Are you loaded!' "

A few steps further, however, she encountered John Kane, a 28-year-old mortgage consultant from Media. Seeing that Boodis was having trouble getting her walker onto the sidewalk, he helped her negotiate the curb.

"I love Philadelphia," she said. "I love Philadelphia."

- Melissa Dribben

With an hour to go before the parade, a police officer stopped on Market Street to fix his bicycle's flat tire. A fan caught sight of his fetching black T-shirt with "Philadelphia Police Narcotics Strike Force" on the back.

"I'll fix your tire for you if you give me that shirt," yelled Pat Flynn, 32, a furniture refinisher from Marlton.

The officer ignored him.

"Twenty bucks for the narc shirt!" Flynn called out again. This time louder.

He persisted until finally the officer walked over to Flynn, smiled, and whispered a phone number.

"Call there," the officer said.

Already, Flynn's day was complete.

- M.D.

Evan Zolinsky is only 16, but the best day he will ever have in his life, he was quite sure, has already come.

"Ever since I was born, this was the only thing I wanted," said Zolinsky, of Limerick, Montgomery County. "Finally it comes."

For the parade, Zolinksky painted his face red and white, and gave himself a mohawk - a clever way, he thought, to mock Tampa Bay fans and players who had embraced the mohawk for their playoff run.

To make sure he got a good position - "First row, baby!" - he arrived at 7 a.m. with his friend Carl Heimer. Of course they cut school.

"The city deserves this more than any other city in the country, besides maybe Cleveland," he said. "It's been 9,280 days of waiting."

- P.K.

Mike Case is a 55-year-old math teacher and baseball coach at Preston High School, in a little town south of Tulsa, Okla.

He has never lived in Philadelphia. He has no relatives here.

So what was he doing in a prime spot at 20th and Market Streets with his two daughters, waiting as ardently as any homegrown fanatic for the start of the parade?

"I've been a fan since 1961," said Case.

And why?

"I had a babysitter who had a cousin who was Don Demeter, who played outfield for the Phillies."

- M.D.

Catching a glimpse of the parade was a bonus on Sansom Street east of Broad.

Blue Dumpsters had been rolled into the middle of the block, fathers hoisted children on top, and cheers welled up at random in anticipation of the cavalcade.

Around 12:15 p.m., the crowd erupted. Chase Utley? Jimmy Rollins? No, just a guy leading cheers from the top of a sausage truck.

At 12:21, a teenager fell into a Dumpster as the plastic top collapsed. No one blinked.

- Jeff Shields

The sun grazed the edges of the city's skyscraper canyon. Confetti blew out of a machine on the back end of the Phillies' trucks, fluttering into the wind and raining down on the crowd.

Christian and Romolo Leomporra aimed their cameras at the passing baseball gods and furiously recorded. Pitcher Jamie Moyer waved to the brothers as if he knew them. And Jayson Werth (duly noted by the women in the crowd to be knockout handsome in person) held his own camera up and took pictures of the adoring crowd.

"For these World Series champions to be looking at us the way we're looking at them," said Christian, "is unbelievable."

- M.D.

From street level, fans could see only half the players - those facing one side or the other of Broad Street. And the Phillies were mixed in with nonplayers, making it hard for some fans to tell who was who.

"I didn't see Cole. I didn't see Victorino," said a disappointed Laura McDermott, 20, of Upper Darby. "I'm really upset."

Tashai Rowe, 23, of Yeadon, wanted most of all to see Victorino, but he was on the other side of the float.

"I'm disappointed," she said.

- Michael Vitez

Charlie Brown, one of 16 horses enlisted by the state police to keep the crowds under control, blinked his enormous brown eyes and stamped his authoritative hoof.

Cpl. Wad Crimbring looked out over the restless sea of red from astride the gorgeous animal.

"The view from up here," he observed, "is better than down there."

- M.D.

Elvis came to the parade.

Dressed in a gold lamé Phillies-accessorized jumpsuit, he stood against the rope line near Broad and Morris Streets, in front of the home of Lisa and David Gonzales.

"Elvis is old-school," Lisa said. "He's wearing a Mike Schmidt jersey."

The lifesize cutout was also wearing Phillies boxers over the jumpsuit.

- M.V.

Three generations of Cirellis were staked out on Sansom east of Broad: Tony Cirelli, 65, the patriarch from the Far Northeast; his daughter and granddaughter, Carla Wynn, 39, and Madeline Wynn, 2, from Huntingdon Valley; and his son, Army Pfc. Dante Cirelli, stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y.

From doubleheaders at Connie Mack Stadium, to Sunday games at the Vet with his three kids, to Cooperstown to help usher Richie Ashburn and Mike Schmidt into the baseball Hall of Fame in '95, Tony's been faithful. And so the family gathered with him to share the occasion, with Madeline fresh from her preschool Halloween parade, wearing her kitty-cat costume under warmer clothes.

Fate had brought Dante there. His unit had been sent on two-week leave just in time for the World Series. In December, he's going to Afghanistan and will miss Christmas with his family.

"This is better than Christmas," he said. "I see Christmas every year."

- J.S.

Betul Erke, 77, may be Ankara, Turkey's, biggest Phillies fan. She fell in love with the team after seeing her first baseball game four years ago and now catches as many games as she can when she visits her daughter and son-in-law in Allentown.

Such is her devotion that she refused to go back to Turkey as scheduled last Wednesday.

"She said, 'I'm not going to miss this,' " said her daughter, Yesim Erke-Magent.

Yesterday, Erke, her daughter, her son-in-law, Mike Magent, and their Bichon frise Cuddles were on Market Street by 10 a.m.

Erke had told her daughter she was sure the Phils were going to win the World Series this year.

"She used an old superstition," her daughter explained. "She turned her slippers upside down so the other team will have bad luck."

- Kathy Boccella

John Mullen was jonesing for a pretzel.

Mullen, 40, a publisher's sales rep from the Northeast, and his son, Torin, 12, wandered throughout the massive Citizens Bank Park parking lot in search of a soft pretzel.

Not a vendor in sight.

"I can't believe there's no one here selling hot dogs and pretzels and soft drinks," said Mullen, standing near the left-field gate. "They could make a fortune today."

Mullen and his longtime buddy Chris Schick ("Like the razor but not as sharp," Schick said) had planned to take the subway, but after three trains sped by the Torresdale stop at 8:30 a.m., they drove in.

Mullen said he probably would have skipped the event but for his son. "In 1980, my mom let me cut school and come to the parade, so I had to return the favor," he said. "It's a family tradition now."

Mullen was 12 at the time, the same age as his son. He also attended the same elementary school, Stephen Decatur on Academy Road.

"The principal said, if we went to the parade," Torin said, "we can bring in a note that says we had Phillies fever."

- Gail Shister

Decked in red and white, Keith Smith, 46, and his 11-year-old son, Keith Jr., trekked seven miles on Broad Street, from North Philly to South, to witness history.

But first, two sodas from a nearby gas station.

"It's, like, the first championship in 25 years, and it's the first I get to see," said the younger Smith, wearing a "From Cursed to First" T-shirt.

The parade was a source of pride for the boy. His Little League team - he's a pitcher and plays first base - lost its championship game in extra innings.

After the parade passed, he prevailed on his father to continue their walk, three miles to the stadium.

"Thank you!" he shouted.

- Kia Gregory

Jonathan Grzybowski, 19, skipped all his classes at Camden County College to come to the parade. He corrupted his girlfriend, Lynda Pagan, and brought her along. "We went to school and sat in the parking lot and thought to ourselves, 'We've got to go to the parade.' "

It was "my duty as a citizen," Grzybowski said. "It may not happen again in my lifetime."

- M.V.