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Thanks a million-plus
Yeah, that didn't last.
"I had to get them out, because I knew it was important that they see this," Gooding, 31, said, clutching both children behind a concrete traffic divider on the parade route. "I told them this is something they could tell their own children about, just like I was telling them about seeing the parades when I was a kid.
JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Curse? What curse? Atop City Hall, William Penn had the best perch of all for the Phillies' World Series parade. Hundreds of thousands - possibly millions - of people flocked to Center City and South Philly from across the region on a blue-sky Friday to take part in a victory party decades in the making.
"They could hear me talk about it their whole lives. Now they can see it."
He pointed out players to Isaiah, who joined the roaring crowd greeting Jimmy Rollins. Then he directed Isaiah's attention to Joe Blanton.
"That's the one who hit the home run," the father told his son, tying the fleeting image in the fast-moving parade to the improbable World Series moment from Game 4.
The parade flashed by them, and the rest of the rejoicing city, in minutes, with players and Phillies officials crowded onto a few trucks. Since the players were dressed casually, figuring out who most of the Fightin's were required spotters, or at least sharp-eyed neighbors, to point out Cole Hamels, to spark exuberant "M-V-P, M-V-P" shouts.
Well, there was one exception: Possibly departing Phillie Pat Burrell rode ahead of the rest of his team, atop a beer wagon drawn by horses. It caught the attention of Bill Nolan, 24, of Mayfair, who toted a hand-drawn "Bring Back Pat" sign as he stood near Broad and Jackson Streets.
"There's nothing I would want to see more than this," Nolan said as Burrell's wagon approached. "This is it. Nothing tops this."
His quickly drawn poster was among many homemade props welcoming the parade, from bedsheet signs hung out of apartment windows to the immense, duct-tape-and-red-cardboard "P" logo on plastic piping carried by Pete Miglino, 23.
Construction time: "About four hours."
Construction cost: "Worth every second of it."
For the preparation time invested, Miglino and yesterday's other revelers got a fleeting look at their Fightin's during the victory lap of the city.
The formal procession into Citizens Bank Park was more deliberate and easier to track; players and team luminaries like Harry Kalas and Charlie Manuel got individual introductions as they rode into the ballyard in convertibles. But the faster-paced parade through the city brought its own virtue: It fit into roofer Jeff Levin's lunch break from building condominiums on South Penn Square.
"Timing is everything," laughed Levin, 52, of Chalfont, as he clung to a chain-link fence to watch the Phils pass him and City Hall.
Down at the end of the parade route, Chuck Taylor and Susan Loftus of Aston had a very good reason to agree: Their first child, a girl, is due today.
Yet there they were, hollering at the Phils in an ocean of fellow fans and easing into a seat at Citizens Bank Park for the team's formal introductions. Their doctor had been consulted before the couple came to Game 3, and he - perhaps influenced by having his own tickets to Game 5 - told them to go if they thought it "necessary."
Loftus felt a brief third-inning snap of pain, but they weathered the game without introducing the as-yet-unnamed daughter (Taylor's idea of Phyllis was vetoed) to the world before the Phils had a second title.
Now they're both eager to raise the girl as a Fightin's fan. Her first souvenir T-shirt has already been purchased.
"She's good luck," Taylor said, patting her stomach.
It's been a long while since a Phillies parent could say such a thing with such authority.
