Broad Street Billy: This kid's a real Phils phan: Only 2 and already booing

OUR TIME IS NOW, Phillies fans! As we begin the quest for a second National League Championship, a little child shall lead us.

KID'S GOT ESP: At the ripe old age of 2, Kaitlyn Somogyi has already attended 40 Phillies games, including a July tilt against the Mets, where she shocked her diehard parents, Tom and Mary Kate Somogyi, of Northeast Philadelphia.

"As soon as [public-address announcer] Dan Baker started on the Mets lineup, before anyone else reacted, Kaitlyn started to boo," wrote her proud papa.

"And during the game, she started her own 'RA-UUULL!' chant, which sounded like a wolf howl, and kept it up for the entire game whenever the Phils were up."

Kaitlyn also revealed her powers of extrasensory perception when she attended her first playoff game - Game 2 of the National League Division Series - and saw the Rockies beat the Phils in a 5-4 heartbreaker.

"Kaitlyn was sitting on my brother Mike's lap," Somogyi said, "and she saw that we were both depressed. She patted me on the back, picked up my chin and said, 'Daddy, it OK. They win.' Which I translated as, 'It's OK. They'll still win.' And, sure as anything, they did!"

Any day now, Somogyi said, Kaitlyn will have a new little sister, Emma, "to help her cheer the Phillies on to a repeat!" When the Somogyi phanatics say that they're fans from birth, they're not kidding!

DOWNEAST DIE-HARD: For years after Lawrence Bloom, a Philadelphia lawyer, moved to Waterville, Maine, in 1992, he drove around with a Maine vanity license plate that read "PHILLY" over the traditional lobster background.

"I have been paranoid driving around Red Sox Nation with this expired tag," he told Broad Street Billy last fall, "but I don't want to jinx the Phils by getting a new one until the World Series is over."

A year later, the Phillies are world champions and Bloom finally has a street-legal Maine plate, but he worries more about pitching (except for Cliff Lee) now than he ever did about getting pinched in Red Sox Nation.

"Starting, bullpen, and closing has my stomach in knots," Bloom wrote. To which, Broad Street Billy adds: "Is there enough antacid in the world to get me through this Dodgers series? I used mine up on the Rockies."