PHILADELPHIA — From losingest team to longest game, the Philadelphia Phillies are World Series champions.
Strange as that sounds.
Strange as it was.
Brad Lidge and the Phillies finished off the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in a three-inning sprint Wednesday night to win a suspended Game 5 nearly 50 hours after it started.
Left in limbo by a two-day rainstorm, the Phillies seesawed to their first championship since 1980. Pedro Feliz singled home the go-ahead run in the seventh and Lidge closed out his perfect season to deliver the title Philly craved for so long.
“It’s over,” Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. “It’s over, man.”
Bundled in parkas and blankets, fans returned in force to Citizens Bank Park and saw the city claim its first major sports championship in 25 years. No more references needed to those sad-sack Phillies teams in the past and their 10,000-plus losses.
It was among the wackiest endings in baseball history, a best-of-seven series turned into a best-of-3½ showdown when play resumed in the bottom of the sixth inning tied at 2.
How bizarre? Series MVP Cole Hamels was a star in Game 5 — and he never stepped on the mound Wednesday night.
Two Rays relievers warmed up to start, and there was a pinch-hitter before a single pitch. “God Bless America” was sung rather than the national anthem and the seventh-inning stretch came quickly.
For Philly, it was more than a World Series win. It was a bit of redemption for all the losses, the jokes, the slights.
Finally, something to celebrate.
How much did Philly fans want a champion to call its own?
Well, the sports hero they point to with the most pride isn’t even a real person — Rocky Balboa.
Yo, Adrian … the Phillies did it!
Lidge went 48-for-48 on save chances this year, including two this week. He retired two batters with a runner on second, striking out pinch-hitter Eric Hinske to end it.
Lidge jumped in front of the mound, landing on his knees with arms outstretched. Catcher Carlos Ruiz ran out to jump on him, and teammates sprinted to mound to join them as towel-waving fans let loose.
A generation ago, it was Tug McGraw who went wild when the Phillies won their first title. A few days after country singer Tim McGraw scattered his dad’s ashes on the mound, it was Lidge’s turn to throw the final pitch.
Despite low TV ratings and minus the majors’ most glamorous teams, fans will always remember how this one wrapped up. And for the first time in a long while, kids saw a World Series champion crowned before bedtime.
Reliever J.C. Romero got the win, his second of the Series.
While former NL MVPs Ryan Howard and Rollins drive the Phillies, it was their less-heralded teammates who helped win it on this chilly night and sent the Rays home.
Tied at 3, Pat Burrell led off the seventh with a drive off the center-field wall against J.P. Howell. Chad Bradford relieved and one out later Feliz singled home pinch-runner Eric Bruntlett.
Rocco Baldelli’s solo home run off Ryan Madson, who relieved Hamels when the game resumed, made it 3-all in the top of the seventh. The Rays almost got more, but All-Star second baseman Chase Utley alertly bluffed a throw to first on a grounder over the bag and instead threw out Jason Bartlett at the plate.
Pinch-hitter Geoff Jenkins, the first batter Wednesday night, doubled and later scored on Jayson Werth’s bloop single.
In all, there were six new pitchers, three pinch-hitters and two pinch-runners when play restarted.
Manager Charlie Manuel, whose NL East champions clinched a playoff spot in the final week, guided the Phillies’ second overall championship in six World Series tries. The Phils helped themselves by going 7-0 at home this postseason, beating Milwaukee and the Dodgers in the NL playoffs and then defeating the Rays.
“I always thought we’d win the World Series. I knew we could beat anyone in the league,” Manuel said.
Once known as a city of champions, Philadelphia sports fell on hard times after Julius Erving and Moses Malone led the Sixers to that 1983 title.
Since then, the Phillies, Eagles, Sixers and Flyers made it to the championship game or round — seven times, in total — and lost all of them.
The city became so starved for a crown that it was ready to throw a parade down Broad Street for a horse. But local colt Smarty Jones lost, too, in his bid for the Triple Crown.
“People enjoy being associated with winning and a world championship is the ultimate,” Mike Schmidt, MVP of the Phillies’ other championship, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press this week. “It unites a town behind one team.”
Cheesesteaks, on the house.
Tampa Bay did itself proud, too, until this final week. Baseball’s best success story this season, the worst-to-first Rays played like the downtrodden Devil Rays from the past decade.
Even so, the gap between the Phils and Rays wasn’t enormous. Had Evan Longoria’s late, long drive off Jamie Moyer in Game 3 not been blown back by the wind, the teams might still be playing.
This game was suspended Monday night a batter after Carlos Pena’s tying, two-out single in the Rays’ sixth. By then, the field had become a quagmire, with the foul lines washed out, home plate turned into a puddle and every ball an adventure.
Despite a shaky forecast, Game 5 began in the rain. Shane Victorino hit a two-run single off Scott Kazmir in the Phillies first, and the Rays scored in the fourth on Pena’s double and Longoria’s single.
The poor conditions made even routine plays difficult. Rollins blinked back raindrops and dropped a wind-blown popup, and umpires didn’t invoke the infield-fly rule on another pop because there was no guarantee it would be caught.
Notes:@ Burrell went 1-for-14 in the five games. … Howell put down the first sacrifice bunt of his career.
Phillies 4, Rays 3
Tampa Bay AB R H BI BB SO Avg.
Iwamura 2b 4 0 2 0 0 1 .263
Crawford lf 4 0 1 0 0 0 .263
Upton cf 4 1 1 0 0 0 .250
CPena 1b 4 1 2 1 0 0 .118
Price p 0 0 0 0 0 0 —-
Longoria 3b 4 0 1 1 0 0 .050
Navarro c 3 0 1 0 1 1 .353
2-Perez pr 0 0 0 0 0 0 —-
Baldelli rf 3 1 1 1 0 0 .167
b-Zobrist ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .143
Bartlett ss 3 0 1 0 0 0 .214
c-Hinske ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 .500
Kazmir p 2 0 0 0 0 2 .000
Balfour p 0 0 0 0 0 0 —-
Howell p 0 0 0 0 0 0 —-
Bradford p 0 0 0 0 0 0 —-
WAybar 1b 0 0 0 0 0 0 .250
Totals 33 3 10 3 1 5

Philadelphia AB R H BI BB SO Avg.
Rollins ss 3 0 0 0 1 0 .227
Werth rf 3 1 2 1 2 1 .444
Utley 2b 3 1 0 0 1 1 .167
Howard 1b 4 0 0 0 1 3 .286
Burrell lf 2 0 1 0 2 0 .071
1-Bruntlett pr-lf 0 1 0 0 0 0 .333
Victorino cf 4 0 1 2 0 1 .250
Feliz 3b 4 0 2 1 0 1 .333
Ruiz c 4 0 1 0 0 0 .375
Hamels p 2 0 0 0 0 1 .000
a-Jenkins ph 1 1 1 0 0 0 .500
Madson p 0 0 0 0 0 0 —-
JRomero p 1 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Lidge p 0 0 0 0 0 0 —-
Totals 31 4 8 4 7 8
Tampa Bay 000 101 100 — 3 10 0
Philadelphia 200 001 10x — 4 8 1
a-doubled for Hamels in the 6th. b-lined out for Baldelli in the 9th. c-struck out for Bartlett in the 9th.
1-ran for Burrell in the 7th. 2-ran for Navarro in the 9th.
E—Rollins (1). LOB—Tampa Bay 5, Philadelphia 12. 2B—CPena (1), Burrell (1), Jenkins (1). HR—Baldelli (1), off Madson. RBIs—CPena (2), Longoria (2), Baldelli (1), Werth (3), Victorino 2 (2), Feliz (2). SB—Upton (4), Perez (1), Werth (3), Utley (3). S—Howell, Rollins. GIDP—Upton, Navarro, Bartlett.
Runners left in scoring position—Tampa Bay 2 (Longoria, Hinske); Philadelphia 7 (Utley 2, Howard 2, Ruiz 3).
Runners moved up—Victorino.
DP—Philadelphia 3 (Rollins, Utley and Howard), (Utley and Howard), (Rollins, Utley and Howard).
Tampa Bay IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA
Kazmir 4 4 2 2 6 5 103 4.50
Balfour         11/3  2 1 1 0 0 21 3.00
Howell L, 0-2 2/3 1 1 1 0 1 7 7.71
Bradford 1 1 0 0 0 0 10 0.00
Price 1 0 0 0 1 2 20 2.70
Philadelphia IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA
Hamels 6 5 2 2 1 3 75 2.77
Madson BS,2 2/3 2 1 1 0 1 9 4.91
Romero W, 2-0    1 1/3 2 0 0 0 0 14 0.00
Lidge S, 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 16 0.00
Kazmir pitched to 2 batters in the 5th, Howell pitched to 1 batter in the 7th.
Inherited runners-scored—Balfour 2-0, Howell 1-0, Bradford 1-1, JRomero 1-0.
HBP—by Kazmir (Utley). PB—Ruiz.
Umpires—Home, Jeff Kellogg; First, Tim Tschida; Second, Tim Welke; Third, Kerwin Danley; Left, Fieldin Culbreth; Right, Tom Hallion.
T—3:28. A—45,940 (43,647).
Results
WORLD SERIES
Tampa Bay vs. Philadelphia
Wednesday, Oct. 22
Philadelphia 3, Tampa Bay 2
Thursday, Oct. 23
Tampa Bay 4, Philadelphia 2
Saturday, Oct. 25
Philadelphia 5, Tampa Bay 4
Sunday
Philadelphia 10, Tampa Bay 2
Monday
Tampa Bay 2, Philadelphia 2, 5½ innings, susp., rain
Tuesday
Tampa Bay at Philadelphia, comp. of susp. game, ppd., rain
Wednesday
Philadelphia 4, Tampa Bay 3, comp. of susp. game, Philadelphia wins series 4-1

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