If a Phillies fan knows one thing, it's that the "phever" is restricted to very few outbreaks, with many a year in between. It's a disease that has been in danger of eradication for, oh, about 125 years.
On Broad Street in Center City on Wednesday night, however, the symptoms were flaring: car horns trumpeting, white and red towels dangling from windows, crazed fans pouring from bars and apartments into the streets. Cole Hamels had just pitched Philadelphia over the bungling Los Angeles Dodgers into its first World Series in a decade and a half.
In true Philly fashion - … la Brett Myers - many fans had a Bud Light in tow in one hand, champagne in the other, as they drowned the sidewalks with 15 years worth of bottled-up euphoria. Policemen did little but stand and watch, disregarding the occasional Philadelphian climbing into an open car window or smashing a bottle in ecstasy.
"People were high-fiving each other out of moving cars," said College senior Kristina Harper, a New Yorker who spent her night among the festivities on Broad. "There was so much love going around."
Yet crossing the Schuylkill, the noise was held back; fireworks weren't going off over Franklin Field, and the occasional honking horn was silenced by the eerie feeling that not many West Philadelphians had been roused from their usual Wednesday night routine.
Where are the fans running amok at Penn? Recklessness, anyone?
Many students insist that, even though the University is filled to the brim with students from across the country and the world, you just had to look in the right places.
"Watching a game at the Blarney Stone is definitely a place to catch Philly 'phever,'" said Jeremy Jarrett, a College senior hailing from the Chicago suburbs. "It's pretty cool."
In fact, the Blarney Stone wasn't the only place on the 3900 block of Sansom Street teeming with celebration. At Cavanaugh's Restaurant and Sports Bar on the corner, girls in Chase Utley jerseys were scaling the bars in jubilation as Cav's weekly "College Night" became an impromptu Phillies affair.
Native Philadelphian and Wharton junior Matt Stengel claims that he's seen it on Locust Walk, too.
"I would say the campus is alive with Phillies 'phever,' from every vaguely interested roommate of a Philadelphian to every Allied Barton security guard," Stengel said. "I think we all feel like, more than ever, this is our year."
Jarrett, a member of DKE fraternity, has seen the outbreak in his own house.
"I'd say we're about 80 percent Phillies fans, so it's pretty cool to get everyone in the living room going nuts in front of the big screen," he said.
Despite his Illinois origins, Jarrett said it isn't difficult to root for Philadelphia's baseball team, and the benevolence extended his way makes it all the better.
"Being from Chicago and being a Rockies fan, I would expect to get some grief about rooting for the Phillies," he said. "But most people don't seem to care and are just happy to have another person rooting for the Phillies."
There may be no beer spraying or police barricades, but there are small signs throughout Penn's nooks and crannies - the proliferation of cardinal red T-shirts, the Phillies towels hanging from off-campus windows and, of course, an air of possible delusion and wonderful hope.
Stengel surmised, with a tinge of Casey in his words: "We say it every time, but we got this one."
