All Citizen Bank Park fans want is for Phils to win

The rain falls steadily and yet the fans keep waiting. Patient people, these.

It is a scene from last night's inclement prologue to a vital September game, but it is also something of a parable for the team itself.

Through storm after storm, through all these seasons, through all these delays, they have waited. Good teams and bad ones have passed before their eyes. The current edition is one of the better ones, and maybe this is the year the tarp finally comes off.

They are ready.

In the last month, one that has contained some amazingly good and amazingly bad turns of fortune for the Phillies, the local talk has occasionally become less about the baseball and more about the endless hand-wringing over whether the fans still care a whit about the team.

The front office has become like a sixth grader passing notes in homeroom, desperately trying to determine if the object of one's affection likes him, like likes him or, unfortunately, hates him wicked.

This is an understandable obsession for the organization, which is trying to fill the seats at Citizen Bank Park. Why the players - supposed professionals - should care so much is another matter. Like all self-respecting athletes, they would sell out Philadelphia in a hot second for a few more dollars or even a better spot in the team parking lot.

The front office isn't going anywhere, however, and wants to figure out why there is a steady stream of antipathy directed toward the Phils. This is like the fellow standing in a room full of elephants, wondering where all the poop is coming from, but at least the organization seems to finally realize that there is a problem.

In its exhaustive attempt to locate the reason for the disaffection, the team has done several things. It has hired recently retired sports anchor Scott Palmer as a media consultant, and it has polled fans about their feelings. Some of those who showed up to buy advance-sale playoff tickets this week were interviewed, which is akin to asking people eating hamburgers to explain vegetarians.

Nevertheless, it is a start.

Newcomers to the scene - or those seeking a handy explanation - like to say that the Phillies are treated like a difficult stepchild because "this is a football town."

Those with longer memories know that not only is Philadelphia a baseball town, but it is a great one. The fan support through the team's rise to contention during the mid-1970s and straight through the lockout of 1981 was amazing.

It was never the kind of sycophantic support you find in other cities - that is true. But it was passionate support and intelligent support. If a batter moved the runner over - or didn't - those fans knew exactly what they were seeing.

The support might have become less unswerving in the fallow decades since the 1983 World Series run, but it has remained consistent. Even in the worst of times, like 2000, when the Phils had a losing record for the seventh straight season and their worst winning percentage in 28 years, the club still drew 1.6 million to stinking Veterans Stadium.

These are people who don't need a sulfurous outsider like Kenny Lofton to lecture them about how and how not to watch baseball. These poor people have watched Mark Leiter and Rafael Quirico and Kevin Elster. They have an emotional equity that gives them the right to watch the games any damn way they please.

If Philadelphia is now a football town - and there is certainly some evidence in that direction - the Phillies have made it so. The Eagles didn't steal the city. The Phils gave it away.

The slide of affection grew steeper during the Larry Bowa era, when it became obvious that not only were these players frustrating to the fans, they were driving the manager crazy, too.

Making the transition from the Vet to the new park was good for business, of course. The team went back over 2 million in attendance - for the first time in eight seasons - for the farewell to the old place and set a club record by drawing 3.2 million last year.

The fans love Citizens Bank Park, and well they should. But that doesn't mean that they will get all huggy about a team that makes promises every season and breaks them with the same regularity.

Here's a prediction: If the Phillies win the current wild-card race, they will be shocked by the depth and sincerity of the support they receive. Not until, however. Not until.

The locals are wary and gimlet-eyed when it comes to these desperate chases toward the side door of the playoffs. A reasonable person could not blame them, although closer Billy Wagner has no problem doing so.

"All they do is boo us," Wagner said. "They can't wait for us to do something so they can boo."

He couldn't be more wrong. They are waiting to cheer. They have been waiting through interminable delays. Standing in the rain, just waiting, all these seasons.

They are waiting for the Phillies to win something and, just once, the team should try it and see what happens.

What are people saying about mortgages today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down last week to a seven-month low. Mortgage-giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.3 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent two weeks ago. It put rates at the lowest level since they were at 6.24 percent the first week of March.

Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Territorial Savings Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgages all cut their 30-year mortgage rates to 5.75 percent this week.

Most people think of a mortgage as a means to an end. After all, you buy a house, not a home loan. But a mortgage is much more than the path to homeownership. It is a financial instrument that must be managed, just like any other financial investment.