TO A KID baseball fan growing up in Brooklyn with the biggest, baddest war of them all raging, the 1940s were a decade of slogans.
We were exhorted to "Remember Pearl Harbor,'' to "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.'' We watched what we said because "Loose Lips Sink Ships.'' In every public place a fierce old man dressed in red, white and blue with a goatee and stovepipe hat pointed directly at us all from a poster that proclaimed: "Uncle Sam Wants You!''
We were ordered to "Buy War Bonds'' and to save or conserve a variety of common household items, including tin cans, tin foil (aluminum foil was not yet invented), paper bags, anything else that could be made into war material. Oh, and to turn in our copper pennies.
But one slogan trumped all in the Dodgers-crazy borough of Brooklyn. And it was still going strong well into the 1950s. In fact, starting in September of 1941, when the Dodgers lost the first of six World Series to the hated Yankees, the slogan became an anthem and, finally, a plaintive entreaty:
"Wait 'Til Next Year!''
The Dodgers were a solid, well-funded and savvy franchise by 1941, of course. They were no longer the not-so-beloved Bums who dueled the Phillies for the National League cellar so many years. In the 16 seasons before their breakthrough World Series victory in 1955 - thank you, Johnny Podres - and their shattering 1958 move to Los Angeles, the Dodgers had just one losing year. But as they extended that string of World Series futility, each spring engendered emotions and anticipation that approached religious fervor. When Podres shut out the Yankees, 2-0, in Game 7, grown men knelt in the streets and wept, thousands poured from their mean tenement apartments in impromptu celebration. In some neighborhoods, it topped V-E and V-J Days.
Like the best dining and sex, anticipation in baseball might be the best part of the event because the buildup lasts so much longer than the main course.
So, what is it Phillies fans are feeling on another Opening Day? Is it a sense of, "Win Phillies Win,'' the 1964 Daily News slogan? Or is it another season of "When Phillies When?''
The time was never riper. The Sixers and Flyers seasons have left the taste you get after a night of washing down Limburger cheese and day-old lox with stale beer. In Eagles Land, the names Andy, Jeff and Donovan generate more frowns than smiles.
