Bill Conlin: Resilient Phillies will be playing November baseball

Those are the obvious answers, along with the brilliant deal by rookie general manager Ruben Amaro that added 2008 AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee and gifted outfielder Ben Francisco for an expendable sack of prospects. Along with the emergence of J.A. Happ. Along with a quirky, brilliantly effective manager, who, while showing the patience of Job, at the same time saw most of his bullpen become patients of (Dr.) Jobe.

The real answer, however, can only come from players who have run the consuming 11-victory gantlet and emerged on the other side of the towel-waving hysteria to part the red sea on flatbeds and ride into history together.

They know to a man nothing they have ever done required more work, intensity, sacrifice and focus than what they did last October during 14 electric games.

To a man they will tell you they had no idea how hard it was, or how rewarding the fruition of it would be until they experienced it. There is no on-the-job-training for winning a World Series.

Spring training lasts 6 weeks because that is how long it takes to tune and set up a pitching staff. For many ballclubs, Opening Day comes too soon for arms calibrated by pitch counts.

Charlie Manuel and his coaches have been forced to compress 6 weeks' worth of spring-training decisions into about 6 days of jury-rigging to cobble together the postseason staff. The only guarantee? There are 12 pitchers . . .

Final answer? The shortest one.

This Phillies team will be waiting for the American League pennant winner because it has been there, done that, and has the skill and will to be there and do that again.

Send e-mail to bill1chair@aol.com.

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