With warm autumn air buffeting the city, fans began pouring into the streets even before Shane Victorino squeezed the last out in center field at 11:47 p.m.
At Frankford and Cottman avenues - increasingly the northern satellite headquarters of Philadelphia phandom - there were already a couple of hundred boisterous folks outdoors some 45 minutes earlier, with the game still in the bottom of the 7th.
At Reale's Bar and Grill on Frankford, a cluster of people watched the game through the front window because there was no room inside.
Mary Ann Moshons, 54, of the Northeast, was one of them. "It's been a great night. . . . It doesn't get any better."
Visor-wearing police in riot gear huddled on a corner and placed barricades at the intersection and another nearby, but the crowd was peaceful as the game dragged on toward midnight.
Brian D'Angelo, 24, wandered over shirtless, his torso painted red but for a white Phillies "P." "We were down here last year at this time and saw the craziness then - and my friends and I decided to come down and be a part of it tonight."
Shortly after midnight, police reported a handful of arrests. One overenthusiastic reveler toppled a traffic light at Broad and Maste streets.
At 12:45 a.m. today, police reported that revelers were jumping on cars and breaking car windows at Broad and Wharton streets in South Philly.
About 1 a.m. at Broad and Walnut streets, as many as 1,000 mostly young revelers surged into the street, many of them body-surfing, as about 25 uniformed cops watched.
The heaviest police presence was along South Broad, the scene of the most upheaval last October, when the Phillies won the 2008 World Series. Even before the last four, clusters of cops in riot gear stood at the major intersections and along the center median of the thoroughfare.
The largest group of officers was in front of Robinson Luggage, which was looted during last year's rowdy celebration.
