I WAS STANDING IN A BAR on the 200 block of Market Street Friday night basking in the glow of a victory about to happen. After Ryan Howard's homer put the Phillies up 6-0 in the bottom of the seventh I exchanged high fives with kids less than half my age and I saw the joy in their eyes. They had never lived through this before. For them, the 1993 Phillies World Series is a distant childhood memory. The 1980 championship team is pre history. Standing in a bar cheering your team to a pennant, well sir, this was the first time for all of them.

Then Phillies reality shivered their timers. With two outs and the bases loaded Charlie Manuel decided to allow Cole Hamels to bat. You could feel the scrotums tightening throughout the room. If a six run lead isn't enough to hand the bullpen in the eighth inning, what is? If the Phillies were so concerned about Hamels injured arm, why would he be allowed to pitch more innings than he's pitched since he returned to the starting rotation? What was Charlie Manuel thinking!

The young men around me watching the TV began to disperse nervously, sensing the disaster every Phillies fan has grown dread iafter seemingly innocuous decisions -- allowing Greg Luzinski to field in the 9th inning in the 1977 Phillies-Dodgers playoff game three leaps to mind. These kids have not known the thrill of victory. They are the walking wounded just like every Phillies fan.

Hamel, of course, struck out to end the inning. In the top of the eighth Hamel gave up a flukey double. And the Cowardly Lion in the heart of ever Phillies fan began chanting, "I do believe. I do believe. I do, I do, I do believe." And then. . .VIOLA! No disaster. Handsome Hamels punched out the last Washington National batter. The bullpen pitched a worry-free ninth inning and the Phightin's were in sole possession of first place. Sing Hallelujah, come on, get happy.

Could this be the year? Have we suffered enough? Have we earned parole from purgatory?

I write this minutes before I head down to the ballpark for a nationally televised game that may mean everything, as has ever game these last two weeks. I'm not nervous. I feel strangely calm. I feel loose, like the Phillies. At long last I see the glass half full, plus one.