RETURN WITH ME NOW, my children, to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the Phillies visited the post season almost as dependably as the Eagles have these past few seasons. Between 1976 and 1983 baseball playoffs fell upon Philadephia like pennies from heaven and Phillies fans ran around with buckets on their heads storing up the coins for the long winters ahead.

We won it all in 1980 -- which was the year I realized that I could die a happy man. Providence had granted me something I was beginning to doubt I would ever live to see. A Phillies world championship. It was a gorilla on the back of every Philadelphia sports fan. And in a single pitch by Tug McGraw that gorilla became an organ grinder's monkey in a funny little hat. The wait, the weight, was gone. Like magic.

Magic. What else would you call this season? It started like Valley Forge, a shivering 4-11 April. And we who have suffered through so many Bataan Death March seasons nodded at each other. There was no need for words. Sucks, sucks. We have worn a groove in that road. We recognized it for the rut it was.

And yet in the heart of every Phillies fan there lives that Tinkerbell of hope that is every bit as powerful as that dead gorilla ever was. Phillies fans have more reason to be lifelong cynics than fans of any other major league baseball team. And yet we resist the obvious heart-preserving answer. To stop caring. We can't do it. It is not in our nature.

I was a kid in 1964. It may seem like ancient history but ask your father or mother. From seven to 70 there wasn't an unbroken heart in Philadelphia. The Phillies led the league almost from opening day and in September they collapsed like the Mets just did.

We who lived through it will never forget it. Just the way we will never forget what Tug McGraw said at the victory parade ceremony at JFK Stadium in October 1980. "New York can take this championship and -- STICK IT!" The Phillies defeated the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 World Series, incidentally. But Tug spoke for Philadelphia. Can you imagine a Phillies-Yankees World Series? Call it payback.