Mike Celizic

Okay, Philadelphia, celebrate like you’ve never celebrated before. Skip school and work and dental appointments and court dates to go to the parade. You’ve waited long enough. You’ve earned this.

Just don’t go and get all soft now that you’ve finally had a reason to pop the champagne for the first time in 25 years. Come Sunday, I want to see you in front of your TVs at home and down in the sports bars booing the Eagles the first time they go three-and-out in Seattle.

I’m confident you won’t let us down. You aren’t like Cubs fans who would take the rest of the century off if the Cubs ever won the World Series. And you aren’t like Red Sox fans who won twice in four years and now act like their teams are the greatest in the world, even when they’re not. And you’re not like Yankees fans who swagger through life as if they invented oxygen.

You’re Philly fans, and you’re not thinking, “At last!” but “It’s about freaking time!” And you’re not going to rest on your laurels, staring all smiley-faced at the world for the next 10 years just because the Phillies finally broke a 100-season losing streak (four teams, 25 seasons). That’s how long it’s been collectively for all four of your professional teams since the city’s last title.

Forget about waiting for Sunday to start getting on the Eagles. Thursday night when the Flyers host the Islanders, I expect you to give the home team an earful if they come out skating in slush. And if the Sixers start to throw the ball away Friday against the Knicks, I know you’re let them know about it.

I’ve had a lot of fun over the years ragging on you guys, and I’m not the only one. But you’ve got to be special to deserve special attention, even if it’s negative. You’ve got to know that behind all the one-liners and the sarcasm, there’s a whole lot of admiration for your passion and uncompromising attitude.

Screw settling for “nice try.” It’s a tough world out there, and nice tries don’t cut it. You want championships.

You’re not like those Yankee fans who expect to win every year. You know through bitter experience just how hard it is. But that doesn’t mean you stop demanding that your teams play up to the expectations you have for them. You want gut-busting effort all the time. You want blue-collar, dirt-in-the-jockstrap, gut-busting effort. And you don’t want to see your teams backing down to anybody.

INTERACTIVE Phillies Moments of '08 NBCSports.com takes a look back at some of the plays that helped make the season a World Series winner for Philadelphia.

You know what it looks like. You saw it for two straight seasons in 1974 and 1975 when the Flyers, a.k.a. the Broad Street Bullies, cut a bloody swatch through the NHL behind the leadership of coach Fred “The Fog” Shero and team captain Bobby “Anybody See My Teeth?” Clarke. Those guys took no prisoners and asked no quarter. Hockey wasn’t pretty the way they played it, but it sure was fun to watch, especially with a Schmidt’s in one hand and a cheese steak in the other.

The next team to win were the 1980 Phillies, who had their share of players who could get dirty taking a shower. Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Greg Luzinski, Pete Rose were some tough ballplayers. We like to write about how you Philly fans even booed Schmidt during his career, and he was only one of the greatest third basemen of all team — maybe the greatest. What we don’t add is that team had the talent to win several World Series and it won just one. If they got booed, they deserved it.

The Sixers of Dr. J and Moses Malone won the NBA title in 1983. And that’s when the good times ended. It’s not been for lack of opportunity. The Eagles have been to a Super Bowl, the Flyers to the Stanley Cup finals and the Sixers to the NBA Finals since, but not one of those teams have been able to break through.

So you could see the potential there, and the fact that it was never realized drove you to distraction. When you saw teams you thought could do better, you booed.

That’s what I really admire about you Philly fans. You boo the good teams more than the lousy ones, which is how it should be. Bad teams have an excuse for falling short. Good teams don’t.

I’m happy for you guys, because I know how happy you must be. And I also know you won’t let it go to your heads. Come next April, you’ll welcome the Phillies to a new season with a deep-throated roar. That will be in gratitude for 2008, when they played as well as you knew they could.

But once the first pitch is thrown, all bets are off. You love Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge and Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. But if they lose eight straight and stink the joint out, you’ll be on them like drool on a St. Bernard.

We’ll rag on you. But we’ll also love you for it, too. Just don’t expect us to say so. If we went around telling you we really like you, you might get soft, and we don’t want that to happen.

Do we?

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