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He credits the current Phillies — the likes of Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard — for changing the local attitude.

“They don’t think they are going to lose,” Queenan said. “The Phillies are a cocky team. The Phillies have surprised that city, and the city has surprised that team. Those guys were absolutely stunned at the reaction at that parade that year. I don’t think any of those guys had any idea how big, how resonant that victory would be. I don’t think that they thought the entire Delaware Valley would show up at that parade.”

While you’ll see many more Yankees hats than Phillies hats if you go overseas, Queenan gives the edge in local passion to Philadelphia. He argues that Philadelphia fans have more in common with fans in cities like Boston and Chicago. “Boston is a very small city physically and you feel you are in Red Sox country,” Queenan said. “When you get to Philadelphia, you see pictures of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard and McNabb, and you used to see (Allen) Iverson. You don’t see anything like that in New York. You don’t feel that a whole city is involved with a team.”

The perception that Philadelphia fans sometimes eat their own? Queenan attributes that to being knowledgeable enough to have high standards, the same as in New York, Boston, St. Louis, Chicago and other major sports markets. The accusation that Philadelphia fans are nastier than others. “Go to Yankee Stadium: That’s a nasty, nasty group of people.”

Queenan doesn’t necessarily hate the Yankees. As a Phillies fan, he has more antipathy toward the Mets, and he watches many more National League games.

“I don’t think most Americans hate the Yankees, they hate Yankees fans,” Queenan said. “It’s hard to hate (Derek) Jeter, it’s hard to hate (Mark) Teixeira, it’s hard to hate (C.C.) Sabathia. A lot of people hate the fact that 50 percent of the New York Yankee fan base couldn’t tell you who is playing right field today. All of those people from Ireland and Thailand, wearing pink Yankee caps. Come on, come on. Who would want to have those people in your fan base?”

Since he lives in New York, Queenan does often eat breakfast with Yankee fans.

“If they play in the Series,” Queenan said before the Yankees clinched, “I will stop having breakfast with them. None of them have ever sat at a table where they were the only Yankee fan.”

Queenan certainly won’t be breaking bread this week with anyone like Lustberg, who at heart is a Mets fan, though he’s not as hard core as some. Lustberg is actually rooting for the Yankees, which is a line that many New Yorkers won’t cross. And he even bought a Red Sox hat during a family trip to Boston, just “because it made my trip, and my family’s trip, a lot nicer.”

That’s a hat he wouldn’t want to wear into Yankee Stadium, or even Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park this week. After all, we’ve already seen that it’s not even safe to wear a Santa Claus or Easter Bunny costume.

Who has the better team, the Yankees or Phillies?

And who has the crazier fans? That could be equally as competitive.

“Intercity rivalries have happened since the Revolutionary War,” Lustberg said. “It’s a competitive society. ‘My place is better than your place.’ I think it’s going to be fun.”

Unless you’re the athlete, coach or bunny they’re screaming at.

Ethan J. Skolnick is a sports columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

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