After a rainy day, Phils fans take in the late show

What rain?

Philly waits 15 years to host a World Series game, and now this - water and waiting around for 91 minutes? Ya gotta try harder than that to settle down a Phillies crowd.

"It calmed no one down," said Kevin McDonald, 24, of South Jersey, who knows a thing or two about raucousness. He's a parole officer.

Last night, he stood along an outfield rail and paid the shouting midgame masses the ultimate testament: He compared them to an Eagles crowd.

"And I'm going to that game," McDonald said as the night grew long. "I might not even leave here."

Well, perhaps the crowd did bring an Eagles-game intensity. Certainly the full-throated taunting was there, from the first-inning chants of "Eva" at the Rays' Evan Longoria on through the game.

But so was an optimistic, wide-eyed enthusiasm from a sold-out audience hoping to witness a giant step toward Philly history. The fans welcomed Jamie Moyer's first pitch with a galaxy of flashbulbs, and roared at Carlos Ruiz's go-ahead, second-inning home run.

The lifelong Phils fan who caught the homer, Brian Dulaney, 37, of Chadds Ford, said he has seen a Philadelphia crowd like this just once in his life - at his only other World Series game. That was the wild 15-14 loss at the Vet in 1993, a game that, like last night's, was rain-delayed.

This time, he said, feels different - and not just because Ruiz gave him an invaluable souvenir.

"This is very positive," Dulaney said of his two-handed catch, the night, the crowd and his team.

A few seats over from Dulaney sat Joshua Garcia, 6, with his grandfather, Bernardo Martinez. Police gave them free tickets to the game after Garcia endured a horrific tragedy at home. While he watched television, his father killed his mother, then committed suicide. Garcia was the first to discover what happened.

And even he found happiness last night.

As the rain fell around his left-field seats and workers fiddled with the infield tarp, the boy was clambering over empty seats, making friends with nearby children and grinning while he tried on a green Phanatic cap.

You bet he was excited. He was at his second baseball game ever, and what was a little weather?

"It doesn't bother me," he said. He stuck his hands into his pockets and smirked. "I don't even feel it, see?"

If Phillies fandom is often regarded as a contest of endurance - and veteran fans will see your 1993 experience and raise you 1964 and 1950 - then young Garcia surely could top everyone in the packed house last night. And he came up with a smile that also beat all comers, not that there was a dearth.

Marco Orozco, 23, even mustered one in the blustering rainstorm while waiting to enter the stadium. What was a little rain to him, either? He came up from Mexico just for yesterday's game, and planned to leave today.

He stood outside in a poncho and explained his voyage. His cousin offered tickets, and he hated the Tampa Bay team, owing to a perceived slight of Orozco's friend Jorge Cantu, an ex-Ray.

So he came more than 1,500 miles to boo. Yup, he was in the right city.

So what if it rained when he got here?

"It doesn't matter," Orozco said as the wind whipped around him. "We can handle everything to watch the game."

After 15 years of waiting, a full house of Philly fans concurred.