PHILADELPHIA | This town&#8217;s different. Everybody knows that. Chicago Cubs fans moan about curses, and Boston Red Sox fans for all those years sermonized about the cruelty of fate. Cleveland fans expect the worst, and San Diego fans go to the beach.</p><p>But Philadelphia fans, those beautiful Philadelphia fans, from Rittenhouse Square to Independence Hall, from the Italian Market to Chinatown, have always lashed out against the heartbreak. For 25 long years, all four Philadelphia teams fell short. For 28 years, the Philadelphia Phillies lost in the end. Well, sure they did. They were Philadelphia teams. And, as just about anyone in this town can tell you, life ain&#8217;t (bleepin&#8217;) fair.</p><p>&#8220;Boo!&#8221; the Philadelphia fans shouted at Santa Claus, maybe. Though many people in town say that story has been exaggerated over the years.</p><p>&#8220;Boo!&#8221; they definitely shouted at GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as she dropped a hockey puck at a Philadelphia Flyers game.</p><p>&#8220;Boo!&#8221; they shouted at Michael Jack Schmidt, probably the best baseball player who ever played in this town, and Donovan McNabb, the quarterback who took them to the Super Bowl, and Charlie Manuel, who managed this team to the World Series, and more or less every other hero who ever came through.</p><p>So what was going through their Philadelphia minds Wednesday night, ninth inning, at the end of the longest World Series game ever? The Phillies led World Series game five by a run. Brad Lidge was pitching &#8212; he had not blown a save all year &#8212; and he faced Tampa Bay&#8217;s Eric Hinske. All Lidge needed was one more strike, just one, and that would give Philadelphia its first sports championship in a quarter century. It was so close. The fans stood, and they waved their towels, and they screamed.</p><p>&#8220;Home run to right,&#8221; predicted one longtime Philadelphia fan sitting nearby. You knew he was a real Philadelphia fan too because he didn&#8217;t just call the home run &#8212; he called the direction it would be hit.</p><p>Lidge got ready to pitch. The official time of the game would be three hours, 28 minutes, but, in fact, the game lasted 49 hours and 28 minutes. This game began Monday night, of course, and then the rain came and muddied up the field. When baseball commissioner Bud Selig finally called it with the teams tied 2-2, it became the first suspended game in World Series history. The weather stayed lousy Tuesday, too, so they still couldn&#8217;t play. The long delay gave Philadelphia fans all sorts of time to imagine just how their team and chance would punish them this time.</p><p>Funny thing is: the Phillies haven&#8217;t often even been good enough to tempt fate. They lost their 10,000th game last year, the first team in any sport to do that. In the 1930s, the Phillies were managed by a dentist named Doc Prothro. He lost 100 games all three seasons he managed, which has to be a record of some kind. His ace was a pitcher named Hugh Mulcahy, whose nickname, no kidding, was &#8220;Losing Pitcher.&#8221; That&#8217;s what they called him. They figured he was the losing pitcher so often that it just saved time and effort to make that his name.</p><p>In 1959, a young pitcher from Prosperity, S.C., named John Buzhardt threw a one-hitter against the Phillies. He pitched so well, the Phillies just had to have him &#8212; they traded one of the city&#8217;s great heroes, Richie Ashburn, to get him. Buzhardt promptly went 5-16 and 6-18 the next two seasons.</p><p>In 1961, the Phillies lost 23 games in a row. In 1964, famously, the Phillies collapsed down the stretch, blew a 6 1/2 -game lead with 12 games to go. In 1977, on what they still call Black Friday around here, they blew a two-run lead with two outs in the ninth in the playoffs against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Sixteen years later, a pitcher they called Wild Thing, Mitch Williams, gave up a home run to Joe Carter in the bottom of the ninth that lost the World Series.