Dec. 26 -- NO. 5: PHILS RALLY TO BEAT METS (AGAIN)

BY SCOTT LAUBER

Let me begin by saying this is an impossible exercise.

Picking the top five moments from the 2008 Phillies season is like selecting the five best Springsteen songs, or the five greatest movies of all-time. There simply are too many to choose from, and everyone has different tastes. Do you prefer the somber ballads or the up-tempo rock songs, the radio hits or the less-popular tracks, the romantic comedies or the edge-of-your-seat thrillers, the championship clinchers or the middle-of-the-season turning points.

But because the Phillies gave us so much to remember from 2008, I figured we'd take the next five days, in the sleepy week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, to look back at some of those moments. I'm sure you have five, or 10, or 15, or a million, of your own, so if your mind wanders over the next few days, shoot us some comments with your favorite 2008 Phillies memories. Meanwhile, here's the first of five -- we'll call them "memorable" -- moments that stick in my brain whenever I reflect on the season.

No. 5: Aug. 27, Citizens Bank Park
It took 5 hours and 17 minutes, and by the time it was over, after 1 a.m., most of the season's 44th sellout crowd at the Bank had gone home. But it was a result that everyone had seen before. The Mets blew another big lead, and the Phillies notched another improbable comeback.

OK, so it wasn't as dramatic -- or as meaningful in its singularity -- as the previous September when the Mets held a 7-game lead in the NL East with 17 games remaining and wound up coughing up the division to the surging Phillies.

But it certainly seemed symbolic.

This time, the Mets led 7-0 with five innings remaining. They chased Jamie Moyer after three innings, his shortest start of the season. Yet, impossibly, the Phillies had the Mets exactly where they wanted them. The comeback started with, of all things, a fifth-inning leadoff double by reliever Clay Condrey, a broken-bat scorcher that appeared only to provide comic relief for the Phillies. Then, Jimmy Rollins, booed mercilessly when the homestand began because of his infamous "frontrunners" comment about Phillies fans the previous week, cracked a two-run home run. And when Ryan Howard swatted a first-pitch fastball from Pedro Martinez into the left-field seats, it got serious.

Martinez, the Mets' handle-with-care starter, had topped 100 pitches. A 7-0 lead had been whittled to 7-5. There was only one out in the fifth inning, and if the Mets were going to extend their division lead, their Billy Wagner-less bullpen would have to hold off the comeback-prone Phillies' offense.

No chance.

Down to their final out -- and their last pinch-hitter -- the Phils tied the game in the ninth on Eric Bruntlett's RBI double against fill-in closer Luis Ayala. Then, in the 13th, after numerous missed opportunities, they finally won -- and nudged into first place, a half-game ahead of the Mets -- when Shane Victorino roped a leadoff triple and trotted home on a bases-loaded single by Chris Coste, who went 4-for-4 despite starting the game on the bench and entering in the eighth inning.

"A lot of things happened in that game," Charlie Manuel said. Everything except a fight."

But, for the reporters who stuck around long after their newspaper deadlines, Rollins offered fightin' words.

"The other team gives you some inspiration, let's put it that way," he said, rather cryptically, of the Mets. "You're able to take that and keep yourself motivated."

Care to elaborate, Jimmy?

"No, just watch 'em," he said. "If you were a player and you're looking over in that other dugout, you'll feel a certain type of way. Rewind the game. Just watch the game."

Fair enough. And although the Mets won the following night to move back into first place, history did repeat itself, in a sense, in September. The Mets led the Phils by 3-1/2 games on Sept. 10, but the Phillies went 13-3 down the stretch and won the division. The Mets? They went 7-10 and missed the playoffs. Again.

No wonder Cole Hamels calls them "choke artists."