Bradley: Philly fanatics are a factor

PHILADELPHIA -- Sports fans in Philadelphia are known to be rude, crude and not very polite. They are also known to be loud. In Game 1 of the NLCS at Citizen's Bank Park, they were so loud, Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe admitted they got to him. No, the raucous Phillies fans didn't cause Lowe to melt down the way fellow Dodger right-hander Burt Hooton melted down at Veteran's Stadium some 31 years ago, when Hooton literally couldn't throw a strike and had to be pulled in the second inning of Game 3 of the NLCS. It was more a case of the Phillies fans firing Lowe up and getting him away from the game plan that he had worked to perfection through five innings. 's ground ball, the ballpark started to rock. "Any time I'm pitching in front of a crowd like that and they start to get into it, I need to be careful," Lowe admitted... [read full story]