MLB: Alex Rodriguez belted the first video-reviewed home run in World Series history to support another winning Andy Pettitte effort as the Yankees defeated the Phillies, 8-5, in Game 3 of the Fall Classic on Saturday at Citizens Bank Park. Nick Swisher and Hideki Matsui also homered for the Bombers, who overcame Jayson Werth’s two-homer evening as Pettitte won his Major League-leading 17th postseason game, guiding the Yankees into the drivers’ seat with a 2-1 World Series lead. MORE
BUZZ BISSINGER: The list of offenses that Philadelphia sports fans have committed over the years is endless, some funny, some just petulant, some shocking. The loyalists can literally drive people out of town, as was the case 
with Phillies’ manager Eddie Sawyer in 1960. The team had finished last the year before, and Sawyer quit one game into the season on the grounds that “I’m forty-nine years old, and I’d like to live to be fifty.” No city reacted worse to the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson in his debut season of 1947 than Philadelphia. According to historian William Kashatus, pitchers aimed for his head. Runners went out of their way to spike him. And, in one instance, players stood at the top of the dugout aiming their bats at him while making the sounds of gunshots. Even before Robinson came, the Phillies’ front office phoned Dodgers’ general manager Branch Rickey and warned him “not to bring that nigger here.” The Phillies were the last team in the National League to integrate, in 1957, and had segregated spring-training facilities through 1961. […]
Fans threw batteries at J.D. Drew from the outfield bleachers because of his refusal to sign with the Phillies after they drafted him in the first round out of college. They traveled to New York for the pro draft just so they could boo quarterback Donovan McNabb when the Philadelphia Eagles made him the second pick. They cheered when Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin lay motionless on the field with a neck injury, and some even continued to cheer when paramedics brought a stretcher onto the field. During the home opener this season, when the 2008 World Series flag was hoisted, a fight between two fans took place about 100 yards away. In July, three men right outside Citizens Bank Park beat to death a 22-year-old man. According to police, the fight started over a spilled beer, and the victim, David Sale, was punched and kicked so badly that his face was unrecognizable. MORE
RELATED: Jackie Robinson’s entrance into the Major Leagues wasn’t easy, and no team was harder on him than the Phillies. After publicly taunting Robinson, Phillies manager Ben Chapman was forced by Commissioner Happy Chandler to take this photograph to create the image that black ballplayers would be welcome in Philadelphia. MORE