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MIAMI - Everybody knows how much Jimmy Rollins loves to beat the Mets. His world champion Phillies are the team to beat but Rollins' ultimate baseball dream is to beat both New York teams in the same season.

Whip the Mets in the NL East or in the NLCS, then topple the Yankees in the World Series; New York, New York.

"That would be the sickest," Rollins told me yesterday as he sat in the third-base dugout after Team USA's practice at Dolphin Stadium. "That's something for the history books, Philadelphia knocking off two New York teams. I might retire. I mean, what else can I do after that?"

He smiled and said, "Guess I got to live up to the rest of my contract, though."

That's how J-Rolls.

Winning back-to-back World Series is the goal. The Phillies have proven to everyone that you can never count them out.

"We're going to be ready," Rollins promised. "When you play in a city like Philadephia, you better be ready. We want it now. We want to win again.

"We have an edge, we enjoy hating the other teams," he said. "We really do. We want to take you by your head, put it under the sand, and then step on your neck, for real."

That is winning passion, something the Mets lack.

"How else do you win?" Rollins wondered.

"That's how the Yankees did it as a team," said the 2007 NL MVP. "We're going to stomp on you, we're going to take your pride, everything about you, we are going to take from you. That's been our ambition the last couple of years."

The Phillies have done just that to the Mets.

"We love to despise them," Rollins said.

David Wright said he and Rollins have signed a three-week Team USA "peace treaty" for the WBC.

"As long as we got on the same uniform, we're all right," Rollins said of Wright.

"When he's got on that blue, white and orange uniform, though, you despise him."

Rollins has learned one thing about Wright during the Classic.

"He has more of a personality than I thought," he said.

Rollins not only wants to win the WBC, he wants to become a better ballplayer in the process. To do that he is picking Derek Jeter's brain as much as possible, two World Series-winning shortstops talking baseball.

"I talk to him a lot," Rollins said. "I asked about winning four titles, and he shared some of that knowledge with me."

Rollins said the road to the World Series goes through Broad Street.

"If they take the title from me, they take it from me, but they're going to have to take it," Rollins said.

Rollins said he got his will to win from his mother, Gigi.

"She always told me, 'Baby, if you want to be a big player, you've got to perform in the big games,' " Rollins said. "I don't say things just to say them. When I say them, I really mean them. Yeah, we won the World Series, but we're still trying to find respect."

No one has repeated since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000. Rollins said he understands the giant shadow of New York.

"How can you get the respect you want when you play 90 miles south of New York?" he said. "And you have two New York teams that are good. New York is the mecca, you can never get higher than that.

"We win a couple, though, and hopefully that will start to change things."

Mets and Yankees, you have been put on notice: The Phillies are the team to beat.

Venom

Mar 14 2009, 09:37 PM

Philly and Boston are so easy to hate. It's almost like anybody associated with those places instantly becomes a douche bag.