WORLD SERIES : Toronto Blue Jays vs. Philadelphia Phillies : Carter Sends Everyone Home : Blue Jays Repeat Crown on Homer in Ninth, 8-6

TORONTO —  This once was considered the Godforsaken place in baseball. Nobody wanted to play here, least of all, Joe Carter, who openly wept the day he was traded to Toronto.

While there still are endless lines at customs, and the taxes can make you dizzy, Carter has turned the Toronto Blue Jays into baseball nirvana.

Carter, producing one of the most dramatic moments in World Series history, hit a three-run homer with one out in the ninth inning, providing the Blue Jays with an 8-6 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies for their second consecutive championship.

The Blue Jays, who blew a four-run seventh-inning lead, won the Series, four games to two, and become the first team since the 1977-1978 New York Yankees to win consecutive championships.

Carter’s homer sent 52,195 fans at SkyDome screaming in ecstasy, brought a Phillie clubhouse to tears and left the Blue Jay players wondering if it’s possible to keep making this an annual affair.

“There was a time when I actually had Toronto as one of the no-trade teams in my contract,” Carter said, “now I can’t think of a better place in the world to play. This is absolute paradise.”

While one swing of the bat made Carter a national folk hero in Canada, it left Phillie reliever Mitch Williams fearing for his life.

Williams, who was openly sobbing in his locker after the game, will be forever remembered in Philadelphia as the man who cost the Phillies the World Series championship.

He also will be remembered as the man whose life was threatened before he took the mound, with the Phillies confirming that there were three death threats to their office on Friday.

Still, Williams refused to let it deter him. He wanted to be out there. He wanted the ball. In the ninth inning.

“In the ninth inning, to be honest,” Blue Jay leadoff hitter Rickey Henderson said, “we were hoping Mitch would come in.”

Williams opened the ninth in his typical fashion, walking Henderson on four pitches. No problem, he would later say. He has been in these predicaments plenty of times before and remained perfectly calm.

Devon White flied to left field for the first out, but Paul Molitor--voted the most valuable player of the Series--followed with a single to center.

That brought up Carter. He remained patient at the plate, watching the first three pitches, before swinging and missing badly on an outside slider, for a 2-and-2 count.

Williams, knowing that Carter is an inside fastball hitter, wanted to throw a fastball on the outside part of the plate. But, of course, that’s why they call him Wild Thing. There are times when he has no idea where the ball is going.

His next pitch was a fastball on the inside part of the plate, Carter swung and danced down the first-base line watching the flight of the ball. Left fielder Pete Incaviglia drifted back until he had no more room and stopped.

The ball carried about four feet over the left-field fence, and Carter jumped about four feet in the air. He jumped up once, twice, three times before he even reached first base. He threw his hands wildly in the air going to second. He could barely control his body going to third. And he had to fight his way through a crowd of ecstatic teammates before reaching home.

“I can’t even describe the feeling,” Carter said. “I don’t think they’ve made that word up yet. I still can’t believe it happened.

“But with Mitch out there, you knew something good would happen, and baby, it did.”

While Carter was being carried off the field, joining Bill Mazeroski as the only players to end a World Series on a homer, Williams was devastated. He sat on a stool, crying in front of his locker while teammates Larry Andersen, Danny Jackson and Tommy Greene tried to console him.

“It’s my fault, all my fault,” Williams said. “I let my team down today, I let them down all Series. I’ve got no excuses at all, I made the mistake, and he hit the mistake.

“But I’m not going to go home and commit suicide tonight. I’m not going to go home and hang my head all winter long. We had too good of a season for that.”

Said Phillie second baseman Mickey Morandini: “It was a horrible way to lose the game, but you can’t blame Mitch. You can’t blame anybody. We got here as a team, and we’re going out that way.”

It was the way the Phillies lost, however, that made it so traumatic. They had just done what the Blue Jays did to them in Game 4. The Phillies had turned a 5-1 deficit in the seventh inning into a 6-5 lead.

It was an unbelievable turnaround. They had not only trashed the mystique of Blue Jay starter Dave Stewart, who yielded only two hits and one run in the first six innings, but left the Blue Jays completely demoralized.

Lenny Dykstra, the reincarnation of Mr. October himself, hit a three-run homer for his fourth home run of the Series, bringing the Phillies within one run. And by the time the inning ended, Mariano Duncan had crossed the plate with the go-ahead run.

The Phillies were alive, and the Blue Jay clubhouse attendants were frantic. They had already taken out the cases of champagne, secured plastic sheets over the locker stalls, and had done everything but engrave Toronto’s name on the World Series trophy.

The Blue Jays may not have the long hair, shaggy beards and colorful quotes, but they proved that they have the same resiliency.

“This is something I’ve dreamed about,” said Molitor, who left Milwaukee last winter and signed as a free agent with Toronto. “You don’t know how frustrating it is to watch postseason after postseason go by, and not be part of it.

“This is just an unbelievable ending.”

Bud Selig, the Milwaukee Brewers’ owner who allowed Molitor to escape through free agency, made his way into the Blue Jay clubhouse to congratulate Molitor. They embraced, whispered to one another, and Molitor left with tears running down his cheek.

It’s quite unlikely the Blue Jays would have won this season without Molitor. He was one of three high-priced free agents the Blue Jays purchased for this season. Stewart also came via free agency.

The other was Carter.

Carter had been offered more money and a $10-million signing bonus by the Kansas City Royals in the off-season to come home. He went against the wishes of his wife, wanting to return to a winner.

“There was a time when nobody wanted to play here,” Carter said, “when they associated us with Montreal. Now look at us. Everyone wants to come here.

“No matter what you need, you know they’re going to put together a team that’s competitive. It was an All-Star game every time we stepped on the field.

“Baby, look at us now.”

Said Dykstra: “They can put the fear of God into a pitcher, and that’s what they did tonight.”

The Phillies will go home as champions of the National League, but in their hearts, they know that they could have won this Series.

“Deep inside,” Phillie reliever Larry Andersen said, “we know something like this will never reoccur again.

“It’s so difficult to put in words what this season has meant to all of us. It’s what I’ve always dreamed. Maybe this wasn’t as talented as a lot of other teams, but the closeness and camaraderie overcame all of the shortfalls.

“It’s been like a perfect season, until this happened.”

* THE PHILLIES: What had been a raucous locker room all season became almost silent after a stunning setback. C14

* PAUL MOLITOR: After 15 productive seasons in Milwaukee, he reaches new heights in Toronto as the MVP. C15

Postseason Home Runs

Phillie leadoff hitter Lenny Dykstra rates highly in the company of noted sluggers in this category. His home run-to-at-bat ratio is second only to Babe Ruth among the all-time leaders. A look at the top 10:

Player AB HR Ratio Mickey Mantle 230 18 12.8 Reggie Jackson 261 16 16.3 Babe Ruth 129 15 8.6 Yogi Berra 259 12 21.6 Duke Snider 133 11 12.1 Lenny Dykstra 112 10 11.2 Lou Gehrig 119 10 11.9 Frank Robinson 126 10 12.6 George Brett 154 10 15.4 Johnny Bench 169 10 16.9