Jimmy Rollins is entitled to his voice, and to his swagger, and to his braggadocio. As the Mets have discovered relentlessly across the last three years, the talk he talks is outpaced only by the walk he walks. When he says the Phillies are the team to beat, they’ve usually been the team to beat.
He has the jewelry to prove it. There is a Commissioner’s Trophy on display at Citizens Bank Park that reinforces the message, a shiny prize that is eight years newer than the youngest of any of the 26 similar trophies the Yankees might want to put on display in the Yankee Stadium foyer.
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So if Rollins chooses to lead with his lip on Jay Leno’s show, if he wants to tell America (or at least that tiny portion of America that actually watches Leno) that the Phillies are going to use the Yankees as tackling dummies, that certainly is his right. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. But confident is the finger that wears the ring.
“Of course we’re gonna win,” Rollins told Leno. “If we’re nice, we’ll let it go six, but I’m thinking five, close it out at home.”
You know the funny part? The fact that the Yankees are in the World Series and it’s the other guy who’s yawning through the lead-up, acting like it’s an old story, narrowing their wide eyes and loosening their chatty tongues. It actually is the Phillies who are primarily comprised of World Series veterans, and the Yankees filled with Series newbies.
“I remember telling my wife year after year after year, ‘One day, I want that to be me, playing the World Series,’” said Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett, whose one prior dalliance with the Series was as an injured member of the 2003 Marlins, a bittersweet memory of trying to keep champagne from staining his street clothes. “As a kid, I watched every inning. This is the only place I’ve ever wanted to be.”
Phil Hughes was the same way. His father was a devoted Red Sox fan and passed that gene on to his son, even as the family settled in southern California. That meant a lot of empty Octobers watching the Sox add years to their drought.
“And a lot of World Series rooting like crazy against the Yankees,” Hughes said, laughing. “Funny how things work out.”
Up and down the roster came story after story of watching the World Series, dreaming about the World Series, about visualizing what it would be like actually to participate in the World Series.
Time was, the World Series seemed like part of the basic contract a player would sign when he joined the Yankees. Now, there are just four players who remember what that was like, and those relics of the Dynasty Boys — Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera — they have their memories and their moments and they share them willingly. But it is an exclusive club.
Mostly, the Yankees are comprised of guys like Alex Rodriguez, who said he would watch the World Series every year as a kid but remembers one best of all.
“I remember Jesse Orosco throwing his glove in the air, and me jumping on my bed and actually hitting my head on the ceiling,” Rodriguez said, smiling as broadly as the 11-year-year-old kid he was that night in October 1986 when the Mets won the title. “That’s what the World Series always was to me.”
His attendance in front of the TV has been less perfect, because some seasons end worse than others.
“I didn’t watch one game in 2004,” Rodriguez said. “I can promise you that.”
This might be old hat to the Phillies by now. It might be another day at the October office for Rollins, who yesterday stood by his comments — as he should have — and added, “I just think if we do the things we do well, we’re going to win the Series.”
It’s not old for the Yankees, suddenly the Other Guys at the World Series. Just past 7:30 tonight, they’ll be introduced on the field for Game 1 of the World Series, and a lot of dreams simultaneously will come true.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com