Phillies Set to Crash Blue Jays’ Gate : Game 1: They will take scruffy image, polished offense into SkyDome against the Toronto tonight.

Pat Gillick, the architect of the Toronto Blue Jays, sat in his board room Friday afternoon and derived an ingenious plan to ensure that the World Series trophy would not leave Canada.

And it is the kind of subterfuge that the Philadelphia Phillies would admire.

“I got the idea a couple of weeks ago when I was stopped at customs,” Gillick, the Blue Jays’ general manager, said with a smile. “They took me into a side room and gave me the third degree. Pardon my expression, but this one guy was a real . . .

“Anyway, this one guy figures out who I am. Then, it dawns on me who he is. He was the guy who wouldn’t let Jose Canseco into (Canada) because he had a prior conviction.

“So this guy tells me, ‘Hey, if you need any help, let me know who you want stopped. We can hold up anyone if they don’t have the proper paper work.’

“The crazy thing was, this guy was dead serious.”

Could you please detain a group of 25 coming across the border on their way to the 90th World Series, beginning tonight at SkyDome? They are easily recognizable. Look for long hair, scraggly beards, and tobacco juice dribbling from their chins. They have names like Wild Thing, Dude, Bubba, Jethro, Head and Pigpen.

Oh yeah, they smell bad, too.

“I think maybe my wife, who doesn’t know too much about baseball, described them best,” Gillick said of the Phillies. “We’re watching their game the other night, and she yelled out: ‘My God, they look like sportswriters dressed in baseball uniforms.’

“They look like slobs.”

The Phillies have crashed this genteel affair and are planning to turn it into a real party.

“We knew nobody in their right mind would invite us here,” Phillie relief pitcher Larry Andersen said. “So we just invited ourselves.

“We just want to put our rings on, get our trophy and leave before anyone finds out we were even here.”

Phillie first baseman John Kruk, hair to his shoulders, unkempt beard covering his face, sauntered off the team’s chartered flight wearing an “America’s Most Wanted” cap. Bullpen stopper Mitch Williams walked into the clubhouse carrying a bag full of Big Macs.

Canadian officials are even trying to capitalize on the Phillies’ reputation, extending the drinking cutoff to 2 a.m. There will be plenty of beer for everyone, but the cheese-steak sandwiches will have to be imported.

“I know people think we’re a bunch of derelicts,” Philadelphia left fielder Pete Incaviglia said. “But we don’t really care what people think of us. We’ve heard all year that this guy is too fat, this guy is too ugly, this guy has got long hair.

“Well, after listening to all the media and baseball experts say we couldn’t do this and we couldn’t do that, look where we are now.

“So tell me, who’s looking stupid now?”

Said Kruk: “We don’t have too many Rhodes Scholars in here, but we’re smart enough to know that we’re a pretty damned good team. Besides, we get paid for playing ball, not for modeling.”

There is nothing ugly about the Phillie offense. It scored a league-leading 877 runs, 30 more than the prestigious Blue Jays.

“We’re kind of like that old chewed-up piece of bubble gum that’s laying on the ground,” Phillie starter Terry Mulholland said. “Nobody really notices until they step on it.

“Then, they try to pull us off the sole of their shoe, and before they know it, we’re all over that shoe and now you’ve got a ruined pair of wingtips.”

Toronto, a corporation that considers itself a failure when not playing in late October, has been in postseason play five times in the last nine years. The Blue Jays not only have posted 11 consecutive winning seasons, but have finished second or higher in eight of the last 10 years. There’s no such thing as a rebuilding season at SkyDome.

“I think people have started to have an image of the Blue Jays similar to (that of) the Yankees, a club that goes all out and spends a lot of money,” Toronto’s Paul Molitor said. “It uses its financial power as a weapon. You can criticize it all you want, but it has worked.”

The Blue Jays are trying to become the first team since the 1977-1978 Yankees to win consecutive World Series; the Phillies are trying to win only their second championship in 110 years.

“I guess that explains why they shop at Saks,” Phillie catcher Darren Daulton said. “And why we go to Woolworth’s.”

It’s this image of lovable losers turned winners that has made America embrace the Phillies.

“We’re not going to bring that up,” Blue Jay right fielder Joe Carter said. “Those guys are motivated by their image, so why should we promote it?

“We’re looking at what’s underneath the beards and long hair, and what we’re seeing is a pretty damn good team.”

Said Gillick: “I don’t think we’re playing the best team in the National League, but they’re the ones who played the best when it counted. Atlanta’s probably the best team, probably even a better team than we are.

“But sometimes, funny things happen in this game.”