Bustleton native returns home for World Series matchup against his current city

A Bustleton native is coming back home to watch from his hometown the Phillies play in their second straight World Series, but he’s not bringing his long-time girlfriend. Because, well, she’s a Yankees fan.

Padraic Glackin lives New York City now, attending graduate school at Fordham University in the Bronx borough, and has a serious five-year relationship with Manhattan native Bridget Sweeney.

“This is the first time where it’s been an issue,” Glackin, 24, says of their competing passions in baseball’s best-of-seven championship series, which kicks off tonight in New York. “We were out walking before game six [that sent the Yankees to the World Series] was even played, and a Yankees fan said something, and I told him to make it to the World Series first, and [Bridget] gave me a dirty look.”

Like many other Phillies fans living in New York for one reason or another, his allegiances are being tested more now than ever before.

“There was always the annoying Mets fans but now the Yankees fans are speaking up too,” he said.

Glackin, a 2003 North Catholic graduate — “There’s gotta be a way to keep it open,” he adds — whose family still lives in Bustleton, is coming back to watch the first five games from the Northeast, likely at one of the bars around the Cottman and Frankford intersection, the Northeast’s epicenter for Phillies celebrations.

So he and his girlfriend will avoid clashing over their baseball loves in the case of a short series, but if it goes long –as many are predicting it will — Glackin might be in trouble.

“We do have tickets for game seven in the bleachers [of Yankee Stadium],” he said. “That could get ugly. That will get ugly.”

Born in Port Richmond but raised in Bustleton from ages 5 to 18, Glackin has learned how to handle most Yankees fans.

“If I have a chance, I like to remind them that the Phils are the reigning world champs and ask them when the last time the Yankees won a World Series was. Of course, they immediately reply ’26,'” he says, noting the number of times the storied New York franchise has been crowned. “I tell them they are living in the past.”

It’s not all talk. He has a particularly good reason to be so devoted to the Phillies.

“My dad wouldn’t get married until the Phillies won the World Series in 1980, so I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Mike Schmidt and crew,” said Glackin, who also attended Maternity B.V.M. grade school. “My mom wasn’t happy with the plan but was obviously pleased with the result.”