WORLD SERIES : Toronto Blue Jays vs. Philadelphia Phillies : BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Are They New Wave or Old School?

It’s definitely not pretty, but it’s not totally ugly.

It’s . . . well, “kind of like winning weird,” volunteered Wes Chamberlain.

The Philadelphia Phillies did it throughout a season of 97 victories, then did it again in the National League playoffs, eliminating the Atlanta Braves in six games.

Outfielder Chamberlain and teammates now have a World Series date with the Toronto Blue Jays, which in the view of relief pitcher Larry Andersen is “like the ugly stepsister being invited to the ball by the best-looking guy in the class. I mean, on paper, we weren’t the best team, perhaps, but we had guts and grit.”

Lenny Dykstra said: “Sometimes you can’t control what’s meant to be, and this seems to have been meant to be since spring training.”

Destiny?

“It’s hard to explain,” Dykstra said. “Atlanta might be better, position by position and pitcher by pitcher, but if something is meant to be. . . . “

The Phillies won a game in April after having trailed by eight runs. They won another in July when Mitch Williams, the relief pitcher, drove in the winning run at 4:41 a.m. At that point, the 40-year-old Andersen, who has seen a little of everything, decided there must be a higher power at work and now describes the Phillies’ winning methods as “almost Kreskin-like,” referring to the stage magician.

Or as catcher Darren Daulton noted after Game 4 of the playoffs: “There have been a few times when the only way I could figure out how we won is by reading the morning paper, and even then I’m not sure.”

Take their playoff victories as an example:

--Game 1: Closer Williams, protecting a 3-2 lead, walks the first batter he faces in the ninth, defensive specialist Kim Batiste throws away a double-play ball, and the Phillies go to the 10th before winning, 4-3.

--Game 4: They strike out 15 times, leave 15 runners on base, get a game-winning hit from pitcher Danny Jackson, who had driven in only one run since May, and survive a how-not-to-field exhibition by Williams on two ninth-inning bunts for a 2-1 victory.

--Game 5: Batiste makes another ninth-inning error, helping Williams blow a 3-0 lead before Dykstra bails them out with his 10th-inning homer for a 4-3 victory.

--Game 6: The 6-3 clincher is almost routine until the ninth, when Williams retires the side in order. The “Wild Thing” has retired the side in order only twice in his last 27 appearances.

The Phillies are probably the first playoff team to register three one-run victories while making ninth-inning errors in each and beating the team that led the majors in one-run victories in the process.

The Phillies were also outhit and outscored by the Braves and won despite a 4.75 earned-run average, compared to Atlanta’s 3.15 ERA, but much of that was the result of Atlanta’s routs in Games 2 and 3.

Nevertheless, John Kruk said his team often sits and talks about the bizarre ways they have won and still can’t explain it.

“We’ve put our hearts to a test,” he said. “It’s been kind of a scary season.”

Some of it is not so mysterious. The Phillies have pretty good talent. A tenacious pitching staff led the league in innings, complete games and strikeouts. A selective offense, lacking speed and even one hitter with more than 24 homers, led the league in runs, doubles, walks and on-base percentage.

“There’s nothing fancy about the Phillies,” Atlanta pitching coach Leo Mazzone said. “They are a blue-collar, grind-it-out, old-school-type team with the ability to fight off quality pitches and use the count to their advantage.

“They do everything they can to survive.”

And that may be the key.

As a throwback club--players who have been thrown back by other teams, the Phillies like to say--they are out to show those clubs they made mistakes, and to prove doubters of the Phillies wrong.

“We feed off that ‘Us against them’ mentality,” pitcher Curt Schilling said.

Schilling survived Boston, Baltimore and Houston to become the National League playoffs’ most valuable player with the Phillies, one of many who have found their niches in Philadelphia.

It has been chronicled how General Manager Lee Thomas focused on pitching in rebuilding his team, then got characters with character to pump up the clubhouse. There are no Philadelphia products on the postseason pitching staff, and only Daulton, Mickey Morandini and Kevin Stocker among the position players were originally signed by the organization.

The result is a rarity: A 25-man team in the strongest sense of that cliche, a group that likes itself and loves to play.

“This is the best team I’ve ever seen for giving you nine innings every day,” coach John Vukovich said. “They just don’t quit.”

Added Pete Incaviglia, half of the left-field platoon, one of three Phillie platoons: “Everybody thinks we’re a bunch of weirdos and crazies, and there’s definitely some of that here. But what we really have are a group of guys who heard their wake-up call and are committed to nine innings or more every day. It’s almost as if somebody has to tell us it’s the final out, it’s time to stop.”

The fire-breathing Phillies may not be a motorcycle gang--that image may be embellished some--but they will certainly be a sharp contrast to the briefcase-toting, cellular-phone-carrying Blue Jays.

The playoffs proved again that they will also be a tough adversary capable of surprising anyone, even themselves.

Or, as Kruk told the Philadelphia Daily News the other day: “We’re like recovering alcoholics, taking it one day at a time.”

* MAKING ROOM: Toronto’s Paul Molitor, who hasn’t played third base on a regular basis since 1989, could be there when the series moves to Philadelphia and the designated hitter is prohibited. C10