The World Series between the Yankees and the Phillies has developed into an intricate matchup, with all sorts of revealing contrasts and surprises. One manager, Joe Girardi, likes to play chess. The other, Charlie Manuel, favors card games like hearts. In New York, the fan base is not united: ambivalent Mets fans have to choose between rooting for a hated National League rival that routinely torments their team or a Yankees organization that dwarfs them. But in Philadelphia, you can find dissenters, too, if you look hard enough, and issues that go far beyond how Girardi and Manuel are managing their bullpens. Bernard Diggs is a 61-year-old Philadelphian who is a die-hard Eagles fan. But he has no bond with the Phillies, a coolness that stems from the history of the 1950s and not just the whimsy of a boy who liked one team's colors over another. For Diggs, the problem has always been the Phillies' failure to integrate until almost every other major league club had already done so. In 2009, two of the Phillies' stars -- Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins -- are African-Americans, which puts Philadelphia ahead of many other teams. Still, their presence has not swayed Diggs. 'They seem like the kind of folks I would like to meet,' Diggs said of the two players. 'I really do like them as individuals in terms of their contribution to the Phillies and how they carry themselves.' So how would he explain to them why he has not pulled for their team during the World Series -- or ever, for that matter? 'I'd give them a history lesson,' Diggs said. When he was a boy, Diggs recalled, he and his friends traveled to Connie Mack Stadium to see black players from other teams. 'There were not a lot of our folks up there attending major league games,' he said. 'The largest population of our people that went up to the games were when the Braves, the Dodgers and the Giants came in town. Those teams had a lot of good black players and people attached on to them for that reason.' He added: 'I didn't resent the Phillies. I just didn't root for them because I had nothing to make me feel that I should support them.' By 1957, Philadelphia, along with the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox, were the only major league teams without a black player. The Yankees had integrated only two years earlier, when they added Elston Howard to the team. On April 22, 1957, infielder John Kennedy became the first black player to put on a Phillies uniform. But Kennedy's career consisted of five games, two at-bats and an injured shoulder. That same year, Diggs fell in love with the Milwaukee Braves. His teacher at Alexander Wilson Elementary School allowed the class to watch a World Series game between the Braves, who then played in Milwaukee, and the Yankees. To Diggs' astonishment, Milwaukee had two outfielders -- Hank Aaron and Wes Covington -- who were African-American. A third African-American outfielder, Billy Bruton, was also on that team but didn't play in the Series. Diggs was born on Dec. 23, 1947. Earlier that year, the Brooklyn Dodgers made history when they called up Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals and made him the first African-American to play in the major leagues in more than 60 years. The Phillies' manager at the time, Ben Chapman, opposed Robinson's presence in major league baseball. During an early-season series between the Phillies and the Dodgers in Brooklyn, Chapman directed a teamwide barrage of verbal abuse at Robinson. The language was so vile it made national news. It wasn't until the 1960s that the Phillies even had an African-American star. The player was Dick Allen, who was the 1964 rookie of the year for Philadelphia. Allen was a great hitter, but he did not have an easy road in Philadelphia. In 1965, he fought with a white teammate, Frank Thomas, who hit him with a bat. By 1970, Allen had been traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. 'They gave him a tough way to go here because he was outspoken,' Diggs said of Allen. 'He wasn't a yes man.' As Diggs looks back on all of those decades of being a fan, he wishes, in some ways, that he could have caught the Phillies spirit, that he could be pulling for them to win Games 6 and 7 in the Bronx. But he can't. Too much happened in the past for him to ignore. What seems easy to put in the past for some people is not so easy for others. 'I don't think I'll ever be a Philadelphia Phillies fan,' he said. And if the Phillies come back to win the Series? Diggs said, 'I won't be at the parade.' 