PHILADELPHIA -- Pete Rose called him. Tim McGraw, son of a one-time Phillies relief pitcher of some renown, called him. Ed Rendell, next governor of Pennsylvania, called him.

	Jim Thome said his decision was based more on contract years than money.

In the last three weeks, Jim Thome heard from every prominent Philadelphian except Will Smith, Sal Palantonio and Benjamin Franklin.

But through it all, Thome kept telling people around him the same thing: "I want to finish my career in Cleveland."

He told his wife. He told his teammates. He told Indians GM Mark Shapiro three different times last weekend.

So if that was true, and there is every reason to think it was, then what the heck was Jim Thome doing standing at a podium in South Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon, trying on a Phillies jersey with the No. 25 on the back?

"Well," Thome told ESPN.com, "there's always been something in life about feeling like you're wanted."

And Monday morning, when it came time to decide what he was going to do with the rest of his baseball life, Thome couldn't get past the feeling that, for whatever reasons, he was wanted more in Philadelphia than he was in the only place he'd ever played baseball.

Payoff For Phillies

The Phillies have sold more than 1,000 season tickets since Jim Thome agreed to sign with Philadelphia. Phillies sales director John Weber said he was besieged with calls from prospective buyers as early as 1 p.m. Monday, just after word got out that Thome agreed to his $85 million, six-year contract. Philadelphia wouldn't confirm the agreement until Tuesday. "I was in sort of a tight spot,'' Weber said. "People were calling and saying, 'The rumor sounds good. I'm buying.' But I couldn't say anything. It was a little odd.'' The Phillies kept their ticket office open an extra two hours to accommodate the surge in sales. Philadelphia sold 240 new season-ticket packages Monday, 500 more Tuesday and 450 to 500 more Wednesday. Usually, the team averages about 40 requests per day for season tickets this time of year, according to Weber. -- The Associated Press

"I don't mean by the fans," Thome said. "I mean by the organization. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to say one bad thing about the Cleveland Indians, because they gave me the opportunity to succeed and meet my goals for what I've tried to do in the game. And I'm not going to leave. We're still going to live in Cleveland. That's our home. ..."

If you feel a giant "but" coming here someplace, this would be the time and place for that "but."

"I feel like I was very honest and upfront with them in the whole process," Thome said. "Last year in spring training, I tried to get something done. It didn't happen. I went all through last season, and I didn't have a contract. Then I heard all the trade rumors after they traded Bartolo (Colon), and I made it very public then that I didn't want to leave.

"So at the end of the year," Thome said, "I just felt like Cleveland had every opportunity to sign me. And I was still going to give them every opportunity to sign me."

From the moment he filed for free agency, the Phillies were doing everything but offering him his own cheesesteak franchise to attract him. He got the star-studded trip to town, the standing ovation at a hockey game, an outpouring of love from the ballpark construction workers, enough recruiting calls to blow up his voice-mail system and, oh by the way, a humongous contract offer.

Yet through it all, Thome kept kicking the door open for the Indians every time he felt it closing.

"Even three days ago," Thome said, "I was on the horn with Mark. And I told Mark I knew going into the whole free-agent process that I'd have to take less to stay in Cleveland. But I wanted to finish my career in Cleveland."

So one of the most pivotal days in these whole negotiations came a week ago, when the Indians added a fifth guaranteed season to their offer -- and on the same day, the Phillies added a sixth year, with a vesting option for a seventh.

For a man who viewed this contract as the last contract of his career, that meant that for the Indians to keep him, the one thing they had to match was the number of years in the contract -- not the number of dollars in the contract.

So three times over the Thanksgiving weekend, Thome said, he called Shapiro, to give the Indians every chance to add that sixth year.

"I told him again, `I'll take less money to stay -- but I want you to guarantee me I'll finish my career in Cleveland,'" Thome said. "It wasn't even just about me. It was about my family. It was about my daughter (who is scheduled to make her first career appearance on the planet in a few weeks). I didn't want to put her in a position where she was starting school at 4 or 5 and she had to say, `Dad, why are we leaving this place?'

"So the length factor, the length of the contract, was the biggest thing in the end. It never had to do with the bottom line on the money. It was the length of the deal. I know people are going to assume what they want to assume. But that's the truth."

When it came time to add that sixth guaranteed year, however, the Indians decided they'd just maxed out. They were looking at a projected half-million drop in attendance even with Thome next year. And they were wary of committing too large a chunk of their payroll during a franchise-renewal project to a guy who would be 38 by the end of the contract.

So when Thome asked for the sixth year, the red light went on. They added incentives and opportunities to vest a sixth season under certain circumstances. But they were not in a position to guarantee another year.

"When you project him out to that age," said one Indians official, "face it -- this guy isn't Barry Bonds -- in body type, in position, in every way. And you don't know what kind of shape his back will be in by then. So it gets tough to do. We're talking about a great guy, a super person. He's an ideal guy to keep in every way. But there's got to be a limit."

The Phillies, on the other hand, were in a very different time and place. They were, ironically, following a road map drawn nearly a decade ago by -- whadda ya know -- the Cleveland Indians, and they were at the point in their evolution that the Indians were in around 1995.

"If you looked back four or five years ago," said Phillies president David Montgomery, "we said then we had a plan. We had things we had to accomplish to make that plan work. And (by this winter) we were finally at a point where things had come together and we were able to make a move like this."

A couple of years ago, it would have sounded awfully bizarre to hear a guy like Jim Thome saying he was coming to Philadelphia because he had a better chance to win than he did in Cleveland. But the earth keeps on spinning, and nothing stays the same, and the juxtaposition of the Indians and Phillies' places in life sums up exactly how crazy those spins can be.

"I'm looking forward to this," Thome said. "I'm excited I'm here. I'm not looking back. They've made their choice. They're doing what they want to do in Cleveland, and I respect that, from a business point of view. But I hope people don't begrudge me because I wanted a chance to win. I wanted to go back to the playoffs again and experience the fun of the playoffs. And I felt like this was a place where I could do that again."

So the phone calls can stop now. Allen Iverson won't be calling. Donovan McNabb won't be calling. Thome won't be hearing from Mike Schmidt, Robin Roberts, Grover Cleveland Alexander's great-grandchildren or Hall and Oates. The contract is signed. The recruiting is over. And not a moment too soon.

"My phone had 100 messages a day," laughed Jim Thome. "I won't miss that."

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.