Back in 1993, I was the associate editor of this newspaper. In that position you run the night news desk and have primary responsibility for actually putting the newspaper together. That includes our front-page presentation.

Maybe the most important decision we make around here each day is what is going to appear on our front page and how we are going to display it.

That’s in part because we are dependent each day on single-copy sales of the newspaper, literally people who pick it up at the store or from one of our honor boxes.

Back then we had just started to plunge into the pagination process that we use routinely today. Now the entire newspaper is actually made up on computer screens. The old production paste-up process is a thing of the past. In 1993, as we started the pagination process, we were only doing the front and back pages on computers.

As you might recall, that also was the last time the Phillies appeared in a World Series, before this year’s team that won the whole shooting match.

Which brings me to Game 4, Oct. 20, 1993. Maybe you remember it. It was a miserable rainy night at Veterans Stadium. The Phillies scored five runs in the fifth inning to wipe out a Toronto lead. From that point the game went back and forth. The Blue Jays scored six times in the top of the eighth for a wild, wacky, come-from-behind 15-14 win.

I lost track of how many times I redid that front page. At one point, while the Blue Jays were mounting their furious rally, my emotions got the better of me. I designed a page with a single word, starting with the “Ph” that all things Phillies even to this day mimic. Except this word showed the exasperation of one news editor and the idea that the Phillies were throwing a game away in the World Series. The word that appeared on the screen rhymed with duck, albeit with its Ph opening. Obviously, that page never saw the light of day.

I was thinking of that Friday afternoon as we recorded one of the great days in Philadelphia sports history. More than 2 million people crowded the streets of the city to salute our World Series champions. The parade made its way down Broad Street to the stadium complex, first making a stop at Lincoln Financial Field, then ending at the Phillies home, Citizens Bank Park.

Players took turns approaching the microphone. I was half listening to the TV, half working when Chase Utley took center stage. We all know what happened next.

Part of me immediately winced. Then I said to myself, “Did he just say that?” I walked out into the newsroom. Yep, I hadn’t just dreamed it up. Chase Utley had dropped the F-bomb on live TV.

Utley wanted to make a point. He started by declaring, “World Champions.” Then I guess he wanted to add an exclamation point. Her certainly did that, adding a variation of the world’s most commonly used four-letter word between “World” and “Champions.”

At first I thought it was simply a matter of Utley getting caught up in the emotion of the moment. But the more times I heard it over the weekend, the more I got the sense that maybe that wasn’t the case.

Look, I’m no prude. I routinely use precisely that word right here in my office. But I try to reserve that kind of salty dialog for when I’m alone. I’m not proud of the fact that I sometimes fail to check my tongue, but I try to keep it to myself.

Almost as interesting as Utley’s choice of words is the reaction to it. Many people e-mailed the newspaper and our Web site taking us to task for trying to make something out of nothing.

One reader said we were “making a mountain out of a mole hill,” and castigated the media for bashing Utley. I’m not sure I’d call it bashing. It certainly did raise a few eyebrows, however. The reader did not want to hear it

“It’s idiots like you that really make things worse than they really are! After FINALLY (shouldn’t that be PHINALLY?) making it to where they are, winning a championship that no other major Philly sports team has been able to do in over 25 years, THIS is what you’re going to focus on?

“The media is the major cause for all the bad things that happen in this country, because they continually blow things out of proportion.”

He then went on to point out the errors we routinely make. All of which is true.

And none of which will change my mind. Utley was wrong. And what he said is wrong. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that it was an unplanned slip of the tongue. It is not, however, his first trip down this road. He was caught on a microphone using the same word after fans booed him at this year’s All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium.

The danger I see in all this is as much with the reaction to what Utley said as his verbal meltdown.

People are now willing to accept as part of our daily conversation what was once unthinkable. It contributes to the general coarsening of our society. Go ahead, call me old-fashioned. I plead guilty. Yes, I know kids hear worse on a daily basis.

But you don’t do what Utley did in that setting. Not in front of that many people. Not reaching that many people on TV.

I’m not going to condemn him for it. But I’m not going to excuse it either.

What do you think the reaction would be if that word appeared on the front page of the newspaper? For some reason I do not think the public would be nearly as forgiving.

After the initial shock of hearing it, then dealing with some of the reaction, I wondered how long it would take for someone to think about marketing it. Sure enough, T-shirts showed up online declaring “World Ph-ing Champions.”

Cute, huh?

True confession here. I bought a Phillies T-shirt over the weekend. It was a red one with Phillies emblazoned on the front. On the back? A No. 26 and Utley. He remains my favorite Phillie, in part because he plays the same position I did so many years ago.

I love the Phillies, and Utley. That’s not going to change. Neither is my belief that what he said and much of the reaction to it was simply wrong.