Sadly missing their big guns at the plate, the anemic Phils are at least entertaining fans this season with some power in the beer stands.

For the first time, Citizens Bank Park is selling 24-ounce aluminum “Tall Boy” cans of Bud, Miller Lite, Yuengling and other brands for 11 bucks a pop.

And “pop” is the operative word under the stadium’s so-called “crack and go” policy. The cans are popped open before they’re handed to fans, to lessen the chances of someone flinging a full, one-and-a-half-pound can onto the field.

While the ballpark has previously sold (uncapped) aluminum and plastic bottles, this is the first season it’s vended beer in cans, according to Rich McFate, warehouse director for Aramark, the Phillies concessionaire.

In addition to the Tall Boys (named after the original 24-ounce cans introduced by Schlitz back in the 1950s), beer-drinking fans can enjoy 12- and 16-ounce cans this season, too.

“I just like the idea of handing the can directly to the patron,” McFate said. “It’s greener, because we don’t have to pour it into a cup. It takes up much less space than a bottle in our warehouse. They chill more quickly, and it’s a quicker way to sell beer.”

While the ballpark has sold plastic and aluminum beer bottles for several years now, with no serious mishaps, no one forgets that this can be an overly aggressive sports-crazed town. Greeting opposing players with a projectile is not completely unknown.

With that in mind, McFate climbed up to the ballpark’s upper deck not long ago to see how far he could throw a beer can.

“We did tests,” he told me, “and we discovered that plastic bottles actually fly further than aluminum cans.”

On Opening Day, the fans I saw with Tall Boys mainly seemed in awe by the size of the cans.

“Damn, this is a big can,” said Marc Saggio, 43, of Stratford, N.J., a freshly popped Coors Light in his paw.

Can Phils fans be trusted not to hurl them?

“I think our fans have totally changed since we moved to this ballpark,” Saggio replied. “I think the [high] price of tickets kind of dictates the type of fan who comes here.”

Nearby, two 30-something women cheerfully gripped a pair of Miller Lite Tall Boys while mocking their friend, who ordered a single, wimpy 12-ounce bottle of Mike’s Hard Raspberry Lemonade.

“Make sure you write that Mike Parsons – a guy – ordered the ‘girl’ beer,” Christine Titus of Chalfont, Montgomery County, told me. “The two of us went for the 24-ounce pounders.”

So why’d you order such a big beer, I asked her friend, Sharon Reilly of Conshohocken.

“Why? Because we went to Penn State, that’s why!”

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WHEN THE Phillies open Citizens Bank Park next month, the green, natural grass won’t be their only bow to tradition.

In a move that will warm the hearts of longtime fans who remember the good old days at Connie Mack Stadium, the Phillies are bringing back Ballantine Beer.

That’s right, the beer whose familiar three rings – Purity, Body, Flavor – stood atop the giant outfield scoreboard at Connie Mack will once again flow in Philly.

I wasn’t even aware they still made the stuff. The old Ballantine brewery in Newark, N.J., is long closed, and the label has been sold and resold several times.

Officials from Aramark, the stadium vendor, tracked it down to a Miller plant in Ohio, which agreed to send bottles to South Philadelphia.

But finding a nearly defunct beer is just half of this story. Indeed, the state of beer at the ballpark is a telling indication of whether the home team regards its fans as patrons who deserve respect or just sheep to be fleeced.

It was six years ago, you’ll remember, that the Phillies’ then-vendor, Ogden, got caught skimming suds from every cup of beer. A Daily News investigation, which estimated the scam cost fans a half-million dollars a year, led to City Council hearings and a price reduction.

The beer situation turned sour again last year with the opening of the new Lincoln Financial Field.

First, the Eagles prompted fan outrage by attempting to ban BYO food from their new stadium. Then, after giving in on hoagies, the team pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in special licensing deals with Miller and Anheuser-Busch that effectively blocked any of Philadelphia’s smaller breweries from competing.

The result: Not a single local beer – not even Pottsville’s hugely popular Yuengling – is tapped at the Linc.

That was a far cry from the Vet, where the city mandated under its concession contract that Schmidt’s of Philadelphia be served.

Make no mistake: The Phillies will pour the big guys at their new ballpark. You’ll see more Bud, Miller, Michelob and Coors taps than anything else.

But in focus group sessions with fans over the past three years, the team heard one thing loud and clear: Give us a local feel.

We’re not just talking cheesesteaks here, though the team is expected to announce soon that at least two of the city’s famous steak shops will be cookin’ ’em up.

Team officials told me they’re also bringing in barbecue from Delilah’s of the Reading Terminal Market.

And they also plan to serve the classic barroom snack: Chestnut Hill’s famous McNally’s Schmitter (named, by the way, for the city’s sadly departed Schmidt’s).

As for beer, the new ballpark will do the locals justice.

Nearly every brewery within 25 miles of the city will be served on draft, including Yards of Kensington, Flying Fish of Cherry Hill and Victory of Downingtown. Even some brewpubs with limited distribution, including Manayunk and Iron Hill, will be on hand.

Philadelphia’s Dock Street, which has been defunct for a couple years, will be contract-brewed in New York. Ortlieb’s, another old name from the past, will pour, too, with lagers brewed at its pub in Pottstown.

But from this bleacher seat, the return of Ballantine is the most exciting news – and not because I have any fondness for its taste.

Instead, for Phillies fans who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, Ballantine is the defining image of Connie Mack Stadium. Other than the waves of green, green grass, it is the sight of that huge scoreboard in right-center field that is forever seared in the mind’s eye.

The Ballantine scoreboard wasn’t always at Connie Mack. It was brought to 21st and Lehigh in 1956 from Yankee Stadium.

With 10-foot letters that proclaimed, “You get a smile every time,” it loomed over the field, almost daring sluggers to knock one over the top.

(Balls hitting the scoreboard were still in play, often resulting in long singles.)

Legend says only Dick Allen managed to do it, on July 8, 1965, when he pounded a 420-foot drive to the right of the Longines clock atop the scoreboard. Others remember Wes Covington doing it, too.

No matter, over the years, any home run at Connie Mack became known as a Ballantine Blast – an event that led announcer Chuck Thompson to remark, “Ain’t the beer cold.”

It’s true, these are all just memories.

But as the Phillies prepare to enter their new ballpark, they’re touching the right chords.

Maybe my tune will change if the team starts losing.

But Phillies baseball and Ballantine beer feels – and tastes – like a winner.

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