Of Euphoria and Movie Marathons

(Yeah, winter kinda puts a dabber on sports road trips. Next week though, Sam and I will be attending Flyers-Islanders down the street at Broad and Pattison, and then heading to DC to see your Temple Owls vs George Washington)

My tattoo for the new season

Ah, the start of new hopes that is baseball season. Enough with snow and mush, a new year officially dawns when pitchers and catchers report (or Aces and Catchers in the case of the Phillies) There's a buzz in this town with an incredible starting rotation of Roy "The Machine" Halladay, Cliff "Screw The Yankees" Lee, Roy "Dubee Bomber" Oswalt, and Cole "Hollywood" Hamels (and maybe Joe "The Pitcher" Blanton, if he doesn't get traded.) What a remarkable turnaround the last decade. Who would of thought ten years ago in Philly that the Phillies would own this town like it does today? Can you imagine Philly being a place where professional baseball players turn down offers from the Yankees to come play back then? (I repeat again, never, ever spit on women. Life has a way of evening out.)

Anyway, my extreme homeristic predictions for the season: Phillies go 110-52, Ryan Howard hits 71 home runs, Domonic Brown wins Rookie Of the Year, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay split the Cy Young, and sweep the Orioles in 4. (okay, okay, the last one might be unrealistic. But I've got a soft spot for the O's...)

As a way of welcoming in the euphoria, Myself and a few friends will be getting together this coming Saturday February the 19th starting at 4:01PM (looking forward to Opening Day on April the 1st) to usher the misery of winter out with an all night baseball movie marathon. There'll be beer, coffee, and food all night long.

The Lineup will be:
Angels in the Outfield (old one), Bad News Bears (original), The Babe, Bleacher Bums, Bull Durham, Cobb, Eight Men Out, Field Of Dreams, League of their Own, Major League, The Natural, The Rookie, and the Sandlot

Lemme know if you want in. It should be a blast and I fully expect everyone to be delirious by the end.

A nice tribute to some of the ones we'll be watching.

Baseball Insanity

The phrase "Pitchers and Catchers" brings to mind the start of baseball season. And I like to go a little insane in planning out my great distraction. Some people have drugs. Some people have rock n' roll. Some people have baseball. For the last few years, baseball has been my time-consuming addiction.

Luckily, Sam and I split the Sunday pack for the Phillies a few years ago, right before there was a huge run on them. I mean, now there's a waiting list for them! (can you imagine that a few years ago?) And now that I'm unemployed/self-employed (depending on how you look at it), I'm going even more overboard. Lets just say thats how I deal with damn February, the suckiest month of the year.

So this is what you can look forward to on this blog in the coming months...

Wing Bowl

For non-Philadelphians, Wing Bowl is Philadelphia's annual gathering of white trash debauchery, gluttony, and over the top glitz. Yes, a whole lot of chicken wings consumed in three hours, a whole lot of bare breasts, and a whole lot of insane costumes greeted us at 6AM. Its usually billed as Philadelphia's Mardi Graus, though I'm not sure I would say it's that cultured. Its still fun, in a totally over the top way. Originally established in 1993 as the frustration of Eagles disappointing its hungry fanbase, the local sports radio 610 WIP built it up from a free rinkydink event to today's $10 and up sell-out crowd of 20,000 mostly drunken men eager to wash away the winter blues with a heavy dose of sex, puke, and heavy guys guzzling chicken meat.

The Rams visit to North Philly. 2-5-11

Philadelphia - The yearly birthday celebration of Hooter, the Temple Owls mascot was this past Saturday. I already had purchased tickets for my son, but at the last minute his mom and brother decided to come along. Many of the local mascots were on hand for the party and the Phantic found some new dance partners.


Unfortunately, unlike the Phillies, who do a great job of making sure just about everybody who is entitled to a giveaway receives the merchandise, we arrived after the staff had given away all the available kids jerseys. My son was initially disappointed, but he pointed out that he already had a Temple jersey, and was happy with the new double balloon sword.

Temple and the Liacouras Center Staff do an outstanding job of overall of creating a great atmosphere for NCAA Basketball. The stadium seats just under eleven thousand , there are two levels of seating and there is honestly not a bad seat inside.

Once the Owls took the lead they never let the Rams really make it a game. Every time URI closed the gap, the Owls went on a scoring run and eventually won by 13 points.A picture from our seats from early in the second half. Everyone had a great time as the Owls trounced yet another Atlantic 10 Conference opponent.

Temple does a decent job of reporting on the game. On the other end of the spectrum, I really don't know what to make of this clearly biased and pathetic recap of the game set forth by the University of Rhode Island. I wonder if the reporter even watched the game.

Overall, The Liacouras Center is a great NCAA basketball stadium worthy of a visit by any traveling basketball fan.