4/5/2011 PHILIES VS NEW YORK METS

@ Citizens Bank Park

L 1-7

with Frank Fucile

Well, back to Earth. It was kind of miserable game come Tuesday night. Here's the thing about baseball, except for a season ending playoff loss or near miss season ender, there's nothing soul crushing about a single game. If they win, that's cool, but there's another game the next day. If they lose, it sucks, but there's another game the next day. The old cliche, "its a marathon, not a sprint" and all the lines in Bull Durham about baseball being a religion, a steady hand to guide you through the chaos of life, being there for you the next day. So it goes.

I met up with a shoe comrade, Frankie Fucile (he may cringe at the thought of being called Frankie). We spent an hour or so pregaming, since I absolutely refuse to pay for beers at ballgames since I am not a fan of paying fucking $7 for a light budweiser (And I'm quoted on that on page five of Dave Zirin's "Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining The Games We Love") Had a small debate about facebook and whether its total bullshit or not over chinese food and tall boy beers, with a dash of whiskey. Around 6:15PM, it was time to roll out. I'm a somewhat hyperpunctual kinda guy.

When its nice out, one of my favorite pre-game rituals, besides drinking, is the "walk of victory", as I like to call it. It's a short walk from my place at 17th and Snyder up Broad Street to the Sports Complex. It's about a twenty minute walk, through South Philly's finest, many with Italian names (which I mispronounced to grate on Frank's nerves.) There's a bridge around 95 which I like to sprint back and forth under to get the ol' blood pumping. This time around though, I did something kind of dumb, which was crack open a beer in my coat pocket, causing my cellphone to fritz out. So no self-taken pictures on this post. I know you share my disappointment. I knew it was bad news when the screen kept turning white, and then red. Bad omen.

Ah, April baseball. Its cold. The games don't really mean anything, as long as you don't lose all of them. Players are still getting their shit together. Did I mention its cold? I don't mind October baseball cold. That's meaningful! So for the night, besides drinking beforehand and wearing a few layers of clothes, I like to get some nachos with extra jalepenos, which I eat straight in two minutes or so, before starting on the nachos. Through the tears and the burning mouth, I kind of feel high, though maybe that's my body yelling at me to not do that anymore. I couldn't really tell what was going the first half inning, anyway.

As awesome as seeing the Fightin's romp on Sunday with Sarah, coming to the ballpark to see Cole Hamels on the mound was just about the opposite of Sunday's game. In other words, they got their asses kicked. It was entirely Cole Hamels fault, as he had a 6 run meltdown in the 2nd Inning. And yeah, me and Frank booed him. I think if any player has that disasterious of a showing, you are allowed to let them know you're displeased. Also, I cheered for Kyle Kendrick entering the game.

Its kinda crazy. I saw last year's Opening (giveaway) Night with Frank, and Kyle Kendrick started that one, and he got totally rocked in the first inning (which the Phillies came back to win after he got pulled.) And we booed him then. I even won a bet with my neighbor about whether or not Kyle would get another start (I bet he would get more chances, my neighbor thought Nelson Figueroa would take his job. Figueroa ended up getting his ass released a month or so later) Things have a weird way of working themselves out. From goat to hero, in a year.

Over the last few years, Mets-Phillies games have been especially fun to go to because they're a touch more intense, with more cursing and brawls than your average baseball game. Mets fans used to send a good contingent of fans to our stadium, and we'd do the same. (I'd hate to work on a train in Jersey and deal with the travelling hordes during those series). Last year towards the end seemed pretty tame, and I kind of forgot about the rivalry a bit (since I honestly hate the Braves more as a division rival, and the Yankees are the only truly evil team in baseball.) This year, a combination of Phillies fans buying up all the tickets well in advance and the fact that Mets Nation doesn't have much to cheer about led to there being almost no Mets fans in attendance to see their team shit all over Philadelphia. I did get to yell "Bernie Madoff!" at a group of them while leaving, who seemed to appear out of nowhere once victory was clinched. They responded "Well, we won this game." Oh, yeah.

A Mets fan ran onto the field in the 8th and got arrested at 2nd base. This means I've seen 3 of the 4 fans who've ran on the field this season and the last.

We went back to my place and drank till 3am. Frank made a movie about the carlights urban legend killer, which I enjoyed a lot. Once its out, I'll link it to you for downloading.

Next up: Thursday April 18th with Matt Dineen, a roadtrip to Reading to see the Reading Phillies (the Phillies' AA farm team) versus the Akron Aeros, for the second attempt at getting a Ryan Howard Lawn Gnome (this version looks much less racist)

Free giveaway item (from the Phillies' website since my phone was broke):

How'd McDonald's get the sponsorship two years in a row?

Game stats and my personal stats for 2011 baseball season under the cut

4/3/2011 PHILLIES VS. HOUSTON ASTROS

@ Citizens Bank Park

W 7-2

with Sarah Berkowitz

First game of the year. For the winter, dreams of this day helped me get through the days of January and February hell. Carefully and meticulously, I planned out my whole baseball season, to the tee with roadtrips, give-away nights, and opening nights. So it began, with my good friend Sarah, from ye olde Wooden Shoe. As we parked in the guaranteed free parking at the dog park at Broad and Oregon (a brisk walk to the stadiums, but worth it for people driving in who don't feel like paying for parking) my heart started racing. This is my zen. The Phillies security has somewhat lazy searches, as a I think I had a knife on my all 28 games I went to last year. But this time, at the Left Field entrance, they caught Sarah bringing in a metal coffee thermal in her bag. She outfoxed them though by going to the Third Base entrance instead and putting the thermal into her jacket. I think I'm going to bring my flask next time. About time, yes?

Every year, the Phillies seem to try to outdo themselves when they don't really have to. I think their ultimate goal is to make this a overall baseball town, pulling it from the iron grip of Eagles football, by the strategy of treating their fans well instead of, well, like dirt. They only add free give-aways, when they know that they're going to sell out every game (today was a free magnet calendar). The stadium is pretty newly built still, going up in 2004, and yet they put $10 million into building a new megatron, which upon seeing it for the first time today, is worth every pixel. Oh my god, it's sweet. Its kind of beyond words unless you see it in person. The thing is, their old one was pretty damn good too. They didn't need to do that. But they know if they push for complete awesomeness, like fielding a winning team and actually going for the crown every year, that they can achieve total domination over the Philadelphia sports landscape. Because I'm convinced that the Eagles care nothing about winning a Superbowl and more about just getting into the playoffs and that's it, since it'll keep the fans hungry and buying seats. Fuck that. And fuck the Eagles (ownership.) (On a side note, you know that Major League Baseball has to be rooting for the football lockout to go into October.)

Did I mention the food? Yes, as crazy as it might be, the Phillies actually added more food stations this year. I saw a crazy health station, where you can get pitas, yogurt, mixes, smoothies, and all that. And the vegetarians won't have a derth of food to devour, because there's veggie dogs and black bean burgers everywhere. (I like seeing the reaction on my vegetarian and vegan friends faces when I tell them that the Phillies are rated the number 1 veggie-friendly stadium in the US). I ended up getting a black bean burger (I learned last year not to trust meat at stadiums in general) and fries. Delish!

That's why going to see a Phillies game is awesome. And oh yeah, the game! The Phillies crushed the Astros, on a nice clincher of a three game sweep. Oswalt, facing his former team, fanned through six innings, and Herndon and Kendrick played mop-up. Howard and Francisco had nice back to back home runs, taking the Astros out of the game. Kind of nice, since last year I went to 3 of 4 of the disastrous four game sweep by the Astros (the last time the Phillies would lose a season series until the Championship Series). Michael Martinez, the Phillies Rule 5 pick this year from the Nats system, got the start in Centerfield over Victorino who ran into Francisco yesterday while diving for a ball (the second time I've seen him do that, having watched it happen when he ran into Ibanez on the other side in a Spring Training game), though Shane came in during the 7th as a pinch-hitter and played out the game in Center.

The nice thing about going to see games live is you remember who is sitting around you almost as much as the game (alright, sometimes more.) There was an extremely loud lady a few rows us, who's voice really carried throughout our section. The guy she was sitting next to also was kind of obnoxious, but she talked a lot. A lot! And I now know that "If you take birth control whenever you feel like it, you will get pregnant." and if two of her friends ever decide to get married, they "might as well mail in the divorce papers right afterwards." And something or other about sex and babies and punks on speed. 

Three military black helicopters flew nearly over the stadium. I'm convinced they wanted to screw with the crowd, or check out the score. Because that's how awesome the new megatron is. Still, creepy as hell.

Oh yeah, and saw friends Marissa (her birthday) and Beth B on the way out. And old Shoe comrade Colin "Floyd" said he saw me with his binoculars, because he's a perv.

Nice start to the season. Next up: Tuesday night game with Frankie Fucile. Its supposed to be pretty cold that night, so I'm going to make sure to get a little drunk and ask for extra peppers on my nachos.

Sarah after seeing people dance to "Put Me In Coach"
on the Megatron

First give-away of the year.

DC Roadtrip- Temple Vs GW

Last Saturday, Sam, little Koba, and myself travelled down I-95 for a visit to DC to see some college hoops, with our alma mater, Temple University, versus the school I briefly attended before transferring, George Washington. We got our asses up in the wee hours of the morning, and got to DC before 10am. After a brief stop at the Spy Museum (okay, their giftshop. We didn't want to pay the $30 entrance fee. And Sam has an unhealthy obsession with Joseph Stalin) and a visit to the DC Aquarium (which is just one fucking floor. Seriously, the Camden or Baltimore Aquariums have tanks as big as the DC Aquarium), we headed over to the Smith Center.

They say that basketball is the one sport where the college game is superior to the professionals game because of the teamwork and overall atmosphere. I gotta agree. I have never experienced the electricity of a college hoops game at a an NBA game. Now granted, maybe that's because the Sixers are fourth wheel of Philadelphia pro sports for probably the last ten years...

The Smith Center has a pretty huge and impressive megatron that I don't remember being there from when I was a student. It was a cool arena, though a bit small. Even though the average GW student sucks and unlikeable (as opposed to the average Temple student, who is awesome), the crowd was pretty impressive in how much they cheered on their team. Though, I'm gonna complain a little, because the cheerleaders also used goddamn annoying vuluzela like horns. I didn't hear too much shit-talking during the game, until I wondered down to the concessions during half-time to see if they had some ice cream, when I came upon Temple players waiting to re-enter the court. A GW fan started screaming at him, "Juan Fernandez is a faggot! Argentina sucks! Temple is a state school, so you guys have no future!" Juan just laughed, but one of his teammates said, "You better watch your mouth!"

The Temple Owls started off the game slow, missing shot after shot. "Gdub"'s crowd seemed pretty hyped to me, though it wouldn't last.  By the 2nd half, the Owls had climbed back into the game, and absolutely destroyed the Colonials by the end of the game. We observed, besides the stars on Temple's team, Juan Fernandez and Lavoy Allen, some of the undersung players. TJ DiLeo, the son of former Sixers coach and current front office man Tony DiLeo, never even looked to shoot the ball, even seemingly forbidden from taking shots. He seemed to be better at taking hard fouls than anything else. Hey, sometimes you gotta take a an elbow to the gut for the team...

I had a nice conversation with a GW alumni at the end, who gave a yellow foam finger to Koba. He said the Temple was the best team he'd seen, though injuries might derail us in the tournament. I tried to burn the yellow foam finger, but Sam seemed to think it was a better idea for Koba to keep it. It's your kid, Sam.

Fun day. Nice little roadtrip. Hopefully, we can make DC into our playground this summer when the Phillies go down to rock the Nationals.

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.