The Jumboest of Trons

The Phillies recently spent $10 million to enhance the CBP viewing experience. This will include the installation one of the largest HD jumbotrons in the entire world. I'm told that it could feature 49 life-size Phanatics or 49 vomiting Phillies fans or some combination of the two. Yikes!

You know what that means, Philthadelphia, City of Uggos. Our ugly's going to broadcast in HD this year! Who knows if you'll be forced to smooch that old dude that smells like provolone on the Kiss Cam again? Or how much uglier things could get if the Jumbotron catches you alone in the bleachers crying with a faceful of crab fries to "All By Myself"?

Keep it classy, Philadelphia.

A Prescription for Your SAD

Severe lack of vitamin D, mornings spent trudging through wintry mix, and the long wait until pitchers and catchers report getting you down? Don't worry—we're here with a prescription for your SAD, miserable Wednesday. It's the video for MC Hammer's "Addams Family Groove," featuring none other than a 13 year-old Jimmy Rollins!

If you can make it through the rest of the video, J-Roll appears somewhere around the 3:30 mark. He's in a graveyard, but "there's no dancing involved" because, in Jimmy's words, "you don't want to dance next to Hammer."

While we're on the subject, maybe it will cheer you up to check out Penn drop-out and Addams Family-creator Charles Addams' badass Wikipedia photo. Enjoy!

The He-Man Brew that the Gals Love Too!

Philadelphians love drinking beer. Heck! They love drinking period. They even have self-declared holidays centered around the sport like Philly Beer Week, and Philly Beer Year, which lasts for an entire year after the Phillies win or don't win the World Series.

This Ortlieb's ad from an old Phillies' scorecard and those billboards for Miller Lite and the Iggles got me thinking about what the beer of the Phillies should be. While lager means Yuengling here and the special (PBR + whiskey) is known citywide, I'd like to think that we could do better than that. Philadelphia's a land of microbreweries and dive bars and microbrew-stocked dive bars, and CBP probably has the best stadium beer selection ever. Even the Yankees have a beer, $10 Bud Lite based on last year's trip to Yankee Stadium, so why shouldn't we? Feel free to chime in here about your favorite ballgame libations and what you think the unofficial beer of the Philadelphia Phillies should be.

Also, check out this dude's flickr page for more neat Phillies stuff like this old Tastykake ad and sweet cover of the '77 Phillies yearbook.

Why Don't You Drink F***ing Beer?

My uncle—and lifelong Philly sports fanatic—Mark* has a great strategy for dealing with being bored, which I, incidentally, very often am while I'm at work. A game that never gets old and never goes out of season: Let's Start A Rumor. It is in the spirit of that game that I bring you this post...

It all started when I was browsing the archives of fellow punk Phillies blog The Big Sharkey Show and came upon a reference to the SF Giants' Brian Wilson and the suggestion that the infamous beardo/weirdo was nailed to the X, that is to say, dedicated to the straight edge lifestyle. Really, you ask???? Would you allow this to happen without the aid of alcohol? However, some cursory searching quickly brought a few points to my attention:

Doesn't Wilson look weirdly like Greg Dobbs here?

1) Brian Wilson's crossed arms gesture after every save looks suspiciously like the straight edge X. Wilson explains the gesture as a simultaneous tribute to his late father, a mixed martial arts clothing line, and his Christianity: "when I cross my arms, I have my left hand in the fist and my right hand goes underneath pointing with my finger. What I’ve taken into my own belief is that this finger represents one man. The fist represents the power of the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ... So I basically give respect to the ultimate fighting world and I also give respect to Christ, the audience of one that I play for." I've always suspected that straight edge kids are actually secret Jesus freaks!

2) The same article further explains that Brian Wilson wears a t-shirt bearing the crossed arms/X design under his uniform while he pitches. Win or lose, he's still nailed to the X.

3) Finally, Wilson's Wikipedia page** clears things up: "Wilson ... adheres to a Straight Edge way of life ... As a sign of his choice of being Straight Edge, Wilson has the words "Straight Edge" tattooed along the length of his torso, Japanese characters on his shoulder that read "Poison Free," and "XXX" stitched on his ... glove as a straight edge symbol" !!!!

In conclusion, I have only one thing to the straight edgers of the world, and I will say it in the words of Murphy's Law:

* Other things my uncle Mark is famous for: "inventing" the slogan "the only band that matters" to describe The Clash, a boo so legendarily loud Pete Rose himself tipped his hat from first base, and actually punching me on Christmas when I said I'm not an Eagles fan (sorry!!).

** The Wilson mentioned here may or may not actually be Brian.

Beverly Hills Cop vs. Midnight Cowboy

Everybody's talkin' about it. With Werth on the Nats next season, who's going to take over in right field? I've read it all. Ben Francisco with hints of Ross Gload? John Mayberry Jr.? That lovable newbie Domonic Brown? The boy did receive a standing ovation from the crowd at CBP prior to his first major league at bat and his later major league strikeouts. (Plus, people really loved him as Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a free wheeling Detroit cop that moves to Beverly Hills to investigate his best friend's murder.)

While all of these predictions are reasonable, every Tom, Dick, and Harry that supposedly knows anything about baseball has somehow overlooked the chances that Charlie will bring in his secret weapon. Yes, I'm talkin' about that jack of all trades Roy Oswalt. You know, when he's not busy being an ace (like on this dumb novelty t-shirt). Seriously, people. Rewatch his stint in left field from last season, and try not to think to yourself, "Great, but can he play right field?"

Little Roy ! How unexpected! How magical! I imagine his move from the mound to the outfield and back again would look a lot like this, cowboy Joe Buck's big move in the opening scene of the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy (Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" would definitely be playing):

Ah, to dream big, but let's get real. I can go out into right field and snag fly balls for the Phillies. The real issue is finding someone that's a smart hitter. People keep wondering what we're going to do next season without Jayson Werth's bat. I don't think his loss will be that big of a deal if Jimmy and Chase stay out of the hospital and Ryan Howard tells his boys to get him to the batting cages. Plus, while it's undeniable that Werth's a good power hitter, it should be noted that, like the Phillies last year, especially in the postseason, he had trouble coming through with ducks on the pond.

Right now we're a pitching team with a hitting problem. If we learn how to work the bats this year, the postseason's going to play out in our favor. Until then, let's just hope that we don't have to listen to another Joe Buck give us backhanded compliments when we do win.

Radio Days

Opening day cannot come soon enough. With more cold on the way and the most depressing day of the year still to come (January 24th or Blue Monday which is a "scientific fact" according to the internet and New Order), I've begun counting down the days, hours, and seconds until the Phils take on the Astros at 1:05 PM on April 1st.

Thanks to the folks over at The700Level and those awesome dudes on 610 WIP, the wait for April has become slightly more bearable due to this wonderful audio montage of Phillies highlights from 2010.

While the ending does not change no matter how many times you play it through (I'm on my fifth listen and Howard's still watching that meatball go by), it's bound to get you pumped about 2011 as memories of 2010 loop in your head.

Call me old fashioned, but there's something special to be said about radio. Seriously. Radio's great. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to experience the first half of the winning World Series game for the 2008 Phils during the most poorly timed power outage of all time, or have been able to ignore those annoying announcers on TBS and FOX during last year's postseason. Oh, and I will never forget driving into work last month sipping my coffee, watching the snow fall, and listening to an excited Philadelphia call into the 610 morning show with Angelo Cataldi after the Cliff Lee news hit. "Those fat Yankees fans will be eating flapjacks this morning, drowning their sorrows in carbohydrates," he said. Ah, the memories.

Baseball man Bill Veeck once said, "There are only two seasons- winter and Baseball". This is ringing especially true in the coldest and most depressing of months and in the wake of how the Birds played last night. So until opening day, it's going to be a lot of sitting around with my coffee and the radio, daydreaming about the Phillies of yesteryear.

Up the Phillies Punx

You can check out more of the Rock n' Punk Baseball Cards series here.

I would like to get this one tattooed over my heart. Everything about it is perfect.

Funner

Lest we forget the Great Doctor and Cy Young Collector Harry Leroy "Roy" Halladay III. What better day to raise a glass to Doc than on a day for baseball heroes everywhere?

Last week, the Daily News named Doc Sportsperson of 2010, just shortly after he was named runner up for "the man" by Sports Illustrated. But, hey. There's always next year. From the Daily News article:

"Here's what I never realized about Philly," Halladay said. "You always hear that they're tough fans and they boo everybody and this and that. But you really don't realize what good sports fans they are. It's not like every other city where certain people show up just to boo. There are people all over the city who are really drawn to the sports teams there. It's unlike any place I've ever been in before."

Halladay loved Toronto. To this day, Toronto still loves him. But that town, like most others, is a place of diverse interests, a melting pot of cultures from around the globe. "There are certain parts of New York where you'll hit some Yankee fans," Halladay said. "But it's not everybody.

"In Philly, it always feels as if it's everybody."

Thanks, Doc. For everything.