It begins again: NL East Champions x3

I know exactly what I want to happen in this post season (hint: it involves another parade in Philly), and I know exactly how I want it to happen (think pinstripes, falling down). However, I do not want to jinx anything, so I'll say no more beyond Go Phillies!

Regardless, when I was back in Philly in September, I was struck by the number of people wearing Phillies shirts or jerseys or caps, or sporting bumper stickers, or so on. Which was, quite frankly, awesome. It's about time that the city be able to truly rally around a sports team without shame or the knowledge that you're rooting for a lost cause. Because literally, for people in my age group from that area, being able to rejoice with other people at a championship is brand new, and I think we're all enjoying it too much to let it go.

Okay guys...

Dearest still-world-champions-but-had-best-get-your-asses-in-gear Phillies,

Citizen's Bank Park is your stadium. It is your home field. Have you ever heard the term 'home field advantage'? If not, it means that generally speaking, when a sports team is playing at home, in front of an audience which mostly wants them to win as they are locals, and presumably you've played many more games in this stadium than anywhere else, you have a slight advantage. You may want to make a note of this.

In other words, please stop losing every home game. It's beginning to get a bit embarrassing, and I thought we were over those days.

Take me out to the ball game...

The Phils just wrapped up a rather odd little interleague series against the Red Sox. The first game saw the Phillies put up a decent fight but lose 5-2. The second game, on Saturday, saw a cataclismically bad reenactment of the Phillies' glory days, and by glory days I mean those occassional times when they collectively forget how to play baseball. The top of the first saw them give up five runs, thanks in large to not one, not two, but three errors. They did eventually remember how to hit the ball, though not how to field it, and really the last run Boston scored in the top of the 9th (taking them to an 11-6 victory) was the final blow in a beheading with a dull, rusty axe.

However, yesterday saw the Phillies - and this is just weird - beat the Sox 11-6, getting six of their runs in the 7th. Either the score was intentional just to poke Boston in the eye (in which case the Phillies are much better than I thought and as such have a lot of explaining to do about Saturday*), or fate is once again just jerking them around.

Either way, they're doing pretty well overall so far this season, with the occasional ass-kicking handed back to them. Way too soon to make any guesses about what will happen come October, but you know, anything is possible...

*Because...seriously, guys? Three errors in one inning? Are you a professional team, or the local seven-year-old 'we use a batting tee after the first sixteen strikes' little league team?

Oh, I'm deeply ashamed

So, uh, apparently, the young lady in this clip has an impenetrable accent.

Honestly, had I not watched it in that context, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything remotely remarkable about it: yeah, she mumbles a little bit but she sounds perfectly normal. Ah, Philadelphia, birthplace of some terrible crimes against the English language. (Caveat: "Yous" is a perfectly acceptable pluralization in casual conversation. "Y'all," and particularly "All y'all" is never, ever acceptable.)

The typed comments are retarded, though.

Fly, Eagles, fly?

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle; the Eagles, in a stroke of insane luck, have made the playoffs.

Two Philadelphia sports teams in the playoffs in the same year? And it's the Eagles and the Phillies? What chaos!

(Also - seeing all the Phillies bumper stickers and stuff around here is still making me grin like an idiot. Is this kind of how Yankees fans feel all the time?)

Some post-post-season Phillies love

Here is the best 6-minute documentary about the Phillie Phanatic's hot dog gun that I have ever seen.

Please please please please please

How awesome were the Phillies tonight? So awesome that their pitcher hit a home run. To be colloquial about it: Hell yeah!

Now, one more game like that, tomorrow night. Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

Dear sports community:

1. Indoor, air-conditioned baseball stadiums with artificial turf are not luxurious and comfortable, they are an affront to god. Have we not learned yet that baseball is one of those things that modern science is not helping?

2. The Rays are not a bad team. Nor are they a good team. They don't have any particular reputation whatsoever. Know what they are? A ten-year-old franchise. By contrast, the Philadelphia Phillies are a 125-year-old team. Please stop trying to legitimately compare 10 years of history to 125 years.

3. Game 1, top of the first, Phils are up 2-0. GO PHILLIES!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

Want to see something beautiful?

Here it is:
The Philadelphia Phillies are going to the World Series, because they are awesome and wonderful and I am not exaggerating when I say that the last time I was this excited about baseball I was six years old.

Go Phillies!

*glee*

I absolutely, fully, and wholly forgive the Phillies for last night.

If they want to try something new on Wednesday and win without giving every Phillies fan a damn heart attack, they should absolutely feel free to do so. But really, as long as they win, I'm going to remain solidly in love with them forever and ever.

A regression to being six years old

And with a very nice 3-to-1 series against the Brewers, the Phillies move onto the NLCS, someplace they haven't been since 1993. I'm very excited about this.

Go Phillies!

(Also: my condolences to any and all Cubs fans. Someday, guys.)

Aw yeah, you know you love it.

Honest to god, I think we're inching ever closer to the ESPN writers needing to say nice things about the Phillies. So far they're sticking with their general "uh, no, it was just the other team choking," but if tomorrow's game is anything like yesterday's awesomeness they're just gonna have to suck it up and admit it.

Instead, what October served up was the most disastrous outing of Sabathia's Brewers career -- all 18 starts of it.

Hell yeah. Go Phillies!

Hooray!

Let's go Phillies!

And again

National League East champions? The Phillies, of course.

What does it say about me as a Phillies fan that upon hearing this news my reaction is not one of joy, but rather apprehension? I mean, great work so far, guys, but...you are the Phillies, so, uh, there's kind of some negative momentum going here.

Baseball

Phils beat the Cardinals 20-2.  Also, currently number one in the division.  

I swear to god if they screw it up again this year I will never watch or listen to another baseball game ever again.

How not to be remembered after death

Philly.com: "Camden cop shot, nude man dead."  

Bummer, dude.

Paging Due Process...Due Process to Philadelphia, please

Ramsey said he and Nutter were in agreement on Nutter's crime-fighting strategy, including Nutter's promise to employ a controversial "stop, question and frisk" policy to target illegal weapons.

Though outgoing Commissioner Johnson has warned that Nutter's stop-and-frisk strategy could risk "disaster" by alienating the public, Ramsey said the aggressive tactic was a "valuable tool" as long as it was conducted within the law.

"You need reasonable suspicion in order to stop them," Ramsey said in an interview the day his selection was announced. "There's a way in which you interact with people - you don't want to alienate folks by being rude and abusive. Usually when people get stopped by policemen, what they complain about is not the initial stop, they complain about they way they were treated and disrespected by the police officers." (link)

No, what makes people feel alienated is the arbitrary revocation of their constitutional rights, dumbass.

As much as I wish it were, owning a gun is not illegal. Therefore, even if Officer Joe Incompetent, star of the Philadelphia Police, sees someone who he thinks is carrying a gun, there's no probable cause to stop them. If Officer Joe sees someone who he thinks is carrying a gun, and matches the description of someone who was recently involved in a shooting, then sure, stop him. But unless there's that probable cause, the police have absolutely no right to stop you.

And so it ends...

Well. That was...disappointing.

So what now, Phillies, another 14 years of "Hey, we really freaking SUCK"? If you were going to just throw it away, you know what? A lot of your fans probably would have preferred if you didn't even bother getting our hopes up that we might maybe get a third shot at, hell, the NLCS, let alone the World Series. Considering that you're a franchise that's been around for well over 100 years and have been there five times in 124 years. The guys you just got swept by haven't ever been there, but that's because they've only been in existence for 14 years. Note that their entire history as a franchise is the amount of time since you last were in the playoffs.

And now I'm going to have to hope that the Diamondbacks of all teams beat the Rockies, just because I sure as hell can't cheer for the Rockies after the way they just smeared you around.

*sigh* Philly.

Oh yeah.

Phillies. The game started well.

...

Middle of the sixth and the Rockies lead 10-3.

*sigh*

Yep, that's the Phils playing.

eta: goddamnit, chance of a comeback? Quit playing around with my emotions, Phillies! >:-(

Seriously man

3-2 Rockies, end of the sixth.

C'mon Phillies!

(Seriously: My mother sounded excited about baseball when I talked to her today. My mother is never excited about sports. Everyone in the city of Philly is happy. Because of the Phillies. This is so awesome it's weird.)