Philadelphia, known as “The City of Brotherly Love” ever since Benjamin Franklin invented sarcasm in 1767, is the largest city in Pennsylvania and a suburb of New York. Philadelphia was founded by Quakers, who have to still be wondering what happened. The city was the site of the writing of the United States Constitution and the nation’s capital from 1790 to 1800. Pennsylvanians were hoping that the country would never get around to actually building Washington DC and the capital would remain in their state. Things in Philadelphia have consistently gone downhill since 1800.
Philadelphia’s sports teams are best known for their consistent record of bitter failure. The Philadelphia Eagles have never won a Super Bowl. The Philadelphia 76ers have not won an NBA title since 1982 and used to play in Syracuse. The Philadelphia Flyers have not won the Stanley Cup since 1974. Temple University football is coming off its first winning season since 1990. And while the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, it remains the case that they have lost more games than any professional sports franchise in history and their total of two World Series wins is tied for the lowest of any of the “original” sixteen teams. All of this has understandably left Philadelphia sports fans bitter, a bitterness they express by gaining weight and by booing basically everybody except for Philadelphia players who may have killed or maimed members of the opposition.
Philadelphia’s signature items of cuisine include “cheesesteak”, which makes up for its lack of steak-quality meat by being extremely cheesy. Entire elections have swung on proper cheesesteak etiquette. Another well-known Philadelphia delicacy is “scrapple”, defined by Wikipedia as “a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices”. Yum, pork scraps and trimmings!
Philadelphia music is defined by the “Philly Sound”, which is the sound of musicians leaving Philadelphia for New York as quickly as they can. Famous Philadelphia music acts include the O’Jays and Hall & Oates, and I really like both and don’t have a joke here. Philadelphia was also the home of American Bandstand until Dick Clark left Philadelphia in 1964 in search of virgins whose blood could maintain his unholy lifeforce.
Philadelphia is also famous for being the birthplace of Will Smith, as he loudly proclaims in perhaps the most famous TV theme lyric since The Jeffersons. In his version, the Fresh Prince’s equivalent of movin’ on up was, of course, leaving Philadelphia.
This is really hilarious, Mac. One of your best yet.
Very nice, Mac.
Well done. Always important to point up the high misery factor of Philadelphia sports.
Gotta say, the Philly Sound is pretty unimpeachable, some of my favorite music ever. While the talent wasn’t always from Philly—e.g., The O’Jays were actually from Ohio, The Spinners from Detroit—the music & the label was based right in town. (It’s still a source of pride among the musicians & DJs there.) Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff & Thom Bell knew what they were doing. From The Stylistics to Teddy Pendergrass, the music really endures.
Shameless Music Plug Alert: There’s a great, great 4-CD box set, loaded with the best of Philadelphia International Records called, “Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia.” It’s all there. Terrific liner-note/booklet, too.
FWIW, the Flyers thugged their way to consecutive Stanley Cups in 1974 & ’75. Been to the Finals a bunch since then, but no joy.
BTW, AAR, DJ Jazzy Jeff is a huge Phillies fan.
…a bitterness they express by gaining weight…
For some reason, this made me laugh harder than any other line in the write-up. Awesome job, Mac.
Glaus sigue sin jugar.
1. Prado 2B, 2. Infante LF, 3. Jones 3B, 4. McCann C, 5. Hinske 1B, 6. Cabrera RF, 7. Escobar SS, 8. Blanco CF, 9. Lowe P
I can very easily see us getting swept this series. Starters are going to have to keep it close and hope we can get into the bullpen. I ma a bit nervous for the club.
Hmmm. I though we were resting Glaus so he would be ready for this series. He might be banged up pretty bad.
Hard to like tonight’s mound matchup. Still, if we can do .500 on this 6-game road trip, I think we can hang onto 1st going into the break.
Mets host the Reds for three in Queens. I don’t see a sweep there.
I don’t really know how they’re doing it, and I don’t totally believe that they’re legit, but the Reds have been REALLY good this year. They obviously can pound the ball, their bullpen’s legit, and as long as their rotation doesn’t go nuclear they have a chance in every game. I’d love it if they could bludgeon the Mets for a while.
If we get swept by an Utley-less, sans-Polanco Phillies team, well, we’ve got no right to first place in this division.
Need Glaus back, man. Infante’s been good lately, but he ain’t Glaus.
The Phillies just lost 3 of 4 to the PIRATES and are reeling right now. If we get swept, then we have a serious problem.
I expect that the Phillies’ pitchers won’t look quite as good without Utley (the best defensive second baseman in the league) and with Greg Dobbs or whoever playing third base in place of Polanco.
It would be nice if we could bury these guys.
Oh no. McLouth trying to get clearance to start a rehab assignment.
May he become Jordan Schafer’s roommate.
Bill Simmons best guess for which big-name free agent Joe Johnson will entice to Atlanta? Shaq. That’s….not going to work. And, what’s worse, I can totally see it happening.
Random question:
Has anyone ever used Rosetta Stone before? Thinking about learning a new language, but I don’t have time to take a class and I obviously don’t have time to live in another country to ‘immerse’ myself in the language.
My wife was using Rosetta Stone for German when she was on maternity leave and learned a lot in a short time.
I’ve made a start with it before, but never followed through. Seemed like a good appropach though.
I used Pimsleur for Vietnamese when I thought I was going there — lots of repetition, including reinforcing basics as the lessons grow more complex. It seemed to be working well. But I haven’t gotten to use it, so who knows.
For what it’s worth, Keith Law always recommends Pimsleur in his chats.
Good information. You give me useful tips.
I had eaten irish full breakfast and cheese for around two months last year. To my shame, I principally weigh forty-eight kilograms but had gained more weight, I guess 3 or 4 kilograms, I should have. I was shocked and then tried to avoid eating too much that cuisine if possible. Now is ok.
The reason I like bravesjournal is diversity here.
Anyway, watching baseball and travelling a famous spot without visiting there. Good work, cheers.
By the way, Lowe does know how to win? Let me see….
I’m thinking about using it for German as well. I know its not gonna get me fluent in the language, but I just want to be knowledgeable with another language.
Chipper Mutha’ Fuggin’ Jones.
Old man delivers!!! We love you Chipper!
Halladay appeared to let Chipper know what he thought about that HR as he passed by….
Where’s Chip? Melky truly fisted that thing.
Yunel, will you get hot every again?
I love hearing Smoltzie and Glavine once a while.
Hello from a very warm citizens bank park…
Had a really nice day, drove up from dc early this am and went to AC, spent the day gambling, and then to philly for the game tonight. Let’s hope lowe knows how to win or it could be a long drive home tonight.
Good decision Bobby. Don’t give Rollins a chance to beat us.
Talk about false advertising. Promo claiming that Joe Morgan and Bobby Valentine joining Chris Berman in the booth for a game will be “fun”.
More likely to hit a homerun today: Escobar or Blanco?
Nice to get out of that mess. Now, less runners on base, Derek.
Also very civil of Sardinha to swing at the pitch bouncing two feet left of home plate.
Blanco might hit an inside-the-park homer.
The Knicks signed Stoudamire. Seems about right.
ESPN talking heads are bsd. One insisted that Werth should have come in on ball that got away from McCann. He had a poor start and would have been easy out.
Hinske has been a bit unlucky.
Melk…..dud.
Home plate ump Jim Reynolds just made the list. Melk took a borderline strike three, and stood there, silently, for a half-second. Reynolds immediately took two steps straight at him with a look on his face that said “you got a problem with that?” Asshole.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The dumpy guys in the dugout seats wearing tshirts and giant gold chains are funny
Jersey Shore, baby.
It’s no worse than the dumbass “country music” theme Peachtree TV uses, I suppose. I mean, I can totally see Hank Williams playing a Flying V.
Shades of Caminiti on that play, Hinske….
Chippah
Blarg.
Well, that sucked.
Ballgame–everyone, go home.
Damn. I thought there might have been a play on the Werth ball before the HR
Gregg Hobbs…….unbelievable. A real left fielder might have had a shot at Werth’s ball.
TIME TO SCORE SOME RUNS!
Infante was caught in-between. He played it safe. Can’t let a ball get past you with less than 2 outs in a one-run game.
Halladay had 67 pitches coming into the 7th inning. I get the feeling we’ll have to scratch one against him. We may not see their closer tonight.
Edit: Gee, I was almost positive Melky would bunt there.
#50 – no chance, unless its Crawford
Melky Cabrera is on my SHIT LIST.
another fing swing on the 1st pitch from Melky after a walk
God I effing HATE Melky. Rot in hell, you, fat loser.
Melk-u!
can Melky really go away when Nate comes back, he can take Yunel with him….
Why is Bobby still playing this guy?????????????? For the love of God already, play Brooks Conrad or Matt Diaz. We have better hitters. Cabrera is a bleeping joke. I hate his fat, ugly, useless, drunk face. I hate you, Melky.
We’re done for tonight. Does anyone still think this team is fine as is?
I would love to see what Cabrera’s avg against the NL is….it has to be under .200. Reds 6 Mets 1 with Pelphrey going…good deal.
Halladay had given up his first walk to start the inning off (to Hinske) which is a sign that he might be wearing down. Thats why I first pitch double play is so freaking crippling.
#60
We have a severe, severe, offensive issue on this team. Especially with Heyward hurt and out, and now Glaus. But even with both healthy, we need another everyday outfield bat if we want to seriously think about October.
Alright, empty the tank, Derek.
Hallday’s thrown 78 pitches in 7 IP. This guy is something else.
60- I do. It’s one game vs Roy Halladay with Heyward and Glaus out.
Matt Diaz is a human strikeout.
So far, no reason to hate on Lowe. One bad pitch.
#65
We’ve had a wildly inconsistent offense all year – either awesome or terrible.
#66
No one should be banging on Lowe. He’s been very good tonight.
If there’s ever a time to panic, it’s when you’re not scoring tons of runs against Roy fucking Halladay.
Yes a real bat in the outfield is definitely a need. Hinske is slowing down, Melky can’t hit against the NL and no one knows what is going with Escobar.
We’re doomed! DOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!!!!!!!!
Love me some Gregor Blanco.
EARN YOUR KEEP, GREGOR! EARN IT!
Will Bobby bunt again(rolling my eyes)?
That’s why we tolerate Greg White.
Gregor Blanco = MORON
*sigh*
Shit damn.
Nice way to throw away the promise of this inning.
Good grief….so yesterday you have Conrad bunting in the same situation, today you have him hit and run against Roy when he has been on the bench all game? Just saying…
Nasty.
Good thing Conrad didn’t bunt, down 1 in the eighth, with our fastest man on 1st… caught stealing is much more modern.
Sucks to give away a good start by Lowe. You never know if you’re going to get another.
It was a hit and run, not a straight steal. I don’t like the hit and run with a all or nothing guy like conrad.
Espn radio said bobby doesn’t play small ball and rarely bunts. At least chip wouldn’t have said that would he?
Well that was cool.
Awwwww, shoot.
It was over anyway, but we will somehow get a couple of runners on in the 9th before ultimate failure
More Good News: Reds in the midst of coughing up a 7-1 lead. It’s 7-6 Reds in the bottom of the 5th, Mets still batting.
Thx for the good news Ububba lol…
well good news this is coming before the trade deadline and not after. Its one game vs Halladay, just need to win the next two
bad news – Melky Cabrera is still a regular
Hey, tonight wasn’t a game anyone thought we’d win. No shame in losing to Halladay. He’s a beast.
Let’s go, Reds.
Halladay owns us.
Just hate to waste a good game by Lowe…..
He owns a lotta clubs.
Another HR for Votto. It’s 8-6 Reds.
I don’t know how the Mets keep winning with a lineup that includes Jeff Francoeur, Angel Pagan, Ruben Tejada, Alex Cora and Rod Barajas. It’s inexplicable.
Well, damn. This is the game you expect to lose. Back at ’em tomorrow.
well we have been winning with Blanco, Melky, Infante, and Brooks too
Is Moyer going in this series?….he also owns the Braves.
Recapped. DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!!!!!!!!
Mets can pitch better than most teams.