I ran into a friend of mine on Broad last night who said, “This is the best night of my life. And I’ve been married and had a daughter.” I cried shortly before I went to bed at 5 a.m. and I cried a little again a few minutes ago reading about Charlie, and I’ll probably cry again during the parade. I know I’m not from here originally, but I have been a sports fan since I was 5 years old, and have never gotten to be a part of anything like this either. This is exalting. The raging hangover I have will go away. The night I had last night will not. And the parade is going to be magnificent. More to come.

The plan on Saturday night was to watch at the ‘Vous with a bunch of friends. As I walked to the Locust, the rain began to pour. The discussion of doing The Unthinkable quickly came up. I said to no-one in particular. “You know, if ever you’re going to a Phils World Series game, tonight is the night. Tickets are going to be dirt cheap, relatively speaking.” Everybody was hemming and hawing about it. Garbo said, “If you go, I’m in.” I continued to mull over it. I felt confident we could get a cheap ticket, and the later they pushed the start time back, the better our chances would be. All the Phils fans would stay at the ballpark, but the corporate suits sure as hell weren’t going to get their heads wet. So there would be seats. Finally, my buddy Jon texted me from a nearby bar. “Let’s go down there. Tickets will be cheap.” That was it. I was all in. “F*** it,” I wrote back. “Let’s do it.”

I looked up from my phone and asked around, “I’m going down there. Who’s in?”. Garbo said with no hesitation, “I am.” Nobody else was felt like leaving friendly confines to go on a strange adventure in the cold rain. So Garbo and I marched out like soldiers off to War, knowing that we had stormed off too cockily to return, even if we didn’t score tickets. Jon called back, and said he had changed his mind and was out. Garbo and I sloshed through the rain to the subway, and hopped on board.

Continue reading “The World Series Chronicles: Game 3” →

Just wanted you to know that I’m not the only one around here counting down the minutes to Game 3. I might be liveblogging it. I’ll let you know. In the meantime, think you might enjoy this faux conversation between Mike Schmidt and his wife.

My apologies to the people I sent “Rays in Five” texts to last night. But this RISP situation is causing me to lose my mind. Also doing that was the buffoon who was umpiring last night. Way to come up small in the big game, you clown. Thing is, even with their lack of clutch hitting and the umpire conspiring against them, the Phils coulda won that game. Myers was solid if not spectacular. He gave up 3 earned runs, which would have been 2 if it wasn’t for the joker calling balls and strikes. Jayson Werth’s error was huge. But in the end, we come out of Tampa exactly the way we wanted to: tied 1-1. And keep in mind, these hitters have never seen Jamie Moyer. And how exciting is it that a 46 year old is getting ready to pitch his first World Series game? After the sloppiness of the first two games, I expect a classic in Game 3. But keep in mind, I am always wrong about everything when it comes to this team (thus no hesitation to send a “Rays in 5” text message), so don’t take that one to the bank. Also, good news. I did not wear my lucky shirt last night, so it was no surprise that they lost. I will be wearing it tomorrow night. So rest easy.

…Charlie Manuel selects So Taguchi as his DH for the games in Tampa. No, seriously, I will. I will be so enraged that it will be impossible for me to root for the Phils. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it has to be. I cannot freaking believe Manuel didn’t drop Taguchi and call up Marsons for the Series, so that he could DH Chris Coste. The only other acceptable DH against a lefty will be Burrell, with Bruntlett playing left. But even that still means you’re wasting an at-bat, with Bruntlett being a black hole. I just cannot freaking understand why this team insists on keeping Taguchi around. I really can’t figure it out.

I woulda posted earlier but, ahem, I just woke up. The party on Broad Street was pretty wild. Here are some photos I took of the celebration.

Go Phils!

Here’s the latest short video I did at the Blue Horizon. Music for the video was from local band The Broken Prayers. There are fights there this Friday at 7:30 p.m. If you want to see any of the fights from October 3 when I went, click here. I’d highly suggest the Joselito Collado vs. David Orosco Cano fight.

Best Phils game of the postseason so far. I gotta admit, I gave up when Ryan Howard threw that ball into right field. This came after he lollygagged down to first in the first inning, where he would have been safe had he hustled. So I already had my goat picked out. But Shane Victorino made all of that irrelevant with his two run line drive homer in the 8th, followed by Matt “Beerleaguer” Stairs two run blast. It was even sweeter because the Dodgers fans have been all over Vic following Monday’s “Throw at my ribs, not my head” showdown. But as Reggie Jackson once said, “They don’t boo nobodies”, and with his postseason performance, Victorino is certinly no nobody. Oh, and the even sweeter part is that he was drafter by the Dodgers, but they didn’t call him up because they didn’t think he could hit. After the Stairs home run, Trivia Art called. He said, “I just want you to hear this.” He held the phone up to the 66,000 people in the crowd. It was the sweetest, most deafening silence I’ve ever heard.

RELATED: Jayson Stark’s take on the game.