Story to follow whenever I recover from my hangover! How sweet it is! How sweet it is! Here’s a few select calls from Harry in the 9th:
HARRY KALAS: You hear the cheer? You hear the cheer? You know what that is? That’s the final out at Shea Stadium…This is just unbelievably exciting. Wow! What great fans…This is really special to be here and see this. This is quite an afternoon…This is truly exciting…Curve ball, struck him out! THe Phillies are National League East champions!

First off, gotta give credit where credit is due: I regularly check in on Metsblog to see what the hairy necks are up to, and I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed with what this Metsblog writer had to say. Apparently Mets fans are all jumping off the bandwagon, calling talk radio and going ballistic, leaving 3 run games in the 6th inning, etc. In other words, acting ways that the national media says that only Philly fans act. But man, the only thing as fun as coming from 7 games back is coming from 7 games back against the Mets. So now, a conundrum: I kind of want the Mets to make the playoffs, albeit as a wild card. I think a Mets-Phils NLCS would be off the freaking Richter.

Then again, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. The Phils still have to cool off a red hot Nationals team, the same team that kicked us out of the playoff race two years ago. But something feels different about this Phils team, and I’m sensing something I didn’t sense a couple of years ago: confidence. Phillie players (and fans) fully expect to win the damn thing. This particular team has captured this city’s hearts like no team in the city since I moved here 6 years ago, and I even count the Eagles team that went to the Super Bowl, because nobody enjoyed that team b/c they were expected to make it to the Super Bowl (or at least the NFC championship game).

We have a goofy manager that the fans still have a love/hate relationship with (and leaning a little heavier on the hate), a roster that has been ravaged by injuries, a shortstop who said they were the team to beat in March and then backed it up 159 freaking times in a row, a catcher who played in the minors for 14 years, a LF whose career was considered to be over until he suddenly surged back and rescued the team when their star 2B went out, a fun loving Hawaiian, Mitch Williams joining the post game show, etc., etc., etc. Oh, and don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Harry has slipped into his playoff voice these past few nights, and it is spine tingling. I have been a sports fan for over 25 years, and I have to say that this has been the most fun ride I’ve ever been on. I really hope it continues past this weekend.

Sad day in Mudville. The Phils blow a chance to make up on the Mets, and the Padres come from behind to win in the 9th, putting us one back in the playoff race. Funny how fast we can go from “This is our year!’ to “Here we go again.” Took about 15 pitches last night, until that pathetic excuse for an umpire gave Texeira 4 strikes and he blasted one out of the ballpark after strike 3. A nice comeback to take the lead, and you heard Harry bust out his playoff voice when Werth launched that homer. Chicken skin when I heard his call. But anytime your season is on the line and you are forced to turn to Geoff Freaking Geary, you know you’re in trouble. Tonight is essentially a Game 7. Lose, and we’re done.

Well, gang, let’s face it. We’ve been here before. Every single year, it seems. And every year we seem to blow one against the Nationals with three games left and a 1/2 game lead. But let’s not pretend that it’s not ours for the taking. Tied for the wild card lead with 6 to play. The team we’re tied with, the Padres, seem to be on the verge of a collective meltdown. The team right behind us, the Colorado Rockies, are red hot. But that is irrelevant. The Phils control their own destiny, which is all you can really ask for with a week left in the season. So what should we as fans do at this point? Throw caution to the wind, and BELIEVE? Or realize that this team is going to go down in history as the biggest tease ever, missing the playoffs by a single game every single year for the rest of our freaking lives?

Went to the Eagles game yesterday with Trivia Art, and as you might expect, it was a lot of fun seeing the home team run up and down the field, steamrolling the hapless Lions. But you know me, I need something to whine about, so here goes: Just when I think that a lot of Eagle fans can’t get any dumber, they boo a quarterback who worked his ass off to be ready to play this year. Yes, McNabb looked rusty the first two weeks. Not surprising, considering he was coming off career threatening knee surgery. But while most fans would try to get behind their star quarterback and pick him up, the idiots here boo him and call for Kevin Kolb. Yes, he also said that black quarterbacks get graded more harshly than their white counterparts. I tend to disagree, but so what? I could care less what my QBs opinions on social issues are, I just want him to throw the damn ball.

And throw the damn ball he did, for 381 yards and a perfect 158.3 QB rating. I wonder what the idiots said then. “Feeley woulda thrown for 500.” If you morons want to see what a crappy quarterback dragging down a good team looks like, look at Chicago. Otherwise, either get behind your quarterback (the best, mind you, in the history of the franchise) or find a new team. This is precisely the reason that, while I never find a silver lining in a Phillies loss, the silver lining when the Eagles lose is that the jackass fans will be miserable for the next week.
RELATED: Remember last year, when the idiots cheered when Garcia got hurt? Then paid $125 for his jersey three weeks later? Fair weathered fans are the koolest!
RELATED: The 700 level calls fans idiots as well.

If you haven’t already, read a bit about the Mets latest meltdown, as they blew a three run lead in the 9th. Here’s some fun comments from the hairy necks on metsblog.com as Mets fans watched their team meltdown last night:
If there ever was a playoff “poser” the Mets are certainly it.
Somebody please explain to me what’s going on.
I’ve never seen a team with less heart. Period.
shameful
We don’t deserve the playoffs. Period.
Well as usual the Phillies come from behind to WIN and the Mets come from ahead to LOSE!!!
This loss may be the final nail in our coffin.
Words can’t describe what I’m feeling right now. Pain, anguish, anger, sorrow, and physically ill.
they don’t deserve to go the playoffs; let’s go phillies
GAME OVER. SEASON OVER. Phillies In. Mets Out. Biggest collapse ever.
How does one get Phillies Playoff tickets?

Let me just say, it will be a cold day in hell when I or any Phils fan finds themselves rooting for the Mets, no matter how bad things get. But the hairy necks aren’t scared to pull a Benedict Arnold when the going gets rough. Btw, if the Mets do blow the lead, it will be the biggest collapse since the ’64 Phillies. No-one has ever blown a 7 game lead with 17 games to play.

ONE AND A HALF GAMES, METS FANS!!! I bet your hairy necks are sweating now. Great win last night for the Phils, highlighted by another Met meltdown. If we take the division and the Mets don’t make the playoffs, it will go down in history right up there with the ’64 Phils. No team has ever blown a 7 game lead with 17 to play, which the Mets will do if they blow it. Dunno if you stayed up last night to watch, but my boy came through in the clutch, and I have thus decided to write him a short letter. Here goes.

Dear Rod,

I am sorry for the way I have treated you over the months. Please be aware that much of it was just frustration over the way that our dumbass GM had treated Chris Coste. That being said, I knew there was only one thing that would allow me to get over what you did against the Marlins when you let Ramirez slide through your legs. And that is what you did last night. Pressure packed situation, two strikes, and you pierce one up the middle. The city welcomes you back into it’s collective bosom. And now, I think i should express my newfound feelings for Rod in song:
We sailed on together
We drifted apart
And here you are by my side

So now I come to you, with open arms
Nothing to hide, believe what I say
So here I am with open arms
Hoping you’ll see what your love means to me
Open arms

David Akers is thus far having a really nice season.

Came up with a good nickname for Adam Eaton last night. Did you ever see the movie The Cooler, where William Macy plays a guy who, when someone gets hot on the craps tables, goes over and touches them and cools off their hot streak? Well, The Cooler is the perfect nickname for Adam Eaton, who is guaranteed to cool off the Phils every time they threaten to get hot. Of course, this nickname could also apply to every single pitcher we have besides Kendrick, Hamels, and JC Romero. Here’s Bob Ford telling us what we already knew:
The Phillies’ starters, as a unit, aren’t capable of producing the kind of stretch the team will need eventually – even just to sneak into the postseason. Nearly anything is possible in baseball if you watch long enough, but waiting for the Phils to win eight out of 10 with this pitching staff would be asking for a very long wait…That means there is nothing to do now but wait the wait, watch the games fall slowly off the schedule, with a win here, maybe a couple, here a loss, here another, until the team comes to rest somewhere right around 85 wins, same as last season. In the hunt, but just behind the baying pack. It will be another solemn end, and another year tacked to the lengthening string of frustration. But at least everyone concerned is used to it.
RELATED: JGT discusses Phils and Iggles in today’s Metro.

In an effort to lower the team’s ERA, the Phils have decided to trade Tom Gordon to a tee ball team in Newark, Delaware, in exchange for a tee. “We felt like we needed to upgrade our bullpen, and we think that acquiring this tee does that,” said general manager Pat Gillick. The Ducks of the Newark tee ball league were overjoyed by the trade. “We think that Tom will be teach some of the younger players the difference between 3rd base and the pitching rubber,” said Slim Widgeon, coach of the Ducks. “More importantly, in tee ball, the pitcher doesn’t have to actually pitch, so we don’t think that Tom will be able to hurt us in that department.”

The move was seen as a PR move by the Phils, as the tee has never beaten it’s wife or set any Venezuelans on fire. The Phillies also traded Antonio Alfonseca to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival for an interpretive dancer who specializes in “bringing moonbeams to life.”