Phillies News and Notes

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Lots of Phillies stuff to talk about. Our dreadful bullpen blew it again last night. I am no longer on the Charlie-hater bandwagon. I have decided to devote all of my energy to the Pat Gillick hater bandwagon. For him to pretend like we didn’t need bullpen help desperately, and instead spend his extra money on the worst catcher in baseball and the worst 3rd baseman in baseball is absolutely pathetic. I don’t get mad at Charlie most of the time when it comes to pulling pitchers anymore b/c he is always facing a double edged sword: tired starter or dreadful bullpen? And that is entirely Gillick’s fault. And he refuses to actually work to find a young guy with potential in somebodies pen and make a trade. Why bother, when you can just pick up Jose Mesa?

*Bill Conlin today says Charlie is to be commended for the job he’s done thus far.

*My man D-Mac has a cover story about 10,000 losses. Good article, especially the opening.

*Sports Illustrated gives us the lovable loser treatment in their handling of the 10,000 losses. You have to read some of the great Phillie quotes over the years. Hilarious.

Quizzo News and Notes

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First, I played with some of the Satan’s Minions at Nodding Head on Sunday. Irish John was hosting. He seems to be a bit mellower than he used to be. First time I’ve ever played his quizzo where he didn’t tell a single person, “Shut the **** up, you stupid ****.” (To be honest, I was a little disappointed. The highlight of his quizzo is always when he gets really pissed.) The quiz was pretty good. More minutiae than mine, I think. I couldn’t really help all that much. He doesn’t really ever venture into my wheelhouse, which is US history and sports. We won though, pretty easily, at least partly because Mike of the Minions is the King of Minutiae. The next night I went with D-Mac and a few of the Chin Omelettes over to New Deck. (We were gonna play Dark Horse but DH John got sick.) Not a bad quiz, pretty good mix of questions. The New Deck isn’t my favorite bar in the world, and the food was so-so, but the food and drinks were pretty cheap. We lost to the Sofa Kingdom by 3 points, and finished out of the money. I still like Dark Horse quizzo better than either of these quizzos, but they were perfectly good.

Palestra Jon wasn’t so lucky. He played out in the burbs. Here were his thoughts: I went out to check out some suburban Quizzo at Iron Hill Brewery in Media. Nice place. Bad Quizzo. 5 rounds. …ALL POP CULTURE, straight out of trivia book. A numerical question 11 to each round, almost impossible (how many pounds of meat can a wolf eat at one sitting—20). To show how bad this crowd is, they asked only one general knowledge question out of 50—In what war was the Battle of the Bulge—only 1/3 of the teams got that right. On the good side, $3 homemade microbrews and cheap appetizers.

Finally, the Satan’s Minions took a field trip to Kildare’s last night for their award winning quizzo. They said that it was ok, but there were several major problems. First of all, length. Three and a half hours long. Then, all the questions were worth one point apiece, except for one question, which was worth ten. That question? “What Kildare’s bartender was named Best Of Philly by Philly Style Magazine?” Teams could also joker that round, so if they knew the bartender, they could get 20 points for knowing it. This question took place in the first round, so anyone who didn’t know it essentially lost after round one, because they had to work out of a 30+ point hole. There were six rounds, all with topics. They were: 2 audio rounds, Cartoons, Animal House, Headlines, and Advertising Slogans. There were no history, gegraphy, science, or politics questions. According to Mike, “I think they had to keep all the questions pop culture related, or they would have upset the crowd, which consisted entirely of idiot drunken frat boys.” The quizzo also featured a chugging contest (which, I have to admit, is kind of a fun idea.)

Anybody out there played any good or bad quizzos lately? Let us know what you recommend (and which ones we should stay away from) below.

Around the Horn

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Margate Lucy is getting a makeover. Wow, has it really been over three years since I hung out inside of Lucy?

-Internet radio is on hiatus today in protest of a recent ruling that caused royalty rates to skyrocket. I knew this online digital music thing was just a fad. I’m gonna make a fortune selling all the cassettes I’ve been hoarding the past few years!

-The shocking murder/suicide of Chris Benoit and his family may have had something to do with steroids, not surprisingly. The number of pro wrestlers who die before they turn 50 is staggering.

-Happy birthday to Willie’s favorite player Michael Vick. I heard that for his birthday he got a new puppy!

Willie Gee Lists his 10 favorite current athletes

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This week, Willie lets you know who his ten favorite current athletes are and, as a special treat, has a message for dog owners!

Top 10 favorite athletes right now
Jeremy Shockey-How can you not love Shock-dog? This guy is everything a professional football player should be. Many people think that this guy is an idiot and any opinion he has on anything should be ignored. Those people obviously have no respect for an athlete who leaves it all on the field. I love Shockey because he keeps us entertained and he always lets you know how he is feeling. Shockey is the perfect combination of old school and new school, and you will not find a tougher player. He may get hurt a lot, but that does not stop him from delivering (that is, when Eli decides to throw him the ball). Last year when the Giants were tanking away their season Shockey broke his finger catching a ball in warm-ups. It was bleeding because the bone was poking through the skin. When asked if he wanted the trainers to tape it up, Shockey stated, “I don’t care if you have to cut it off, I’m playing.” How can you not love that?

Michael Vick-This should come as no surprise to those who read my last column. However, I hope it does not raise questions about the credibility of my opinion regarding the dog fighting case, because my opinion of him has little if anything to do with my feelings regarding that matter. I have absolutely loved Vick since the first time I saw him play for Virginia Tech. I have always loved running quarterbacks. I grew up watching Randall Cunningham and was a huge Tommie Frazier fan when he played for Nebraska. I said from the beginning that Vick has what it takes to revolutionize the game of football and redefine the quarterback position. That opinion has not wavered. Unfortunately, he keeps having coaches that try to make him into something that he is not and put him in offenses where he is uncomfortable. I think he is the best quarterback in the league right now. It is not his fault that his receivers drop all those passes. If the Falcons would just let him do his thing, he could be the champion of the world, but unfortunately the NFL hopes to bring him down before that can happen.

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