The lovely Erica just dropped off an eight-DVD set of the Phillies’ World Series win over the Rays in October. (Can you believe it’s been a month?!) The set includes all five World Series games and the final 2 games of the NLCS, plus a bonus DVD.
More importantly, it features the Phillies’ radio announcers as an alternate audio track for all the games. And, most importantly, the back of the box features a Ben Franklin quote. Right under that poetic Jimmy Rollins quote.
My best guess is that this thing costs $200 billion dollars. Lemme look it up… hmm… only $80! Not as bad as I’d expect, honestly. According to the press release, “And, From Atlantic City to Allentown, THE PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES® 2008 World Series COLLECTOR’S EDITION is certain to bring out Phanatics, wherever they are!” Indeed it will.
This hits stores Dec. 9. Frankly, I’m not sure if I have the patience to watch 20 hours of baseball again, but maybe doing it when not breathing into a paper bag wondering how the Phillies will blow it will be even more enjoyable.
Got an e-mail from the Baseball Hall of Fame announcing the opening of their annual World Series exhibit on Monday. Included in the display will be Ryan Howard’s bat used during Game 4 of the World Series, Carlos Ruiz’s batting helmet from his game-winning hit in Game 3, the bat Joe Blanton used to hit his home run in Game 4, and the cap Brad Lidge wore during Game 5.
Finally! Carlos Ruiz’s batting helmet has made the Hall of Fame, as it deserves. There really should be a special Hall of Fame exhibit where fans can beat up whoever made Toyota’s “Saved by Zero” commercial.
It seems like only a few weeks ago the Phillies won the World Series. Hey, wait, that’s because it was a couple of weeks ago! Despite the baseball playoffs being so frustrating I had to breathe into a paper bag to survive several games, I do miss baseball. I especially miss Fox’s coverage, as I realized when I found a screenshot for the Keys to the Game for game four earlier today. Wow, the key to the game for the Phillies is to win the game. Thanks, Fox.
Even though everybody wanted him fired before he even managed a game in Philadelphia, ol’ Cholly (behind the Keys on the right) is a pretty beloved man around town now. And today he finished second in the Manager of the Year voting to Lou Pinella. This year, though, the award is historic for two reasons: 1. The official website for the award has a lime green background. 2. A guy got the award for managing for a week.
Chase Utley… suppressed a peg to first base (where he had no play) and instead threw out a Rays base runner, Jason Bartlett, at home plate, amputating a run and another re-knotted score. … Brad Lidge, the Phillies’ closer and, with his save, the final pitcher of the year, had blown two previous chances at a Series save while with the Astros in 2005.
We don’t get a national SI cover when the Phillies win — all we get is a small regional cover for the Northeast, which was actually a cover for a Tom Verducci story about how baseball should have brought up Charlie Manuel’s dad’s suicide more during the World Series. (I swear to God he wrote this.)
Now I finally notice the annual awesome Roger Angell story about the baseball season, the thing I look forward to every year, is just three paragraphs long, and online only, and 25 percent of its sentences contain factual inaccuracies. (FYI: Utley’s peg prevented the Rays from going in front, Lidge’s famous blown saves came in the 2005 National League Championship Series.)
Hey, there’s Joe Biden, taking in the Eagles game last night in South Philadelphia. And with him is Hollywood Hamels, enjoying his status as a Philadelphia hero. Let’s zoom the camera a bit and focus in on Cole and… hey!
Don’t pan away from Hamels! You’re in Philadelphia, NBC cameras. Since when does the VP trump the World Series MVP around here? Talk to me when Joe Biden wins Most Valuable Vice President.
Look how NBC is treating Cole. The man has to move his neck in from offscreen to get on camera. How rude. Doesn’t the channel know what’s important?
Ahh, yes, here is the shot for the viewers, not Cole Hamels but Jeffrey Lurie, who also recently struck out 30 people in the playoffs. Clearly this is all the panning and zooming NBC needs to do.
Some supporters did, as a Daily News photograph shows us, the “Obama Rock” dance, whatever that is. If only there was a Phillies dance all that car-flipping could have been avoided. But last night was a lot like the Series win: Nobody’s text messages could get through, my cable Internet went down for a while, people were drunk.
Is this the kind of America we can expect under a Barack Obama administration? The inability to contact one another over cell and wireless networks? Drunken celebrations by political nerds marching from Penn to City Hall? (This really happened.) Well, at least we’d be drunk, so that’s something.
Here, John McCain attempts a last-ditch effort to win the presidency with signs that say he is not for 28 more years of title-free baseball in this town. He is for a World Championship in 2008, and one in 2009, too. And 2010 and 2011 and 2012. Four more years of championships!
The incredibly awesome hats (above) that some Phillies and Rays players were wearing during both days of Game 5 of the World Series are finally up for sale on the Phillies website; they’re made by New Era and come two sizes. They’re $40, which sounds like a lot but isn’t too horrible. I mean, it’s not $50.
But, a caveat: They’re not shipping ’til December! Way to drop the ball, major league baseball. We need these hats out right now, immediately, so we can wear them to Eagles games in the frigid cold and do our E-A-G-L-E-S, PHILLIES! chants and not lose our ears to frostbite.
Hey, why aren’t Chase Utley and I best friends? Three of those items describe both of us! (The one that doesn’t is #1, in case you’re a fuckin’ moron.)
Take that, 
