Oh, there will be love in with the loathing; in Philly, there’s always a little of the corrective therapy about their booing. Sometimes very little. And it isn’t always about assessing complete blame, either. Sometimes, the portions are just a little uneven.
But Rollins, the starting shortstop who was born in Oakland and did his internship in Alameda, returns to Philly today carrying a grisly 0-for-10 into Game 3 of the World Series, tied at one game apiece after Tampa Bay’s 4-2 victory Thursday night.
Yes, yes, Jimmy Rollins sucks right now. But it’s Game 3 of the first World Series game in Philadelphia since the Great Flood. Unless he made three Rafael Furcal-like errors in each inning of Games 1 and 2, he won’t be booed. Maybe if he’s 0-for-3 and the Phillies are getting killed, but, eh, even then: It’s Game 3 of the World Series.
Eh, whatever. At least this column got off track after the first few graphs and didn’t mention throwing snowballs at Santa Claus. A first in sports column history!
Here’s a clip from a recent episode of Ellen, which is apparently a daytime version of Dancing with the Stars (only without any celebrities). The show set up a camera on a tripod outside of Topicana Field, allowing Ellen to make a horrible joke about orange juice. (Ha, ha, I hope she goes to Citizens Bank Park next to… make a withdrawal!)
Then it’s like a minute of people dancing “hilariously” with that horrible Pussycat Dolls song in the background and a laugh track strength not seen since the early days of Married with Children. And people watch this show, huh? Hmm.
Last night during the Phillies’ loss, Joe Buck started talking about how it was nice inside the dome at Tropicana “Field” and how, outside, he had been told it was pouring. The always on-the-ball Jon Tannenwald noted almost immediately noted that, hey, according to this high-tech website that delivers the current weather status of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area right to your laptop (holy shit!), it wasn’t raining yet in the Tampa Bay area.
Now, perhaps Buck had opened a window and noticed that it was raining, or somebody else opened a window and went to tell him. But, considering how the announcers have been so far this series, what do you think the weather was really like?
Whoo! What a game, huh? Chase Utley’s home run, Cole Hamels’ seven strong innings, your shoe going through the television because you hate Joe Buck and Tim McCarver so much. But it was an even better game, I guess, for 28-year-old Nick Ruocchio.
The Philadelphia native now lives in the Tampa Bay area, and says he and a friend were kicked out by a security guard who said they were shouting profanities. A loss of $250 a ticket! But that’s okay, he told the St. Petersburg Times, because he’s just going to head to the bar and reach levels of obnoxiousness never seen before:
“I’m very upset. But the bottom line is I’m going to go to Ferg’s and I’m going to represent so obnoxious,” he said. “The only way I’m going to get out of Ferg’s is if they lock me up. That’s how fired up I am.”
Update: This part is also good: “Two men were being held in temporary holding cells near Gate 4 as the game let out. One appeared to be a Rays fan, the other was wearing Phillies gear.”
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ray “Romano” Ratto has 
