No More Heroes

1443920JS005_Grand_Slam
Bang the Girls Two at a Time, Tiger. That's the way you do it.

It’s a big surprise when somebody that everyone holds in such high regard becomes engulfed in a scandal like Eldrick “Tiger” Woods has. But it is really that big of a surprise? Did it really let you down? Given Woods’ squeaky clean image you probably didn’t imagine him banging chicks two at a time

I learned earlier in my life that not everything is what it seems. Starting with the revelation as a grade school-er that Santa Claus is alive only in spirit to Guns N Roses breaking up to the trading away or retirement of my childhood heroes of the Sixers, Phillies and Eagles, by now I’m used to being lied to and let down.  You see it not only in the world of Sports but teachers, entertainers, politicians, CEO’s, religious authorities and even a couple Presidents have seen their share of scandals.  People held up on such a pedestal, looked up to, admired and then ultimately their name dragged through the mud for sins which are routinely committed by everyday people who do not get the same treatment.

I understand to certain point about sex scandals involving Politicians. They are in a position of power and got there touting family values, a commitment to truth etc.  I get the outrage about teachers who have sexual relationships with students and I certainly understand when a man of faith strays and molests a kid or embezzles money. The thing I have a problem with is the crazy amount of coverage the media has to spend on Sports Stars and the people who consume this tabloid junk in mass quantities.

You can make any sort of argument you want in favor of Athletes being role models but I’m of the Charles Barkley school of thought and will make my case against it.  You see athletes are famous for being good at sports. For passing the ball, running the ball, kicking the ball, shooting the ball, hitting the ball, catching the ball and tackling the person with the ball. For the most part there is no holier than thou art attitude, there is no religious aspect or preaching from them, they cannot make laws and are not in charge of children except their own.

While Sports figures occasionally will hold political office after retirement and some will also praise a religious God before, during and after a game they are in effect in charge of nothing except their own athletic performance.Yes with a great athlete comes tons of money but just because a person has a lot of money doesn’t mean they are a role model. Just because you’re on T.V doesn’t make you a role model. Yes, athletes who get paid to endorse products like Woods and Jordan are presented by the media as good and upstanding but lets remember that these are commercials the athletes are appearing in. By associating their product with greatness on an athletic level is part of the lure.

So Tiger banged a bunch of girls while married, what baseball player doesn’t do that? I’m not advocating or absolving him of his infidelity but thousands of marriages break up every year due to infidelity. Chances are you know someone who was divorced due to infidelity or are the son or daughter of a marriage ruined due to mom or dad not being faithful.  What is any different in Tiger Woods’ situation from any other marriage in shambles due to someone fooling around?  Money, Fame for being great at Golf?  I don’t think the amount of girls matters because one time/girl is cheating.

What I’m trying to say is that Athletes are people too, they make mistakes and they are human like you and I.  They are not infallible because they are endorsing watches, hot dogs, cars, underwear or whatever product and just because they are great at their respective sport doesn’t make them a great person.

It’s OK to be a fan of a Sports Figure but putting them up on a pedestal, calling them a hero, having them as a role model for your children and generally wanting to be “Like Mike” will ultimately just end up letting you down in one way or another.  I think Charles Barkley was right in saying, “… parents should be Role Models.”.  Considering Michael Jordan and Barkley (who both allegedly cheated on their wives) are friends and role models for Tiger, why is anyone surprised by any of this?

Is Banging Football Recruits the New School Spirit?

laceybryceBob McFlurry with Sports

Recently it’s been in the news that the Tennessee Volunteers have a program in which they employ “hostesses” to help lure highly touted football recruits to the University.  So I guess my question is why is this news now?  I don’t think it’s any secret that using insanely hot girls to help land big time recruits is a time honored tradition in the ranks of College Football.

There’s a lot of things that go into where a top recruit will play his collegiate ball: proximity to home, family influence, program prestige, the ability to start right away.  When you’re a top 50 recruit in the nation though you can pretty much go anywhere and every school is going to trow as much at you as they can without getting nabbed by the NCAA for violations. Gifting money is kind of out of the question, at least not directly, so what other recourse does a University have but to bombard the recruit with a bevy of the hottest chicks on campus.  Some of which are probably told to “take care” of the recruit.  It’s way easier to pay off or incentivize  some sort of University coed than it is to straight up pay a player to come to the University.

Anyway, I think it’s a little naive for the media and sports fans in general to be shocked by this or consider it news.  There’s buku bucks in College football in Bowl Games and it all starts with what kind of players a team can get.  The better the player, the better the chance of a huge bowl game, the more money brought into the University. Millions of Dollars.

Even way back in 1993 in the movie The Program Halle Berry was given the task of convincing highly touted recruit Danell Jefferson (played by Mekhi Phifer… or was it Omar Epps) to come to fictional University ESU.  Not that Halle Berry banged the guy to get him to go there but she was named Sexiest Woman Alvie by Esquire magazine, you do that Algebra home slice.

Goes something like:

Hot Chicks + Blue Chip Football Recruits = Letters of Intent = BCS Money2

It’s pretty obvious to me what’s going on here and I really don’t have a problem with Football Programs wagging hot chicks in front of recruits faces. Anything that goes on besides that, sexually, is between the recruit and that “Hostess”.  If the “Hostess” decides to use her body as a marketing tool for her University I’m pretty sure she’s allowed to do that. I’m not sure what kind of incentives would be involved if the recruit signed but ultimately I doubt that a University is saying to these “Hostesses”, “have sex with this recruit coming in here this weekend”.  Blow/Hand Jobs maybe but not sex.

Iverson

iversonsurviveBy: Bones

I am not an NBA fan. But for 3 years or so, I cared immensely about the Sixers, for one reason- Allen Iverson. By himself, he was a force of nature on the court, a one man wrecking crew capable of beat teams through sheer will alone. He elevated a team of bench players to the playoffs, then to the finals. When he left, I stopped caring, and so did the rest of the city. The team has gone downhill since then, and the result was the start of this season with an empty arena and a boring team. Granted, Allen’s got an attitude that rub a lot of people the wrong way, but that never bothered me, and still doesn’t. I’m glad he’s back, even though its obvious he has lost quite a bit, which was inevitable, game shape or not. I don’t care what the reasons are. I just want to see him at his best one more time. I stand by the assertion that when was at his best, a night where he drops 50+ careening like a maniac into the lane, jacking up 3s on the break, that he is the single most exciting player the NBA has ever seen. His style, his size, his fearlessness, and his amazing skills all combined to make some nights almost too much to believe. He’s not gonna do that too many more times, if ever. But i really think he’s got at least one left in him. Sometime between now and April, he’s gonna take it back to 2001 and drop 50 on someone, and it will be nothing short of awesome to watch. For that reason only, I’ll tune into sixers games for the rest of the year…just in case.

Tiger Woods Yall

For Shizzle!
For Shizzle!

Bob McFlurry with Sports

So allegedly Tiger Woods cheated on his wife numerous times or something and this is supposed to be serious news.  Really, who gives a crap? It’s more likely to effect his bank account than his golf game so why do we even pay attention to these things? It serves no purpose to report on it other than he crashed his car or whatever and he was slightly hurt. Everything else is rumors, gossip and conjecture at best.

I think about 7 women have come out and stated publicly that they had relations with Mr. Woods and I have been advised by my counsel to neither confirm nor deny my involvement with Tiger, sexually that is.  Seriously though, the media has beaten this subject to death so much that gossip TV show Extra interviewed Ashley Dupree (Elliot Spitzer’s call girl) to see what she had to say and what advice she could give Tiger Woods about this ordeal.  That’s exactly who I would turn to for a real good take on the situation, a high priced hooker. She sure has a unique understanding of relationships, being the other woman and intimate knowledge of how a infidelity can ruin a marriage. She does make some interesting points though:

“My case in point: Here you have all these girls accepting gifts, money, trips from Tiger in exchange for sex — all the while knowing he is married. And now they all can’t wait to tell their stories in exchange for even more money from the tabloids? And I was the hooker? At least I kept my mouth shut.”

Television has gotten so bad that I watched C-Span yesterday for 40 minutes and besides watching Allen Iverson return to the Sixers it was the best 40 minutes of TV I watched all day.  There’s mad debates taking place on Capitol Hill about the Healthcare Bill. Stuff got pretty intense, this senator going at that senator, trading verbal jabs even if they were slightly more courteous than the ones lobbed on shows produced by MTV.  The best part is that  I watched and learned about something that actually matters and effects me unlike whether or not Tiger Woods was putting from the rough with a couple of Sally Slutbags.

Reunited and it Feels so Hood

iverson1219Sports with Bob McFlurry

So the Answer is coming back to Philadelphia.  When I wrote the Iverson article last week I didn’t really think the Sixers would ever re-sign him given the acrimonious split in late 2006.  It’s the kind of homecoming you hope for as a true Philadelphia sports fan.  The situation reminds me of how Jeremiah Trotter and Hugh Douglas came back for the Eagles Super Bowl run in 2004. Hopefully Iverson is more Trotter than Douglas in terms of production.

It’s kind of bittersweet though in that I’m not really sure the addition of Iverson puts the Sixers in any real contention to win the Eastern Conference but stranger things have happened.  At this point, with Speights and Lou Williams gone for an extended period it can only help more than hurt.

So I’m not a real big sports radio listener and I choose not to listen to it especially when a big headline will dominate the airwaves for the next couple days as in Iverson, Vick etc. However, with the verbal jabs I’ve heard from colleagues and commentators about what kind of player and of what caliber person they perceive Iverson to be I do get somewhat miffed.

1) Iverson is not a team player:

Well if you hear any of his teammates talk about Allen Iverson I have never heard anything bad come out of anyone’s mouth.  Yes he clashed with coaches, yes he missed practice, yes he got into some situations which weren’t exactly kosher but if you think he had anything on his mind but winning when he’s on the court then you’re crazy.  If not being a team player is taking all the shots then I’ll refer you to the bullet point below.

2) Iverson the Ball Hog:

For much of Iverson’s Philly career the plan from Larry Brown was for Allen to take most of the shots.  Dart to the rim and get fouled. Allen takes the shots, they live on the foul line and the rest of the team plays great defense while allowing Iverson to expend his energy on the offensive end.  Who was going to take the shots? Eric Snow?

We never got him a complementary player, maybe because he didn’t want to share the scoring or any marquee player was afraid he wasn’t going to give up the ball but during his years in Philadelphia I ask you, who would you rather have shoot the ball?

3) He’s not a winner:

It’s true, Allen Iverson couldn’t win it by himself.  It’s also true he didn’t have a whole lot of help. Everyone slurps Jordan but he had players Iverson never had.  The Answer never had a Scottie Pippen.  Iverson only played concurrently with two All Stars, Theo Ratliff the year he got hurt and Dikembe Mutumbo, neither of which were known for scoring.

For every team that worked out a great trade or drafted a player that helped win a Championship, Iverson was given has been’s and never will be’s.  Chris Webber, Tyrone Hill, Jumaine Jones, Tim Thomas, Derrick Coleman, Larry Hughes, Toni Kukoc, Kieth Van Horne, Matt Harpring. Webber was playing on one leg and we paid him 36 million to not play, Coleman would have been a great 3rd option, Kukoc was 25 lbs overweight by the time he got to Philly and every guy we drafted we traded away or didn’t make an impact.

Granted it’s hard for a rookie to grow in a system predicated on getting the star player 30 shots a game but does anyone think if we got a legit second scoring option and still had the defensive players in place that Iverson wouldn’t go deep in the playoffs every year? (note: the unsung hero of the 2001 season in George Lynch who was never the same player after breaking his foot in the playoffs that year).

So we have Iverson back, if he scores 19 or 90 it’s good for the city, good for attendance and good for the fans who love the guy.  You can make insinuations about why they brought him back or that he takes time away from the young guys but the young guys aren’t exactly doing much right now.

If anything I hope the guy (and he does) realizes what a special place he has in this city and how coming back for his farewell tour is the kind of reunion only seen in Hollywood movies. To bring it all back where it started, to cap off a Hall of Fame career in front of the fans that made him a household name is something that most Philadelphia Superstars either never wanted to or never could do.  (Besides Dick Allen).

At the very least, I’m interested in Sixers Basketball again if only just to see one of it’s greatest players make one more playoff push.  It should be interesting.

More Questions than Answer

allen-iversonSports with Bob McFlurry

So Allen Iverson may retire, he’ll probably come back later this year to play for a contender but he’s not playing professional basketball right now after a short stint with Memphis.  It’s somewhat sad to see a player I pretty much grew up with on the fence about his athletic future but in a lot of ways the retirement of most of my sports hero’s from my youth prepared me for this time.  To tell you the truth I was way more taken aback by the trade of Chuck Barkley to the Suns for Jeff Hornacek and a couple other no names. I cried when Mike Schmidt announced his retirement. I was bitter that Randall Cunningham was run out of town in favor of Rodney Peete only to see Randall lead the NFL’s most prolific offense ever (to that point) 3 years later in Minnesota. I wasn’t particularly shocked that Iverson was traded away a couple years back because just like my last relationship, I could see the signs that things weren’t going to work themselves out.

I love Allen Iverson. He was perfect for a city that prides itself on the underdog status and made millions believe he could bring a Championship to Philadelphia for the first time since Dr.J was running up and down the Spectrum floorboards.  He could drop 30+ on any team any night of the week and did most of his time in Philly. He played through injuries and he gave you everything he had any time he stepped on the court in a game (not talkin’ bout practice).  I can still feel the goosebumps I got from going to the playoff game in 2001 against the Raptors and Iverson and Vince Carter both dropped 50+. It is a top two sporting event that I have ever been to.

For the better part of his career he led the league in minutes, shots and points, later throwing in steals to the mix.  But for every 50 point game, for every feat of athleticism, amazing shot or electric, hustle play he never won a championship.  He’s won an MVP, been to All Star games, been rookie of the year but he could never win a title with him as the go to guy.  It’s nothing to be ashamed of though, there’s lots of Hall of Famer’s who never got a ring. The thing is, Iverson can still get a ring albeit not with him starting somewhere.  If he doesn’t accept the fact that he’s going to have to play off the bench somewhere, hopefully for a contender then he probably should retire. At 34 he can’t be “The Answer” for a franchise but he can be “The Answer” in short bursts coming off the bench and spot starting for a team that is jockeying for a Championship run.

Though for everything that made Iverson great in his career, pride, tenacity and a never say die attitude, these are things that may be holding him back from being a successful 6th man in the NBA.  He still feels like he can be the man and help a team win the way he’s been “accustomed” to his entire career save last season.  Problem is, no one else thinks the same way, at least not in a starting role.

So for him being “The Answer” he does leave us with a lot of questions. Will he come back, will he retire?  What would have happened if Iverson had been paired with a legit big man? There was one thing he was the answer to though, ticket sales for the Sixers and most arenas when he was on the road.  Everyone wanted to see the most electrifying player in the NBA in the early to mid 2000’s.  Shame we’re here in 2009 and one of the greatest talents in league history hasn’t gotten any closer to a Championship than those halcyon days of 2001.  Only time will answer the question if he will ever get back there and we’ll all just have to wait and see.

Andre Agassi Book Backlash

A Mullet can't really get more bad-ass than this.
A Mullet can't really get more bad-ass than this.

By: Bones

I’m tired of people jumping all over Andre Agassi about his recently released autobiography, ‘Open’. As you probably have heard, his book reveals that he hated tennis most of his life, his famous lion mane of a haircut in the early ’90s was a hair piece, and that he used meth while still an active player, and then lied about it to the ATP, tennis’ governing body.

Since its release, it seems that anyone and everyone has condemned Agassi- one of the most common refrains I’ve heard is that he is being incredibly selfish in tarnishing the reputation of tennis though his book. Are they kidding? The only reputation that he is tarnishing is his own. I don’t feel anything less or more towards the sport because it turns out that one of its players has had some serious issues. It seems to me that those saying that are the ones being selfish- attacking someone that seems to be telling the truth about his life and saying that he should’ve sat on the information, no matter how that affected him further, in order to save the sport’s reputation. Another thing I’ve heard a lot is a knee-jerk condemnation of his meth use, and subsequent lying about it. Martina Navritilova, a tennis legend in the women’s game, went as far to say that Agassi, to her, was on the same level as A-Rod in terms of his drug use. That statement is so ill-advised that it is embarrassing for Navritilova-the difference is not even comparable. A-Rod and a bunch of other baseball players busted for steroid use willingly took substances that were intended, and if you go by the numbers, were in most cases seemingly effective, in enhancing their abilities on the field.

Agassi took, at a very low point in his life, one of the most addictive, damaging substances on earth, something capable of incapacitating people to the point where it would be difficult to hold down a job manning the fryer at McDonald’s, let alone play world class tennis. To compare the two is a joke, and Navritilova, as well as other tennis stars who have come down on Andre including Roger Federer, Raphael Nadal, and Marat Safin need to take a serious look at the way they view what Andre did. Safin said he should forfeit his titles. To quote John McEnroe, “you CANNOT be SERIOUS!”. Yes, he lied about his use to the ATP- but honestly, who would’nt? Once again its a case of people getting on their high horse and claiming they would do things differently if put in situations they know nothing about. Its sad that everyone’s reaction is always to pile on someone who is down. I watched Agassi’s interviews, and to me he seems like an eminently likable, straightforward guy who actually has gotten something that helped him by coming clean about a life full of lies. It seems that the debate is whether he did it for money, but trashing your own reputation by revealing all these personal items, when you don’t need the money whatsoever, seems unlikely.

Personally, I admire the way that he went about it, and I think that all those condemning him should cut the guy a break. He’s far from perfect, and so are you. Honestly, if all professional athletes wrote a book about their lives, and were completely honest with it and didn’t hide anything, I think 90% would have some pretty shocking things in it. The road to becoming a professional athlete in this country isn’t like everyone’s else’s lives. It involves dedication, temptation, money, sex and a million others things on a level most of us will never know. To assume that athletes should or would be perfect is ludicrous.

Cheaters Never Lose on the Yankees

arod_whatSports with Bob McFlurry

You know the Yankees beat us fair and square. You can say that A-Rod’s homerun in game 3 that hit the camera which was leaning over the fence was questionable but in the end it really didn’t matter.  We were an out away from coming back to win game 4 and once untouchable Brad Lidge had another meltdown. Ryan Howard went from hero in the NLCS and Wildcard series to zero in the World Series setting a record for ineptitude at the plate.  Last night and in games previous Hideki Matsui proved to be a Philly Killer.

I’m not particularly angry, the better team won. The team that went out and got the top 3 free agents in major league baseball and has a payroll a little under double what the Phils have practically bought a Championship and in baseball you can do that. There’s no salary cap, there’s no rule that says you can’t collect the best players in the league like baseball cards and so the better team won.

I can handle the losing part but I can’t really stomach A-Rod and Andy Pettite being champions after both admitting steroid and or HGH use.  I don’t dislike A-Rod because he’s good but I dislike him because he lied to his fans and supporters for so long.  I don’t like Andy Pettite because he seems to get as much of a free pass on using PED’s that Rodney Harrison has gotten.  I’m a big believer in treating people equally across the board and if Barry Bonds is going to get ridiculed by the mass media and an asterisk next to his records the same punishment should go down for the two Yankee offenders.

If nothing else, a World Series championship solidifies a career for A-Rod which has Hall of Fame numbers. I feel like A-Rod will get into the HOF when his playing days are over, maybe even eclipsing Bonds career Home Run mark. However, all things being equal, Bonds and A-Rod taking PED’s why is A-Rod seemingly treated with the kid gloves when it comes to the press?  Why isn’t there as big a public outcry over A-Rod as there was over Bonds? Steroid Press Fatigue? Are people just that tired of hearing about it that they don’t care anymore to object? I don’t have the answers.

It’s weird because I don’t hate that the Yankees won, I hate that two players with a history of lying and cheating the game won.  As ugly as Hideki Matsui is you gotta give the guy props for showing up big when it counted even though Asian people are notorious for having small penises. You gotta give it to Derek Jeter, a class act that continues to prove his naysayers wrong.  For as old as Mariano Rivera is he can still get the best hitters in the game to strike out, pop up and ground out with a calming ease. Flamin’ Johnny Damon made his presence felt in a contract year.  These are guys I’m happy for. These are guys who I don’t mind losing to. I just can’t stand to lose to a couple of cheaters who are then put up on a pedestal by sportscasters and journalists for all the world and the kids to see that it’s ok to cheat, you can cheat and still win the World Series without so much as a slap on the wrist. Amazing!

BeerSlugger of the Week

Folks, I may be a hypocrite.
Folks, I may be a hypocrite.

By: Billy BeerSlugger

My award for BeerSlugger of the week goes to Georgia running back Washaun Ealey who was supposedly victimized by an eye gouging incident this past weekend in the Florida vs. Georgia rivalry game.

Florida linebacker Brandon Spikes was suspended for half an upcoming game for apparently trying to gouge the eyes of Ealey but Ealey came to the defense of Spikes per an ESPN report.

“He shouldn’t, I think, get suspended at all. We were just out there playing football… He really didn’t gouge my eyes, He really didn’t get a chance to get close to my eyes… I’m pretty sure it goes on back and forth… We probably do it and other teams do too. It’s all football. We’re just out there trying to have fun.”.

It’s refreshing to hear a player, a freshman I might add, speak to the toughness of the game and not play victim even though his team lost.  Spikes caught a lot of flack over the replay of him reaching into Ealey’s helmet.  Guys like Mike Golic of Mike & Mike in the Morning saying that kind of behavior doesn’t have any place in football etc.  Well I’d like to hear some former players that opposed Golic and hear that he was a saint on the field, that he never cut blocked anyone or did anything that would be considered to “not have a place in football”. Some of your hero’s, some of the best players in NCAA and NFL history employed dirty tactics to win games and needle opponents.  It’s not a foul if you don’t get caught and it’s only within the last 5 or so years that with the help of technology we have been able to view these sorts of fouls and pick them out very easily.  Like Ealey stated his team probably does it to other teams too.  Spikes just happen to get caught on TV and then ESPN took hold of it making a “no harm-no foul” play into a national story.

We ask our football players to be on the edge at all times on the field, to play with emotion, to sacrifice their body to make a tackle or block a 250 pound player running at you for 40 yards at full speed on a kickoff.  We ask this of our players and then when they let emotion get the best of them, when they step over that line we chastise them as dirty players and they are ridiculed in the mainstream media.  Never mind if Spikes’ helmet went flying off on a play and he got hit, even if unintentional.  Never mind if there was an obscene amount of trash talk on both sides and this is a huge rivalry game.

It’s great that Washaun Ealey, the supposed victim, can come out and shed light on the incident, “We were just out there playing football and having fun.”.  To players like Ealey and Spikes, the game is fun and these underhanded things to get under the opposing teams skin and gain an advantage any way you can is just part of the game. What does everyone think happens at the bottom of a pile after a fumble recovery?  Do you think the players are huddled together on the ground discussing the state of the economy?  NO, the team that doesn’t have the ball is punching the guy who does in the gut, in the groin and gouging whatever part of the face that a player can get his hand into to try and get that guy to let go of the ball.

At least in Football you have pads and helmets, if a team wants to go after you in Rugby you’re pretty much due for a trip to the Emergency Room.

As for the suspension, he got caught he’s suspended for a half. Notice it was not an NCAA suspension but a team suspension.  I’ve talked to people and they think Spikes should be gone for at least a game but Ealey wasn’t even hurt.  It’s really hard to actually get your hand beyond a face mask and do damage.  Just another case of ESPN making a bigger deal of something that happens pretty regularly and thus swaying public opinion on a player who for all we know could be the nicest guy you’ve ever met off the field.

I would have suspended Spikes for a Quarter and told him to not get caught again.

PS: For disclosure sake, I hate Florida football with a passion.

Rib bellyache and Yorkshire, or guy pork and they owe more to nineteenth-century models buy college terminus papers Write My English Essay I matt-up wish matt-up that many modern authors didnt takings writing severely, some sort of hatred for me, and took delight in potential to burst the near be near at how would the man be British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 341, 129-138.

How the Phillies Assaulted my Liver . . . Again

ATT00004By: F.X. Galvin

Is this Déjà vu? For the second year in the row the Philadelphia Phillies are in the World Series. For the second year in a row I am a complete alcoholic mess and am one game 7 away from checking myself into a Betty Ford clinic. I feel like I have entered “Groundhog’s Day.” I wake up thinking about the Phils previous game, as well as the looming game. I am hung over loathing myself and the fact that I have to suffer through work from 8:30 to 5:00. The only way I make it through work is listening to sports radio 610, which fulfills my Phillies fix. After work, if I do not immediately start drinking or need to get ready to go to the bar to watch another Phils beat down, I try to mix in the occasional run or meal. Over the last month, both of these daily regularities have progressively been thrown to the wayside. After, each series closing game I am not sure who needed more rest, an overworked Chase Utley or my liver.

This drunken voyage has begun during the NLDS and has turned into a sloppy, disgusting, obsessive mess. The key highlights of the NLDS have to be the following: Attending Game 1 of the NLDS watching Cliff Lee pitch his first gem of the post season against the Colorado Rockies. This game was indicative for the rest of the postseason. Cliff Lee beasted, I got wasted, blackedout, and called out of work the next day. Major League baseball needs to realize that it is not conducive to alcoholic Philadelphia fans to have 4:00 PM start times. Seriously, what are you trying to do to us?

Ultimately, the Phils got redemption from 2007 and closed out the Rockies in four games on a Sunday evening into a Monday morning. Eagles smoked the pathetic Bucs starting at 1:00, followed by the Phils beating the Rockies at approximately 2:00 am (Long Day). Thank you to the staff at Paddywacks for not kicking out hundreds of drunk Phanatics from the bar until the game was finished. Also, thank you Christopher Columbus for getting me the day off work on the following Monday. As the late, great Harry Kalas would have put it “Christopher Columbus, you are the Man!”

The next step for the Phils and my liver was the NLCS and a rematch with the pretentious Los Angeles Dodgers and their obnoxious, idiotic fan base. “Hi, I am an asshole Dodgers fan, let me get to the NLCS by the 4th inning and let me try to fight Phils fans. If that fails, maybe I can buddy up with the Bloods or the Crips in the second deck and jump a 12 year old for his iPod touch. If that fails I’ll make a quick exit in the 8th inning so I do not have to watch the Phillies embarrass the Dodgers in LA.” Losers.

To the highlight: Being at game 4 of the NLCS for me was the best in person experience I have ever had at a professional sporting event. For me, it was even better than the only NFC Championship victory of the decade by the Eagles over the Dogkiller, Michael Vick – led Falcons. That night again, I was blasted. I do not know if it was the vodka, liver killer mix my buddy made, the 12-15 bud lights I put down before and during the game, or the free shots of Jack that were being given away in at the Wine and Spirits but I was tanked. For what you ask? To watch Jimmy “Willie Mays Hayes” Rollins hit a walk off, two run double to put the foot on the throat of the Dodgers. (I’m sure you can figure out the nickname. He is the only leadoff hitter in baseball that tries to hit a home run every at bat. As Lou Brown says in “Major League,” “Runs like Mays hits like shit.”) Anyway this led to an all night drunk fest topped off with another call out. Thanks Phils, my employer is getting happier with me by the series.

Now, the Phils are approaching game 6 of the World Series against the New York Yankees. The New York Yankees and its fan base are even more pretentious assholes than the Dodgers. The Yankees are the most reveled and hated team in baseball. Yankees fans think they are entitled to greatness every season and anything less than a World Series championship is a disappointment. I coronate these douchebags as the most annoying and arrogant fans in sports. I digress. Again, this series has led to a drunken fiasco. More drunk nights at McGillan’s Ale House, more hangovers, but fortunately no call outs. Yippee, I have matured. I am tired and sick, yet hungry for another championship.

Bottom line, I have enough in me for three more celebrations, game 6, game 7 followed by another parade down Broad Street. My liver as well as every other die hard Philles fans in Tri-State area shares the same sentiment. I have three more drunken parties, two more wins, one Friday call out, a random Phillie led one night stand, and one parade left that my liver can not miss. These events are necessary in obtaining the ultimate championship in Philadelphia sports history. . . Winning the World Series against the New York Yankees. Go Phils! Please do not let my liver down.

By F.X. Galvin