The Tale of Two Philadelphia Sports Teams and AIDs Walk Philly 2009
Monday, October 19th, 2009
First off, 5:30am is just flat out stupid. That’s what time Abbe and I had to wake up on a Sunday morning to get into Philadelphia for the AIDS Walk Philly 2009. It was frigid and raining prior to the event start and mercifully, the rain let up right around start time. It was cool to meet some of the folks that Abbe works with, especially all gathered together for a good cause. Abbe and I finished fine and a little sore. I didn’t realize how badly my pants were chaffing me until we stopped walking but OWWWW! I’m walking around like a cowboy right now due to a crotch of fire. Anywho, it was fun, gave Abbe an excuse to wear her sock monkey hat (she got tons of compliments on it), and the day cleared up for some beautiful views of Kelley Drive…
Afterwards, I watched two games while recovering from my crotch o’ fire… both teams from Philadelphia, but their efforts could not have been more different.
The Eagles were facing the 1-4 Raiders, a franchise that is the embodiment of dysfunctional. Coaches attacking other coaches, former players coming out in the media talking about how poorly run everything is within the organization from top to bottom, a rookie quarterback that has looked awful (and he also held a lengthy contract holdout to boot). All signs seemed pointed towards the Eagles trouncing another team on their very weak early season schedule. But oh no, see the Eagles forgot you are supposed to prepare every week and play the game too. They lost and they deserved to lose. The only positive aspects of the Birds’ performance was the defense played decent and when BWest was given the ball, he looked quick and maybe finally healthy again. Michael Vick is a distraction, both times he was brought into the game he did nothing and during one horrendous red zone possession seemed to confuse McNabb. That red zone possession included a Chris Webber Moment for McNabb, calling a timeout with none left to spend. The offensive play-calling was terrible, they were in a one-score game for basically the entire game and they got away from the run (a recurring theme under Andy Reid). There were two just flat-out wrong calls in the game, but absolutely no excuse for the Eagles letting the Raiders take this game from them. First one was an uncalled intentional grounding, Raiders QB was in the pocket, threw the ball at a receiver that was behind the line of scrimmage – the ball must make the line if the QB is in the pocket. Raiders kicked a 45 yard field goal after that play, the penalty would at least have made the kick extremely tough even for a strong leg like Janikowski’s. Later, David Akers was thrown to the ground after kicking a field goal and roughing the kicker was not called. Again, maybe the Eagles end up with a closer field goal, but that’s potentially 7 points taken away.
BDawk is in a Bronco’s uniform and we have this 3rd string convicted felon quarterback taking what should be #20′s salary. But here’s the truth about the 2009 Eagles, they are an 8-8 team(if they’re lucky), with a cupcake schedule (at least the early part), a weak division, an even weaker NFC (excluding the Vikes and Saints) and they aren’t doing anything about it. If the Eagles had played this game in my backyard, I would have drawn the blinds.
Now the good… the Phils absolutely pounded the Dodgers last night. The Phils offense jumped on the Dodgers starting pitcher early and Cliff Lee dominated the Dodgers batters, fanning 10 and only allowing 3 hits over 8. The Phils beat them with hustle and playing hard. And to me, the embodiment of what the personality of this Phillies team was in the sequence of a Shane Victorino at bat. Taking a wild cut at a pitch, Shane lost his grip on his bat, sending it helicoptering into the stands, a couple of fans got knocked pretty good, but they were OK. They handed the bat back to Shane, who then drew a walk. While jogging up the first base line, Shane handed the bat to the bat boy and told him to give the bat to the injured fan. Seems small, a nice gesture like that doesn’t it? Well, I think that’s what makes these guys play hard and ultimately a portion of what made this team win a World Series last year.
Oh, and the other reason the Phils are going to win this series? IT’S CHOOCHTOBER!!!!
- What Goes on Behind Reporters’ Backs – thanks Cathleen
- Vulva Portrait Pendant – thanks Mel… NSFW, jeebus
- xkcd : Bag Check
- There’s a Rep for That
Links for my geeky homies…
- jQuery Concrete; ConcreteUI programming in jQuery
- Introduction to Building jQuery Plugins
- Top 5 Twitter Trends to Watch Right Now
- Rock Band for the iPhone Arrives!
- Mozilla Prepping Mystery App for the iPhone
– I get that this book has a happy ending, but if one kid reads this and sees fire through a keyhole and assumes, “oh yeah, it’s just some cats having a birthday party in the next room” and then that child goes out into a blazing building… I mean that author has to feel bad right?
- Kids enjoyed this and since it’s about boats, we talked about Papa afterwards.
- both children liked this one, not much in terms of message here, but the change in format (written like a comic book) was fun.
– Viv loves this book and insisted on reading all the “How Do You Do?” parts
– not bad, my kids loves stories about big silly dogs like Farley, 
– Bubs and I read this last night and we both really liked this poem put to beautiful illustrations, 
– so-so, I think this book was probably more fun to put together than to read, 
– pretty good one from the 
series.
