Author: J T. Ramsay

J T. Ramsay http://jtramsay.com

The Dead-ball Era Philadelphia Phillies

The base­ball off­sea­son tor­ments me. While I appre­ci­ate the post­sea­son awards — con­grats to Roy Hal­la­day on his Cy Young Award — I find my thoughts turn to the likes of Ed Dela­han­ty, Sam Thomp­son, Gavvy Cra­vath and Grover Cleve­land Alexander.

For­tu­nate­ly, I have com­pa­ny. My friend and cowork­er Dan McQuade of Philadel­phia Will Do is loan­ing me an Ed Dela­han­ty biog­ra­phy! Can­not wait to read about a trou­bled ballplay­er who died at Nia­gara Falls. I’m fas­ci­nat­ed by Big Ed’s sto­ry and I love think­ing about the dead-bal­l era, when base­ball was a grind­ing game of bunts, steals and dirty pitch­es, to say noth­ing of rogue leagues and labor strife.

I also near­ly joined the Soci­ety for Amer­i­can Base­ball Research yes­ter­day. I told you it was get­ting bad!

A Must-Read Kanye West Roundtable

Were you one of the poor souls spazz­ing out over Kanye’s 10.0 from Pitch­fork? How per­fect­ly 2002 of you. If you’re look­ing for more grist for the mill, look no fur­ther than Jeff Weiss’ excel­lent My Beau­ti­ful Dark Twist­ed Fam­i­ly round­table, in which sev­er­al crit­ics offer their thoughts on what most peo­ple seem to believe is the album of the year. (I’m inclined to agree with most people.)

Not good enough? Jeff and his friends are real­ly, real­ly funny.

Grand Opening of New Mitchell and Ness Store

If you know me, you know I pos­i­tive­ly adore Phillies throw­back jer­seys. Heck, I own three of them per­son­al­ly. My first was a pow­der blue Mike Schmidt ’76 throw­back, fol­lowed by a ’76 Carl­ton home jer­sey. Got a Bur­rell rook­ie jer­sey for my 33rd birth­day this year. (Pat broke into the league wear­ing 33.) So you know I can­not tell you how excit­ed I am to stop in and drop some coin in Mitchell & Ness’ new flag­ship store at 1201 Chest­nut. The pic­tures of their new spot are sim­ply glo­ri­ous! T‑minus Christ­mas and count­ing until I grab a sweet Robin Roberts home jer­sey or this amaz­ing Philadel­phia Quak­ers throw­back.

Watch May­or Nut­ter open the shop in style in the video above.

No Marathon for Me This Year

I had big plans for the 2010 marathon sea­son after my marathon mess last year. Instead I won’t be run­ning at all. Sit­ting this one out. And I’m major­ly bummed.

What hap­pened?

For starters, snow. Lots of it. Even if I want­ed to get out­side and gear up for spring races I could­n’t have as Philly was besieged by a record 73″ of snow. But that should­n’t mat­ter, right? Skip those spring races and train for fall! That’s the ticket!

Wrong again, sadly.

Morn­ings are a tricky thing in our house­hold. Char­lie still wakes up to nurse around 4 AM or so and can­not ever set­tle him­self back to sleep. And Helen’s not a morn­ing per­son, so morn­ings are Dad­dy’s duty. So instead of knock­ing out 3 or more miles a morn­ing, I’m chas­ing Char­lie around the house try­ing to feed and clothe him before he’s off to daycare.

Much as I’d like to be Super Dad and find a way to work out either dur­ing the work­day or after­wards, I just can’t. Run­ning at night in Fishtown/Port Rich­mond is worth your life sim­ply because of vis­i­bil­i­ty and traf­fic. And who wants to run after din­ner? Not me, that’s who.

I like to think that once Char­lie weans he’ll be more will­ing to sleep lat­er sim­ply because he won’t have the urge to nurse the moment he wakes at the crack of dawn. Maybe then I’ll be able to sneak out, fire up my Garmin watch and get in a few miles before I have to get him dressed and ready for preschool. Fin­gers crossed!