Tag Archives: Philadelphia

Save the Fishtown Library!

Tonight, Helen and I attend­ed the ral­ly to save the Fish­town Library. It was great to see such turnout to save our com­mu­ni­ty library. I’m hope­ful that we’ll be able to find a way to save these pre­cious resources in the face of May­or Nut­ter’s dra­con­ian cuts. There sim­ply has to be a bet­ter alter­na­tive than shut­ting down pub­lic pools and libraries and putting res­i­dents at risk by cut­ting fire depart­ment resources.

There’s no ques­tion that we as Amer­i­cans are fac­ing tough times, but I’m dis­ap­point­ed that our lead­ers aren’t will­ing to fight the good fight, rather than fold like paper tigers. Whether it’s the Oba­ma tran­si­tion team try­ing to low­er expec­ta­tions, or it’s May­or Nut­ter sac­ri­fic­ing the things that made his can­di­da­cy attrac­tive to so many Philadel­phi­ans, it’s hard not to be dis­ap­point­ed. We expect more. We expect bet­ter. We’re not get­ting either.

There’s a great piece by Paul Krug­man in today’s New York Times about the fail­ure of F.D.R.‘s New Deal. It only failed because F.D.R. was­n’t aggres­sive enough! If our cur­rent crop of politi­cians are to get us through this cri­sis, they’ll need to be aggres­sive in order to pre­serve our great insti­tu­tions and to build new ones. But they won’t do it with­out con­stant pres­sure from the peo­ple who vot­ed them into office in the first place.

Now it’s our turn to hold them account­able. You did­n’t think that sim­ply elect­ing a bunch of Democ­rats to office would result in Utopia, did you? It’s time to hold their feet to the fire and make them live up to their promises!

Want to get involved? Vis­it the Friends of the Free Library site for more information.

Let’s Go, Phillies!

Phillies on Cira Cen­ter., orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by Black­mail Is My Life.

Helen and I were afraid that tonight’s game might get rained out, which would’ve meant that she would miss Game 4 because she’s leav­ing for San Diego on busi­ness Monday.

When it was clear that they were going to play tonight no mat­ter what, crafty lefty Jamie Moy­er became the focus of our anx­i­ety. Would he turn in a per­for­mance like he has in his last two post­sea­son starts?

Nope.

Moy­er’s pitched a gem into the sev­enth. Ruiz, Utley, and Howard have home­red and the Phils lead 4–3 at the moment. Let’s hope they can hold on for the win!

We Can’t Wait for Thursday!

Unless you could­n’t pull your­self away from anoth­er under­whelm­ing Eagles game, you already know what I’m talk­ing about. Yes, the Phils have advanced to face the Dodgers in the NLCS! It’s a fit­ting match up as both teams swept the oth­er in the reg­u­lar sea­son. They’re a for­mi­da­ble oppo­nent, but I like the Phils in five.

Helen and I have tick­ets to game one and we’ll resume our nor­mal posi­tion behind home plate on the main con­course. If they need to play a fifth game, we have tick­ets to that one too!

Con­grat­u­la­tions, Phillies! Let’s go all the way!

Phillies vs. Brewers, NLDS Game 2

Last night’s per­for­mance was amaz­ing. It looked like it would be a dis­as­ter for Brett Myers in the first after he walked in a run, but he ral­lied and car­ried the rest of the team with him.

Helen and I had tick­ets in the 400s, but we played it like we did through­out the ’07 sea­son, snag­ging the spot right behind home plate on the main con­course and just camp­ing out there. It’s the best place to watch a game oth­er than our cus­tom­ary seats in Sec. 143 in left.

From the start, the feel­ing in the park was amaz­ing. Nei­ther Helen nor I had ever been to a play­off game and it was every­thing we could’ve expect­ed and more. More 46,000 fans pay­ing rapt atten­tion to every pitch, every hit, every call results in an intense atmos­phere. It cer­tain­ly helped.

After Myers fought off pitch after pitch from Brew­ers ace CC Sabathia, every­one knew some­thing bit was com­ing, that the Phils were going to catch an unlike­ly break from the guy who should be a seri­ous Cy Young con­tender. They did.

When Shane Vic­tori­no hit his first career grand slam I thought the sta­di­um might fall apart. Emo­tion­al bed­lam broke loose. Every­one was high-fiv­ing, hug­ging, jump­ing up and down while hug­ging — you get the pic­ture. It was like get­ting mar­ried and get­ting a new job and find­ing out your wife is preg­nant and win­ning the lot­tery on the same day. For a team that’s strug­gled his­tor­i­cal­ly, moments like these are not soon forgotten.

Things got a bit tense after the Phillies left the bases loaded not once but twice, fail­ing to tack on those ever impor­tant insur­ance runs, but with the excep­tion of a Jim­my Rollins mis­cue and a shaky Ryan Mad­son, every­thing was going our way.

After watch­ing Brad Lidge throw an ago­niz­ing 35 pitch­es to save Game 1 yes­ter­day, I could only hope that see­ing some action would calm him down. It did, and he went lights out to seal the win.

Now it’s time to go to Mil­wau­kee to close this thing out. You know what I’ll be doing Sat­ur­day night.