The Soul And The Riversharks

A couple of things from a week or so ago that I didn't get around to posting previously...

A week ago Thursday, the 1600 and 1700 blocks of Market Street in Center City were closed to traffic so that the Philadelphia Soul, the Arena Football League team once owned by Jon Bon Jovi, could hold an outdoor practice. Here's a video with a portion of the practice. The speaker is head coach Mike Hohensee. Some photos follow (click on the photos to see full-size versions).

Former mayor and former PA governor Ed Rendell

This wasn't the most intense practice. It was more a publicity stunt to sell tickets. In 2008, the last year of the Soul's existence before the league temporarily shut down, they sold out half of their games and averaged over 16,000 per game. Whether it's due to the two years without a team or the economy or other factors, but their home opener this year drew just 12,000 or so, and attendance dropped to 8,000 for home game 2 and 7,500 for their most recent game on Friday.

The next day, my friend Kurt sang the national anthem before the Camden Riversharks game for the third time in the last two seasons...



However, we were most interested in two former major leaguers who now play for the Riversharks, Mike Lamb and Toby Hall. In particular, watching Hall from behind was especially enticing.

In this video, we see Hall awaiting his at-bat while Kurt sings "Your Love" by the Outfield (which had been played over the PA system), the many kids in the crowd made constant noise (it was an 11 am school day promotion, so the crowd was mostly busloads of kids and their chaperones) and I enjoyed Toby's rear view (well, duh).