My Sports Tees And Miscellaneous Caps, Part 3

A mix of shirts and caps, mostly pretty old. In fact...

...this may be my oldest cap, even older than the Hare Jordan/Air Jordan cap from my last post. I worked here from 1987 to 1991. Each year they held sort of a company picnic-type event on their grounds and I'm pretty sure it was during one of these events that I got this. Haven't worn it in forever, but maybe I will soon?

...and these shirts (official locker room editions from the 1993 NL East and National League Champions) are almost 22 years old! The first one looks it, from the sweat stains on the neckline and armpits. I have an idea of getting a clear (unwrinkled) picture of the logo and having a new shirt made.

I can't remember exactly when or how I got this. I'm guessing it may have been part of some TV-related prize package I won. This is the latter-day PRISM logo, not too long before it was finally shut down. Here's the network's Wikipedia page if you don't remember (or weren't born yet) when PRISM carried some Phillies, Flyers and 76ers games for many years before Comcast Sportsnet was created, or if you just want to see the old logo.

For a short time there was a Spencer's Gifts on South Street. When the store had its going-out-of-business sale I stopped in and bought this for, at most, $3.00. Why? 1962 is my birth year and I am both vintage and an American Classic.

I stayed at this hotel off the Las Vegas strip in 2006. Not sure if I was given this as part of some promotion or if I actually bought it. It's since been renamed. Not a bad place, other than being off the strip.

This is my newest cap, bought recently at Dick's Sporting Goods when I was out in the sun and desperately needed a cap to keep the sun off my recently opened-up skull. Some of the proceeds go to the Wounded Warrior Project, obviously.

And finally, my three Chase Utley t-shirts. He's hitting .500 since coming off the disabled list recently, and he could be traded any day now. What I'd do in the off-season is dump Ryan Howard -- release him if no one wants to trade for him, and when Utley is a free agent after the season (and assuming he's healthy the rest of the season) I'd see if he can be enticed back to the Phillies at a reasonable salary to play first base semi-regularly and a few starts at second. I doubt it will happen, though...

Today's Sports Sexism

Sports on television has always catered to the straight male audience, whether it's the camera shots of cheerleaders or the predominantly young female sideline reporters. So naturally this makes sense.

As a result of the Comcast takeover of NBC Universal, Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia's nightly "SportsNite" show now includes a brief weather update from NBC10. I'm not sure if the NBC10 staffer delivering the weather on CSN is the same every night, but my guess is if it's not, one staffer gets the majority of these updates. And that would be tonight's star, Sheena Parveen...

I mean, really, if you're a straight man wouldn't you rather get a weather update from her than from Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz?

An Old Phillies TV Broadcast Failure

I'm watching a rebroadcast of the last Phillies game played at the Vet, which Comcast Sportsnet has been airing recently. I recorded it the other day and I'm going through it while my new tablet PC is charging for the first time. I never saw this broadcast because I was actually at the game. Remember when starting pitcher Kevin Millwood (whose Phillies career started with promise and ended up well short of expectations) was removed from the game after giving up 5 runs in 4-plus innings, walked off the mound and tossed his glove into the stands? Amazingly, the broadcast didn't catch that moment live because they had WIP's Anthony Gargano roaming the stadium doing reports, and at that moment he was interviewing former Phils Bake McBride and Manny Trillo. Granted, it was a special day so such reports are kinda warranted, but still...

Comcast Butchers A Classic

Earlier tonight I was watching part of a presentation by Comcast Sportsnet of Game 6 of the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals as a "Philly Sports Classic." Now, the other night their Philly Sports Classic was a lacrosse game. Seriously. The Wings won a championship way back when. Maybe it was their first. But a "classic"? Not really. However, Stanley Cup Game 6 in 1987? Absolutely classic. The Flyers, decimated by injuries. The Edmonton Oilers, at the peak of their Gretzky-led dynasty. The Edmonton papers published plans for their victory parade before Game 5, with the Oilers up 3-1, but the Flyers pulled out a win in Edmonton to bring the series back to the Spectrum, where their 3-2 win that night forced a seventh and deciding game in Edmonton.

The game found the Oilers dominating early and up 2-0, but again the Flyers fought back. Still down 2-1 with just under 8 minutes left, the Flyers got a power play and Brian Propp took advantage to tie the game, thrilling the sold-out building. Less than two minutes later, a weak Oilers clearing attempt sent the puck to the point. J.J. Daigneault fired it home and put the Flyers ahead 3-2, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Everyone who was there says the crowd was never louder in the entire history of the Spectrum than it was that night. The following video was taken from a prior rebroadcast of the game. Goosebumps guaranteed.




Unfortunately, instead of letting the video play through and capturing those two moments in their entirety, Comcast Sportsnet cut away and went to their studio so John Boruk, Rick Tocchet and Al Morganti could offer their commentary. Tocchet played in the game and Morganti covered it from the press box, so it makes sense to have them look back at the game. But not at two of the most crucial and exciting moments. This poor editing pretty much cut the drama at those moments. Thanks for nothing, Comcast Sportsnet.

Random Stuff: B-52's, MLB on Fox, McNabb

Just covering a few things at once...

• My ears are still ringing some from last night's B-52's concert. Between their show and the opening act, a Philly band named Gang, the music was really loud. When I blogged about my trip to the box office to pick up the ticket, I had a comment saying the B-52's were now "a tired act." I can understand that a little, since the commenter had seen them perform here in 1979 and 1980. They do look a little older, a little heavier (well, not Keith Strickland -- he looks yummy), but I thought it was a great show and the crowd seemed to agree. I took some video but the sound quality is pretty bad because it was so loud and the camcorder in my cell phone isn't that special, so I don't think I'll bother posting it. (Plus a couple of them are sideways because I held the phone sideways. I have to remember to slide out the keyboard first if I want a wider view.)

• On the final weekend of the baseball regular season, Fox is again showing the less meaningful Yankees-Red Sox game instead of the crucial Giants-Padres matchup. The Padres need to win to stay alive for both the NL West and NL Wild Card. The Giants are trying to clinch the NL West, and at the same time hurt San Diego's chances of catching the Braves for the Wild Card. (If current results -- Padres leading, Braves losing to the Phillies -- hold, tomorrow will be a heck of a day for clinchers and there could even be a one-game playoff on Monday.)
  
  Oddly enough, though the Phillies are also playing at the same time, they're showing the Phils on Comcast Sportsnet. I think they're on Fox as well in parts of the country. Usually if the Phils are one of the Fox games, Fox shows the game locally. It's hard to believe that Fox isn't blacking out a local Phils telecast, and that they're showing us the stupid New York-Boston crap instead of the game that directly affects the Phillies -- the Giants-Padres will help determine the Phils' first playoff opponent. They'd get more people here switching back and forth between Fox and Comcast if Fox were showing the Giants-Padres here.

• I've avoided all of the national sports outlets this week because, not unexpectedly, they're too busy taking potshots at Philadelphia and at Eagles fans. After all, Donovan McNabb returns to the Linc tomorrow for the first time as a Washington Redskin. Between McNabb, drama queen/martyr that he is, and his suck-ups in the national media, there's really no reason to watch ESPN or NFL Network or visit any of the national sports websites. There's no actual journalism there this week as it relates to the Eagles, only misinformation, outright bias and lazy (blah blah blah Santa Claus 40 years ago blah blah blah) writing. Of course, it's not exactly fun listening to WIP either, with the callers and hosts pushing their own agendas re: McNabb. So, many heartfelt thanks to the Phillies for giving me another playoff run to keep my mind off the Eagles/McNabb melodrama.

Hating The Phils -- On TV, That Is

Way back in that magical year of 2008 I did a series of posts on the Outsports Jock Talk Blog in which I reviewed a game broadcast of every major league team (thanks to my subscription to the MLB Extra Innings package that year) as well as nationally televised games on ESPN, TBS and Fox. A summary of my grades for every broadcast can be found here. For the Phillies, I assigned a C-plus grade to the Comcast Sportsnet broadcast of a Phils-Nationals game. One key quote from my writeup: "It’s impossible to imagine a Phillies broadcast without Harry Kalas. It’s unfortunate that the Phillies haven’t built a better broadcast around him."

Sadly, the "impossible to imagine" became the norm in April 2009 when Harry Kalas died. Since then, Tom McCarthy has exclusively done TV play-by-play. Chris Wheeler (1st-3rd innings, 7th inning on) and Gary "Sarge" Matthews (4th-6th innings) handle the "analysis." And the broadcasts have, of course, suffered. McCarthy continues to talk and talk and talk, especially rambling during his innings with Sarge. Matthews still hasn't met a cliche he doesn't like. Wheeler, unpopular as ever, now is even getting on my nerves at times.

Eagle Todd Herremans' "Barrage Of Homosexuality"

If you believe that beautiful people or jocks are generally stupid, here's one example to support both theories. Eagles player Todd Herremans (this is the "jock" part), a 2008 Philadelphia Daily News Sexy Single (here's the "beautiful" part, although that is, of course, a matter of taste), had this to say about the HBO series "True Blood" on his Twitter feed:

"So ... caught up on Trueblood last night .... Not a fan of how they get u hooked with the 1st 2 seasons then bring on a barrage of homosexuality."

The original post has been deleted, which is why I don't have a screen capture, but the text was quoted by both Philly.com and CSN Philly.com. As for the rest of this, as far as I can tell, this is the correct chronological order. First, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Gonzalez tweeted at Herremans:

Herremans' reply is not on his feed, but was quoted by Philly.com: "I have no issues with homosesxuality, to each his/her own... Its just not for me.. #jussayin." Gonzalez' nest tweet:

Stanley Cup Finals: One Team's Drought Will End

The Hockey News has a chance to get it right after all. Prior to the start of the 2009-10 season, they predicted the Flyers would win the Stanley Cup. That seemed absurd for most of this season, and even when the Flyers squeaked into the playoffs at the last possible moment, it still seemed far-fetched. When they fell behind Boston 3-0 in their series, forced a 7th game and fell behind 3-0 in that game, it again seemed impossible, until the historic comeback was completed.

Now, after taking out the Montreal Canadiens in 5 games to win the Eastern Conference championship, the Flyers will take on the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup finals starting Saturday night in Chicago. The Blackhawks went 52-22-8 during the regular season, one point behind San Jose for best record in the West. They swept the Sharks in the Western finals after previously beating Nashville and Vancouver in 6 games each. For what it's worth, the Flyers beat the Blackhawks 3-2 on March 13 in the teams' only meeting this year.

The Blackhawks are obviously a dangerous team, and will undoubtedly be the favorites to win the Cup. Whether they feel that pressure remains to be seen. While the Flyers' last finals appearance was in 1997 and their last Cup was won in 1975, the Blackhawks haven't gotten this far since 1992 and haven't won the Cup since 1961 -- so long ago that even I wasn't born yet. So one city's hockey fans are going to finally celebrate.

Hopefully, whichever team wins, the Comcast Sportsnet affiliate will be more careful with its live coverage than CSN Philly was tonight. No, I take that back. I love when this stuff happens.

Philly Sports Joke of the Day

No, it has nothing to do with the 76ers or the Flyers, and if you're not familiar with the local sports scene you won't understand the punchline. I heard it on Daily News Live on Comcast Sportsnet earlier.

By now you know all about the Great Taser Incident of 2010. A 17-year-old doofus ran onto the field during the Phillies' game on Monday night. He ran around evading security until a Philadelphia police officer tased him. The widespread reaction -- while some said it's about time and it would serve as a warning to any other dimwits, a lot of people think the cop went too far -- caused the Phillies to make an adjustment. From now on, only Phillies security employees will chase after someone who runs on the field. They'll then hand the miscreant over to the police.

And now for the joke!

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that the Eagles are going to hold a tackling clinic for the Phillies' security personnel. The bad news is that it will be conducted by Asante Samuel.

Chase Utley Discusses His Butt

Earlier today on "Daily News Live" on Comcast Sportsnet, host Michael Barkann was interviewing Phillies second baseman Chase Utley. Utley and his wife Jennifer are hosting their 3rd annual "All Star Animals Casino Night" at the Electric Factory tonight, raising money for the Pennsylvania SPCA's Etana Fund to Stop Cruelty to Animals.

At the end of the interview Barkann referenced a recent Philadelphia Magazine interview with some of the Phillies' wives...

I ask Jennifer Utley to name the best thing about being married to Chase Utley, Major League All-Star. She doesn’t mention the money, or the home in L.A., or the stylish condo in Washington Square West, or even the thrill, as a result of being the slugger’s wife, of being able to help so many of her beloved animals. No. Instead, Jen Utley takes a minute and then comes up with the real benefit of being wed to a guy who has a job that requires him to swing a bat, throw a ball, and run around bases all day long.

“He’s got a nice ass,” she says.

Barkann asked Utley for his reaction, and Chase replied with a smile: "Michael, have you been in the locker room lately?"

This picture from the 2008 Home Run Derby (from this blog) would indicate that Utley's backside has more than one admirer. Any comment, Florida Marlin Dan Uggla?