My Sports Tees And Miscellaneous Caps, Part 7

With all that's going on related to my cancer, things are kinda tough, including with this blog. But last night I finally got a picture of EVERY baseball cap I own! (For now. Some are quite old and have sweat stains so it may be time for them to go, and there's a Phillies cap or two I'd like to buy if they're available/the right price.)

And so I present the final batch of caps...followed by some cool throwback t-shirts I got recently...

OMG! A 76ers cap! And the 1997 Flyers Eastern Conference Championship. That was a fun ride. Until it wasn't. #chokingsituation

Baltimore Orioles giveaway from a game in 2002, some time when I gave money to Human Rights Campaign (something I'll never do again), and from the golden days of Outsports.

These tees are from Shibe Vintage Sports, and I love them! There are a few more I hope to get soon.

Except for the above, which also comes in red for the Vet's other main tenant, so far I've got some long-gone teams...

Note: this pic is from the Shibe website. My pic turned out a brown color(????) The Bell, from something called the World Football League, looked like a success story when they initially drew over 50,000 to JFK Stadium. Turns out they gave most of the tickets away. It killed the team. The WFL soon followed.

The Star were able to play at the Vet because USFL played their games in the spring. And they won a chapmionship! (See, Eagles, it IS possible!) Then this happened. The Stars were forced to move to Baltimore until the league was killed. #NeverTrump

The Blazers played here for one year before moving. They were from the WHA, the league that the NHL eventually took some teams from. Not the Blazers, of course. The NHL did get a team from Edmonton. Had a kid named Gretzky. Whatever happened to him?

Before Oakland, before Kansas City, they were the Philadelphia Athletics. And look at this list of championships won while they were here (before things went sour and they...you get the idea.)

World Series titles: 1910 1911 1913 1929 1930
AL Pennants: 1902 1905 1910 1911 1913 1914 1929 1930 1931

Phillies? Any comment?

The Firebirds were a minor league hockey team that played at the long-gone Civic Center (fun fact: the building's gone but Civic Center Boulevard keeps the name to this day!) I was at their final home game in 1979 before they moved to Syracuse. Someone outside handed out fliers asking fans to chant "Keep the Birds in Philly!" midway through the 2nd period. The result: dead silence. #ByeFelicia

Craigslist Follies! Or, How I Sold Some Papal Tickets

The Phillies gave this card out to
fans one night recently.

(If you're offended by foul language, you should be warned that towards the end of this post, there are a few nasty words.)

In case you haven't heard, perhaps because you've been visiting relatives on the moon, Pope Francis is coming to Philadelphia this weekend for the World Meeting of Families. It's an event I have no interest in. It's been extremely overhyped, whether because of security plans or just because of things like the item you see on the left. And most of the news coverage is either fluff (mostly ignoring the Philadelphia archbishop's extremist anti-gay bigotry or support for child-molesting priests over their victims) or downright useless. There are three public events at which Francis is appearing: a speech on Independence Mall, a Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the "Festival of Families," featuring host Mark Walhberg and performances by Aretha Franklin, among others. After some confusion, it was announced that certain areas closest to the front would require tickets for admission. The tickets would be free, but they would be distributed online.

Although the demand for SEPTA's special weekend passes turned out to be nonexistent, the event tickets were snapped up in minutes. But with lots of clicking on the "refresh" button on my browser window I somehow managed to get four tickets each to the Papal Mass and the Festival of Families.

Having no real desire to be in the crowd for either event or go through security checkpoints, I decided to sell the tickets on Craigslist and see what I could get. Unlike most of the ads, I didn't request a specific price. I just said that people could make an offer and if I accepted, I'd send them my email address for PayPal and email the PDF documents when I received the payment. The first couple of days I got a couple of nibbles but no one followed through. I also had the post flagged for removal a few times by people who either took offense or just wanted to eliminate competition for their own tickets. Naturally, I just re-posted the ad each time.

Today, whoever was flagging them got more intense. At least three times my ad was deleted between overnight and mid-afternoon today. Then one of the people doing the flagging emailed a reply, perhaps by accident, because it seemed to be written to someone else.  He wrote: "Another scam. Will try to shut it down." I decided to reply, and I kind of didn't hold back: "NOT A SCAM, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

He replied with: "i can flag or we can meet to buy the tickets and then i can show you my badge and take it downtown. what will it be?" Yeah. Like he's a real cop or something. I wrote back: "Right. Who's scamming now?" (Interestingly, while in the middle of this my ad was still active and I was making a sale!)

He wrote again: "Stealing from religious pilgrims. Ask yourself if its worth it." I replied: "Not stealing at all. No one's forcing anyone to pay for them, you sanctimonious prick." He wrote back one more time, saying "You took those ticks from others for your own greed. You can't justify your actions." Instead of going back and forth, I flagged him. Each mail sent through Craigslist's relay system includes a link to "Please flag unwanted messages (spam, scam, other)" -- including mail that is "annoying/inappropriate/abusive." Boom.

First, ticks? Ewwwww. Second, there's no law against selling something you legitimately own. I didn't steal the tickets. I followed the process to get them. It's not my fault I was lucky for two out of three events. Third, as I said, I didn't demand a particular price. One woman said she was willing to pay $100 for two tickets ($50.00 each) to the Mass. I accepted (once she used the right email address in PayPal). The other buyer (the one going on during the email exchange) offered $100 for two Mass tickets and two Festival tickets (or $25.00 each) and I accepted his offer as well. And I'm not a bit sorry. I'm far from being in great financial shape, even before the medical bills from the last three months started rolling in, and even the fact that I go back to work for LIHEAP on Tuesday won't dramatically change that.

Hey, even though I'm not placing any more ads on Craigslist -- well, except one more, see below --there's still time to snap up the last two Festival tickets for Saturday night. :)

My Sports Tees And Miscellaneous Caps, Part 4.5

Not Part 5 because it's so short. On Friday I celebrated my final radiation treatment with a Phillies ticket via StubHub, behind the visitors' dugout along the third-base line. Face value: $70.00. I paid $32.75. And the Phils won. After the game I stopped in the store to check out the merchandise, hoping to find something marked down or on clearance. That wasn't happening. Things are definitely more expensive at the ballpark. However, they did have a sale on caps: buy one at regular price, get one for 50 percent off. I wasn't going to buy any until I spotted the one on the left and succumbed to PPP (Pride-related Peer Pressure).

The other cap, however, had an interesting tag on the inside that I didn't notice until I got home:

So when I wear it, I'm wearing soda bottles on my head!

This last one is what the Phils gave fans who purchased their birthday greeting package in 2013 (you get a cap, your name on the scoreboard and confetti thrown on you by a performer as he or she sings Happy Birthday). My friend Kurt and I, who were born 20 years apart on the same day (I'm the younger one, no matter what the birth certificates say), went to the game that night and got confetti'd...or confettied?...spell check in Blogger accepts the former but not the latter. Okay, confetti'd it is.

Another Health Update

Picking up from where I left off here:

Yesterday, I completed my six-week radiation treatment at the Cancer Center at Aria Torresdale. Every day, Monday through Friday, I showed up and got zapped. Most of the time I was in and out very quickly, but there was a stretch of a few days about halfway through in which there were issues (either with their machine needing a replacement part, or emergency cases being sent from the main hospital to the Cancer Center). One day I had to wait over 90 minutes. Last two weeks or so were an absolute breeze. Once a week I saw the radiation oncologist for a brief checkup, including looking into my mouth for signs of thrush...thrush! Heh. Everything has checked out fine, though.

Here I am on the table. They were kind enough to take a pic for me. I thought it might be weird but it seems I'm far from the first person to ask. The mask on my face was molded prior to my first treatment. It's snapped into the headrest and is designed to keep my head and face aligned properly, as the radiation is focused on very specific targets.

On the chemo end, I had issues with the chemo oncologist's staffers and/or the pharmacies dispensing my chemo pills (sort of described here). After getting all of that corrected, I took the chemo pills daily. Again, I saw the oncologist (or physician's assistant in a couple of cases when the doctor was on vacation) weekly. They took blood at each visit to check my cell counts. Again, everything has checked out fine. I am, for now, finished with the chemo pills for a while.

I'm very happy to report that throughout this time I've had no nausea or vomiting. That in itself has made my life much easier. Nor, to my knowledge, did I have any short-term memory loss. As far as I can tell, my level of forgetfulness hasn't changed. I mean, the t-shirts shown at the end of this post were both purchased before the health problems began. However, my hair did start falling out. It was pretty short to begin with once I finally got a haircut to even out the shaved-for-surgery part with the rest of my hairline, but when there was hair on my pillow two days in a row I decided it was time to keep my head shaved for a while. I'm sure you've seen various pics on my social media already, including the one where I compared myself to Lex Luthor, but I thought of another one, which is a better match because of the facial hair and glasses (and cancer diagnosis, too). Separated at birth?

 

The next steps come towards the end of September. I have followups with the chemo oncologist on September 23rd where we'll set up the next round of chemo. The general plan as I understand it now is to increase the dosage I take, but I'll only take it a certain number of days rather than on a daily basis. On the 30th I go back to the radiation oncologist. Between the two, we'll have to determine the time I get my followup MRI. I saw the neurologist last week and he said that they have to let the treatments work through my system so the followup should be about 6-8 weeks after the last treatment. The other day the chemo doctor said that it should be 2-3 months. (Two months is about eight weeks, of course.) I explained how I felt that, when I was originally thought to have had a small stroke, it took new symptoms and hospitalization for me to get a new MRI in June. I feel that had I had one in May, when I initially followed up with a neurologist, the tumor would have been found sooner. So when I go on the 23rd I will be very clear that I want the MRI done as early as possible. Eight weeks from yesterday is October 23, so I'll want it done very close to that date, if not earlier. After that I'll visit the neurologist again and I guess I'll have a better idea of my long-term prognosis.

On my diabetes situation: I had the A1C test done again in mid-July. My A1C score (8.4 or 8.6, I forget exactly, back in April during my first hospitalization) was down to 5.7 -- barely above the level where you are considered NOT at risk of diabetes. I'm still on the diabetes meds and watching my carbs. Maybe, with the passage of time and continued good results, I'll be able to get rid of those meds as well, but even if I don't, that's okay. My weight is down to 225 (undressed, add about 5-6 lbs. when I'm fully clothed) and I am comfortably wearing pants with a 40 waist. I've been as high as a 48, and was at 44 prior to April. I swear, at some point if I try on pants with a 38 waist and they fit, you will hear my screams no matter where in the multiverse you are. And even if I stay where I'm at, the fact that I am being careful with the carbs but still having some of the snacks I like (portion control, people!) makes me feel confident that I will never again that much weight. I've gotten rid of a lot of my larger clothing and will do some more in the coming weeks. (That reminds me: I have to get new dress slacks soon. Shorts weather won't last forever.)

So now my schedule is completely free until the 23rd. I can travel (well, depending on the cost) again! That is, unless I get called back to work, of course. If I do get called back (which isn't guaranteed; it depends on how many jobs are available and how many ahead of me choose to return, as I'm last in seniority) it shouldn't be within these next couple of weeks. I'm a bit torn. Part of me wants to be called back right away because the other two times I was hired it was after everyone else started and I had to be trained/retrained on my own (or I basically read the stuff myself) and it made doing the job more difficult for me in a lot of ways. On the other hand, if they don't call me back I can finally file for unemployment at the start of October.

For the most part things have gone so smoothly, and I'm even getting things in order (such as getting my comic books boxed up, all of my personal papers organized, getting rid of some of the crap in my basement, etc.). Due to a combination of the structured schedule (radiation every weekday at noon) and, to some extent, my meds, I have become one of the things I abhor the most: a morning person. :) That has helped me in the above-mentioned tasks and given me more time to get to more movies, a few Phillies games, and other local excursions.

Again, I can't thank everyone enough for the kind words, wishes, prayers, thoughts, vibes, jokes, etc. They are very much appreciated.

Just one last thing, because this has truly, beyond everything else, angered me.

I had 30 radiation treatments. 30. THIRTY times I had radiation being zapped into my body. And NOT ONCE, in all that time, did a spider show up and bite me. Not once!

I WANT MY SUPER-POWERS, DAMMIT!

My Sports Tees And Miscellaneous Caps, Part 4

Time for another chapter. And something embarrassing if you get to the end. Let's start with caps. Other that the first cap, this entire post is an all-Phillies edition.

  

From the Hockey Hall of Fame. Pretty sure this was from my epic trip in August-September 2004 to Montreal and Toronto for the World Cup of Hockey (an Olympic-style tournament, won by host Canada that year), but possibly I bought it on a later trip.

This is old. The Phillies added the blue cap option to their uniforms for day games in 1994. The defending NL Champs lost their first two games wearing them and the players were up in arms. Some fans didn't take kindly to them, either, although they sold rather well. The compromise for the players: they'd only wear them on weekday "Businessperson's Special" afternoon games. I think it's a nice-looking cap, but the jinx theory (final record: 1-6) won out.

You can probably guess that this was a giveaway item.

Aaron Rowand will be remembered forever for this catch and his comment a day or two later in reply to a question about the famous Ricky Watters "For who? For what?" quote when Watters short-armed a ball to avoid being hit in his first game as an Eagle.

The Flyin' Hawaiian! And a rare Harry Kalas home run call in which he did NOT use his famous "Outta Here!" Victorino, no ka oi!

Just looking at the condition of this shirt, it's very old. Steve Carlton's first year as a Phillie, 1972, when he went 27-10 (including a 15-game winning streak) for a team that only won 59 games, was what got me interested in baseball.

Greg Luzinski. The Bull. What a hitter in the mid-70s. Then injuries and slumps took their toll, but at least he was part of the 1980 World Series Champions.

Roy Halladay! First of three. This one was something the MLB Players Association did to raise funds for the Wounded Warrior Project.

This one might have come from a store like Walmart or Kmart or something.

On this night, the Doctor was definitely in. In the middle of the glory days, when it seemed like multiple World Series wins were the Phils' destiny. Sigh...

...and speaking of World Series wins...

 ...and finally...the right pic turned out a little blurry. It commemorates All-Star games hosted by the Phils as well as some of the NL and WS championships through 2010.. I wanted it badly but it took a while to be marked down to a price I was willing to pay.

There is only one problem with this t-shirt:

I somehow ended up with TWO of them. The exact same shirt, even the same size. And I only discovered this the other day when I was choosing the t-shirts for this post. I have no idea how this happened!

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...

Holy Cow, A Sports Blog Post!

I was planning to write a little post about the Eagles, with their season beginning tomorrow and all, but events have inspired me to make this post about a few different topics.

For one, the Phillies are 6 1/2 games behind St. Louis for the second NL Wild Card because the Cards lost while the Phils, after a long delay, were rained out. People think of last year, when other teams made huge comebacks to get into the playoffs -- that very same St. Louis team not only got in, but eliminated the Phillies and won the World Series -- and think that the Phils could do the same.

But it's so extremely unlikely. The Phils have to pass not only the Cards, but the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Pirates and Brewers. The Pirates are fading fast. (Sorry, Kurt.) They're 9-19 over the last month. But the Brewers are on fire, 15-4 in their last 19. In addition, the Phils have no games left against any of these teams, which means even if they finish strong, they'll have to rely on all of these other teams losing enough games to get the Phils in. So there's really no reason at this point to get excited.

On another baseball note, normally I'd enjoy a team that's been an underdog for so long making a strong run at a championship. But then there's the Washington Nationals. From this spring's sad attempt to keep Phils fans out of their ballpark, to Jayson Werth's various comments since he left town, to their butthead general manager whining like a baby when Cole Hamels hit their hyped rookie Bryce Harper with a pitch, to their continued mediocre attendance despite a new ballpark and a winning team, I've developed a bit of a dislike for the Nats.

And the last straw is how they've completely mishandled Stephen Strasburg.

Why An Earthquake Should Bring Down Xfinity Live

A few weeks ago I bought a ticket to Wednesday night's Phillies game. I wasn't planning to go originally, even though they were giving the t-shirt pictured to all fans 15 and over. Then I read that the Phils set up their starting rotation so that Roy Halladay was pitching that night. In the previous two years I haven't seen him pitch once in person. I've only been to a few games the last couple of years but every time I went someone else pitched. So I got a ticket.

(I almost didn't go because my mom passed away the day before, but I spoke to one of my brothers and he said she wouldn't want me to waste the ticket, which I sort of felt myself, and it wasn't as if I was missing the funeral or needed for anything else related to it.)

I figured I could check out what has come to be known as Xfinity Live. (Officially the title ends with an exclamation point but I refuse to use it.) When plans to tear down the Spectrum were first announced, it was known as Philly Live, and was quite ambitious. A shopping/dining/entertainment experience, perhaps even a hotel, was planned. Although I hate that the Spectrum had to go (I'd have liked to see them build around it somehow), the idea sounded really exciting.

It became less exciting when the project was delayed and scaled back due to the economic meltdown.

Then they decided that it would be given the same bizarre made-up name that Comcast came up with for its cable, internet and phone services because the name "Comcast" had such a poor reputation.