Philadelphia - Land of cheesesteaks and comedy

America’s first real city is slowly becoming the first in my heart. Philadelphia was such a pleasant little surprise. First off, they have a great Classic Rock station – 102.9. It is almost as good as my local 107.7 the Bone. It was nonstop rock. We tried turning it down at one point to talk, and the stereo just turned it back up, it rocked that much. We got to the Center City about an hour before game time, parked in a near by residential area, and walked in. Interesting note, we couldn’t find a trash can for over a mile. I guess these people have found a way to generate no waste – just phenomenal. The Phillies play at Citizens Bank Park – the newest of the 30 MLB stadiums, and it shows. It was so cool. It is the classic new style, exposed steel, open outfield, wide concourse. I’m pretty sure this stadium was designed by HOK, the firm that designed such ballparks at Camden Yards in Baltimore and SBC Park in San Francisco. Added bonus: the steel is all painted a rust red color to almost match the team colors. We, of course, paid for the cheapest seats they sell and we sat out in the right field bleachers. Not too shabby. This is where our experience turned from good to great.

I was wearing my Dodger hat, like I usually do, and the usher comes up and asks me about it. I thought he was going to harass me a bit, they take their baseball pretty seriously in Philly, but on the contrary, he too was a Dodger fan. His name was Joe – classic – and he was rocking it with a Dodger watch. How glorious is that, a Phillies usher wearing a Dodger watch. He confided in me that he hates that Phillies. What a rockstar. We chatted for a good 15 minutes, even after the game had started, once he mentioned he met Koufax I was hooked.

The number 2 batter for the Phillies is Kenny Loften. Now, ol’ Kenny has been with about 8 teams and seems like he has been in the Majors forever. He has. The three guys behind us decided to point this out.

“You know when Kenny Loften made his Major League Debut?

Same day Lou Gehring retired.”

“Yeah, he was the there for the speech. The Luckiest Man speech.”

“He cried.”

“True story.”

“Yeah they went out after. Kenny took him to dinner to cheer him up.”

“They went to Bennigan’s”

“Yeah, its Lou’s favorite, he had the Buffalo wings”

“True story. I read it in a book.”

“Ask any waitress at Bennigan’s, they will confirm the story.”

“I read it in a book.”

I have never laughed so hard at a baseball game.

They also a great one-liner. So if you have paid any attention to the sporting world in the past month you would see that Terrell Owens of the Philadelphia Eagles has been having quite a little riff with the team and the quarterback Donovan McNabb. Big story around the entire nation, it is the only story in Philly. So two young black kids come up into the stands right in front of us, probably brothers, and one is wearing an Owens jersey and the other a McNabb jersey. One of the guys behind us yells out, “Glad to see you guys made up”. It doesn’t seem that funny now that I’m retelling the story but at the time it was funnier than a dog farting.

The game was great. The Phillies won 4-3 over the Nationals. Philly has great fans, really attentive and knowledgeable. For example the crowd gave their closer, Wagner, and ovation after he threw a ball. Why? Because it was a 99 mph fastball. The whole stadium was watching the pitch speed. How cool is that?

Also, it is worthy to note, the Phillie Phantic is not nearly as annoying as he seems on TV. He is actually rather amusing. No, I’m serious. Seriously, he is a good mascot. Really, he is.

After the game we went to Geno’s, the historic cheesesteak vendor. It is kind of like the Soup Nazi. Long line, real popular, they only accept cash, you can only order a few items, and there is a special lingo that goes a long. For example, we walked up and said, “Provolone wit”. Which means, “May I please have a cheese steak sandwich with provolone cheese and grilled onions. Thank you”. But I guess all of those niceties are just doublespeak. Sandwiches = delicious.

We then cruised up to some Irish pub. The guys next to us were also comedians, similar to our friends from behind at the game (no, that isn’t a homosexual reference). This guy at the bar did a 15 minute bit on text messaging. Some highlights were, “Don’t send me a message that says, ‘I’m on top of the Green monster drinking a beer’ while I’m at work. Don’t send me a message that says, ‘Your cousin is at this club I’m at’! I don’t fuc$%(@en care.” As well as, “If anyone sends me a message that says ‘What are you doing?’ I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’m driving over to wherever they are and beating them with their own cell phone. Until they can’t stand up anymore.” We were tempted to buy this guy a round but, hey, we are on a budget and we aren’t gay.

So we left there in search of the bar with the first ever liquor license which is located somewhere in downtown Philly. We gave up after we were offered crack for the 12^th time.

The next morning we hit the streets of Philadelphia (Springsteen reference). This town has so much going on; red brick buildings, cobblestone streets, a river running through it, statues everywhere, and random street art. We were walking down the street and all of a sudden we looked to our left and 3 feet away was the grave of Ben Franklin. Ol’ Ben, just laying there, all old and decomposed. How cool is that?

We were pleased to see that you can tour Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell for free, something the Kennedy Space Center needs to figure out: we own this stuff. The Liberty Bell is indoors now, though, which is kind of lame. I guess we don’t want Osama stealing it in the night. Top gun thinking National Parks Services.

We did manage to find the Philadelphia Museum of Art which was made famous when Rocky Balboa ran up them in Rocky 1-26. Random fact: Sly Stallone commissioned a statue of himself to be made and then he placed it at the top of the stairs – which towers of a statue of George Washington! He did this to promote Rocky 3, as if it needed publicity, who was going to miss that gem? It featured Mr. T. The statue was then moved to some park, and then moved back to the museum to promote Rocky 5. Again, did it really need publicity? I think that after the fourth film people just started showing up to the movie theater twice a year expected to see a Rocky movie. Everyone was addicted to Rocky montages, it was like crack in the late 80s. Similar to the crack Geoff and I were offered in the night before.

We decided to video tape Geoff running up the stairs just like Rocky did. Real original idea. I think we were the first people ever to do that. Ever.

On our way out of town we ended up finding the bar with the first ever liquor license. It is called McGillin’s. I think it would be easy to find a fur coat in the home of the PETA president. I felt like Brenda Walsh searching for Balsak’s house. But it was worth it. Real cool joint. Tasty food for cheap. And of course, cold pints. Delicious.

All around it is just a great town. Definitely a city worth visiting.