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November 20, 2006

Weirdest Philly Sports Day Since T.O.

McNabb's knee, Andre Waters' passing, Ryan Howard's MVP

I had the honor and pleasure of being in some good friends' wedding this past weekend outside New York City. Amazing night, good times had by all -- it was a blast. As is something of a tradition, prior to the wedding ceremony, the groom gave each of his groomsmen a little gift. Typically these gifts are themed, and the chosen theme this time around was throwback football jerseys. The groom went to great lengths to select (and customize) shirts that fit with each of our particular sports personalities: Tony Dorsett for the Cowboys fan, a Mark Bavaro throwback for the Giants fan, even a #6 "R. Howard" Eagles jersey for one of the Birds fans (which, it must be said, will serve as a companion piece to this gentleman's #3 "Iverson" Eagles shirt).

So you can imagine the thrill I felt when I tore open my gift wrapped box and saw a kelly green #20 Andre Waters jersey. Perhaps! Andre "Dirty" Waters! Arguably the meanest dude on the meanest defense of the last 25 years. Just fantastic! I wore it with pride all weekend (including some classy accessorizing with a blazer for the wedding brunch on Sunday).

And then came the weirdness(es).

After the brunch, we hustled to a sports bar in White Plains to try to catch the Eagles-Titans game. We were in this side room with two (2) separate families of Eagles fans. Or, two (2) separate families where the dad was obviously dragging his wife and two (2) small children to the bar to watch the Eagles on Sunday afternoon. (At least the kids had cute little Birds' shirts.) We had been there only a few minutes before McNabb blew out his knee. There were people in the bar who were trying to convince us that "maybe it wasn't so bad." Errr, the folks who watch 5 a lot weren't fooled. If he wasn't moving, it was bad. (5 is not a wuss; the man threw four TDs on a broken ankle on a cold day.) And he wasn't moving.

Bye bye, 2006 season!

Right, so they're not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, but come on. McNabb was the only reason they had a freakin chance in the first place, and now Andy Reid and all the other neo-con spin doctors at the NovaCare center can blame this craptastic season on McNabb's knee -- and not the lack of discipline, cohesiveness and guts that this team had shown ever since they won their Imaginary Super Bowl against the Cowboys on October 8th. (Yeah, we sure showed that TO that we can win at home against Drew Bledsoe! Take that, TO!)

The killer about this team is that statistically, they're extremely capable. That is, they do all the things that suggest that they should be able to win games (and they've been favorites every single week of the season). Only they don't manage to do any of the things required to actually win games: avoid penalties, succeed on third-and-short, get stops in the fourth quarter. Yuck. They're gutless. Heartless. Don't for a second think that this is 2002 all over again and Adam Joshua Feeley is going to lead the Birds to playoffs. Not happening. Not with this team.

All in all, it was kind of a bummer.

And it just got weirder this morning when the news of Andre Waters' suicide broke. I really don't know what to do with that. It's obviously a horrible tragedy -- tough, tough news. But the jersey thing just makes it a little odder than it otherwise would have been. Is wearing the shirt disrespectful now? Is it creepy? Unlucky? Also, how do we think about this being the third guy from the Buddy Ryan defense to pass away? I haven't seen a comment from Buddy (or Wes Hopkins, or Seth Joyner) yet, but I imagine that'll be in tomorrow's papers? Seriously, I'm a little weirded out by the jersey now.

And then we get the big comeback this afternoon with Ryan Howard winning the NL MVP. Which is nice for Ryan Howard, and borderline inspirational for the Phils. And, when you really think about it, the Phillies (GULP) actually look like the best franchise in Philly right now. Is this what it's come to? I'm supposed to look forward to baseball season? Has someone torn a hole in the fabric of the universe and forgotten to cc me on the mail?

In the midst of it all (and by "it all" I mean the part where I listened to about nine hours of WIP on the web today), I decided to treat myself to Philly Slim's (photo above), a cheesesteak joint in Hell's Kitchen. It was more McNabb than Howard today; I thought the roll was too soft and it was a little thin on meat. Sigh. I'm going to try to make it up with a trip to Around the Clock for the traditional Collonade sandwich this evening (easily on my list of top-five all-time favorite sandwiches).

Yeah, this was all pretty weird. I dunno.

Posted by thatkid at November 20, 2006 4:42 PM under Philly , Sports , ThatKid , The Papers

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Posted by: bradglory at December 4, 2006 12:21 PM

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