There’s a Lot, a Lot of Culture Here
It’s been around five years and the first thing I think of when I hear “Philadelphia” is that “it‘s a baby New York” and cheesesteak, cheesesteak, cheesesteak from the endlessly played Southwest Airlines commercial. It used to be the rousing horns of the Rocky theme or the stirring strings of “Philadelphia Freedom,” but now it’s a corporate message with public access production values.
With his monstrous five-year, $125 million contract Ryan Howard could buy and sell all the culture of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. The first baseman tied the game in the fourth with an opposite field homer. Much to the delight of Philadelphians J.D. Drew lost track of his counterpart Jayson Werth’s fly ball in the twilight sky. Citizens Bank Park is a bandbox, but who knew one could double in shallow right? In the eighth Drew would rob Greg Dobbs of an extra base hit with running interception on the warning track.
Mauian Shane Victorino lined a single to left to plate Werth for the go-ahead run. Werth added to the lead with a two-run homer to the upper deck in the fifth, one of those moonshots that would be a home run in most other parks.
Boston’s only run came in the first inning. Victor Martinez’s two-out four-bagger would have been a double, maybe a single off the wall in Fenway, depending on how well the outfielder played it.
Refusing to sign with the Phillies may have been one of the best things for Drew. Although terrible for baseball and awful that it benefited Scott Boras, the pockmark on the face of baseball, it proved a boon for Drew. Just ask Donovan McNabb, who was booed when he was drafted after Tim Couch but before Ricky Williams. He toiled for a decade under the harsh gaze of fans who would only grudgingly recognize him as an outstanding player. Luckily for him he was traded from the City of Not-So Brotherly Love to another team within the division, which is tremendous motivation to show his former organization that there’s still gas left in the tank and that the tank is attached to a car that won’t have its tires slashed if he has an off night.
There’s a lot, a lot of culture there, all right, but it’s all in the vomitus spewed from its fans’ mouths.
| Game 43: May 21, 2010 | ||
| Red Sox 22-21 | 1 | L: John Lackey (4-3) |
| 2B: Adrian Beltre (12) HR: Victor Martinez (6) | ||
 Phillies26-15 | 5 | W: Cole Hamels (5-3) S: J.C. Romero (2) |
| 2B: Raul Ibanez (8), Jayson Werth (21) HR: Ryan Howard (8), Jayson Werth (9) | ||
