Philly Chillin, yo

Being in Philly is cool. On the way in from the airport, I saw a billboard near CBP that said "Fantasy baseball got you down? We got the REAL THING right here", and I saw several other Phillies billboards while going up I-95. And then, on the block of Chestnut St my dad lives on, there are Phillies banners up on some lampposts. If I look down to the street from our apartment, I can see the Ryan Howard banner below. Awesome.

I ended up not going to today's Phillies-Brewers game, though, since I got together with some friends for the day and hung out in Fairmount Park and West Philly. I got home around 8:30 and watched the game on TV with my dad; it's great to be able to kick back with some birch beer and Tastykakes and some Phillies on channel 57.

It was an exciting game, too. I got to see Chris Coste's second major league at-bat ever, and he got hit by a pitch and then scored when Jimmy Rollins hit a home run. (Of course, I also got to see Chris Coste get called for catcher's interference.) I got to see Aaron Fultz strike out the Brewers' side (Carlos Lee, Prince Fielder, and Corey Koskie at that). Then I got to see Ryan Howard hit a home run with Chase Utley scoring, tying the game at 6-6.

Then I went in the other room to call a friend of mine to see if he still wanted to go to tomorrow afternoon's game and make arrangements to meet up at the park. By the time I got back, it was 9-6, and my dad was like "Whoever this asshole Phillies reliever is just gave up two home runs." I look up... and sure enough, it's Ryan Franklin pitching. Go figure.

I hadn't really gotten a good look at Derrick Turnbow before now. He is one weird-looking dude; he sort of almost looks like someone who walked right off the set of Wayne's World or Trailer Park Boys or something. On the other hand, he has some nasty pitches; they're fast and in all the right corners.

Aaron Rowand looks pretty good for a guy who just took a center field fence in the face two weeks ago.

Anyway, I am going tomorrow. Hopefully I won't get too sunburned. And I hope Lookout Landing night at Cheney went well!