“Sorry, homeless people, your house isn’t gonna be ready on time. We let a giant bird help us and he mostly just f**ked around and put holes in the wall.”

Or, if you prefer:

The Phillie Phanatic came to 1450 Marston Street to help Habitat Philadelphia staff put the finishing touches on the home for the Marston Family! :)

I think the only thing I like writing about more than fake fighting and Kate Upton is the Phillie Phanatic, the undisputed king of mascots (suck it, Paws) and the only living-ish entity who can make me watch four minutes of someone pretending to hit their thumb with a hammer. If I could have one person build a home for me it would be the Phanatic, and I’d be happy living in a ramshackle hut put together by someone who for all intents and purposes does not have eyes.

Phanatic should take his homebuilding skills to ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ and build somebody a room filled with nothing but bald guys who need their scalp rubbed with a towel and looked into like a mirror.

[h/t to Marty Cozzola]

I have a few friends in Philadelphia, and after the Philadelphia Flyers eliminated the Model Franchise Pittsburgh Penguins with a 5-1 victory in Game 6 of their first-round playoff series on Sunday there was (Facebook) talk of a “dynasty”. A dynasty. After one playoff series victory in a row. If the Flyers lose between now and Lord Stanley’s Cup, those same people will complain about how hard the media tries to make Philly sports fans look like goons.

If they do win the Cup, however, it’ll be thanks to the efforts of fans like these and ‘Knock Knock’, the Karaoke In The Style of Mac Miller fan anthem performed by LiL LouiE C (his capitalization, not mine) (Free Lil Louie C with purchase of a regular sized Louie C*). As fan anthems go it’s not the worst we’ve heard, but it brings up three very important questions:

1. Why are other sports organizations so quick to bring the Terms And Services hammer down on YouTube users illegally uploading clips (like the Metta World Peace elbow we ended up having to gif), but 2:45 of this guy’s 3-minute video is Flyers clips and the NHL doesn’t lift a finger?

2. Is the defining characteristic of an “anthem” the fact that you went around town taping random townspeople lip syncing to your song in 2-second gestures? “Okay now go KNOCK KNOCK with your hands and mouth LET EM IN” etc.

3. Is that Turtle from Entourage?

Well, at least one of those questions has an answer:

[h/t to Philly Sports Live]
*joke credit to Jon Bois

Frank Talent died last night. He was a representative for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, and at first, his passing might not seem to be the time of thing you need to report to a mainstream sports blog audience.

Talent was Assistant Athletic Commissioner for 38 years, presiding over boxing, roller derby and wrestling. In 75 years he went from a kid raised in an orphanage to a man who was featured on the radio, made appearances on television, wrote columns for the newspaper and generally lived the kind of life that lets you die surrounded by your family seven-and-a-half decades in with a smile on your face.

But why does a guy like me remember Frank Talent, and mourn his passing? I just happen to be one of those people who will always associate Philadelphia pro wrestling with his name. To put it another way, here’s a short paragraph written about Talent by Peter Holby a few years ago at Progressive Boink:

Frank Talent is the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commissioner. He was appointed to his post and it’s his responsibility to make sure that every wrestling show is conducted in a safe manner. He has to make sure the ring is well-built and the crowd is out of harm’s way. And what better way to do such a thing than by being a paid performer on those wrestling shows? For a nominal fee, Frank Talent will come to your show and stop a match on the grounds that it’s unsafe, or maybe you just want him to stand backstage, give a pep talk, and yell at Spanky for having his headphones on. He gets two paychecks.

That’s what he was — a guy who did his job, but also liked to do a little more.

You won’t find his eulogy on Yahoo Sports or probably even the major wrestling sites, but I wanted to devote a few paragraphs to him here. Tom Holzerman at The Wrestling Blog put up his own tribute late last night after the news of Frank’s passing started to spread across Twitter, and if you’ve never seen or heard of the man, I think the best example of his importance is in this video, where CHIKARA pro wrestling’s Icarus tries to get Frank Talent to make sure the good guys don’t cheat and gets called out for being the biggest cheater of all.

Read the rest of this entry »

Why I’m Happy: The Cleveland Indians are going to compete! The Tribe added Kosuke Fukudome (yeah 3 home runs YEAH .260 BATTING AVERAGE) and sorta-ace Ubaldo Jimenez to bolster the line-up and push them back ahead of the Tigers before it’s too late. Sure, we had to give up our entire farm system and our prized Pomeranian (and we got that farm system by trading away all of our good players a few years ago), but hey, it’s now or never. It’s Tribe Time Now Or Never!

Why I’m Unhappy: Friday was our July edition of Free Fantasy Baseball With DraftStreet, and as per usual I dropped about 20 spots to finish 91st out of over 200. I’m in the upper half, but still, I think the Indians get worse every time we do these. Friday they lost 12-0 to the stinking Royals, and the guy who won had Billy Butler and Alex Gordon on his team. Welp! Thanks again to everyone who played, and here are the readers who won money.

On to the links~!

Sports

We’re All A Little Jealous Of Philadelphia Sports Teams Right Now - I mean, I’M not, but I could see why YOU would be. Tomorrow they’re going to announce that the Philadelphia Flyers have invented time travel and come back through the wormhole with teenage Wayne Gretzky and some sort of weird future cyborg Gordie Howe. Why did the Phillies need to add All-Stars? They’re an American League team playing in the National League already. [Smoking Section]

#Podcast: The Patrick Willis Interview - Be sure not to miss Punte’s podcast interview with Willis, where he asks him what it’s like to play in the NFL and then suddenly quits. In all seriousness, I feel like I keep having to say goodbye to Josh and that sucks, because I shouldn’t have to once. Good luck in your future endeavors, Punter, you’ll be missed. [KSK]

Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Hendrson Live Results and Commentary - I should start doing The Best and Worst of MMA Pay-Per-Views. Best: Fedor getting trounced in the first round and saying the ass-beating was God’s Will. Worst: Literally everything else. [Cage Potato]

Lily Anderson - She counts as sports! Our last post on Friday was about her performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at an Atlanta Braves game, and after struggling all day to have something worthwhile to say they were nice enough to link back to me on her Facebook fan page. So go “like” it, because it’s probably the one thing you can like on Facebook that makes you a better person. [Facebook]

With Leather

The 2011 U.S. Air Guitar Championship - I can’t think of anything weirder or lamer than this and I’ve been watching pro wrestling for like 30 years. It’s like a bunch of guys got together and decided to act like The Darkness, but didn’t want to get paid. [With Leather]

The Montreal Expos Are Dead, Long Live The Montreal Expos - Montreal wants baseball again and I’m all for it, as I want baseball and stadiums and mascots all over the damn place. Also worth reading is Nick Dallamora’s The Mouse That Never Roared, written way back when the Expos spirited away to Washington. [With Leather]

Carmelo Anthony Holding A Panda Bear? Carmelo Anthony Holding A Panda Bear - I’m getting a hang of these UPROXX titles. [With Leather]

Jay Cutler Faked It - … or so says Kristin Cavallari. Linking this here because it’s been online long enough for weird girls who are oddly defensive of Laguna Beach to find it and start leaving comments like ONLY THEY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED WHY DON’T YOU GET A LIFE AND A REAL JOB AND STOP WRITING even though I just copy-pasted most of this from a gossip website. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Scarlett Johansson Declines Marine’s Invitation To Ball - which makes sense, because she’s declined my invitation to ball about a thousand times. Unpopular Opinion: Marines need to stop guilt-tripping celebrities into doing things. [Film Drunk]

Avengers Cosplay - More women should dress like Mockingbird. I’m a little disappointed that this gallery isn’t full of hot girls dressing like Ultron, but that might be a fever fantasy I’ll never live to see. [Gamma Squad]

Spoiler Alert: Parks & Rec Has Cast Tammy 1 - The only way I’m okay with this casting news is if they explain how Ron and Tammy met with “We found each other. We found each other in the dark”. They should’ve been like “Community” and stunt-casted the sh** out of this. Let Oprah or some lesser form of Wendy Williams be Tammy 1. [Warming Glow]

Internet Explorer Users Dumb, Says Science - What’s next, a study revealing that people still using their @AOL.com e-mail addresses in 2011 are functionally illiterate? Yeah, we know all this. Science used to be for important things. When I was growing up they were all SCIENCE CREATES SPACE SHUTTLES AND UNLOCKS THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE. Now science is just a more boring version of Encyclopedia Dramatica. [UPROXX]

There are a few types of stories I try not to miss — baseball players in drag, pets who have miraculously found their way home after natural disasters — but the best story of all is the one where a Philadelphia sports fan is acting like a butthole and gets hit or shocked or shot with something.

Via Puck Daddy:

During the first round of the 2011 Eastern Conference Playoffs, a Philadelphia Flyers fan taunted the Buffalo Sabres during warm-ups before a game at Wells Fargo Center, and the Sabres responded by plunking a few pucks off the glass at this pest.

Eventually, it was time for 6-foot-7 defenseman Tyler Myers to offer his rejoinder — with smashing results.

I don’t want to piss off the “no fan deserves this” or “there were kids sitting nearby who could’ve gotten hurt” crowds, but I feel it’s my obligation as a guy who has calmly loved and followed sports his entire life to find some level of schadenfreude in the unfortunate events that befall the people who won’t shut up during them. And also Flyers fans.

The mistreatment of the planet by human beings is going to cause a mass extinction like the one that killed the dinosaurs, and it all starts with this Lehigh Valley IronPigs player hitting a foul ball into the neck of the Phillie Phanatic and sending him to the hospital. The incident happened during the top of the third in last night’s “World Famous Phillie Phanatic Appearance” at Coca-Cola park, and was followed by an ominous IronPigs tweet: “The Phanatic will not perform again tonight as a precautionary measure after being hit by a foul ball.” Of course, being blasted in the neck didn’t completely end the Phanatic’s performance, as he sold it like a champ before disappearing into the ether of Allentown’s healthcare system.

The Morning Call featured a statement about the incident from the Phillie Phanatic’s Best Friend Tom Burgoyne, but I’m not going to directly link to them because they don’t seem to know how mascots work. The Phanatic is an extremely old bird, not a middle-aged man in a costume. Come on, guys, tighten up.

“The Phanatic is fine,” Burgoyne, 45, wrote this morning on his Facebook page. “He took one off the neck last night at the Iron Pigs game. Since we’re sooo close, I felt his pain and have a nice golf ball-sized knot just above my eye.

In true Phanatic fashion, Burgoyne added: “Bring on the A’s this weekend. “The Phanatic will be ready.”

Maybe this is karma for stomping a Mets hat on Japanese television. Haha, who am I kidding, the Mets aren’t good enough to have karma.

In a related story, Mr. Met fell down a flight of steps and nobody notice for like, two weeks.

[video via NBC Philly, h/t to Mike Westfall]