The Home Run Derby isn't even over, and as much as I am rooting for Ryan Howard, this year's derby is the most boring one I have yet to see.

For starters, ESPN is completely butchering the coverage. Chris Berman is a bore and a fake. They'd be better off sticking a bowl of pudding in front of a microphone and telling it to talk. I am so tired of his completely hack home run call, "back back back" Enough of that you bald headed fool. He even pulled out the line a few times when the ball already landed in the seats.

Maybe it would have been more interesting if he pulled some of this material out of his pocket:

******This post is not quite finished, but I'm posting it now because my internet keeps going in and out because a massive thunderstorm decided to stop buy outside and prevent me from finishind this. Can someone please tell me whyyyyyyyy the internet stops working when there's bad weather? ugh!

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What a comeback for the Phillies!!! In a game in which it looked like they couldn't hit a haystack if it was thrown at them, the Phils had a spectacular comeback win in which they scored 4 runs in the 9th inning to win 8-7 over the Pirates.

Ryan Howard had the big shot with a game tying 3-run home run, followed by a double by Raul Ibanez. Paul Bako (sianara Chris Coste) later had the game winning hit with the bases loaded, and lo and behold the Phillies have their 26th come from behind win of the season.

Raul Ibanez was 2-5 with 2 doubles and scored the game winning run.

Joe Biden was in attendence and went out of his way to call Jimmy Rollins over to him to speak with him after the spectacular comeback:

The fact that Cole Hamels let up 5 runs in less than 2 full innings has told me all I need to know: The Phillies need to sign Pedro Martinez (and it seems very likely that they will) and, more importantly, they need to make a strong run at Roy Halladay.

I will start with Pedro, first of all who doesn't want a guy who does this to Don Zimmer on your team:

before the all-star break.

Now, on to Roy Halladay.

As you can see, he looks mighty good in a Phillies uniform, despite a startling resemblence to very funny comedian, Jim Gaffigan.

And it's safe to say I will crap my pants with excitement if the Phillies do indeed land him in a trade. No joke.

And for those of you who think that the Phillies won't make a strong move to get Halladay, consider this: the Phils infamously finished 2nd in the CC Sabathia sweepstakes last season, despite having made a hard push to get him. The point being that they made a hard push to get him. The difference this year is that they have many more enticing prospects to offer, and according to Buster Olney they are the favorites to land the ace.

Phillies fans across the country will all have the same expression should a deal be done that sends Halladay to Philly:

*Editor's note: I'm ashamed of myself that Captain Pantsuit Hilary Clinton made it into my blog.

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Now, I want to say congratulations to Giants pitcher Jonathan Sanchez on his no-hitter yesterday and near perfect game. As a Phillies fan, one thing in the game stood out to me: Aaron Rowand's spectacular catch for the 2nd out in the 9th inning.

Obviously, all Phillies fans remember Rowand for this:

I knew this day would come from the moment I started this blog, and oh boy have I been looking forward to it. Now it's time to have some fun.

Recently a number of Mets fans have commented on some posts and emailed me their thoughts. Being the kind-hearted gentleman I am, I figured I'd let you sample two of them. Yes, they are rather long, but don't worry, each complaint is filled with completely intelligent remarks that are very pertinent:

1.) You think Frankie Rodriguez is a show-off punk? Well Brian Bruney, he has had a much better season than Mr. 6 blown save Brad Lidge. Shane Victorino is a show-off cheater. Maybe you recall last year when he was acting like a %&#@$^! idiot, clapping his hands on second base in front Jose Reyes's face. Later that inning, he stood on homeplate for an extremely ridiculous and that was an unsportsman like thing to do. By the way, if you remember, K-Rod is the single season saves leader, and the Angles 2002 WS hero. So, just remember, don't complain about the Mets when your team does the same things.

2.) "K-Rod celebrates by looking to god and thanking him. If that's wrong than something is wrong with the Philthies fans! You can tell the teams that are just plain jealous that they don't have him!
If you hate the Mets, that is your choice, but Arrogance??!! Look at your Ryan Howard and tell me you don't see the arrogance everytime he hits a HR! Reyes is a spark for the Mets and there is no ego their as you may think. I live in Philthy and I still watch every Mets game. The most arrogant player the Mets ever had was Lenny Dykstra and he continued that with the Philthies. You have no clue anout the Mets and that is obvious, but living in Philthy I see the Philthies play alot and the only Class on the Philthies is Utley, Feliz, and Ibanez! The rest are Arrogant especially Howard and Rollins. And you are the same people who wanted Rollins gone because of it last year before you made it to the WS. So don't talk what you don't know. On my blog I try not to rip the players on other teams, but to talk intelligent baseball, but you are just in it to be a troll who stirs up trouble!"

Ouch, such hostility. At least I now have more of a reason to hate the Mets, who are allegedly a baseball team this year.

I will start with something that I want to address right away, and that is Mr. Cranky Mets Fan #2's finishing line, "On my blog I try not to rip the players on other teams, but to talk intelligent baseball, but you are just in it to be a troll who stirs up trouble!"

You sir are 10000% correct with that statement. If people want intelligent baseball all the time they can go check out ESPN, The MLB Network, Baseball Tonight, the Pro MLBlogs, the newspapers, magazines etc... But if they want a candid, unique look on things then they come to blogs like this one, there are more than enough blogs that supposedly talk intelligent baseball.

I mean, where besides a candid unique blog could you find such a great sign as this one?

 

This is going to be a quick entry because I honestly had no intention of writing anything tonight seeing as I am dead tired, but after that Phillies game I decided I absolutely had to say something. Of course I am talking about Shan Victorino and his game winning hit!


He has proven again and again over these past few games that he deserves to be an all-star, not only for his offense (batting .308) but for his incredible defense which will give the NL team much more flexibility and a stud defensive outfielder. Now that Beltran won't be playing in the game, we need Victorino!!!!

And if you haven't seen this already either while watching the Phillies game or on my twitter, you have to check out this awesome job by Chan Ho Park supporting Shane:

Thats all I have to say for tonight. Please get out there and vote for Victorino, he deserves it entirely and every vote counts! Voting ends tomorrow at 4pm so please keep voting, I can't stress that enough!!!!

And for you fans who also are voting for the AL, I suggest you vote for Brandon Inge, just because of this awesome sign:

So, if you haven't gotten the message by now, PLEASE KEEP VOTING FOR SHANE VICTORINO!!!

Before I get to anything, I have to start off by saying to please keep voting for Shane Victorino!! As of right now he currently has a 2 run home run, 2 doubles, 3 runs scored, and 3 RBI in today's game.  He plays with more heart than anybody on the final ballot, with all due respect to Guzman, Kemp, Sandoval, and Reynolds.

Obviously I'm going to be a bit biased because I'm a Phillies fan, but listen up. For the National League team in general, Victorino gives the team the best chance to win. First of all the bench is stacked with first basemen and bad baserunners for the most part. With Victorino on the team that gives them much more depth and flexibility, not to mention a very good defensive outfielder.

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As I'm writing this the Phillies have been having an offensive outburst. Johnny Cueto only lasted 2/3 of an inning and the Phillies put up a 10 spot in the first inning alone! The aforementioned Victorino hit a 2 run homer, combined with home runs from Greg Dobbs and Chase Utley.

And you know me by now, I never miss a shot to trash the Mets, so here ya go: Cole Hamels hit a 2 run double in the 1st inning which gave him 2 more RBI than the entire Mets team had against the Phillies yesterday. Ouch.

And I just read a crazy stat curtesy of Jayson Stark: the Phillies didn't even get a hit while Hamels was in the game his previous 2 outings, now they score 10 in one inning!

Hamels obviously was taking some hitting tips from hitting guru Joe Blanton who so famously hit a home run in the World Series last year.


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It also came out today that Ryan Howard will once again be participating in the Home Run Derby. I'm very psyched to see him put on a show in his hometown of St. Louis (he absolutely tears up the Cardinals in Saint Louis all the time).

If Howard really wants to win he will have this ace of a pitcher toss to him, only pitch to the best of his ability as if it were a real game, Howard will have a field day:

Ew.

For those of you who have forgotten, this was the result in Pittsburgh when Howard participated in the home run derby:




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I was getting ready to finish this up, then I remembered I bought 2 shirts today that Jesus himself would wear if he walked the earth. Check out my crappy cell phone pics that I can't make smaller for some reason:











That's all I got for today folks. Thanks for reading and watching the videos. I will see you all tomorrow.

I've been away for a few days now, and I'm starting to think I should go away more often because the Phillies have pulled off a sweep on two occasions that I've been away for this year.

For those who care, and for those who don't, I was in Old City Philadelphia for July 4th and had what was probably the best 4th of July weekend of my life. (Plenty of pictures to come tomorrow). Not only was it a beautiful weekend, but I wore this shirt the whole time and shoved it in every sorry Mets fan's face:

Yes, there were way too many Mets fans walking around Philadelphia this weekend, and nothing made me happier than to see them get swept out of town when they had a chance to take soul (or sole? yeah) possession of first place. Instead they leave town being 4 games back. Ahhh life is good. Here is an oldie but goodie:

It was imperivate that the Phillies took advantage of the massive amount of Mets injuries and put them in their place this weekend. I was so happy I didn't have to put up with that arrogant show-off punk Francisco Rodriguez; he celebrates every single save like he just won the World Series and his life completely depended on it. Enough of him.

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Joe buck yourself
Obviously I am referring to Fox sports and their fantastic coverage of every sporting event NOT related to Philadelphia. For those of you who don't know, Joe Buck is the most hated man in sports in Philadelphia. Not only did he ruin the World Series last year (and several Eagles games) but he now has an accomplice: Tim McCarver.

These two idiots redefine the word suck.

Why am I bringing this up? Because not only did Fox Sports interrupt every single game it was broadcasting across the entire nation to show us roided up Manny Ramirez's at-bats (I could give a flying f*** about that creep) but we were stuck with good old Tim McCarver talking about how weird the saying "naked eye" is while he completely ignored the fact the Phillies had just scored 2 runs. In fact, when they went to commercial break, he said the score was 5-2 Phillies when it was now in fact 7-2.

If you want to have a very fun time laughing histerically at Joe Buck's expense (who doesn't enjoy that by the way) then type in "Joe Buck Philadelphia" into google. Grab some popcorn and sit back and check out the websites that pop up.

Here are a few links that may better explain why Philadelphia hates Buck so much:

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/sports/football/eagles/What-the-Buck.html
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/sports/football/eagles/the-Buck-Stops-Here.html

There's even an entire website (within yelp.com I believe) that has a forum for posting "how would you most enjoy torturing Joe Buck?"

For those football fans reading this, Buck irritated many Eagles fans last December when Philadelphia was beating Dallas 54-6 (54-6!!!!) and Buck proclaimed that the Cowboys could still very well come back and win and still look like the much better team and are still his Super Bowl favorites.

Fast forward a few weeks and the Eagles were playing in their 5th NFC Championship in 8 years while the Cowboys were ousted in the first round of the playoffs.....again.

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One final thought as I wrap up this half done blog post. I'm tired, arrest me why don't you. And in fact, speaking of arrests, as I was leaving Old City today there was a group of 4 or 5 Mets fans being arrested outside of Independence Hall for trashing the city and being overall d'bags. That's what happens when you get swept with your ace on the mound. And besides, Phillies fans never get that rowdy:





Thanks for reading this half of a blog post, sorry I'm just too tired after a long weekend. I will have a fully fleshed out post tomorrow with some cool pics and videos from the 4th of July weekend in Philly. See you all tomorrow.

As the season nears the half way point its time that I begin handing out my mid-season grades for each player on the team. Over the next few days I'll be handing out grades based not only on just stats for each player, but also on each player's attitude and the overall way they play. 

Just a quickie here to get your day started; I would say started off right, but there's some not so good news first.

The Bad News:

1.) Jimmy Rollins will return the lineup tonight in the leadoff spot. He's currently in a 0-19 streak (he's had two of those such streaks this year) and is batting just .211 this season. He was benched the previous four games and has taken a ton of extra batting practice, let's hope he gets back on track.

2.) Raul Ibanez won't be activated Friday when his stint on the 15-day disabled list is due to end. This means he won't be playing in this weekend's series vs. the Mess, I mean the Mets.

The Good News

1.) The Mets got swept by the Yankees and lost the first game of their series last night against the Brewers. Consequently, they fell to third place in the division. And by the way how great was it to see Francisco Rodriguez walk Mariano Rivera.....with the bases loaded.

  The Mets aren't even giving us Phillies fans a chance to make fun of them for choking this year because they're taking themselves out of the race entirely. So I'll take care of that right now.

Not much to write about since today is an off day for the Phillies, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has already taken the time to read my stuff, I really do appreciate it. I've had both really good and really bad feedback, and I don't care what the feedback is, just as long as people are actually reading my posts. Thanks!

And about my squirrel comment which I've received some emails on, it was a joke. Of course I don't enjoy watching that happen to a squirrel!  Although, I shoulda known some people would get mad seeing as PETA actually pulled this off:





Anyways, you guys just need to realize that this blog is just fun for me. Yeah I'm a Phillies fan, but I have no problem at all getting along with the most die-hard of Mets fans, there's no need to get so angry.

So, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my stuff, I appreciate it and I hope everyone continues to do so.

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This really has nothing to do with anything, but since the Phillies aren't playing today I figured I'd post some videos I took from inside the stadium during the Phillies Parade, how about you take a gander:




I'll also be sure to put up some of the pictures up that I took.

That's all I got for today folks, thanks for reading and see you all tomorrow.