Dear Philadelphia: You Suck!

Ok, I don't think the entire city of Philadelphia sucks, but I do think a good number of their baseball fans do.

Ran Philadelphia has some nice things - museums, food, rivers, etc. What they don't have are sports fans with any class or manners. And why do I write this? Well, with my favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, scheduled to play the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Championship Series, I just had to go. It's been 20 freaking years since the Dodgers have been in the NLCS. I was not going to miss it!

I bought some overpriced tickets on eBay, booked a train ticket, reserved a hotel room, and tool the afternoon off from work. I've been to Philly before, for work and fun. I've even been to, and survived, and Eagles game. Hell, this couldn't be worse than an Eagles game? Oh how wrong I was!

I expected some (ok, a lot) of heckling from the Phillies faithful. Frankly, they don't have much else to look forward to in life. So the "You suck" and "You really suck" comments didn't bother me at all. And they're not very creative. I loved the "Faggots" and "Homo" comments coming from guys skipping hand-in-hand with their beer buddies. And getting yelled at by some old dude is hilarious. One elderly guy screamed at me and I turned around and just said "Look old man, you spent your whole life in this crap hole. At least I get to leave." He didn't know what to say. Just hurried away with his AARP club card.

Now the best part of the experience was after the Phillies had won. Poor losers? In the word's of Sarah Palin "You bet ya!" This spew came flooding from all corners. Little kids, old ladies, young ladies, and even a police dog barked at me with an attitude. Fine, you won. You still suck!

As we got up to leave, my buddy had to take a stop in the restroom. I was standing outside sending a text message to someone, ignoring the idiots around me. I looked up just in time to see some Phillies fan jump on the shoulders of my buddy and knock him to the ground. Security quickly pulled Einstein off of my dazed friend. They then decided it was a good idea to escort us out of the stadium and into the safey of...the streets of Philadelphia! Brilliant move Kojak! At this point, I was yelling at everyone who dared look at me. I told them they all sucked, their city sucked, their mascot was lame, etc.

Moral of this story? Don't waste your money attending any kind of sports event in Philadelphia. Spend your money in a place where people will appreciate it.

2008, Where Did You Go?

So usually I'm all over the world in a given year. But here it is October, and I've been out of the USA only once. ONCE! Now it was a nice trip to London, but come on! Ok, I guess my near death experience kept me close to home and used up two weeks of my vacation.

So now what? I have to crank in two long haul trips in order to renew my United 1K status. Can I do it? Dubai for a weekend in November and Hong Kong in December? Yeah, those are the tickets!