PHILLIES ARE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!!!!

After a rain delay in the bottom of the 6th in game 5, 2 days later, the Phillies pull it out in the 3 and half innings left 2 nights later! I'll leave the details to the pros...below. :)

From The Sun:
Closer Lidge capped a perfect season with the final outs as the Phillies defeat Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 to take the series 4-1.

It was only the second World Series title in their 125-year history and their first since a victory over Kansas City Royals in 1980.

Fans inside Citizens Bank Park waited three days to see Lidge strike out last-man Eric Hinske in the first World Series showdown ever to be delayed by rain.

But the wait was worth it as Lidge was buried under a mountain of jubilant team-mates. He said: "I never felt better in my life to get pummeled like that.

"This is what you dream about. For the past two days, I wasn't letting myself think about what could be."

The game was tied at 2-2 in the middle of the sixth when rain forced the suspension of play on Monday night.

And the Phillies were fast out of the blocks when Game Five finally resumed 48 hours later. Geoff Jenkins doubled, moved to third on a sacrifice fly and got home on Jayson Werth's single.

Back came the Rays to level in the seventh thanks to a Rocco Baldelli solo homer off Ryan Madson, who had replaced starter Hamels.

But the Phillies found what ultimately proved to be the winning run in the bottom of the same innings when Pat Burrell doubled off the wall to centre - his first hit of the series - and gave way to pinch-runner Eric Bruntlett, who made third on a groundout.

Pedro Feliz then hit a single, allowing Bruntlett to charge home and make it 4-3.

Starting pitcher Hamels, who also won Game One, was named series Most Valuable Player to add to his NLCS MVP award.

Phillies delay...again

Philly is just having a run of bad weather so the game is to be
finished tonight! Also I got the WS hat in Philly!

Back from Philly just in time!

Well the 10 hour trip is over, we are back in Knoxville. And with no time to spare I might add. We got back about 20 minutes into both the Titans Monday night game and the Phillies game 5.

The Phillies got off to a good start scoring 2 in the bottom of the 1st. James was at the game! Lucky dog?...possible getting to see the Phillies clinch the series, while in pouring rain? Nope! In the top of the 6th the Rays scored 2 runs as the rain started to really come down. An MLB rule states if tied the game can be postponed...or something like that. So the game picks up in the bottom of the 6th with Cole Hamels at the plate first. They will probably pinch hit for him though.

I was watching both games, Titans on computer and Phillies on the Sony. Once the Phils game was postponed we moved the Titans to the big screen. OMG what a game! Titans went down 14-6 in the 3rd and I really thought they were done. Oh Collins, I love you! Collins drove us down for a White TD, only followed by a Chris Hope pick and another drive for a great Chris Johnson TD!! Titans win 31-21 and move to 7-0!

Mary and I will be traveling to Nashville to see them go for 8-0 against the Packers!

Phillies win 10-2! We were there!

Well we made it to Philly after 10 hours of driving in the rain! Sunday we got up and ate and decided to go get our Phillies World Series gear. We went to City Sports in downtown Ardmore but nothing really tickled our fancy so we headed to Modells in King of Prussia Mall. Jacked pot! Instead of documenting what was purchased I'll just say we sent $200!!!!

We arrived home in time to catch the end of the Eagles game, which was being played in the Linc, right across from Citizens Bank Park (seen below). After our (FREE!!) train ride we arrived at the stadium. Around 6:30ish.

We planned on buying tickets on the street. Which in front of the stadium is illegal. Our (Dad, Aunt Beth, Mary and I) walk to the stadium wasn't to promising, everyone was looking to buy tickets, no one selling. Great! We are right outside the stadium, hey!...wait there's Uncle George!...Beth, Dad and Mary all walk right by him but being an observant one I notice him right away!...haha. While after talking for a while we decide we need to find tickets (George had some already, lucky *&$^@&!). We start to walk back in front of the stadium to strat our journey and somehow, someway we find a guy selling. Right sure how it happened but all of a sudden we were holding 2 tickets to get into a WORLD SERIES PHILLIES GAME!!! Ok, so yeah, just 2 tickets, doesn't add up, eh? His first "quote" is 800$ for the 2. We had $1000 to spend. While Beth, Mary and I discuss we need 4, dad is haggling with the scalper. He is telling us he can get more as dad gets him down to $700 for both. Dad talks us into buying them and that they will buy more. We accept the fact that we couldn't all sit together, and I get out our envelope, pull out 3 bills and hand the scalper the rest. He hands it off to an "assicate" (all this time I have the tickets in my hand!) and starts walking us to the gate saying, "I'll stand with you and let you (Mary) go in to prove they are good. As we move towards the gate he is asking his partners for 2 more for Beth and Dad. Well, all is good with our tickets, the nervous nervous Mary goes in and has no problems. I depart with the sculper and head in! The picture below is the light poll above where the deal went down.

We are in!! We are in the World freakin' Series!...

So... I don't hear from dad, I call him. The guy (scalper) didn't come back! "Are you kidding me?! @#&^@!" So he says they will keep looking. Mary and I are getting nervous they aren't going to get in. We decide to walk around the stadium to wait to hear from them. We are in the out field "walk of fame" and holy moly...we see this dude!

We saw him the night before at JR Monaghan's in Ardmore!

Right after we see him my phone ring!! Dad and Beth are in! Bought tickets from a guy from SC and is sitting beside them due to there friends bailing on the tickets. YES!, they are in!

After Beth ran into her niece (?) on the train we ran into them again inside!

Time to head to our seats!

They gave out the Hank Arron Award that night.

After Patti LaBelle's 3 hour National Anthem the game was under way! Joe Blanton got things started!

Blanton on the mound

PHILLIES WIN!!! PHILLIES WIN!!! PHILLIES WIN!!!

From FOX news:
"Blanton became the first pitcher in 34 years to homer in the World Series, Howard drove in five runs with two homers and Philadelphia romped over the Tampa Bay Rays 10-2 on Sunday night to move within one win of its first title since 1980."

If you watched the game at all, that's the white things you saw a wavein'!

The Section we were in.

Das right, #1!

Us on the way out.

The game was just awesome! Defiantly something I'll remember for the rest of my life. And even though I didn't sit next to him, one of the greatest memories I'll have about my dad and I at a sporting event!

Phillies 2-1 after a nail bitter.

Well we are in Philly now and it seems to have paid off! The Phillies managed a win last night...I mean this morning. They got it done in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded with no outs. Personally I think it there shouldn't of been a bottom of the 9th. The umps have been horrible thus far. Moyer's had an AWESOME play, scoping up an Upton first base line tap and shoveling it to Howard's bare hand for an out. Yet the first base ump seemed to think he was safe. A simple instant replay would of shown the true and we could move on everyone happy, but no. Upton went on to steal second, then third with Ruiz bouncing the ball off him letting him come home to tie the game. All of the Rays runs were unearned semi Phillies defensive mishaps. Ohwell...we pulled out the win at 1:45am Sunday morning.

Tonights game is following the Eagles which basiclly shares a parking lot with Citizens Bank Park. So it's going to be crazy down there! We are still on the hunt for tickets. My Uncle George has his already, season tickets. But I feel pretty good about finding some, we are working a few angles. We are heading down to the stadium (by train) around 4, right after the Eagles game. George, his pal and Beth are meeting us at gmoms house to head down.

Wish us luck! More to come.

Waiting out the rain delay

Eatin at JR Monaghan's waiting for the rain to stop so the phillies
can play. Grandmom (Rockin the Rollins jersey) aunt beth dad and Mary
are here.

Philly bound!

We are on the way to Philly on a cold rainy Saturday morning. We left
last night to cut down on drive time in the rain and stopped in
Roanoke VA. We have decided to try to get tickets for Sundays game
since tonights game will probably be rainy or possibly be rained out.

Phillies win! Only by one, shoulda been more.

Well, Cole got it done! Made it to the 7th and Madson and Lidge came in to close the deal. They won 3-2 but should have score several more. They went 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

Teams that have won game 1 have won the series 61% of the time.

10 of the last 11 teams to win game 1 in the series go on to win it all!

The last team to win game 1 and not win it all was in 1983...and...it was...the Phillies.

Now we just need to get Howard and Rollins to get there bat on the ball and we'd be rollin'!

Looks like we are going to try and make the Sunday game in Philly now. It will be game 4 of the Series and it could, dare I say, possibly be the game that the Phillies take it all. So that worries me when trying to get tickets, but we'll see.

Go Phils! Game 2 tonight!

World Series Game 1 today...Phillies already in a hole?

I have been anxiously awaiting the start of this World Series, so I have been reading to pass some time and I have run across some interesting articles.

• In the 25 years of the two-round division-play era, there were only five World Series in which at least one team had five or more days off before the Series started -- and only two in which one team had four more days off than its opponent.

• But in the 14 postseasons since the expansion to three rounds, we've already had EIGHT years (including this one) in which at least one team had to wait around for at least five days for the World Series to begin.

• And now, for the first time ever, we've seen three straight years in which one of these World Series teams had a full week between games. The Phillies can only hope that's not as dangerous a development for them as it was for the 2006 Tigers and 2007 Rockies.

"When you go through the season and you're playing every single day, you can get two days off and, to me, it feels like a week," Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard said. "So now you get seven days off. That's like a month."

I'm a stats guy and that one really scares me. We are going into this game with 7 days rest! If Hamels can come out a pitch like a beast I think that can set the tone for the game, trounce this stat and shut the mouths of the naysayers. Oh yeah!...and the top of the order score us some points! According to the stats we really REALLY need an ace of game from Hamels. There is a lot of pressure on our boys, but I have faith and think this won't be a hard burden to beat down.

Dad, Mary, possibly Jim and I are in the works of planning our trip to Philly for game 3 on Saturday. Tickets ain't cheap but what a great memory to have for the rest of my life! More to come!

GO PHILLIES!!!!

Todays shoes

Adidas Dragons. Go Phillies!!!

Todays shoes

Steven Maddens

Phillies are going to the World Series!!!

I can't believe it! The Phillies just beat the LA Dodgers in 4 games to clinch a spot in the world series! They have to wait to see who they'll play, Wednesday the 22nd, between the Red Sox or Rays. Rays lead the series 3-1.

Mary and I already ordered our NLCS championship shirts! :)

Go Phils go!!!

Todays shoes

Puma ILOs

I got an Evo! I got an Evo! I got an Evo!

Woke up at 4:50am with a thumping heart! The day had come! I was finally getting my Evo. Jumped in the shower, set the TomTom, plugged up the radar and Michael and I set off! I rented a Mazda 6 or something similar, but what I got was even better! Haha yeah right! A Kia Spectra. I felt like I should hide every time I past someone. It was nice driving through into the raising sun. It was a beautiful drive.

The trusty TomTom did great! We meet Spencer (guy sellin the car) at Texas Roadhouse. He could us to a little back road for my to test her out. Man! This car is awesome, inside and outside. The car sounds mean! Everything checked out so we did the deal. Afterwards we decided to eat at the roadhouse. So we hung out with Spencer for a while, he was a nice guy! After eating we had to drop the piece of Kia rental car at the local airport. It was an adventure trying to find it even with the TomTom. We finally made it and they closed 5 minutes before! Luckly they had a key drop off. Finally back on the road. For a 400hp car it did get bad gas milage. My first time getting gas below. :)

Well the trip back was way more fun, duh. All-in-all it was a long but great day. I drove over 800 miles and left Knoxville in the dark and came back to Knoxville in the dark. I'm still getting use to driving such a big car but I write more later along with more pics!

Evo news...

Not sure why I haven't been posting all about this but I have found an Evo! Michael and I are heading to Clarksburg, VW to check it out on Saturday. It's about 6 hours one way. More to come...