PATHETIC!

Today started out just fine. I woke up without too many things hurting. When you reach your 63 birthday you will understand what I mean. If you are already there, then you already know. I had a bunch of errands to run, which I knew I wouldn't mind doing because the weather was so perfect. The long suffering fan loves being outdoors especially when his travels take him to Center City around lunch time since the scenery is so awesome. I was meeting a friend for lunch, waiting in front of Wanamaker's. To the LSF it will always be Wanamaker's. There is something not right with the department store at 13th & Market not being Wanamaker's and I will not mention the New York name that hangs from the front of the building like bad graffiti. In the ten minutes I was waiting I must have fallen in love a gazillion times. The scenery, as I said earlier, was nice. I never said that the long suffering fan wasn't a dog - since that would be a lie. All men and most women are dogs.

Anyhow, my friend showed up and we decided to walk towards the Gallery. It was downhill from there. We took a detour to the Reading Terminal and, it being lunch time, it was packed. The problem was, there were a ton of rude assholes in the place. You know the type. How about two fat women who are stopped in the middle of a crowded aisle so they can have a conversation? When you say, "excuse me" in order to get them to let you by, you get the dirty look with extra attitude. Those ladies are perfect examples of what an asshole is. From the time I entered the "Market" the rest of the day was spent bumping into assholes. Gang, they were everywhere.

The nice thing about assholes is that they let you know early that they are an asshole which is very considerate of them. Once you know somebody is an asshole it allows you the choice of either avoiding them or allowing them into your life until they show you directly just how much of an asshole they are. You make the call.

After we had a bite, my friends lunch hour was over and she went back to her job at WANAMAKER'S and I walked to the Gallery where I planned to take the El back to West Philly (where I had to walk the dog). The scenery at the Gallery was just sick but the assholes were all over the place. There were tons of assholes congregating at the bottom of the escalator, which made getting off the thing an adventure. There were the food court assholes who occupy their table for hours after they've finished the food designed to kill them. The aroma of fried foods is everywhere causing one's cholesterol to spike even if you haven't eaten the Gallery fare. And there were the usual idiots working at Modell's who, despite wanting to be helpful, had no clue as to what day it was let alone where the four for $20.00 Russell T-shirts were. At least they have jobs.

Then I hopped on the El at 8th Street and ran into more assholes. A young woman gets on at 11th Street pushing a stroller the size of a Sedan De Ville. This thing had every option available including super large wheels and saddle type bags. The woman may have been eighteen or nineteen and was more interested in the video game she was playing on her i-phone than she was with the baby who was crying. A crying baby in a crowded subway car is a real treat. Of course, she parked the thing so that she was effectively blocking a set doors. Mom is an asshole.

There were the "I smell really funky" assholes as well. These are the folks who either haven't washed their clothes in a minute or believe bathing is for somebody else. It is a double treat when one of them sits down next to you. Sometimes, the funk transferred to you stays with you the rest of the day. If you are really lucky, a double-stuffed funky asshole will sit next to you. When this happens, you are truly fucked because you can't move with this large blob of protoplasm sitting next you and you are slowly asphyxiating because the stink is so bad. A truly fortunate happening is when a double-stuffed funky asshole who is eating fast food (usually fried chicken with hot sauce). This lucky commuter may have to have his/her family notified because fatal events have been known to occur when sitting next to a double-stuffed funky asshole.

I finally dragged my now-weary ass home, made some dinner, fought with the lady whose fucking lap dog I walked (it's name is Munchkin and everybody I know saw me walking it and had a good laugh), and then settled in to watch Halladay go against Josh Johnson.

Both pitchers pitched good baseball - good enough to win. Unfortunately, the rest of the Phillies were, for the most part, PATHETIC! Yes, I saw Superstar's home run, and it was nice to have since the bats went dead after that. When you leave bases loaded in two consecutive innings you don't usually beat good teams, and Florida is a good team. I know that some of the players are starting to hit the ball (which is a good thing) but there seems to be a big void when there are scoring opportunities. The Phillies are getting a lot of useless hits lately - they had some tonight. A useless hit is when someone near the bottom of the order gets a two-out hit with a guy who can't hit even a little bit coming to bat. A useless hit is a hit that doesn't help the team score. What we need that we are not getting on a consistent basis are hits in bunches so that we can score runs and support a strong pitching effort. This is unacceptable because, even against good pitching, teams like the Marlins and the Braves and the Reds will score runs.

Some Phillies faithful believe that all will be well when Chase Utley can finally play. Sounds like a plan to me, but how well he'll be able to play remains to be seen. Facing Josh Johnson is a little trickier than batting in the extended spring training league.

Tonight, it wasn't just the hitting that was pathetic. How 'bout the defense? The defense took the night off and cost the Phils the game when Polanco threw late to Howard, allowing Ramirez to beat out the ground ball and giving the Marlins the opportunity to score their second and winning run.

Well, tomorrow is another night and Cliff Lee takes the mound for the candystripers. The guy needs to pitch a great game and hope that the line-up can provide enough run support. If they can't, the Phillies will lose a second series in a row against a good team in their division before heading to Atlanta for a rematch. The tension and drama with this team is starting to wear on the long suffering fan and when the pain gets more than I can handle I will shut these assholes out. "No more," I will say! "Shut up Wheels," I will scream!. As for you, McCarthy, don't even think about saying something that everybody knows. We are not idiots, you asshole. I already knew that the Phillies needed baserunners in the top of the ninth trailing by a run. You didn't have to offend me by telling me that.

Yes, the LSF is almost at that place when I remove my emotions and enjoy watching teams like the Indians where there is no emotion involved. Not quite there, so I still get my bile up when the Phillies fuck up, but soon...