Annnnnnd I’m back, after life got in the way of working for most of last week. Let’s see, what did I miss? Well, Sam Bradford continued to be a big bitch. That was nothing new. The Phillies came back down to Earth a scootch. And, um, er, I suppose that’s it. Welcome to May in a town where neither the hockey nor basketball team make it to shorts weather. But, today, Samantha Bradford is back and the Phillies are again winning. I think we have a big week ahead… just as I start to catch whatever it is my son had.

Let’s hit it!

 

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The roundup:

I’ve been watching the Phillies for two solid weeks now, and I’ve still never heard of half of the players. I kinda like it better that way. It’s a like a grab bag of cheap parts that, together, assemble a sweet Millennium Falcon drone. Well look at that– these things don’t suck!

You know what else doesn’t suck? These jerseys. I didn’t hate them. Sorry, Dan:

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SNL absolutely nailed this Philly Jesus joke:

https://twitter.com/BriMcL17/status/729166529267404800

 

Brett Brown will represent the Sixers at the draft lottery tomorrow night next Tuesday, proving once and for all that the Sixers don’t hate Brett Brown.

 

Steph Curry will be named NBA MVP, thus ending the suspense.

 

There’s a big brewfest in town. A certain local distributor tells me they’ll have some really fancy shit in stock this week as a result. Not telling you where. My beer. MINE. And no, it’s not Iron Abbey.

 

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not, but I really hate this sentiment. Bradford just signed a contract, for substantially more than he’s worth. Cox, in the other hand, is vastly under appreciated and should be holding out for more money. The Cox performs. Never disappoints. People love the Cox. These situations aren’t the same. Not even close. The only thing that makes them even remotely similar is that Bradford is a big dick.

 

Philly was a great spot to catch a rare glimpse of Mercury in front of the Sun this morning. It was also a great place, I assume, TO BURN YOUR FUCKING EYES OUT BY STARING DIRECTLY AT THE SUN.

 

A PENN professor was mistaken for a terrorist on a flight out of Philly:

An Ivy League professor says his flight was delayed because a fellow passenger thought the equations he was writing might be a sign he was a terrorist.

American Airlines confirms that a woman expressed suspicions about University of Pennsylvania economics professor Guido Menzio. She said she was too ill to take the Air Wisconsin-operated flight.

Not gonna lie– if I see someone, any someone, doing complex computations while waiting to takeoff, I’m probably alerting the flight attendant, too. I once did so when a military age white male on a flight back from Germany took his oversized black backpack and the politically charged t-shirt he was wearing into the bathroom for a full 20 minutes, about an hour before landing. Sure, he was probably jacking off. But he also could’ve been launching a terrorist attack against the homeland and, um, me. So I gave the flight attendant a look and just then the guy emerged from his self-love sesh. The flight attendant was thinking the same thing. Probably.

 

Good article on the Phils from Bob Nightengale, who really needs to be a crime novel protagonist with that name:

The Phillies are supposed to be losing these days – OK, perhaps not carrying it to the extreme of the Atlanta Braves, but still putting themselves into contention for a top-five draft pick.

Nowhere in any proper tanking manual does it say you’re actually supposed to win, holding their own against the NL champion New York Mets one week, sweeping the powerful Washington Nationals the next and going toe-to-toe this week with the St. Louis Cardinals.

“Last year,’’ Mackanin said, “we were playing not to lose 100. That was our motivation.

“This year, well, nobody really pays attention to us, and now all of a sudden, they’re looking at the results, and wondering how they’re doing it.’’

Sure, the Phillies have some nice young arms. A solid bullpen. A few promising position players.

Yet, it’s mind-boggling that they’re sitting with the fourth-best record, 16-13, in the National League.

And then Nightengale turned to Paddock and offered two simple words on the petty thief in front of them: cuff him. Paddock obliged, and then watched as his partner of, oh, what was it, 20 years – “Could it really be 20 years already?” Paddock thought to himself – turned into the dark Tampa night and sped off, this time in search of the real mastermind behind the boat dock plot. Nightengale had a sneaking suspicion that this was just the beginning of a wave of dog-wagging crime masterminded by what was shaping up to be a massive terror cell in their own, usually quiet jurisdiction.

 

Chase Utley, still the man:

 

Cowboys fans love Jimmy Kempski (check the comments), but he gets all the best emails:

 

Presented without comment:

 

And for the second time in a handful of weeks, John Oliver tossed out a Phillie Phanatic joke:

 

Justin Tuck is enrolling in Wharton Business School.

 

The Phillies won another one-run game yesterday. Of their 32 games, 14 have been decided by one run. They’re 11-3 in those games.

 

Houston has been on the losing end of the Ken Giles trade so far.

 

Justin Bieber officially killed any “hipster bar” connotation Johnny Brenda’s has.

 

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