Phillies

Because Why Not? Birds and Scribes

By Kyle Scott

Published: Mar 20th, 2012 · 3:07 PM EDT

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Spring Training is sort of like summer camp for baseball folks. Only it’s not summer. It’s spring. Obviously. Players, writers, front office personal, other essential employees and fans all congregate into small Florida and Arizona towns, often living, working and sexually experimenting in places that are taxed (a bit) by the presence of a major professional sports team. It’s part of the charm of it all, really. Walk around a place like Clearwater Beach and you’re almost guaranteed to spot someone involved with the Phillies (Pat Gillick strolling outside a Days Inn? Check.) 

The scenes at the stadiums are no different. These small venues don’t quite afford the luxuries of their multi-million dollar northern counterparts, but they make do. Teams use places like the lunchroom to hold press conference with one of the greatest pitching rotations ever assembled. Players run on the warning track during games and walk up the third base line to get to their clubhouse. Suppressed prospects smash balls through Jose Contreras’s window. It’s all part of the experience.

Anyway, this is all just a really long way of saying that The Oriole Bird had only one choice on where to eat lunch today – with everybody else, in the media lunchroom, which I’m guessing also doubles as a workroom, utility closet, staging area, and place for David Murphy to apply cologne – and Phillies beat writer Todd Zolecki snapped a rather hilarious pic of his feathered dining partner.