There’s a void in Philadelphia.
It’s not baseball free agency. That’s a different void.
This void is a black nothingness, a Nietzsche-like abyss that returns your stare. It’s the first Friday in February, which used to be reserved for Sports Radio 94 WIP’s Wing Bowl.
The long-running and sometimes lecherous chicken eating contest is no more, put to rest by WIP in October. The whole point of the Al Morganti creation was to give Eagles fans something to look forward to, since the Birds weren’t anywhere close to winning the Super Bowl back in the day. With that demon finally exorcised, there really wasn’t any reason to continue the event after 26 years.
Problem is, Wing Bowl was a cash cow. It raised a ton of money for local strip clubs, who would pull in tens of thousands of dollars on that Friday. I specifically remember going to Delilah’s a few years ago, then getting in a limousine with some guy named “Vladimir,” who took us to Tony Luke’s, where another member of our entourage ate a bad calzone and ended up ralphing later in the day.
The strip clubs, and other sponsors, weren’t totally happy with the decision to end the Wing Bowl, but this tradition, which is unlike any other, is not totally dead. Instead we’ve got diverging paths leading to new sources of revenue.
