Philadelphia Phillies 2008 World Champions
For those that are sports fans of baseball, many of you would know that the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series on October 29th, 2008. This is a tad late not only because I was so caught up in the excitement for a few days, went to the parade on Friday in the city of Philadelphia, but that I became sick for a few days because of the parade...
In any case, this was a long time coming and much needed for the fans of Philadelphia. The last championship for the city was the 1983 76'ers. The Phillies won the World Series in 1980. So as you can see, it has been 25 years and 28 years respectively.
Just think if you were from the Boston area for the last 6 years or so. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2002, 2004, & 2005. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series 2004 & 2007. And the Boston Celtics won the NBA finals last year. Wow... can you say dominance. Well, a small prediction here.. watch out for the Philadelphia teams. 1 more World Series in the next 3 years. A Super Bowl in the next 5 yrs and the same for the Flyers hockey team.
The parade was October 31st and started at noon in Center city. The parade route was about 4 miles long and was to end inside the Citizens Bank Stadium, where the Phillies play their games.
We decided to get down to the parade by about 8:45 am. We staked our claim at the corner of Broad Street & Pine Street. This picture was taken around 10 am. And what a gorgeous day that we had, not a cloud in the sky. It got up to about 64 degrees that day.
Here I am with some Philly nut that was dressed like the Burger King guy. He had red tights on below. And he also got the crowd fired up from time to time.
Guy on stilts.... he was walking in front of the parade with a Phillies banner, getting the crowd fired up also...
Here is a picture of Pat 'the Bat' Burrell, the Phillies left fielder. Pat was drafted in 1998 and started in the 2000 season. He has played for the Phillies for 9 full seasons and it looks like this was his last season because of his commanding salary. He has hit 251 home runs in Philadelphia.
What was really cool was that Pat got booed many times. But he truly has his ups, besides his downs, and got the chance to ride in the beginning of the parade with his wife Michele on the Budweiser wagon.
The Philadelphia Phanatic is a staple of Philadelphia and sports. One of the most loved and noticed mascots for major sports.
The Phanatic was created after the 1977 season by Harrison/Erickson of New York City (now known as the Acme Mascots), who had ties with Jim Henson's Muppets. This came from an idea from Dennis Lehman who thought that the Phillies needed a mascot similar to that of the San Diego Padre's Chicken.
Here is a picture of the World Series Trophy known as the Commissioner's Trophy which was first introduced in 1967.
I am not sure which ball player was holding up the trophy, but the gentleman pointing his hat at me is Pat Gillick, the General Manager of the Phillies. Mr. Gillick came on board in 2005 and this was his last year. The ironic thing is that Mr. Gillick has guided teams to 3 Championships in his career. Why ironic? He led the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays to a Championship in which they beat the Philadelphia Phillies.
Mr. Pat Gillick has been replaced by Assistant GM Ruben Amaro Jr. who will take over as the General Manager for the Philadelphia Phillies.
There were some pictures of the Phillies's players on the floats, but I didn't want to put everyone to sleep. But here is what it looked like after the parade had passed us and the crowd dispersed into the streets. It was estimated close to 2 million people showed up for the parade. What a feeling to be a part of this, something that I will never forget.
Go 2008 - 2009 Phillies
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Copyright © 2008 by Jeff Belonger
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