Recap: The Boys' Trip to Tampa

There is a lot to cover in the world of sports. The win or die pool was knocked down from over 350 entries down to 102 after a slew of upsets on Sunday. We have Kenny Rogers to talk about, the end of the Bledsoe experiment in Dallas, and the near win by Duke football over the University of Miami. But all that will have to wait for a day or so, because there are more important things to cover today, like the boys trip to Tampa this weekend. So sit back and enjoy….

Welcome to the unfiltered, unabridged, and uncensored (as far as you know) story of my boys’ trip to Tampa for the Eagles/Buccaneers game on Sunday. Joining me on this pilgrimage were my buddies Billy, Lute, Art, Dashman, FRANKEL, and the monstrous zit on my face that is lingering longer than Bobby Bowden’s tenure at Florida St. I think my wife had it implanted to make sure I looked as much like the Elephant Man as possible when heading to the land of the beautiful people. Before I show you, I can only urge you not to look directly at it, as it could damage your retinas….

Anyway, we left Saturday afternoon with two pizzas Lute stole from his wife and with plenty of alcohol to wash it down with. And wash it down we did. We arrived in Tampa in time to throw the Eagles football that Dashman brilliantly brought around the tarmac/runway (see Billy boy in group picture above, kneeling), only to be reprimanded by the Tampa Airport police.

We hopped in our van, the one that Billy boy reserved for the entire weekend since Tampa, despite being a major metropolitan area, has less cabs than Paris (Texas, not France). This may have been the best move I have witnessed since Marky Mark decided to focus on an acting career instead of singing.

This was a strange 10-minute drive, because I swear that we went from the Tampa airport to the South Philly Marriott in that short a time period. It was amazing. Eagles shirts on all the patrons, bad Philly accents, bellies that represented a long-term commitment to far too many cheesesteaks, and E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES chants everywhere….Kind of good, kind of frightening. Being the snobs that we are, we of course immediately dropped off our bags in our room, and after calling housekeeping to freshen the stench in the room the Dashman and I were sharing, immediately left the sea of green and went to another hotel for cocktails, hoping there higher room rates would improve the environment. We brought the football with us.

We arrived at our next destination and set up shop in the hotel bar in time to watch the Notre Dame Fighting Irish lose in a monumental upset to UCLA. The Bruins had the ball with less than two minutes left. But, of course, by the time we got our drinks, the Irish had forced a punt, and scored on a bomb to Smardisdjgfkft with less than a minute on the clock. Amazing! Have you ever seen a team snatch victory from the jaws of defeat more often than Notre Dame. Certainly not the Philadelphia Eagles. There must be something to this whole “Touchdown Jesus” thing. They are the football equivalent of Matt Littman at a No Limit Holdem Table. He may go all-in with 3-4 offsuit, but he will pull a miracle out of his hat more often than not….

So how did we spend our time in this bar? There was a Bat Mitzvah going on in the hotel, so we decided to consult with some white dude with dread locks about what an appropriate gift for a Bat Mitzvah was these days, since some of us have one to attend in the near future. I cannot tell you how happy I am that we did this, since the Dread-dude told us that it can be as little as $25, as much as $40. I have decided to splurge and will be giving the entire $40!!!! After completing this discussion, we decided that an even better idea was to toss the Eagle football around the bar. After some long pattern resulting on near misses to chandeliers, the hotel personnel decided that they maybe disagreed with our idea. Dinner time.

We went to the Palm for dinner, and who do we literally bump into but George Steinbrenner, who was sitting at the table right next to us. We asked him if he liked the Alex Rodriguez version or the Bobby Abreu version of the Cory Lidle joke (see October 17th post). He asked for his check. After that, we filled up on steak, salad, wine and of course Captain, except Lute who picked at his food like an anorexic at a Big Mac.

After dinner, we hopped back in the van with our driver named Frank from Hungary and headed over to the Blue Martini, a great bar that features a band playing on stage with a full bar right in front of the stage (like an orchestra pit) and televisions lining the side of the stage. Tree-men-dous! Here is my breakdown of the people in this bar:

• Unbelievably beautiful women, 25%
• Divorced women over 50 looking for love, 10%
• Normal guys (us included of course), 5%
• Cheesy Philly guys hitting on all women, starting with the hot ones then moving down the line to the old, worn divorced ones while chanting the EAGLES chant, 60%

This bar was great, and there is nothing like it in Philly. We laughed, we drank, we enjoyed the band, especially the extended Shakira medley that had more legs than you would think possible. It was all good, until it all went bad. One of the aforementioned old, desperate chiquitas who was dressed in a pant suit that closely resembled Catwoman decided that she was going to dance on a platform right in front of our table. I cannot begin to tell you the effect this had on our evening. People volunteered to go fetch the next round instead of waiting for our waitress. Just frightening; fortunately, we were far from sober which helped dilute the negative effects, but there is only so much you can do to dull the horror in that situation. Overall, despite the jolt towards the end of the evening, it was an outstanding evening. We poured ourselves into bed at around 2:30, ready to begin anew with some tailgating a few hours later.

After some grease at the hotel to soak up the lingering alcohol (and make room for the new stuff), we headed over to the Stadium for some tailgating. There were a couple key items that were extremely noticeable as we partied before the game:

• The atmosphere was a lot more relaxed and less edgy than before an Eagles game. There was no hostility thrown your way for walking around in an Eagle jersey, just a nice, fun, friendly environment
• Not surprisingly based on our observations from around town, but there must have been 15,000+ Eagle fans, decked in full team colors.
• The women in Tampa are to the women in Philadelphia what a thoroughbred horse is to a donkey.

To illustrate my last point, below are three pictures from the game, two of Buc fans, and one of an Eagle fan. See if you can determine which is which:

Yes, it was that blatant. Anyway, we finally went in the game and got to our seats right before kickoff. Billy boy came through big time as he had us placed right on the 50 yard line, and just high enough that we were under the shade of the upper levels. Perfect seats. The game started off terribly, with McNabb turning the ball over as if he were a point guard on the 76ers, and our (okay me) yelling at some guy whose arms were as hairy as George “the Animal” Steele’s. It all turned during the third quarter when, after Tampa got their second touchdown from Ronde Freaking Barber (can’t the whole stupid family retire after this season), Donovan brought the team back. You know Donovan is trying to play catch up in a hot environment when he starts hurling all over the field. Who gets to clean that stuff up anyway? More importantly, McNabb does it. The fairy tale ending. He somehow survives a horrible 35 minutes of football and “boots and rallies” to bring the squad back for a miraculous win. When Westbrook scored with 33 seconds left, the perfect trip was complete. To top off the perfect boys trip, the Eagles finally pulled a Notre Dame, winning a game they had no business winning, even though they were the far superior team on paper.

And then Tampa Bay put on their catwoman suit and danced on an elevated platform. First a good kick return (on a stupid kickoff by the Birds), then Gradkowski trips but still gains nine yards. Then he falls down but gets up in time to throw an incompletion. But now there are 4 seconds left and the Bucs are on the Eagle 45, so clearly they will have to do a Hail Mary, and they are not Notre Dame, so we should be fine. But wait, he brings on the kicker. Why would he even try a 62 yarder with a guy who was 0-for-3 from 40 yards or longer this season? But he did. And he drilled it. Right down the middle with plenty of distance to spare. How? Why? This, in a nutshell, is what life is like as a Philadelphia sports fan. Other fans can say they have it worse. Cleveland, St. Louis, Buffalo. But they are wrong. Philadelphia is the most brutal sports city to grow up in. By a wide margin.

So we sat stunned for a minute as tens of thousands of Buc fans (I keep having the urge to say Tampa Bay, but I learned this weekend that was NOT cool, kind of like being in San Francisco and calling it Frisco or San Fran) hooted and hollered and in general acted like they had just won the Super Bowl. In all fairness, it was a pretty amazing win. As we were walking out, Dashman had a couple of near altercation, first as he was screaming top of his lungs back and forth with some girl in his best impression of Earl Weaver in the mid 70’s. Then he decided to pick on someone his own size and came close to throwing down with some dude with bad hair but pretty big arms. As soon as walked next to Dashman and told him not to worry, that I had his back, he pretty much calmed down, quickly realizing that he had the equivalent of the Iraqi army on his side.

The good news was that we were able to recover the Eagles football, which for some reason they would not let us bring into the stadium and which we had discarded into some trees before the game. Before we left, we did want to show Billy Boy our appreciation for putting together such a great weekend, so we got him a little something:

Overall, it was an amazing weekend that could have been perfect had a 62 yard field goal fallen short (would that be too much to ask?) As we flew back to Philly and the colder weather, the Eagles were 4-3, when they really should be 7-0 (favored in all 7, ahead in all 7 in the 4th quarter). But, as Bill Parcells says, you are what your record says you are, and the Eagles are 4-3, with the tough part of their schedule looming. A playoff spot is possible, a Super Bowl berth seems like a very long shot at this point. That is too bad, since the best quarterback in the world this season plays in Philadelphia, not New England or Indianapolis this year.

Billy Boy, Lute, Artie, Dashman, Frankel and I are all back at work. My zit seems to finally be receding (thanks to my wife taking the hex off!). Life is back to normal. But when it is time for our next road trip, rest assured, we will be ready to go and have a great time, and we will be ready for the disappointment that ultimately accompanies Philadelphia sports fans.

See you tomorrow or Thursday with some discussion on other sports topics from the last few days…..