Hey, who’s ready to check their answers against the book contest answer key and find out which three lucky contestants will be the recipients of the all-time #1 bestselling book in the long, storied history of the Triumph Books publishing company*, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, and Gut-Wrenching Moments From Philadelphia Phillies History” by Todd Zolecki foreword by Scott Franzke?

Not so fast, pal. Let me explain how I picked the winners.

First of all, thanks to everyone who entered. I was literally overwhelmed by the response we got from this contest, and I normally like to do things at night other than sit on the computer and grade ridiculous quizzes, so I decided against going through each individual e-mail to mark for accuracy and instead opted for letting everyone become eligible. That’s right — if you went 8-for-8? YOU’RE ELIGIBLE! 3-for-8? Fuggit, YOU’RE ELIGIBLE TOO! Honestly, the point of having the quiz was to weed out the people who can enter a contest willy-nilly from those who had to at least use their brain a little bit. And as my reward to you, if you even attempted to answer to questions, you got 100%.

haha, I’d be the shittiest teacher.

* projected sales

Find out the answers & winners, after the jump…

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No matter what happens for the rest of Spring Training, I think it’s safe to say that nothing will have the impact of the Epic Jayson Werth Beard that we saw today. It started off with as a fairly innocent tweet from Todd Zolecki about Jayson’s new facial hair growth, then everyone demanded photographic evidence of said growth, then Zolecki obliged, then the internet blew up. The funny thing is, I’ll bet you Jayson Werth himself thinks we’re a bunch of fairy boys for making such a spectacle of his Beard, and will most likely shave it off tonight out of spite.

Whether he keeps it or not, I really just wanted to take this opportunity to highlight Charlie Manuel’s quote on Jayson Werth’s Beard. The man has such a poetic way of stating the obvious:

“He looks like a guy that didn’t do a whole lot this winter, kinda isolated himself somewhere… and he didn’t have a razor and a barber around.”

-Charlie Manuel on Jayson Werth’s Beard

Watch the full CSN Philly report on Jayson Werth’s Beard, including the Charlie quote, after the jump.

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If you don’t mind, I’m just gonna keep updating this post throughout the day with each spectacular picture of Jayson Werth’s new beard. Cool? I’ll start if off with the original Todd Zolecki pic, this is the one that’s gonna win all the major photography awards at the end of the year:

(via The Zo Zone)

Click ‘Read more’ for the rest.

(last updated 2/23 at 7:30pm)

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Holy shit this is funny.

You might not be all that familiar with Greg Casterioto (yet), but he’s the handsome director of baseball communications for the Philadelphia Phillies who, earlier this month, was named one of the most eligible singles around by South Jersey Magazine.

So the Phillies, being the proud ball busting organization they are, saw this as an opportunity to completely embarrass Mr. Casterioto by printing up a bunch of t-shirts with his (incredibly gay) glamor shot from SJ Magazine. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they blew the same picture up big enough to fit on an outfield wall, threw one of his corny quotes on there, and wrote: SJ Magazine Single, Greg Casterioto.

Check it out:

(Thanks, The Zo Zone)

From the man who brought you McFarlane sports figurines, created Spawn comic books, and paid entirely too much money for McGwire’s now-worthless 70th home run ball, comes… BASEBALL ACTION FIGURES!

That’s right, Todd McFarlane has upgraded from those tiny little statues he manufactures to an honest-to-goodness poseable action figure with over 20 moving parts (!!!) and the ability to whoop your old G.I. Joe action figure’s ass. Most figures (besides pitchers, of course) come in two varieties — a batting and a fielding version. Because — let’s be honest — if you’re the type of person who sits down and plays with baseball action figures, you’d probably like your make believe baseball game experience to be as authentic as possible.

For the inaugural release, there are 12 different MLBers to choose from — Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, David Wright, Ichiro Suzuki, Josh Beckett, Manny Ramirez, Tim Lincecum, and BIG BROWN. So that means if you purchase the entire set, you’ll have a healthy squad of 3 third basemen, 2 first basemen, 2 pitchers, a left fielder, right fielder, shortstop, second baseman, and a DH. But I’m sure for the sake of your pretend game, Ichiro would gladly shift over to center, Chipper could play some RF, and — if you give him a couple mixed drinks — David Wright would be the catcher.

(It wouldn’t be the first time, amirite?)

Anyways, here’s the batting version of Ryan Howard:

And here’s the fielding (Sam Perlozzo not included):

You can check out a photo gallery of all the players HERE.

UPDATE: Reader Kurt sends along a picture of the David Wright action figure:

Roy’s tossing the pill as Charlie looks on with his hands down his pants. What is this, mid-July?

…meanwhile, back here in Philly, some of this year’s promotions were on display for those brave souls who waited in line for the single game tickets that officially went on sale today. The highlight, of course:

The resemblance is uncanny.

May 18th, baby! Just got my tickets!

UPDATE: Courtesy of CSN’s SportsNite, MORE CHARLIE WITH HIS HANDS DOWN HIS PANTS!

As you’ve probably heard, Phillies beat writer extraordinaire and friend of The Fightins, Todd Zolecki, is about to release his first book under the publishing company Triumph Books entitled, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, and Gut-Wrenching Moments From Philadelphia Phillies History.”

Since Todd is such a good guy, he forced Triumph to send us 3 copies to do whatever we please with. And what pleases us is pleasing you, so I figured I’d hold a Phillies-centric contest and choose three winners to receive their very own copy. I say “Phillies-centric” contest because I believe one should at least have some knowledge of my favorite team in order to win the book.

After the jump, I’ve assembled a grade school-style matching quiz that will test your knowledge of Phillies players and their corresponding on-the-field quirks. Once you’ve correctly matched all eight of the players and their habit, simply fire off an e-mail to FightinsContest[at]Gmail[dot]com (Subject header “ZOLECKI”) and your entry will be graded for accuracy. If you’re one of the lucky ones to go 8-for-8, your answer sheet will then be thrown in a pile and I’ll pick the three random winners at the conclusion of the contest

The contest will end promptly at 3:59pm EST on Monday, February 22nd, 2010.

Get your quiz on, after the jump.

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GLOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDD.

I received an e-mail from a reader of The Fightins the other day and it went:

Just thought Id let you guys know that one of these exists. The best part about this, I was absolutely shitfaced at some random house after a night at the bar, and saw it laying on the floor. I needed a pic to make sure it wasnt the alcohol. Apparently, the guy also owns a CHP and Abraham Nunez jersey. Unreal.

Just a piece of advice for our mystery Gload wearing jersey friend: hang that shit up when you come home at night — you’re a cot damn wrinkled mess, man.

Shhhhhhh… don’t say anything. You’ll just ruin the moment.

(Image via Yong Kim/Daily News)

I think.

In Todd Zolecki’s J.C. Romero piece from this afternoon on The Zo Zone, Juan Carlos insists that he thinks he’ll be good to go come the opening week of the ‘10 season and plans on getting a spot on the Opening Day roster. That would certainly be ideal considering the lack of a veteran left arm coming out of the ‘pen, but if I were J.C., I’d be more worried about being healthy enough come playoff time than making sure he’s on the squad on April 5th.

Regardless, that really wasn’t the point of this post.  Romero was explaining that he thinks he’d only need around 12 innings of so in the Grapefruit League because he doesn’t necessarily have anything to work on; he’s always had some control issues.

So then he says to Todd, he says:

“I’ve been effectively wild my whole career, so nothing is going to change unless I start throwing like Jamie Moyer — finesse.”

OH SHIT!  Is it just me or does that roughly translate to, “Sure, I can throw nothing but strikes, but then I’d get hit around that weak old man who had the worst ERA among major league starters last year.”

Just me?

Romero Eyeing Opening Day Roster | The Zo Zone

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