I’m pretty sure Ryan Howard isn’t quite ready to give up on this season.

Since the calender flipped to September, the man Jimmy Rollins nicknamed “Big Brown” has been - as we say in the biz - locked the fuck in. Last night was just more of the same. After he took Stifler’s (Ben Sheets looks exactly like Stifler, right? RIGHT?) 20 consecutive scoreless innings streak and deposited it somewhere deeeep in center field for his 43rd round-tripper, he came back in the fourth inning to do it again.

And he came thisclose. Observe:

“Just another piece of bacon - maybe for breakfast - and that ball’s outta here.”

-Sarge

Courtesy of “The Mighty” Dan Gross comes this unsettling news of the Phillies first baseman and masher of home runs being, shall we say, less than generous with the gratuity on his bar bill:

Zagat, which has just published its 2009 guide to Philadelphia restaurants, declared that Philadelphians are the most generous tippers in the nation.

Would that include Ryan Howard?

Sources say that on a recent visit to Paddy Whack’s (2nd & South), the Phillies slugger, who’s earning $10 million this year, showed up wearing a $15,000 watch, drank $24 worth of beers and left no tip.

Howard said last night through team spokesman John Brazer that he had gone to the bar with a buddy and believed that his friend had settled the bill.

Ouch!

I make roughly 1/200ths of what Ryan Howard makes annually, and even *I* tip around 50% on my bar bill.  Apparently, this isn’t the first time this happened either.  A commenter on the Ryan Howard/Snoop Dogg post from last month accused Ryan of skipping out on his tab and tip at Chickie & Petes before — and commenters never lie or exaggerate.

I guess the lesson here is:  Go to Benny The Bum’s!  Proud sponsor of The Fightins with two convenient locations in South Philly and NE Philly.  Where the bartenders are sooo good, you can’t forget to tip!

A tip about Ryan Howard | Dan Gross: Daily News

Picture taken from those shit-starters over at Don Chavez

UPDATE: Via Gross’ Philly Gossip blog:

Paddy Whacks General Manager Ryan Kilkenny wrote in to say that Howard was “at our establishment as a guest of another patron that was having a scheduled Happy Hour Party. The bill of this party was not the responsibility of Mr. Howard. The bill was settled in full and a tip was left.”

So there.

Without question, the best part about coming from behind to beat the Metros is watching their loser fans react to the inevitable, and last night was no exception.

In the fifth inning, when the Fightins’ were in the midst of coming back from their early 7-0 deficit, Ryan Howard jumped on an outside fastball delivered by the no-longer-intimidating Pedro Martinez. The astute CW57 cameraman must have been scoping out the angriest of the Metro fan prior to the blast, and immediately cut to a volatile gentleman who most likely dropped some major cash for a first row seat. Around the :22 second mark, you can clearly see Mr. Temper mouth some expletives before becoming so enraged, he just gets up out of his seat and walks out.

hahahaah:

“Hey. It’s brad. Now that the mets are spanking them no need to guest post.”

At 9:42 PM (when the Phillies cut the lead to 7-6):

“Okay. I take it back.

“Too late,” I replied. Didn’t these Mets fans learn anything from last year?

In between their ass-whoopings at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers while barely clinging on to first place, Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard paid a visit to those hoodlums on The Best Damn Sports Show.  Instead of talking about who the zaniest guy in the locker room is, or whatever the hell they talk about on that show, Young James thought it was the appropriate time to express his opinion on Philly (more specifically, Phillies) fans.  The outcome makes me wanna punch a certain MVP-winning shortstop in the throat:

“There are times, ya know it’s like, one of those cities they, ya know… I might catch some flak for this — they’re front-runners. When you’re doing good, they’re on your side, When you’re doing bad, they’re completely against you”

Frontrunners, Jimmy? You mean, for the past 25 years we’ve only supported all those winning teams we had? All fucking zero of them? That’s the only time we support our teams?

Oh, okay. So when like, our defending MVP shortstop is having a shitty season and is on pace to score about 70 less runs than he did last year — we should just unconditionally support him? Is that what you mean? Or when that same defending MVP gets benched for not running out fly balls or gets stuck in traffic on his way to a game vs. the Mets — we should just brush it off and cheer you on anyway? Got it. Thanks for the tip, J-Roll.

I gotta be honest though, the following quote is the one that really shouldn’t have been made:

“For example, Ryan [Howard]’s from St. Louis. Ya know, St. Louis, it seems like, they support their team. They’re out there… and they’re encouraging. In Philly, you can’t be no punk.”

No disrespect to Cardinals fans, but these are the same guys that gave a standing ovation — twice — to So Taguchi upon his return this year. I’m sorry, Jimmy, but we don’t get down like that.

We, as Philadelphians, are mostly annoyed when the players we cheer for don’t give a concerted effort.  When they look like they’re not trying, or making stupid mental errors, we let them know.  But for the most part, our anger is focused towards the inept management of the franchises here.  Players who do their job and try usually get a pass.

And if that annoys you, Jimmy, go to fucking St. Louis and play.

Odds are, if you watched more than 1 inning of baseball during the first half of the season, you saw the nauseating Baby Ruth ad campaign promoting their dumb “Take Me Out To The Ballgame 100th Anniversary” contest. In case you haven’t — real quick — fans were encouraged to submit their own version of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and the winner would sing it during the 7th inning stretch at the All-Star Game. And I think they got a lifetime supply of Baby Ruth or something.

Anyway, they made an entire TV show out of the process with the equally-irksome ESPN. It featured the fan submissions plus renditions by actual major leaguers. The last two NL MVP’s, Ryan Howard & Jimmy Rollins, had the displeasure of judging the player versions. But at they very end, obviously disappointed with everyone else’s output, RyHo and Young James put their own twist on the classic song…

You know they had to do a remix, right?

Enjoy the vocal stylings of Ryan Howard with Jimmy Rollins playing the part of the lunchroom table drum machine.

While taking a break during All-Star week, Ryan Howard was partying in downtown Philly when he caught up with none other than the Snoop Dee-oh-double-gizzle at nightclub hotspot G.

(I guess you could say it was “Nuthin but a ‘G’ Thang”! …*sigh*)

The Lady Cognac sponsored event also attracted other well-known Philadelphia athletes like Shane Victorino, Rip Hamilton, and the crooked-fingered NFL analyst, Brian Baldinger.  Thankfully, Wired 96.5 morning show sidekick GN Kang brought her trusty camera to snap the photographic evidence.

After the jump, enjoy some photos of the various young ladies in attendance.

Snoop Dogg chills at G | Philly Gossip
More Snoop Dogg | GNkang.com

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When the Angels were in town in June, Ryan Howard and Vladimir Guerrero teamed up with their sponsor, Powerade, and crashed the FDR Golf Course on 20th & Pattison to film a commercial.

Equipped with a makeshift batting cage, lumber, and plenty of fairway, the past two Home Run Derby champs battled it out to see who could launch a 500 ft. shot first. The result was two strong-as-ox sluggers making uppity white folk nervous while crushing BP, blasting David Banner’s “Get Like Me” and drinking lots of Powerade.

FORE!:

Since my original discovery of a brand on Ryan Howard’s left arm over a year ago, I’ve been scouring various photo galleries for a a cleaner, full brand shot. Considering every photo I ever saw of the brand has been from Spring Training and partially obscured by his jersey, I wasn’t really expecting to get a pic during the regular season. But then, during the pre-game portion of last night’s telecast, the Comcast cameras caught Howard walking into the clubhouse wearing a throwback Dr. J All-Star jersey, exposing the brand for all to see.

Just as I suspected, the brand is in honor of his Southwest Missouri State fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma (ΦΒΣ). Check out the clip below; and don’t fret — if you miss it the first time, I went ahead and replayed it a second time and slowed it down while zooming in so you can get a better look. And the best part about the slo-mo replay is Harry Kalas’ voice is also skewed, making him sound shitface drunk.

If you still don’t notice it, check the screenshots after the jump.

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You think Ryan Howard wasn’t excited after Shane Victorino’s game-winning single?

Think again. The 6′4″, 260 lb. big fella shows off his hops immediately following the beautiful win vs. the hated Metros:

And thank you, Rockies, for demoralizing the Marlins the past 2 nights.

As you may have heard, Jimmy Rollins held his 3rd annual BaseBowl charity event last Thursday at Lucky Strike lanes in Center City.  His yearly bowl-a-thon allows fans to sort-of interact with the Phillies and bid on various memorbilia with the proceeds going to the Arthritis Foundation of Eastern Pennsylvania.  An incredibly nice gesture from Young James.

HOWEVER, each participant is also given their very own bowling shirt, complete with a Rollins-decided nickname.  Most of these choices were questionable to say the least.  For example, Ryan Howard (pictured) was given the moniker ‘UPS’; not for his fondness of delivering runners home, but rather because they’ve been calling him Big Brown in the clubhouse.  Call me crazy, but I’m going to assume if Bill Conlin happened to call him that on DNL, he’d be suspended for life.

Other not-so-clever nicknames include Chase ‘The Model’ Utley, Jamie ‘Dyno’ Moyer, So ‘Asian Magic’ Taguchi (which mightaswell have been ‘Waiver Wire’) and the grammatically incorrect JC ‘Lo Roca’ Romero.  Poor Kyle Kendrick is so bland, his shirt was left blank.

After the jump, watch the explanation for the nicknames in video form…

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