It’s a beautiful thing.

(Shout out to left-coast Fightins’ reader, Eric Hesse, who sent the pics in)

Every so often while perusing the internet for blogging material you stumble upon something so fantastic, you can’t believe it has yet to be discovered. This, Fightins readers, is one of those times. Directly below that fancy Ryan Howard collage, you will find a slideshow featuring twenty-seven various pictures from his youth growing up in Wildwood, MO.

They are all classic, ranging from his kindy-garten class picture with his twin brother Corey to band camp (!) to High School basketball action shots.

Have at it…

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Last Friday Night at Citizen’s Bank Ballpark, the Phillies ran their ‘Retro 70’s Night’ promotion, which basically means they photoshop funny little 70’s-inspired outfits and hair styles onto the players and display them on the big scoreboard. I’m pretty sure it’s a league-wide gimmick by now, but still figured I should pass along the photos for your enjoyment.

The following slideshow contains the 1970’s version of 6 of the 9 starters (I couldn’t find Werth, Dobbs, or Coste) on the 2,759 square foot plasma Philips TV — just like the one they had at The Vet over 30 years ago.

Enjoy Jimmy Rollins getting his Rick James on, Chase Utley looking like Reuben Kinkade, Ryan Howard in Huggy Bear attire, Shane Victorino as a goatee’d lesbian, Geoff Jenkins is Bob Ross, and Kyle Kendrick as a strange Lloyd Christmas/Sgt. Pepper hybrid. With bonus shots of an afro’d Chris Coste during his post-game interview and Kendrick’s Hendrix, which should be pluralized.

I say next 70’s Retro night they stay truer to the theme and break out the ‘Saturday Night Specials‘, hand out free tabs of LSD, and promote unprotected sex. Groovy!

Some photos taken (with love) from the Baseball Fever messageboard.

I’ll have many lasting memories from last night’s game; So Taguchi’s pinch-hit, 2 run double to tie it, Pat Burrell & Jayson Werth’s sniping of Endy Chavez at the plate, Chase laying out to save 2 runs in the 7th, and Jimmy Rollins taking the collective heart of Queens and pulling it down the left field line for the lead…

But, without a doubt, the most enjoyable for me was watching the faces of the Mets fans as they witnessed yet another Fightins’ comeback.

I’m even considering buying one of those digital picture frames for my desk and putting this slideshow on it:

Following a questionable called third strike to end the top of the fifth, delicate Mets outfielder Ryan Church was livid; and directed his wrath towards poor homeplate umpire Dan Iassogna.  Ryan exchanged a few harsh words with the ump, made a squinty-face like he was gonna cwy, and got so irritated, he almost  –*gasp* — threw his bat!

Sensing that his teammate was in distress, on-deck batter David Wright quickly rushed to his aid.  In order to calm Church down, Wright put his arm around him and supplied much-needed words of encouragement on the way back to the dugout before delivering a heartfelt pat on his behind.  Afterall, Ryan is concussion-prone and Davey Wright didn’t want him to get so worked up that his migraines flared up again*.  A noble gesture by a concerned teammate.

To commemorate, I’ve captured this loving moment in slideshow form:

* Ryan Church left the game after the 7th inning because his migraines flared up again.

I thought a classic Peaches and Herb headline was apropos considering last night brought you both the gathering of the Gary Matthewses at The Bank and the annual ‘Sound of Philadelphia’ celebration in which Teddy Pendergrass was an honoree.

Unfortunately, Gary Junior didn’t get the start, so his father will have to wait at least one more day before he can call one of his son’s at-bats. But that didn’t stop the Comcast graphics squad from airing a thoughtful ‘Matthews Family Album’ to share with viewers during the broadcast. I went ahead and placed the screenshots in a nifty little slideshow. There were only two pages of the photo album last night, but I’m hoping this trend continues throughout the series. If it does, I will update the slideshow as I get the pics, but for now - this’ll have to do.

If you need some explanation for the who/what/where on the photos, click on the caption button.

After the jump, I cut video of a nice Dei Lynam-moderated conversation between father & son…

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All covers courtesy of the SI Vault

Hey, Christy G, what’s up?

I’m just chillin’. Ya know, trying to get this new website off the ground and shit. But besides that, same-old-same. How ’bout the Phils this year, huh? They’re doing frickin’ awesome! I can’t believe it’s almost June and the Marlins and Braves are our biggest competition. Who’da thunk the Mets would be sucking this bad? LOL!

Oh, speaking of the Phillies, I was watching the game vs. the Marlins last night and saw you over in left field. Cool, huh?

Yeah, it was the fourth inning and that good shortstop for the Marlins hit that foul over by you and you got the ball and gave it to that little girl…

Do you remember that play? That was really nice of you, I bet you made her day!

Anyway, enough of me rambling. I made this really cool slideshow of the whole thing and thought you might enjoy it. Keep up the good work! I’ll be watching, LOL!

See ya!,
meechie

Phillies color commentator Gary Matthews has one of the greatest hat collections any human being has ever assembled. Each broadcast, no matter how the Phillies are playing, you can be assured of one thing - The Sarge will be sporting a new, stylish hat. Throughout the course of the season, I’ve been collecting screenshots of said hats, strictly for my personal enjoyment. But now I feel it would be rather selfish of me to keep them a secret. So I have decided to share them with the masses. You can thank me later.

And now, without further adieu, a Fightins’ exclusive - the Gary Matthews hat slideshow…

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