Philly, a sports paradise By Marko Primorac Staff Reporter mcpl64@psu.edu Thursday, May 12, 2005 will be a day I will not forget soon. It was the first time I attended a Philadelphia Phillies game (in fact, it was my first Philadelphia sporting event). My buddy Joe suggested a few weeks ago that we should go to a game in the new stadium, and, even though I know about as much about baseball as I do feminist theory, I concurred. Joe is a sport-Taliban, and he would fill me in on all of the juicy statistical details and rules that I never took the time to learn. Besides, sporting events (e.g. tailgating) always rock, and I like everything Philly. Joe ordered the tickets online ($4O), and we agreed that if I covered food and spirits, we would be Even Steven. The drive down to Philly was PennDOT business as usual: construction delays and "Road Work" signs with no workers or improvement on the roads. We arrived at South and Third at about 1:00 p.m., and after dropping quarters into the meter, headed for Mako's bar. It was still closed and I was devastated; they have some of the best burgers I've ever had. Plus they have extra-large steak fries, and "X"- sports and accidents playing on their numerous TV's. We figured that we would head to "O'Neal's" just 100 feet up Third Street. You can't go wrong with Irish. We didn't. For starters, the price of a very filling Jameson BBQ cheeseburger meal was about $6. They didn't even charge me extra for the melted cheddar I requested for the fries (though not steak fries, they had the skins on them and were damn good none the less). I was as happy as a fat kid could be. Also, Chamberlain tapes discovered WILT cont'd from 7 But WCAU in Philadelphia - now WPHT-AM (1210) - was a 50,000-watt powerhouse and, on that cloud-free night, its signal came through loud and clear in Amherst. "If there had been bad weather, if it had been a less-powerful station, or if it hadn't been a Friday night, when a lot of guys in the dorm were out on dates or at parties, I'd never have been able to hear it," Trelease said. Chamberlain had scored 78 points in a triple-overtime game a year earlier and set a regulation record of 73 just two months earlier, so Trelease wasn't shocked when the Warriors center finished the first half with 41 points. In fact, he fell asleep during the third quarter. "I woke up during the post-game show, and when I heard he had scored 100, I went crazy," he said. He then heard By Saam, the Hall of Fame Phillies broadcaster who also did shows before and after each Warriors game, inform his listeners that the fourth quarter would be rebroadcast at 3 a.m. Trelease taped his portable radio's antenna to an interior water pipe that ran the full five floors of the dormitory. He set up his clunky reel-to-reel recorder alongside it. "In retrospect, it's amazing more people didn't do the same," said Pomerantz, a former journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I later heard that someone else had recorded the final minutes on a Dictaphone. But he was running out of tape, so he only recorded the Warriors' possessions." And, according to the author, in 1991, someone sent Campbell a tape of his call of the final basket _ when, with under a minute left, Chamberlain scored his 99th and The Phillies recently played Cincinatti, which was Marko's first Phillies game one might add, the atmosphere was dingy, Irish, and laid back. The jukebox had a phenomenal selection of music; from the Grand Theft Auto Wave Radio CD, to Curtis Mayfield, to The Pogues, to Elvis, to Daft Punk. And when my $5 bill registered as a $1 bill, the owner put in a five and let me pick my poison. Speaking of poison, their beer and ale selection was diverse, and, without exaggerating, exquisite. Any bar that sells Chamay is a good joint, but a joint that sells both red and blue label Chamay, in addition to Leffe, with cheap (but hearty) burgers and fat kid food, well, that's called home. And O'Neal's is my new home. Our bartender made sure that we had drinks in front of us at all times, and she gave us the inside scoop on where to party once in the stadium. After a $133.40 (we each got a loser tourist T-shirt) bill and a thorough convincing of the 100th points after receiving a pass from Joe Ruklick. "I thought that's all there was," Campbell said last week. "I wasn't aware anything else existed." An engineer at WCAU had recorded over the game tape, standard practice at the time. Ten days later, the UMass basketball team played a first round NCAA tournament game at the Palestra. Trelease did the play-by-play. Without a halftime guest, he replayed the fourth quarter of Chamberlain's record setting game. And then he forgot about the recording. Nearly 30 years later, attending a librarians' conference in Pennsylvania's Chocolate Town, he found himself sitting next to a trustee of the Hershey Community Archives. "We got to talking about that game and I casually mentioned that I had a tape of the fourth quarter," Trelease said. "He couldn't believe it." Trelease, who later wrote a best selling book, The Read-Aloud Handbook, gave the archives a copy. The NBA also found out and, when he presented a tape to the league, it was digitally restored, filtering out some of the noise from the crowd that had surrounded Campbell during the closing minutes of the Warriors' 169-147 victory. "It's strange how things work," Trelease said. "Now, if you want to hear a Dodgers game you missed last month, you just go to MLB.com and buy it. The only reason we have a tape of Russ Hodges calling Bobby Thomson's home run in 1951 ("The Giants win the pennant!" etc.) was because some kid in the Bronx taped it. "And we wouldn't have a record of this game, either, if not for a lot of fortunate circumstances." innate criminality of the British people by the obviously politically moderate Irishman sitting next to me, Kevin, we headed off to the stadium. Keep in mind, there is a parking garage on Third as soon as you make a left, so don't make my mistake and get a $2O fine for an empty meter when I could have just coughed up the $7 and had a spot. Just a ten minute ride away, the new stadium rocks. Parking was $lO, but there was ample space and, after fertilizing the asphalt, we realized that there were Port- A-Johns not too far from the lot. Once inside the stadium, we indulged in Miller Light ($5 a pop), and obnoxious sized hotdogs and pretzels. In typical Philly flare, we went to Pat's inside the stadium, but it turned out to be a dud. I expected far more from Pat's, which, in the world of cheese steak connesoirs, has a mythical status. I paid $7 for a dried out roll and stingy serving of PSH sports INTERCOLL cont'd from 7 sports a year and that its 10-year master plan calls for more athletic fields. Smitley said interested golfers and tennis players could be eligible to play in tournaments at University Park by next school year. Smitley also said the college hopes to compete in Division 111 within five years. The college will continue to offer intramural sports, which include touch football, softball, basketball and volleyball, to students next year. The men's baseball team will play a split schedule, playing eight games in the fall and a mid season tournament at a site to be announced. The team will come back in the spring to play six games and a double-elimination tournament to end the season in April. The men's soccer team will play 13 games in September and October before the four-team conference championships begin on Oct. 19. The women's volleyball squad will play seven regular season matches, six of them on the road, in addition to a mid-season tournament in late September. The co-ed cross-country team will run in three meets, all on the road, before the conference meet at University Park on Oct. 15. The men's basketball team will play 17 regular season contests starting on. Nov. 17, when it travels to Penn St. Abington. The women's basketball team will also travel to Penn State Abington that night to kick off its 13-game season. Regional playoffs would begin on Feb. 28 for both teams if they qualify. The women's softball team will host Penn State McKeesport on March 26 to begin its nine-game schedule, with playoffs beginning in late April. Sports Photo by John Fox/Capital Times what tasted like Steak-Urn. I'll be brutally honest; a blind monkey on roller skates could have made a better meal. I have no idea why the bums at Pat's in the stadium had 15 people when their service was that bad. Fifteen idiots and not a single good cheese steak... scheming bastards. We wandered around the stadium, and realized that the no matter where you are at in the stadium, the view is good. Next time, we're going with the cheapest seats. After pounding liters of Coca-cola to come back to our senses, and heckling Ken Griffey, Junior, we headed out after the eigth inning. The Phillies are bums, and their performance was pitiful. But I like to be around the freaks and geeks of this world, and there are no worse or bigger freaks and geeks than Philly fans. I will be pre-gaming in O'Neal's in a few weeks, mark my words... Fantastic location on College Avenue, directly across from campus. `lO , - Walk to Beaver io • • Leases. Stadium, Bryce Jordan Center, local • restaurants, shopping, & NIGHT LIFE. Resident functions, contests, & giveaways. On site professional management that cares and prompt maintenance. Plush wall to wall carpeting, individual climate control, & Internet access. "Freebies," "boosterism" plague sports journalism By The Associated Press STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Sports journalists routinely accept free tickets, travel and memorabilia from the teams they cover, a practice that requires more advocacy for better ethical standards, a Penn State University researcher said. In a survey of 285 newspapers, about 43 percent of sports editors agreed that accepting such "freebies" didn't affect reporters' objectivity, said Marie Hardin, an assistant professor at the Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State. "A lot of sports journalists don't see the harm in them because they don't see it as changing the story," Hardin said Wednesday. But, she added, accepting meals and other items could affect a reporter's relationship with a source _ or at least the impression of the relationship with a source _ in stories beyond game coverage. She cited the ongoing story of the use of steroids in sports as examples of sports coverage becoming more complex. The findings come from a study conducted in the spring of 2003 of sports editors or deputy editors in •ip at $299. Semester & /11 ll . Matching. ,go • IP • • • The Capital Times, May 16, 2005 the southeastern United States, from Louisiana to Maryland. The results were published in the latest edition of the Newspaper Research Journal, a publication of the nonprofit Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, based in Columbia, S.C. It also found that 39 percent of editors reached in the survey agreed with the statement that sports coverage "should boost the home team." Editors at smaller papers were more likely to agree than those at larger papers. More experienced editors tended to disagree with the statement. About 56 percent of editors said their staffs followed an ethical code, and 90 percent said they believed the sports department code should be the same as that used in the newsroom. "Although an increasing number of sports departments have adopted ethical codes, beliefs and practices that defy ethical norms persist," Hardin wrote. The results show a need for more discussion in newsrooms about ethical standards, especially at smaller newspapers, Hardin said. She also urged colleges to emphasize "rigorous" training in ethics to journalism students. ~,„,,,..,, ernman 646 E. College Avenue State College, PA 16801 (814)231-9000 Rates Starting Roommate on college avenue 9 Month
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