The Athletic (with ads) ranked the best ballpark atmospheres of remaining playoff teams. Obviously the Phillies came in at #1. The cream of the crop. Best sports city in the country. But of course the guys who wrote it – Chad Jennings, C. Trent Rosecrans, and Stephen J. Nesbitt – couldn’t help themselves and had to bring up Philly fans throwing snowballs at Santa Claus in the first sentence of this blurb:

Our take: Look, Philadelphia fans have thrown snowballs at Santa Claus and batteries at J.D. Drew. Their Phanatic mascot is iconic, but part of his charm is the way he – it? – taunts and antagonizes opponents. It’s a real love-it or hate-it place to play. The Phillies and their fans are capable of producing unforgettable moments, like Wednesday night when Bryson Stott hit a grand slam and the ballpark provided the only commentary necessary.

What a bunch of douchebags. And that’s before you realize that a sportswriter goes by the pen name C. Trent Rosecrans. Buddy you’re a sportswriter. You’re not some fucking classical romance literary savant in the Roaring 20s. You cover the Reds. You write about a bunch of sweaty dudes who grab their crotches an obnoxious amount, and pack enough Zyns it could kill a tiny horse. You’re not describing the sun hitting the River Rhine Seine* on a cold September morning in France while under the Eiffel Tower. You’re a Trent.

Act like it.

I really wish I had a D Battery for each of these guys right now.

But hey if you want to talk about something that happened 60 years ago, then lets talk about the past. I don’t have to pull from six decades ago, I can pull from only six years. In 2017 your founder and CEO Alex Mather told the New York Times he was “going to bleed newspapers dry” through a subscription model that would upend the print media landscape. What happened? They never turned a profit, had to put ads on the website, and ironically sold to a newspaper so they could to cut losses and pay off investors. That resulted in their local coverage in Philadelphia and beyond taking a massive hit and with subscription loss. That’s a story both of us at least were alive for.


*Kinkead – yeah we put the wrong fucking river in there, sue us