Since it's now obvious there will be no freeway series (hey, Angels and Dodgers, here's an idea: bring your bats next time), the time has come to move beyond the brutal losses suffered by our soon-to-be-exiting home teams and concentrate on the really important stuff.
Like, which city is filled with more assholes, Philadelphia or New York?
Hey, it's an important consideration to remember while you avoid the pain that will come from watching the Phillies and Yankees face off in the World Series.
What follows is a highly scientific breakdown of 13 key assholic indicators to help us determine which big city takes the cake . . .
. . . the ASSHOLE cake.
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FANS: Yankee fans can be obnoxious, especially the ones who filter into Angel Stadium–especially the ones who never owned a Yankee cap until filtering into Angel Stadium. But Philly fans can–and will–be assholes to their own team. It's not even close. ADVANTAGE: Phillies.
PLAYERS: Ryan Howard and Pedro Martinez = huuuuge assholes. But the current Yankee squad seems to have been ladled up from the asshole pool. Jeter, Damon, Posada, Pettitte, Sabathia, Teixeira . . . it never ends. Isn't A-Rod just a clever play on A-Hole? And what the hell is a Melky? ADVANTAGE: Big Apple Assholes.
MANAGERS: Joe Girardi looks as if he should be clearing the table at your anniversary dinner. Charlie Manuel resembles your creepy uncle who gleefully tosses around the “N-word.” Man, this one's too close to call. ADVANTAGE: Tie.
COACHES: If the Dodgers were in this, it wouldn't even be a contest because everyone knows the biggest asshole in baseball is LA's third base coach Larry Bowa. Speaking of the Dogs, Davey Lopes is an assholic traitor for wearing a Phillies uniform. ADVANTAGE: Phillies.
STADIUMS: This being the inaugural season for the new Yankee Stadium, it gets a pass. It still has that new stadium smell. Besides, props to
MAYORS: Philly's mayor is a real nutter, Michael Nutter. But he's no asshole, winning respect for being one of the most effective urban mayors in the country. If Rudy Giuliani was still mayor of
TALK SHOW HOSTS: From 1965 to 1978, Philly had The Mike Douglas Show (ask your mom). While the host was often clueless–I still recall him asking Elton John if he really was gay and a taken aback John replying he figured everyone knew–asshole doesn't really fit. Meanwhile,
SONGS: Speaking of Elton John, remember “Philadelphia Freedom”? Nice, but it's no “New York, New York,” which drunk Yankee fans scream along to following each home win. They almost drown out the famous recording by Frank Sinatra, another huuuuuuge asshole when he was among the living and swinging. ADVANTAGE: Start spreading the news . . .
NICKNAMES: “The Big Apple.” An apple is shaped like an ass. But “The City of Brotherly Love” is actually an ironic twist on the fact that everyone who lives in Philly is an asshole. Look it up on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. ADVANTAGE: The town populated by the folks who put the “a's” in
ICONS: The Liberty Bell has an ass crack, but have you ever taken a good, hard look at the Statue of Liberty? She thinks she's sooooo hot. ADVANTAGE: Bring us you tired, huddled masses yearning to be assholes.
AIRPORTS: After a two-hour delay, I spent two more hours on the Philly runway before my plane finally took off. Beat that, JFK or Laguardia! ADVANTAGE: PHL.
FOODS: Mmmm,
CABBIES:
FINAL SCORE: When it comes to assholic-ness, Philly cream cheesers beat Big Apple biters by a schmear, 6-5.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.