Trade with the Night Owl

I got an email out of the blue from The Night Owl the other week, offering me a trade, his Phillies and Astros for my Dodgers. He even sent a list of what he had. We reached a deal quickly. Here are my favorites from what he sent.

2004 SP Prospects Jim Thome (#44)I only had one card from this set, the Roy Oswalt. Now I have a Phillie to keep him company.

2009 Upper Decl Scott Eyre (#811)
Normally I wouldn't be too excited about a player like Scott Eyre. He was acquired by the Phillies in August 2008. Overall he was 5-3 for the Phillies in 2008 and 2009. He only pitched a few innings in the 2008 and 2009 playoffs but he pitched well. Ten years from now I'd be featuring him as a Phorgotten Phillie Phile. As near as I can tell there are only 3 cards featuring Eyre as a Phillie. One from 2008, this 2009 UD and the gold parallel to the UD. So this is the only Scott Eyre as a Phillie I have. From his Wikipedia entry, Eyre has retired. He also suffers from adult attention deficit disorder.

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Steve Carlton (# 124)
I bought a hobby box of Goodwin. It is probably my favorite set of the year from an appearance standpoint, even though I'm pretty tired of these retro themed cards. I already had the mini version of this card.

2009 Topps Chrome Refractor Auto Sergio Escalona (#239)
I had to give up a Dodger Allen & Ginter auto for this one. The card features an on-card auto and is numbered to 499. Escalona was 1-0 for the Phillies in 2009 in 14 appearances. Probably another Phorgotten Phillie some day.

1995 Pinnacle Team Pinnacle Roberto Alomar/Craig Biggio (#4)
This is the back of the card. Alomar is on the front. The back of this card is a lot more fancy than the front which was puzzling to me when I saw it. According to Beckett, this is a parallel to the rebular Team Pinnacle insert. This one has a Dufex back. The front is just foil. This card has so much foil on it that it will hold it's shape if you bend it slightly. Then you can flatten it back out. I never saw one of these before.

2000 Upper Deck Gold Reserve Scott Rolen (#237)
In addition to the Rolen, I also got Mike Jackson and Rico Brogna. I had never had one of these Gold Reserve cards.

In addition to these were the following:
2009 Topps Chrome Brad Lidge (#5)
2009 Topps Chrome Geoff Jenkins (#13)
2009 Topps Chrome Chase Utley (#62)
2009 Topps Chrome Miguel Tejada (#64)
2009 Topps Chrome Carlos Lee (#122)
2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom Hunter Pence (#22)
2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom deckle edge Chase Utley (#176)
2009 O-Pee-Chee Brian Moehler (#342)
2009 Goodwin Champions mini Jimmy Rollins (#215)
2009 Goodwin Champions mini black border Michael Bourn (#251)
2009 Uper Deck Icons Lance Berkman (#73)
2009 Upper Deck Xponential 3 Ryan Howard (#X3-HO)
2008 Topps Stadium Club Cole Hamels (#690
2006 Fleer Ryan Howard
2006 Topps Rookie of the Week Mike Schmidt (#615)
2001 Upper Deck Vintage Randy Wolf (#302)

I'm pretty happy with these. I sent out my cards to Greg last Saturday. I hope he is as happy with his end of the trade.

Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia PA

One of the things Christmas does for all of us is make us nostalgic for earlier times. We live in Texas but we grew up in Philadelphia and all our relatives are in that area. From 1961 to 1978 I lived in the Northeast section of the city. We lived in various houses but always within walking distance of Frankford Avenue, generally called "The Avenue" by locals. Frankford Avenue has a long history. It was once an Indian trail and in colonial times, it was the main highway to New York City. In August 2007 I was in Philly and took a walk along The Avenue. Here are some of my photos.This may just look like a tree but it isn't just any tree. In 1963 or so, my Boy Scout troop, with the help of local merchants, planted trees for several miles along Frankford Avenue. Many of them still survive. This is one of the survivors.
When we first moved into the area, this was the Pennypack Movie Theater. It closed soon after we moved there and I never actually saw a movie there. It was a furniture store for many years and is now a dollar store. It still has the original marquee.
This building dates back to colonial times. Located at Rhawn and Frankford it is at the center of what was the town of Holmesburg before it was incorporated into Philadelphia many years ago. When I was a kid, this was a drugstore. When my mother was a kid it was a drugstore. As a teenager she hung out at the soda fountain there.
In the late 1960s this was a Jack-in-the-Box fast food place. It was the first fast food restaurant in the neighborhood. As I remember you could get hamburgers for a dime. We used to spend a lot of time there.
This is a portion of The Avenue where real retail district starts. Although Frankford Avenue for most of it's length has many retail stores, from here and for the next 10 blocks or so it is all retail. It really doesn't look much different now than it did then. Except I don't remember there being chain fences in front of the windows. Times do change.
Moe's. A fine Philadelphia delicatessen. One thing you don't see too much in my part of Texas. Great lunch meat (cold cuts to the rest of you) and great bread. One of my old Philly friends moved to New England in the early 1980s. Every time we visited him we had to bring him rye bread from Moes.
The Mayfair Diner. A dying breed, the railroad car diner. This has been the Mayfair diner since about 1920. The current place was built in the 1940s. It's a classic and seems to still do a good business. Barak Obama visited there in October 2008 while running for president. My sister-in-law was there for the occasion.



This is the corner of Frankfort and Cottman Avenue. The heart of the retail district. This furniture store used to be a classy woman's dress store called The York Shop where my Mom used to buy clothes.
Also at Frankford and Cottman, this used to be the Mayfair Movie Theater. The taller structure in the back was the actual theater. The part in the front, which is now a bank, was the lobby. It was a drug store for a long time before the bank moved in. I didn't go in so I don't know what they are using the old auditorium for these days.
This Family Dollar store was a Woolworth's when I lived there. My Mom used to work there, dressing the windows, in the 1940s. It had wooden floors and a soda fountain, even in the 1960s.

Well, that's it. I hope I didn't bore you too much. Or, if you're an old Philadelphian far from home, I hope you enjoyed this little trip down the Avenue of memories.

Bald Eagles in Philadelphia

I'm sitting here stuck in the Philadelphia airport waiting for some weather to clear so I can get back to Texas. Since we were going to be awhile I decided to pony up for some ATT Wireless Internet Connection. After putting in my credit card number I couldn't get the connection to work. I called them and they gave me a free connection! So here's a quick post of a highlight of our trip. Bald eagles nesting in Philadelphia.

I mostly grew up in Northeast Philly and a big feature of the area is Pennypack Park. The park runs down both sides of the Pennypack Creek which empties into the Delaware River. Sometime last summer, a pair of eagles set up a nest in the park near the river. The city has fenced in the entire area but allows foot traffic in. You can only get within about a 1000 feet. With the right camera you can get a pretty good picture. It was a gray day but I got a good shot.

Photography: Public Art - Philadelphia

We're in Philadelphia this week on vacation. These pictures are from a previous trip. These three pieces are along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

Kopernik

The piece above is called Kopernik. The artist is Dudley Vaill Talcott (1899-1986). The sculpture was dedicated on 8/15/73 and commemorates the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). It stands 12 feet tall and is located on the Parkway at 18th Street. There is a good write-up here. If you click on the photo you'll get a bigger image. You'll be able to see the scourge of all public statuary. There is a pigeon sitting on the lower part of the circle and ample evidence of other pigeons.

Three-Way Piece Number 1: Points

I wasn't able to find out as much information on this as on Kopernik. The artist was Henry Moore. The piece is 6 feet, 4 inches tall and is located on the Parkway near 16th Street. It was installed in 1964. I have recollections of seeing this piece in the late 1960s. This photo was taken by me in 2006. There may also be a copy of this located in Kansas City Missouri. While researching this I found an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about theft of metal statues. The copper dedication plaque for the piece was stolen sometime in January 2008. Apparently the whole statue was too big to take.

The Prophet
There was even less information on this piece. The artist was Jacob Lipkin and it was dedicated in 1968. It is currently located on the Parkway at 16th Street (it's to the right of the Henry Moore piece). It was originally located on John F. Kennedy Plaza, a few blocks down the Parkway but was moved here in 1974. It stands about 8 feet tall. Examples of Lipkin's work (although not this piece) can be found here.

Philadelphia Scenes: Then and Now

Second in a series comparing some photos I took from the top of City Hall in Philadelphia in 1968 to similar pictures I took in 2006.

This first photo is the Philadelphia Municipal Services Building. I think it is also called the City Hall Annex. It was completed in 1963 so was still a new building in this photo. It has a large, empty plaza on one side. It's 265 feet tall (16 stories) and the design won an award from the American Institute of Architects in 1967.

38 years after I took this photo the building is still standing but as you can see the plaza is no longer empty.

There are several art works now in the plaza. One is a bigger-than-life statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo. You can just make it out if you click on the photo to enlarge it. The statue is in the lower left corner. The statue is made to look like Rizzo walking down the short flight of steps from the plaza to the street. At the center bottom of the picture is a very large piece called "Government of the People". It is my recollection that this statue was previously located on the Ben Franklin Parkway. I also remember that Frank Rizzo was very critical of this statue. I find it ironic that they now share a public space. It was erected in 1976 and there are some good pictures of it here. This site also shows two other statues on the plaza which aren't visible in my photo.


You can also see a number of small pieces scattered all over the plaza. These pieces collectively are called "Your Move" and represent many game pieces. In this close-up you can see dominoes and several game markers. There are also chess men and checkers. To give you a sense of scale, the dominoes are about 8 feet tall. It was completed in 1996.

Philadelphia Scenes - Then and Now

Philadelphia East Market Street

For those who don't know Philadelphia, the downtown area is bisected by two streets. Broad Street runs north and south and Market Street runs east and west. At the intersection of these streets sits Philadelphia's City Hall. Here is a photo of City Hall looking south down Broad Street. This photo was taken in June 2006 and the building was being renovated. Most of the lower portion of the building is covered by scaffolding. On top of the tower is a large statue of William Penn, the city founder. At the base of the statue is an observation deck. It was a beautiful day so I decided to go up to the deck and take some pictures.
This is the view from the tower looking east on Market Street. The Delaware River can be seen in the background. What about that building with PFSF on the side. PSFS means Philadelphia Savings Fund Society. At one time it was the oldest and one of the most powerful banks in the city. It had been founded in 1816 and was the first savings bank in the country. In the early '90s it was acquired by a bank from Pittsburgh. And there have been many mergers since then. But through it all, each owner of the building has agreed to maintain the sign because it is a Philadelphia landmark. The building, erected in 1932, is a National Historical Landmark. It is 32 stories tall and in 1932 was considered a skyscraper. Today it is the Lowe's Philadelphia Hotel.
The following picture I took in 1968 in roughly the same direction. Back then, the PSFS building, along with City Hall dominated the city skyline. And look at how hazy it is! I remember this day as being a sunny summer day. The two hulking buildings to the left of the PSFS building (about a third of the way from the top), were the two of the three dominant department stores in the city, Lits on the north side of Market and Gimbals directly across the street. The third large store was Wanamakers which was located across the street from City Hall. All three stores have long since gone out of business.
A funny story about my visit to the tower in 2006. To get on the observation deck you ride a tiny elevator up through the tower. The tower is just a shell, there are no rooms in it. The elevator holds the operator and 3-4 people. Riding up with me that day was a man and his young son. We got to talking and the guy said his wife had reported to jury duty (the courts are in City Hall) and he decided to take his son up on the tower while he was waiting for her. I told him I hadn't been there since 1968. After I left the tower I checked out of my hotel, got a rental car and drove out to my sister-in-law's house in another part of the city where I was to spend the weekend. On the way there I decided to visit the one of the neighborhoods I lived in as a kid. As I was heading off the freeway and on to the surface streets I thought I'd have lunch first. After driving around for awhile I found a Wendy's. As I was waiting in line I realized that the guy who had visited the observation deck with me was standing in front of me with his son and wife. I said hello and he practically jumped out of his shoes with surprise.

Philadelphia Scenes

Although I now live in the Houston Texas area, I was born and raised in Philadelphia and lived in the city or its suburbs for 44 years. I was in Philadelphia in 2006 and 2007 visiting friends and relatives and I was able to get out and take pictures of what I still consider my home town. Luckily, I had excellent weather for each of my photo taking expeditions so the photos turned out great. I'll post more photos from time to time. I thought I'd start with some of the places I used to hang out at with my friends Dave and Brian when I was a teenager. If you click on a picture you'll get a larger view of it.

This first photo is the side wall of a store. We used to play wall ball (bouncing a pimple ball or pink rubber ball off the wall). We called the place "The Wall" as in "I'll meet you after school at The Wall".












This is the Holmesburg Branch of the Philadelphia Library. It is just down the street from the Wall. The steps were a great place for lounging. And we were all great readers as well so we were also acquainted with the insides. To the left of the building was an open place where we used to play touch football. Its fenced off now.

The inside of the building is completely different. I remember there being row after row of shelves in the center of the two rooms. Now most of the books are on shelves arranged along the outside walls. The center of the rooms is given over to audiovisual materials and computers (neither of which was even dreamed of in the 1960s.)





The library was built in 1911. This is some of the architectural detail. Its located above and on either side of the front door. I don't think they build public buildings with this sort of thing anymore.















This place used to be a bar called Michelos. Of course since it was a bar and we weren't 21, we didn't exactly hang out there. But my friend Dave worked there for awhile as a bus boy. His first job I think.

It looks entirely different. I'm not even sure its the same building. It appears to be a hang out for firemen.









There used to be a fast food place here called Jack in the Box. Jack in the Box is pretty popular in some parts of the country (like Texas) but I don't think they operate in Philadelphia any more. The original building was shaped like a cube and patterned to look like a toy jack in the box. It was the first fast food joint that we had easy access to (its about 2 blocks south of the library) and it was cheap, which we teenagers appreciated.