Philadelphia Phillies World Champions

Brad Lidge throws the series winning strike

Last week saw The Philly’s win the baseball World Series for the 2nd time in their 125-year history. Their last success came in 1980. Philadelphia has been dry of sporting championships since 1983 when Dr.J and The 76ers won the NBA Finals. The Philly’s were often referred to as perennial losers, because of their long history they hold the record for the most losses in the MLB. They have lost a whopping 10,000+ games.

This Philly’s turned things around with some choice draft picks and free agent signings a couple of years ago. They won back-to-back division titles in 2007 & 2008, this year they finished with a 90-72 record and beat The Brewers and The Dodgers in the play-offs. In The World Series The Philly’s came up against the underrated Tampa Bay Rays, who had cause for celebration as they had reached their 1st World Series in only their 10th year of existence, incidently it took the Phillys 32 years to reach their 1st, and 98 years to win one. The Rays came into the World Series hot as they had come off impressive wins against The White Sox and The Red Sox.

The Philly’s proved too strong and won the 5 game series 4-1, in Philadelphia. That sounds quite one-sided, it wasn’t, only one game was a blowout. Game 4 ended 10-2, the rest were won by only a run or two. Game 5 had lots of twists and turns, the biggest been how rain suspended the game. This was the first time a in a World Series the game was delayed because of rain. The game was resumed 2 days later 2-2 in the bottom of the 6th innings. 4 innings left and it was some the most exciting baseball I had ever seen, it is such a shame The Rays couldn’t have pulled out a win to take the series back to Tampa for a 6th and 7th game.




Unlike UK Sports, The owners of the Franchise in the US lift the trophy


I gotta say I am not the biggest baseball fan, I check out the odd game in the early hours till I fall a sleep in front of the TV. My biggest moan is its loaded towards the pitchers and that I hardly ever see any homers. However this World Series really caught my interest. I only missed one game, sadly that was the blowout game that included 7 homers. I just wish I had caught some of the play-offs. As I am not an avid watcher of games, I learnt that pitchers do not play back-to-back games, they need 3 days rest. This is quite understandable when you think about it as they play a 162 game season in about 6 months, it really is the endurance game of the big four US Sports. Although I would say it’s the least physical, Football is only 16 regular season games, Basketball and Ice Hockey play 82 games in a season.

Channel 5’s coverage of the World Series was 1st class, a “Proper Hardcore” goes out to Jonny Gould and Josh Chetwynd, for the times were they effortlessly filled dead air waiting for delayed games to start. A great feature was how one of the shows US reporters reviewed the fast food at the stadiums. This feature definitely got my taste buds salivating. The traditional king of fast food from Philadelphia is a Philly cheese steak sandwich. After watching this I went to my local farm shop (Club Hill Farm) and Paul my butcher sliced some thinly cut prime Aberdeen Angus ribeye. I have to say I felt a bit guilty as I comment on how gorgeous the deep red ribeye looked and Paul told me it had been hung/aged for 6 weeks.

Knowing I needed some choice bread to enhance this sandwich. I used my basic Farl recipe and split the dough in two, I made a small loaf and a sausage shape to make a baguette. The beauty of having a baguette pan/tray. Is that you get the little dimples on the underside that makes it feel like you are eating the genuine article.




To start with I gently fried a couple of sliced onions for like 20-30 mins, till they are sweet and brown, but not burnt. To enhance the beefiness I included some of the beef fat to render down with the onions.. I warmed the baguette and buttered it, then gently fried the beef. I Layered the meat, onions and then some smoked Monterrey Jack to melt on top. The beef on its own was very nice, but the addition of onions and cheese made this probably the best steak sandwich I have ever had. And about as authentic a Philly cheese teak sandwich, I am going to taste outside of visiting Philadelphia for myself.

The steak was about 2 inch thick and cost me about £6.50. That is expensive, however it was basically 2 x steaks and I got a foot long sandwich out of it. I had one half for dinner and then the 2nd half as a midnight snack with a cool Michelob beer whilst watching Smokey and The Bandit (1977) on ITV 2 or 3. Watching the film perhaps I should have been drinking Coors, a beer I love, as Reynolds aim in the film is to bootleg 400 cases of Coors from Texas to Georgia, plus I saw someone wearing a Coors T-Shirt in the film. Another interesting side note, apparently Reynolds Pontiac Trans-Am SE, sale price with all the extras cost about $8000 back in '77. Second interesting fact in just 2 years by the time of '79 sales of the car had almost doubled from 70,000 to 120,000. Third fact a 1980 version of this car pops up in Kill Bill 2 (2004). Final Fact, The Prodigy borrowed a Jackie Gleeson (Sheriff Buford T. Justice) line from the film "What we're dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the law" for the song Their Law..

Anyway back to the sandwich, I baked it in the oven for 30mins, the sandwich was even better, the baguette crisper, the cheese gooier and the meat and onions even more sweeter. I have to say for sheer satisfaction whilst eating, The Philly just beats out The Muff. Its all about the fried meat and the juices… that's the secret

My local Farmshop

Club Hill Farm

Drain Lane,

Newport,

Brough,

Yorkshire

HU15 2QQ

Tel.no : 01430 440338