I can laugh now
It’s a long foul ball, sailing high over the Packer Avenue fence, coming in for a landing … straight into the windshield of a black Acura Integra … Beep! BEEP!! BEEP!!!
Players and fans are suddenly distracted from the baseball playoff game between Girard Academic Music Program and Mastbaum.
"Holy @#%&!"
"Whose car was that?"
Unfortunately, it was mine.
In my five years of covering GAMP baseball, I’d always parked alongside Sabres Field on Packer Avenue. Never in those five years did a foul ball come close to hitting my car.
The GAMP players and spectators quickly offered their condolences, and were nice enough to offer suggestions of places to get a new windshield.
The fun part was driving home. Luckily, the bulk of the damage was to the passenger’s side, so I still had a clear view of the highway.
I spent the following day getting a new windshield, one I vowed to keep away from unprotected foul-ball territory. Even though odds were probably slim that a foul ball would strike the same car twice in one week, I wasn’t taking any chances. When I went to Northeast High to cover the GAMP quarterfinal game the following week, I parked as far away from the baseball field as I could — in the school parking lot.
As soon as I arrived at the field, everybody started asking how the car was doing. What, was I wearing a sign? "There’s the guy with the broken windshield."
I was happy to let everyone know that the car made a full recovery.
For fans attending games at Seventh Street and Packer Avenue, be warned that the parking spot adjacent to first base might not be as safe as it seems.
The pick
As a sportswriter for the Review, the chances of my face showing up in other newspapers around the city are extremely slim.
But when the Phillies unveiled their grass field at Citizens Bank Park last fall, I was standing in the background, directly behind manager Larry Bowa. Little did I know that I had my finger on my nose, and little did I know that the photographer from the Philadelphia Inquirer was taking a picture. So when I opened the Inquirer sports section the next day, I was excited to find myself there — despite that my parents had to put on their reading glasses to see me.
I just happened to be scratching the outside of my nose when the picture was snapped. Like Jerry Seinfeld said on his sitcom, "It wasn’t a pick!"
Nonetheless, when friends asked where I was in the picture, I quickly responded, "I am the one picking my nose."
A familiar face
In my early years at the Review, I enjoyed having my picture appear in this paper — often in subtle ways. It became a game trying to get in the paper every week.
The most memorable shot was of pro wrestler "The Blue Meanie" putting me in a headlock. The blue-haired character stopped by the Review office one hot summer afternoon for a Lifestyles interview. Deciding to have a little fun with him, I allowed myself to be put in a headlock (which didn’t hurt, despite how it looks). But I wasn’t expecting the photo to be part of the Lifestyles spread.
Five years later, the picture remains editorial billboard material with the caption, "He’s cool. He’s sweet. He’s hot. He’s romantic. He’s Bill Gelman."
Over the years, I’ve made other cameo appearances throughout the paper. There was the story about a bad odor in South Philadelphia — no, not me — so I volunteered my services to hold my nose for a concept photo.
Then there was mini-me. Our creative art director, Brendan Moss, put together a photo spread for an article I wrote about the skateboard park underneath I-95. The Review should’ve given away prizes for the first person who found the itty-bitty version of me interviewing a little kid on Rollerblades among the action shots on the page.
The greatest exposure came when yours truly made the cover photo collage of the 1999 Fall Guide, titled "Faces of the Future." My photo, which appears in the bottom right-hand corner, turned out to be a handy space-filler.
I like the way that sounds: Bill Gelman, Face of the Future.
Scoring with humor
As a youth athletic coach, Steve Bandura sees his kids do a lot of funny things. One player in particular, D’Var Brown, has provided a couple of memorable moments.
Bandura always kept his baseball cleats in the trunk of his car, but didn’t expect he would have to lend them to one of his players.
But Brown, a player for the Anderson Monarchs, forgot his cleats on a day he was scheduled to pitch. The young athlete was wearing his pinstripe uniform with school dress shoes.
"Do you expect to pitch in those?" Bandura asked him.
Obviously, Brown couldn’t. So the coach opened his trunk and loaned him his size-11 cleats. They might have been four sizes too big, but the pitcher still won the game.
"He always remembered his cleats after that," Bandura said.
Brown also was good for a laugh on the soccer field. The athlete was playing goalie for the Monarchs’ 11- to 12-year-old soccer team, and for most of the game, didn’t have to stop too many shots.
Suddenly, the ball was coming toward Brown, but instead of being in the net, he was running around behind it. The coach and teammates started yelling at Brown to get back in goal, which he did in time to stop the shot. After the Monarchs won the game, Bandura asked why he was running around behind the net.
"I was chasing the squirrel out of the box," Brown said.
Rookie mistake
Sometimes rookies need to be taught a lesson — even those who play in the big leagues.
South Philly native and former major-league catcher John Marzano helped drive home that reality for rookie pitcher Ryan Anderson while in spring training with the Seattle Mariners. Anderson, who was selected with the 19th overall pick in the June 1997 draft, thought he was ready to play with the big boys.
After dominating all-stars Edgar Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez at the plate, the pitcher was confident — and then some.
Marzano remembered Anderson telling reporters that he "absolutely dominated those guys and it proved what a dominating pitcher he was going to be in the big leagues."
Anderson added that he threw "in the mid-100s."
Steve Carlton didn’t even throw in the mid-100s.
The following day, the veteran players made sure their rookie sensation was properly welcomed into the big leagues. They rolled out the red carpet from the beginning of the Mariners’ locker room directly into Anderson’s locker. They even posted the newspaper clippings in his locker. Waiting on the table were 24 baseballs for the athlete to sign — one for every player on the roster.
Little did Anderson know that the joke was on him.
"The kid actually started signing the balls for the guys on the team," Marzano recalled. "We started cracking up."
Injuries have since prevented the pitcher from living up to his star potential.
Hip-hop hitting
Softball season is just getting underway, and the St. Maria Goretti players are already missing former teammate Heather Cacciola, who graduated last year.
Sure, she was a great team leader, but that’s just part of it.
The outfielder also entertained the troops each time she prepared to hit.
Some players steel themselves by digging their feet into the dirt, some take warm-up waves across the plate and others stretch.
Cacciola would rap.
There wasn’t necessarily one song she favored, but whatever beat she picked, the entire Goretti bench would join in. It might sound a little distracting, but Cacciola, who also liked to shake her head and dance, thrived off it.
"It helped her focus," senior Kim Jannelli said. "She would hit the ball every time."
Cacciola, who now attends Neumann College, hit over .400 her senior year and earned First Team All-Catholic honors.
Coach Chip Reitano, who also coached the rapping athlete for three years on the basketball team, which she captained, said Cacciola always lightened the mood.
"Nothing she did ever surprised me," the coach said.
Furry and funny
Tom Burgoyne, aka the Phillie Phanatic, enjoys a few yuks every time he steps onto the baseball field. After all, making people laugh is pretty much his job description.
He got some unexpected chuckles when the golden retriever from the Air Bud movies stopped at the Vet to promote Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch. Before the game, Burgoyne spent some time practicing the toss to the canine with his mascot head on and off to get the timing down. But he didn’t factor in the dog’s reaction to the warm-up catches taking place on the field.
Air Bud raced back and forth, trying to catch the ball that shortstop Jimmy Rollins and Travis Lee were using to practice grounders. The Phanatic recalled it was like a game of monkey in the middle.
By the time warm-ups ended, it took three trainers to remove the dog from the field, Burgoyne said. "We delayed the game by a couple minutes."
The Phanatic also had some laughs at the expense of Joe Carter when the Toronto Blue Jays came to town during the 1997 season. Phillies fans remember Carter for killing the team’s championship dreams in the 1993 World Series. The Phanatic exploited that history by arriving on the field with a dummy dressed in a Carter uniform, which he started pummeling. Once the outfielder noticed what was going on, he took the dummy and started hitting the Phanatic over the head with it. For good measure, Carter flipped over the mascot’s four-wheeler.
The next night, Burgoyne decided to leave Carter alone, thinking he might’ve taken things too far. When he went into the visitors’ locker room before the final game of the series, Carter asked the Phanatic what happened last night. This time around, Carter did the instigating. Right after the national anthem, he flipped the Phanatic’s four-wheeler on its side and challenged his rival to an outfield brawl. They battled hold for hold on the outfield turf.
"I like to say the mascot got the better of Joe Carter," Burgoyne said.
Hooping it up
Jim Phelan always gets a good laugh when he tells the story of his old South Philly buddy, Paul Arizin. The player is famous for getting cut from the La Salle High basketball team his senior year and later becoming one of the 50 greatest athletes in NBA history.
After high school, Arizin enrolled at Villanova University without an athletic scholarship. The future hall-of-famer spent his freshman year playing in the industrial leagues at 20th and Johnston streets. Once rumors started circulating that Arizin was tearing it up on the courts, the Villanova head basketball coach decided to check out a game.
Phelan, who spent 49 seasons coaching the Mount St. Mary’s men’s basketball team, remembers the conversation like it was yesterday.
Coach: "How would you like to go to Villanova?"
Arizin: "I already go there."
A week later, he was on the team. The basketball legend, who won an NBA championship with the Philadelphia Warriors in 1956, left his mark at ‘Nova by leading the nation in scoring his senior year with 25.3 points per game and setting a single-game scoring record with 85 points. The 10-time NBA All-Star played 10 seasons with the Warriors and retired with 16,266 points.
Paul Arizin who?
He’s for Reil
Regular citizen Billy Reil (pronounced "Real") has garnered headlines for stopping two crimes in progress — a holdup last week at Prudential Bank, Broad and Castle, and a purse-snatching outside his home in 2002.
He might as well wear a cape, especially since he works in pro wrestling, an industry famous for its characters.
Billy "The Real Deal" Reil, as he is known in the ring, says he has experienced just as many priceless moments on the job as through his impromptu crime-fighting.
Pro wrestlers acknowledge that their fights are largely scripted, but certain plot twists just couldn’t be made up. For example, back in 1996, an opponent told Reil before a match, "Don’t touch my hair."
Reil, who wrestles for a New York-based independent organization, didn’t take the comment too seriously since in wrestling, little is off limits. So when he went to lift his opponent off the mat, the Furness grad put one hand on the wrestler’s mullet and the next thing he knew, a wig was lying in the middle of the ring.
"[The opponent] said, ‘*&%@!’ grabbed his hair and ran to the back," Reil said.
