Phillies to Quell Public Demand for Series of Grand Feasts

The Phillies may not be able to claim they’re the 2012 NL East division champions, or give you the last year of your life back, but they can at least let you eat your feelings.

And eat them you shall; gorge on them, really.  You’ll be so crammed full of your own emotions you won’t even be able to leave the table.  As you clutch your stomach and groan at the bitter taste of your own feelings, Ruben Amaro will nod slyly from the corner and know he can proceed with his latest controversial signing without so much as a peep from a recently incapacitated you.

If he were the type to enjoy a maniacal laugh, this would be the time.  But he’s more of a “quiet, sinister smirk” kind of GM.

There are at least two feasts on the schedule this winter, and the bad news is, they’re within 48 hours of each other.

Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports

The first is the Phillies Winter Banquet, January 22 at the Crowne Plaza Reading.  The shindig kicks off with cocktails at 5:30, then segways seamlessly into dinner an hour later.  No word yet on what we’re supposed to do if dinner is starting and we “haven’t even finished our sixth drink yet god damn it” but I am sure that stipulation will come along soon enough.

Featured guests include Reading folk legend Darin Ruf, front office-types Joe Jordan, Marti Wolever, and Steve Noworyta, noted voice-haver Tom McCarthy, and comic book villain Ruben Amaro, Jr.  The evening concludes with the inauguration of Reading’s  2013 King of Baseballtown, an office that is held annually and cannot be won by the same candidate consecutively.  Reading seems to be leaving good hands after a productive year, unlike the 1911 King of Baseballtown, who traded the city’s canned food supply for four baseballs and lost three of them during a pick-up game in which nine people starved to death.

Two days later on the 24th, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs get their turn to stuff you full.  So competitive are they with the Fightins’ ceremony that they didn’t even use a different name.  So be sure to check out the 2013 Phillies Winter Banquet, This Time Hosted by the IronPigs.

Attendees to this one will get to meet a few of them same people in Nowortya, Jordan, and Amaro, but there’s also other fellows like Charlie Manuel, whose had a rough winter due to people being so mad at Andy Reid they just by proxy become mad at him.  I don’t know, because they’re both coaches or something.  People are idiots.

Also there will be new IronPigs head coach/celebrated head-puncher Dave Brundage, Phillies 2013 Opening Day catcher Erik Kratz, usually-shouting infielder Kevin Frandsen, and Amaro henchman Benny Looper.  No word yet on whether Looper will be wearing the traditional red and black cloak assigned to henchmen in his field.