Happy Halladays, Merry Cliffmas, and Roy to the World to Phillies phans everywhere and to all the BILF Reporter’s readers!  I hope you find 35 pieces of Cole in your stocking on Christmas morning, even if you’ve been a very good boy or girl. 

If you’re looking to get into the holiday spirit Phillies-style, this is a must-read!  Thanks to the fine folks at the Phillyist for writing this funny-as-hell Phillies version of “The Night Before Christmas,” appropriately titled “A Visit from Saint Cliff.”

Before Saturday’s game, they had the Phillies take the field with their children to play a dads-vs-kids game.  I have to say that the Hamels family is simply adorable:

And doesn’t Cole look like he really enjoys being a daddy? 

While watching the Phillies families on the field, I got to meet twins backup catcher Drew Butera (who hit his first major league home run later that day, by the way!), who undoubtedly thinks I’m an idiot for not catching my baseball when he threw it back to me.  Oops. 

Once the Phillies were off the field, I went to watch the Twins warm up.  Here are Tolbert and Hudson.

And here are Morneau and Hudson.

I thought I was dreaming, but Justin Morneau came over to the fence to sign autographs!

Here I am with Morneau (well, it’s the back of my head, anyway).  He was really nice and very humble.  I thanked hi for having such an awesome year and told him I picked him first for my fantasy team, and he grinned and thanked me.  (By the way, he has the most AMAZING blue eyes.  Wow.)

The Phillies ushers were kind enough to let those of us seeking Twins autographs stay by the fence a long time.  I was still down there when the national anthem was being sung.  And what a view I had for the national anthem…

It was a good thing I stayed down there.  After the national anthem was over, I saw Tolbert headed toward the dugout.  While everyone else was yelling for Span or Cuddyer to come on over, I called out to Tolbert.  I was the only one who yelled for him, and as soon as he heard his name, he looked at me, briefly conferred with a coach, and then trotted over to sign autographs–I thought that was very nice!

The next day, I went down to the fence to see who else I could meet before the game started.  Here’s Morneau, Tolbert, Cuddyer and Hudson warming up.

The bullpen was also out warming up.  This is Ron Mahay–I got his autograph, too.

I don’t have pictures of them, but I also got Matt Guerrier, Jesse Crain, and Scott Baker to sign my baseball.  Baker totally gave me a bit of a weird look since I was wearing a Phillies shirt with a Twins hat and handed him a Phillies pen to sign with.  He’s cute, so I’ll forgive him for that…although I’m not so sure I can forgive him for imploding yesterday against the Mets.  (I was at yesterday’s game too, but wasn’t trying to meet anyone.  I did, however, get burnt to a crisp.  Hey, at least I’m Phillies red now!)

Here are the baseballs I got signed at the Phillies/Twins series.  I had Morneau sign one ball, and the other 6 Twins signed the other one.  Seriously, I’ve been fighting the urge to sleep with the Morneau signed ball under my pillow. 

The good: Taking 2 out of 3 in this past weekend’s series with the Mets.  Combining Saturday’s and Sunday’s runs, we had 21…to their 5.  Love it!  Santana got shelled (love that, too).  Victorino hit a grand slam.  Doc was incredible, and Moyer put forth a pretty solid effort (who’d have thought he’d outlast Johan the Great?  AND be the guy that gets walked so that a run scores?)  Beautiful.  Just beautiful.

Of course, there’s the bad: We got our buttshanded to us on Friday.  Kendrick still sucks.  And people like this moron infested my lovely city of Philadelphia all weekend long.

And then there’s the stupid: Ryan Madson, I’m looking at you.  Kicking a chair out of frustration and breaking your toe?  STUPID.  Also, moronic Phillies fan who ran onto the field and got Tasered?  Between you and Vomiting Phillies Fan from a few weeks ago, you’re making us ALL look like jerkfaces.  (We’re not all jerkfaces.  But the nice/cool Phillies fans don’t seem to make many headlines.)

And, finally, the hot: We saw the return of Brad Lidge, and damn, have I missed watching him!  He didn’t implode, which is also hot (not that he really had a chance to, though).  And the hottest thing of all?  In 20 days, I’m gonna be meeting COLE HAMELS.  I got my Photo Booth ticket in the mail yesterday…I’m already so excited/hyperactive/etc!  *squeal*  Yes, I know, I’ve met Hamels before.  But he’s still hot, and so I want to meet him again.  I cannot believe I have almost 3 weeks to wait!  At least between now and then I’ll be going to a Twins game, which will temporarily distract me from Hamels-related hyperness (although hopefully I get my voice back in time to meet Hamels…screaming at all the gorgeous Twins can really take its toll on one’s throat, you know!)

Right now both of my teams (Phillies and Twins) are in first place.  Not by much, but by enough.  And hopefully they both keep kickin’ butt… 

 There are not many days where I wish I could ship myself halfway across the country and jump out of a birthday cake…but today is one of those days.  I’m sure many of you other ladies with excellent taste in ballplayers feel similarly.  Who’s up for starting a Traveling Cake Brigade with me? 

But I digress.  I’m thrilled my two favorite teams both won their home openers (Phillies–7-4 over the Nats; Twins beat the Sawx 5-2).  Not so pleased that Hamels was slightly sucktacular, and also not thrilled that Werth and Rollins are now injured.  Totally happy that the Phillies have a 6-1 record, tied for best record in the National League (tied with the Giants, believe it or not…who’da thunk it?).  Also thrilled with Jon Rauch, the Twins’ closer (since Nathan’s out for at least the entire season)–he’s netted me 5 saves so far for each of my fantasy teams.  (On a related note?  Tattoos are sexy.  Moving on…)

In related but completely unsurprising news, I really need to get my butt to Target Field at some point.  I have no interest in the walleye-on-a-stick, but watching Mauer hit a home run while I snack on some good ol’ midwestern cheese curds sounds like an absolutely grand time to me!  And speaking of Mauer, I watched his Homecoming episode on ESPN last night and absolutely loved it.  Mauer seems so sweet and charming!  I’ve also heard that he answers all his fan mail himself, so I’m going to have to come up with something clever to write to him.  (No, it won’t be “Marry me, Mauer”–that’s so overdone.)  Take a little peek at Mauer’s Homecoming episode by clicking here.  If you aren’t totally charmed by him…well, you’re probably just not human!

The birds are singing, the sun is shining, and–most importantly–BASEBALL IS BACK.  Just knowing that tonight I’m gonna go home and watch Twins/Angels makes me deliriously happy.  (Wish I could watch Phillies/Nats, but unfortunately, I’m working, and they’d probably get ticked if I started watching the game at work.  And they’d know about it because, well, I scream when I watch games.  And squeal.  A lot.)

I was pretty agnostic regarding who I wanted to win last night’s Opening Day game, Red Sox vs. Yankees.  On one fantasy team, I have Sabathia and Scutaro (cutie!), so my ideal fantasy situation was to have Sabathia get the win and some Ks but for Scutaro to get a couple hits off him.  It didn’t quite go as planned–Sabathia was less good than I’d thought he’d be, although thankfully he got a no-decision (I’d have been really ticked if he’d gotten a loss in his first game).  Scutaro ws better than I thought he’d be–he was 2 for 3 with one RBI, a run scored, and a walk.  Not too shabby at all (plus he’s fun to watch because he’s cute, and also because Scutaro at bat meant Ellsbury would be up next, and while Ellsbury wasn’t so great last night, he at least looked good…despite also looking frustrated).

Even though I didn’t really care about the outcome of last night’s game, I sat there on my couch grinning like a Cheshire cat as I watched the game.  It didn’t matter who was playing–baseball’s finally back, and I couldn’t be happier!  I’ll watch any team, any game, anytime…I can always find someone to cheer for, drool over, or scream at!  Just knowing that there’s an entire season’s worth of this sort of awesomeness coming my way makes me feel like the happiest girl in the world!

And in other Phillies news, I heart this Deadspin article!  The future’s so bright, we’ve gotta wear shades…like a certain Mr. Werth always does! 

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