The editors here at Philebrity aren’t above spending a night at a baseball game, watching flushed, pudgy white people sporting awkward facial hair and unnatural fabrics clap like epileptic otters, and swearing on Judas’s blood when the Phillies almost blow a six run lead. Frankly, it is some of the best people watching ever. Where else are you going to see more drunk under aged, over tanned, pug faced girls from the Northeast, besides, well, The Northeast?
Anyhoo, while the editors make no claim to believing in any kind of karma, inherent justice, or ecclesiastical system of checks and balances, last night whatever is running the universe gave us a gift. That gift more than made of for the fact that on Dollar Dog Night, the Phillie Phanatic shirked one of his most sacred Phanatic duties and DID NOT shoot the hot dogs from that crazy hot dog rocket launcher into the stands.
This gift was Napoleon Dynamite star, Efren Ramirez singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch. In case you were wondering, Efren played Napoleon’s Mexican buddy Pedro.
Why Efren Ramirez, you ask? Of all the C-listers out there, why on Dollar Dog Night, The Tigris and Euphrates of the Phillies experience, was Efren Ramirez chosen to lead the crowd in this rousing, feel good number? Lord knows it wasn’t for his vocal talent. The only answer we can think of is that Philadelphia native and Three’s Company star Norman Fell was unavailable. Mainly, Mr. Roper was unavailable because he died some years back, but still, it doesn’t get more unavailable than that.
(Alright, we here at Philebrity grudgingly acknowledge that he was probably there to promote his new movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. You know, that homewrecking movie. However, we still reserve the right to place this in the “What the Fuck?” category.)
First there was the singing. Then, there was the pandering. Oh boy, there was pandering.
As if the line “Buy me a cheese steak and crackerjacks” wasn’t disingenuous enough, Ramirez followed it up with the lyrical moneyshot, “Root, Root, Root for the Phillies.”
It pretty much had all the heart and soul of when some aging dinosaur of a rock star throws out some contrived local reference in the between song banter;

Sammy Hagar-esque Rock Star: Hey Philadelphia, So, I was driving down 95 today…(cue the crowd to start wildly applauding and foaming at the collective mouth)…and I had a CHEESESTEAK!!!

So bad. So forced. Yet, kind of amazing. All we can say is, gracias, Pedro, gracias.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2005 at 10:38 am.