This Week in Baseball |

When I was a kid in the ’70s, we lived out in the country. We couldn’t get a daily newspaper delivered. Cable TV wasn’t really available yet and satellite dishes were bigger than your car–and very expensive. Internet? You’ve got to be kidding. Sometimes, I’d get a Sports Illustrated subscription as a gift and sometimes I could read the Sunday newspaper over at my Grandfather’s house. But, other than that, I was dependent on broadcast TV for my sports news. The Phillies games were commonly on, with Harry Kalas on the mic. But I was a Twins fan, then an Angels fan, because of my favorite player, Rod Carew.

So I always tried to catch the weekly installment of This Week in Baseball with Mel Allen. I didn’t even know at the time that Mel Allen was the voice of the Yankees. I knew him as the TWIB guy. But the show kept me up to date with the other teams around the country including my Twins (or, Angels). I loved seeing the different parks and uniforms that I wouldn’t otherwise see unless they played against the Phillies or appeared on the Game of the Week.

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So I wanted to review the past “week in baseball” around here, at the award-winning Horn and Bell Blog. We’ve been busy:

A week ago Thursday, we attended the 2014 Phillies Winter Banquet. Dan provided an excellent review, with pictures, here It’s a great write-up and worth a look if you haven’t read it already.
No NoiseNation event would be complete without pictures and video from Cheryl Pursell. A post with video is here and a post with photos and Kram’s take is here .
Prior to the banquet, the IronPigs introduced a new perk for Season Ticket Holders: a loaded value credit for games in the first half of the season. I took a look at the win-win nature of the “Best Promotion Ever” here .
Although not official yet, as far as I know, the Phillies reportedly signed veteran pitcher Barry Enright. Recent news about Barry is that he was named the MVP of the finals for his winter Mexican League team. Read more about Barry here .
As if we weren’t busy enough, I came up with some things to do to pass the time so that I can be ready the second the IronPigs season begins. I shared them here .
Tuesday, the IronPigs released the preliminary promotion schedule for the 2014 season. It came in drips and drabs from the @PorkCenter, so I “live-blogged” it, then added the full schedule, here .
That wasn’t enough, though. The promos had me so excited that I had to get on the phone and discuss it with DiPro. The resultant podcast is here .
I took another look at the pool of players who will make up the majority of the IronPigs 2014 roster. Competition for jobs throughout the Phillies’ system should yield a competitive roster for this season. Read the massive post here .
As you click through those posts–if you haven’t already–you should note that there are other things going on. The SteelHawks are ramping up for the 2014 season, and the Rollergirls are about to get underway once again.
Finally, tomorrow, the Phantoms play a game in Philly against the Hershey Bears at the Wells Fargo Center. A NoiseNation contingent will be present. Stay tuned on Twitter for updates, and check back here for a post about the game next week.