Here's Your Rocktober

You'd think we'd be used to this by now.

by Brian Howard

We're watching baseball for the third straight October, so you'd think — especially after winning a World Series in a game suspended for two days due to a Nor'easter, and one which Major League Baseball and the umps seemed hell bent on handing to the Rays — that we'd be a little bit used to this by now. The nail-biting ninth innings. The improbable rallies. The wacky bullpen management. And yet ...

There I was Monday night at ye olde Buffalo Billiards shouting profanities at a TV screen in a room full of people doing the same. First at Phillies third baseman Pedro Feliz for waging yet another rally-killing at-bat and then at Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba who, after cracking a big two-run double in the eighth, made such an unbecoming spectacle of himself at second base, it's almost certain Brett Myers will put a fastball in his ear flap the next chance he gets.

Yes, the bottom of the eighth on Monday was gut-wrenching. The Rockies' late-game rally seemed to suck the life out of the bar, if not the city.

But not out of the Phils. A lot's happened between 2007's first-round playoff ouster and now, namely the World F. Championship. In his season preview back in April, Sports Complex columnist E. James Beale wrote that winning the chip would either make the team lazy, or be proof that they could power past the distractions that come with it. If staging a three-run, two-out rally against a tough closer in hostile, freezing territory to stave off a long flight home for a do-or-die fifth game the next day isn't proof that this team ain't satisfied, I don't know what is. And as I and a table full of friends jumped around the bar in our socks (long, superstitious story) among a crowd of amped-up revelers after Brad Lidge threw strike three, it was pretty clear no one else in town's content with last year's chip, either.

In the last few weeks, you may have noticed a new name in the masthead, new news editor Jeffrey C. Billman, who arrived at the end of September from Central Florida. After digging up dirt for years at the Orlando Weekly, Jeff, his fiancée, Adri, and their two dogs, Belle and Sebastian (named for the band; Adri's a huge fan), packed up a van and headed north. We couldn't be happier about it.

"The balmy-all-the-time thing is a myth," says Jeff, asked if it was tough trading in the sunshine. "Florida has two seasons — fucking hot, and not-quite-as-fucking-hot-but-still-hot. After a few decades, it wears on you. But more importantly, my fiancée and I were looking for a new set of experiences. Professionally, I'd felt I'd done all I was able to do where I was, so it was time to move on."

In Orlando, Jeff earned a reputation for cutting through the crap and telling damned compelling stories. He uncovered police coverups, delivered an absolutely gripping account of sitting in on an execution and generally, in his words, made it a point to "agitate for people who all too often get shit upon."

So, first impression?

"It's a city of immense contradictions," says Jeff. "From my apartment, if I head west a few blocks, I see pockets of absolute opulence, gorgeous old houses and parks; a few blocks east, decrepit buildings that are basically falling apart on themselves, with rather flagrant crack dealers hanging on the front steps. I've watched the debate over the BRT reform and wondered how such a boneheaded system was tolerated for so long. It's a city rich in history and steeped in a culture that I think I'm only beginning to understand. Also, you people have a real hard-on for the Eagles. But I do have to say, Adri and I have been pleasantly surprised by how wonderful everyone we've met has been to us. It hasn't at all been the sort of cold shoulder we Southerners have been conditioned to expect from Northern big cities."

Jeff's adamant that you send him tips — for news stories but also for things to do in the city — to jeffrey.billman@citypaper.net.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)