A day long awaited...

If you've been to or seen pictures of my basement, you know that the walls are adorned with various memorabilia of the various sports teams I root for, from my favorite pro teams, to my favorite major college teams, to the local minor league baseball team, to my alma mater, Messiah College. Well, there's a space that was purposely (and somewhat conspicuously) left empty for quite awhile, and after I got my mail today, I was finally able to fill it in, exactly how I had hoped to:

That's right, amongst my various pictures, pennants, and the banner commemorating the only team (aside from Messiah College soccer) that I cheer for that can be deemed as perennially successful (Duke basketball), there now hangs a Philadelphia Phillies World Series Championship banner.


It's likely that I would have at least posted the picture under any circumstances, but there's a somewhat bizarre piece of this story which mandated the post. I mentioned at the beginning that the space the banner currently occupies was intentionally left empty, and it was, for the purpose of being eventually occupied by a banner for the next Philly team to win a title. You'll notice, however, just how perfectly the banner fits the space (excluding the wrinkled part on the left side that needs to fall out), and that is the truly interesting part. I bought the Duke banner and hung it where it is now very shortly after I moved in, so probably about 3 years ago now. The top picture to the right of the banner is a commemorative picture of Lincoln Financial Field that my Dad got me a while back (not sure how long ago, probably in the vicinity of 2 years, however) When I put that picture up where it is, I determined (based on looking at the Duke banner, that the remaining space was probably about right for another banner, so I resolved to leave it clear for such a purpose, which is why the bottom picture, which is a team picture honoring the Phillies 2007 NL East championship, is lined up directly below it. So, I never actually measured the space or looked at any banners, until after the Phillies won.

When I was shopping online, the first (and only) banner I looked at was listed at 27 inches wide, so I measured the space. 27 inches, exactly. Weird, huh? I know it's just a bizarre coincidence, but I find it amusing anyhow. And yes, I'm fully aware that there's space to the left of the Duke banner, you'll just have to trust me that I didn't move the thing for the sake of this story :)