Six Jolts of Sheer Delight

Tchotchke offers are back in Parade and God’s in His Heaven!

Vol. 7, Issue No. 12 | October 11, 2011 By Denny Hatch

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Many mornings around 4:30 I am awakened by the clack and thump of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times coming through the mail slot downstairs and hitting the floor.

I don’t like these two suppliers of my morning news.

The type is smallish and the news perpetually grim: endless and expensive wars in three third-world countries, terrorist threats, Washington mired in name-calling and gridlock, massive unemployment, poverty, $14.8 trillion national debt, hurricanes, floods, droughts, starvation and earthquakes on a planet rebelling against our appalling stewardship.

Yet over a mid-September weekend these two dreary rags—plus a fascinating email offer—gave me six jolts of sheer delight.

Can you do as much for your customers?

Sheer Delight No. 1—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philly is a serious sports town. To watch a major league baseball game on television in a town other than Boston or Philadelphia is to see vast patches of empty seats. As of this writing, Citizens Bank Park—home of the Phillies—has a record of 213 consecutive sold-out games. The atmosphere is perpetually electric.

The morning after the Phillies clinched the National League East, a traditional serious sports editor would have put a picture of Raoul Ibañez hitting the grand slam home run that sealed the deal.

Instead, what greeted me on the front page above the fold was the photograph of new right fielder Hunter Pence in the locker room drenched in Champagne and looking like the happiest man on Spaceship Earth. (See photo No. 1 in the mediaplayer at right.)

Pence, 28, who arrived in July from the sad sack Houston Astros (53 wins/100 losses) is thrilled to have a shot at a World Series ring, along with pitchers Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cliff Lee who passed up big bucks for Philly, and who with Cole Hamels, make up the most powerful rotation in all of baseball.

Pence is a fanatical student of baseball, comes to the park early, leaves late, is hitting .313 and is a huge addition to the team.

Waking up to that photograph of Pence cheered me more than a third martini used to.

What did not cheer me was the Phillies’ eight-game losing streak following their spectacular early finish, as well as Hunter Pence’s sore knee.