Chase Utley was emotional and nostalgic after learning he was traded from the Phillies to the Dodgers, but he kept his statements brief at the press conference after the team announced the trade.
"There are just so many people I should thank, I just hope they know I appreciate everything," Utley said during the press conference.
Monday morning, Phillies fans were able to read Utley's full expression of gratitude in the Philadelphia Daily News. "The Man" spent over 12 seasons with the Phillies.
"Thank you Philadelphia for taking me under your wing 12 years ago. It has been an honor and a dream come true to play for a city with so much passion. I feel extremely lucky to have played for an organization with so many incredible people.
Thank you David Montgomery for having the gift to make everyone around you feel important. I am proud to have been a part of your vision for the organization. I've played for several impactful coaches over the years, but Charlie Manuel stands alone for what he has meant to me. His patience, encouragement and faith in his team created a sense of confidence that his players will never forget. Most importantly, I would like to say thank you to my teammates, old and new. I will forever cherish the times that we had. Pat, Row, j-dub, Jroll, Howy, Vic, Chooch, Cole to name a few... Thank you for your countless hours of preparation and determination. I am honored to have shared the field with you.
Jen and I have worked with the Pennsylvania SPCA for over 10 years and we will continue to support their work for years to come. Thank you to everyone who has joined us to positively change the lives of the abused and neglected animals of Philadelphia.
Citizens Bank Park is like no other stadium. The support, encouragement and energy that all of you brought on a daily basis was empowering. We have had quite a ride together and I will never forget 2008. WFC forever!
Thanks again Philly, I will miss you.
Chase Utley"
The Phillies dealt Chase Utley to the Los Angeles Dodgers on August 19, just under one week ago. Even though he has not played much this season, his absence was felt immediately by fans young and old.
A man was caught on camera robbing a Pizza Hut in the Glenwood section of Philadelphia at gunpoint and police are trying to identify and find the him.
In surveillance footage provided by Philadelphia Police, you can see the suspect immediately pull a gun from his waist and approach the register. The man demanded money and the employee complied. Police didn't say how much money the gunman got away with.
The gunman entered the store at 2916 North Broad Street on August 20 at 10:26 p.m. and fled in an unknown direction about 45 seconds later with the cash.
The employee who gave the money to the robber is a 19-year-old woman. Another employee appears on camera during the robbery and the man points the gun at both workers, motioning them to stay quiet.
The gunman is said to be 20-30 years of age with a thin build and is clean shaven. He is armed and police urge anyone who sees him to call 911.
World Meeting of Family organizers released the initial Papal Visit Playbook Monday — four weeks ahead of Pope Week in Philly.
The guide is meant to be a living document which grows and changes as more information is learned or gets released. It's broken down into 6 key sections:
How to Prepare — This is the most useful section. You get suggestions on how to navigate the city during Pope Week, including mass transit information, major road closures and a link to the city's maps that outline, day-by-day what is and is not accessible as well as where you can and cannot park. The maps are good because on days like Friday and Saturday when access to what you can/can't do changes, you see exactly what time of day those changes happen. We put the maps into a day-by-day gallery (above) and here is the .pdf file for those of you who want to print them out or be able to zoom in closer to street level.
Timeline — Where/when Pope Francis will be in Philly & WMOF/Papal Visit overviews
If You're Attending — Encourages you to plan ahead, register your bus, fully charge your phones/device (s) and bring extra batteries
Resources — Contact information for key City departments (police/fire/transit) as well as key city leaders. Nifty to have any time of the year, not just during Pope Week.
Pope Gear — Links off to another WMOF page of "official" pope memorabilia
Fun To Be Had — Suggestions for folks who aren't necessarily a part of the WMOF but still want to experience the Pope Francis visit and special events/attractions planned around the visit.
Firefighters were called to a Jersey shore amusement park Monday afternoon after a ride caught fire and sent a plume of smoke billowing above the boardwalk.
Smoke could be seen billowing from the Gravitron ride at the Keansburg Amusement Park Monday afternoon in Keansburg.
No one was on the ride and no one was hurt, officials said.
A spokeswoman for the amusement park, owned and operated by a New Jersey family for 111 years, told NBC 4 New York a park employee had started up the ride for a test run and to prepare for the day when he "smelled something."
"He alerted our mechanic, the mechanic went to go get a tool and in that time, there was a small electrical fire," she said.
Moments later, a fire tore through the ride and black smoke filled the air. The park was quickly evacuated.
Spokeswoman Katie Johnson praised the employee who detected the smoke, saying "he knew something wasn't right and he alerted the necessary people in our organization."
Waitress Jackie Chastain was working nearby when the fire broke out.
"We were all freaking out because we thought everything was going to catch fire," said Chastain.
WItness Debbie Holmes said, "We were so relieved, we just prayed that no child got hurt."
A Jersey Shore server's photo of a receipt with the letters “LOL” in place of a tip on a bill of more than $110 is drawing attention on social media, according to the Asbury Park Press.
Belmar 20-year-old Jess Jones posted a photo to Facebook of the receipt from the D’Jais Bar & Grill last week after being stiffed out of a tip on a $112 bill by a table of patrons who claimed they had to wait an hour for their food, the paper reports.
"Last night, I was stunned by this receipt that was left for me by a party of eight people," Jones wrote in the Facebook post. "I would have preferred a '$0' tip than a 'LOL' tip, but as a waitress, bad tips and harsh notes are all part of the job. Even though they did wait an hour to eat, they remained satisfied with filled drinks and proper notice that the kitchen was a bit busier than normal. I've worked in the service industry for five years and I take pride in providing great service to my customers."
Jones said the customers' behavior wasn’t uncommon.
“I know how aggravating it is to receive a hefty bill when all night you've been wondering why the table that came in after you was served before you,” she wrote. “But waiters are mere messengers most of the time, and it's wrong to shoot them, however bad the news."
The Asbury Park Press says that since it was posted online, the image of the receipt has gone viral, with Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty calling the lack of tip “ridiculous.”
A Delaware drug and alcohol counselor is behind bars after she allegedly had sex with her teen patient.
Rebecca Adams, 30, is charged with sexual abuse of a child by person of trust, providing alcohol to a minor and continuous sexual abuse of child.
Adams, who worked for Crossroads of Delaware, was allegedly having ongoing sexual relations with a 16-year-old boy who was her patient at the time. Investigators say the relationship lasted from June 1 to August 15 and the incidents occurred in several locations inside and outside the Dover, Delaware area.
Adams was committed to Baylor Women’s Correctional Center in default of $29,200 secured bond.
The Crossroads of Delaware is a drug or alcohol rehab center located in Wilmington, Delaware. Officials at the center have cooperated with the investigation.
Take a deep breath.
It's here.
The Papal Visit Playbook [PVP] was released at noon Monday on the website for the World Meeting of Families. At first blush, it's a bit thin on information but it's meant to grow into a more robust portal as key information changes/progresses. It's worth signing up for those alerts.
Right now the PVP has 6 key sections related to the Papal Visit, which is the last weekend of September, Saturday and Sunday the 26th and 27th.
We found it easiest to navigate by topic rather than their homepage:
Steve Klein owns Klein's Supermarket right near the Museum of Art. He was excited about the launch of the PVP, but after logging on, his anticipated morphed into a feeling of disappointment.
"There's nothing on here to help a businessman plan for when the pope's here," he said
A couple of key things to remember:
#1 — It's a living document, which means it's not the be-all, end-all, one-time manifesto. It will get updated as things progress and/or change.
#2 — If you want those updates, sign up for them on the WMOF website.
And hey, while you're planning your pope week and if you want to learn about Pope Francis before he was elected leader of the Catholic Church, get an insider's perspective from NBC10's Jim Rosenfield's special reports from Argentina, the pope's homeland.
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“ON THE BEACH”
That’s what they call it when you’re unemployed in the TV business.
“So, what’s Harry doing now?”
“Oh, he’s on the beach”
Well, I had been “on the beach” for several months after having my contract not renewed in Raleigh. Job prospects weren’t panning out. It was a rough time.
Then, on the morning of August 23, 1992, I got a call from my best friend, Jim Reif, who was the Chief Meteorologist at WINK-TV in Ft. Myers, Florida. WINK was a powerhouse back then, and Jim was “The Man” in that part of the state.
“How’d you like to work a hurricane?” he asked.
“Of course!”
“I talked to my News Director, and he thinks it’s a good idea to bring you down to work Hurricane Andrew for us. I already booked you on the flight to get here, assuming you’d be willing and able to do it.”
“ANDREW”-FROM MINI TO MONSTER
Andrew became a Tropical Depression out in the middle of the Atlantic on August 16. This is known as the MDR (“Main Development Region”) for tropical development in the Atlantic. Some of the biggest and most disastrous hurricanes have formed in this area.
It had been an incredibly quiet hurricane season in the Atlantic, as evidenced by the first storm of the season not forming until AFTER August 15th-an extremely late start. This was largely due to the moderate El Nino in the Tropical Pacific that often leads to less active hurricane seasons in the Atlantic (just as this year). But Andrew turned out to be the classic example of: “All it takes is one to make it a bad hurricane season."
Andrew became a tropical storm on August 17th, but it was an unusually small storm, and, of course, a weak one. Here’s the track, via a great interactive website from NOAA.
“WORKING THE HURRICANE”
Jim had convinced his bosses to hire me as a consultant, and also to be on-air as an extra hurricane “expert." My background at the National Hurricane Center and as a Hurricane Specialist at The Weather Channel gave them confidence that I knew about hurricanes. And I already knew the area well, since I had visited Jim many times in the past. Jim’s wife picked me up at the airport and drove me to the station. And I went on TV only a short time later.
“Who the hell is this guy?” I can imagine people saying this as they tuned in to their favorite TV channel as the worst storm since 1960 threatened. But they put me on-air with Jim, the most trusted TV person in the area. That made all the difference. Being best friends allowed us to have an instant chemistry on-air. As August 23 turned into August 24, Jim and I continued our marathon. Once Andrew started strengthening rapidly and moving straight west toward Florida, there was no other news. It was all Andrew.
“DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT DAN RATHER JUST SAID”
WINK-TV was an affiliate of CBS, and an important one at that. Station ratings were among the highest of any CBS affiliate in the country year after year. That meant the CBS national news programs also had high ratings. So the #1 anchorman in the Ft. Myers/Naples area was Dan Rather. But as many meteorologists have discovered over the years, Dan Rather was not the most accurate or responsible communicator of hurricane information.
Andrew was an unusually small hurricane. Even when it became what is now known as a Category 5 storm (it was upgraded from a 4 to 5 many years later), the hurricane force winds only extended about 25 miles from the center, so the resulting damage was only in a narrow area. As we soon learned, the city of Miami had minimal damage, while Homestead, only 25 miles away, was basically destroyed.
We could see how small Andrew was, and also that it was moving straight west. I’ve attached a Florida map just to show you how ridiculous the Dan Rather quote would be:
Now take a line from Homestead straight west (right to left). Does that line come anywhere close to Fort Myers? Either Dan Rather didn’t know how to read a map, didn’t realize how small Andrew was, or just wanted to scare people, we didn’t know. All we knew was that he was dead wrong when, after showing the South Miami area getting clobbered, he said: “Next stop: Fort Myers!”
This was the #1 voice of the entire network, and scared the daylights out of thousands, or even tens of thousands of people who were watching at the time. Jim and I were furious! Our whole message that morning was that Andrew would track well south of the area, and only the Naples area would get significant wind and rain. And even then, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the southern part of the Miami area. But what do we say on CBS immediately after Rather’s comments?
Jim decided (and I firmly agreed) to directly comment on the words issued seconds before. “Don’t pay attention to what Dan Rather just said”, said Reif, and then we both explained in detail why he was wrong. And why our viewers shouldn’t think that Andrew had changed course and was headed right at us. There were very few people in the area that had ever experienced a hurricane of any kind, let alone a major one. The station was flooded with calls from frantic viewers who were going to stay home, but now needed to escape the area.
You might wonder if our management was upset that we slammed Dan Rather on live TV on their local CBS station. Nope. All they wanted to know is if we were sure it wasn’t going to cause major damage in the Ft. Myers area, and then gave us their full support. I can’t tell you what the competing stations said (we were a bit busy), but the feedback later in the form of calls, letters, and personal comments were unanimous in gratitude and congratulations.
“IT WAS LIKE A 20 MILE WIDE TORNADO”
The damage in the Naples area was on the minor side. And there was virtually no damage in the Ft. Myers area. Many parts of our area didn’t even see a drop of rain!
I went to the Homestead area shortly after the storm to inspect the damage and report for the station. “It was like a 20 mile wide tornado hit the area. Everything is gone. People can’t even find where there houses used to be.” It was devastating to see the destruction. We couldn’t help thinking, what if? What if Andrew tracked 20-40 miles farther north, with the “donut of destruction” directly hitting the Miami area? What if Andrew was a much larger storm? It could have been so much worse.
(After the storm, WINK offered me a full-time contract. It was only three more years before I made it home to Philly.)
A man was found dead inside a car in the parking lot of a Hockessin, Delaware business Monday night.
Police were called to the parking lot of a business on the 100 block of St. Claire Drive around 7 p.m. after a person observed a black Audi sitting in the parking lot for an unusually long time. When police arrived they discovered an unresponsive man in the driver’s seat of the vehicle.
Police then entered the vehicle and discovered the man inside was dead. Investigators have not yet revealed his identity or cause of death. Investigators say the death is suspicious however.
If you have any information on the incident, please call the New Castle County Police Department at (302) 573-2800.
A woman and two men are recovering after a gunman rose out of a minivan and opened fire in the Kensington section of the city early Monday evening, police said.
The 22-year-old woman, 33-year-old man and 25-year-old man were all on the 2800 block of Boudinot Street shortly after 6 p.m. when the shooting occurred.
Witnesses told police a gunman armed with an assault rifle stood out of the sunroof of a gold minivan and opened fire before the vehicle fled the scene.
The woman was struck four times in the abdomen, the 33-year-old man once in the right thigh and the 25-year-old once in the right foot. All three victims were taken to Temple University Hospital where they are in stable condition.
Police found nine spent shell casings from two different calibers indicating that either the gunman was firing two weapons or there was a second shooter.
No arrests have been made. Police continue to investigate.
A large sinkhole opened up in a street in the Kensington section of the city Monday.
Officials say a 12-inch water main break caused a sinkhole to develop on the corner of Tulip and Huntingdon streets around 4 p.m. The intersection is closed as crews continue to make repairs.
Residents on the 2300 block of Huntingdon are currently without water.
A fender-bender led to an assault and robbery in South Jersey, police said.
The incident happened about 3:30 p.m. on August 22.
A 23-year-old male told police he was in his SUV stopped at the traffic light on Masonville Road at Creek Road in Mount Laurel when his vehicle was struck from behind by a sedan.
The male told investigators he pulled over in the parking lot of the Timbercrest Park and when he got out of his car, two males wearing ski masks exited the other car and began to beat him.
The suspects stole $200 from the male before driving away.
The male told police while the attack was taking place, an unknown female stopped her vehicle and yelled that she was going to call the police. However, no call to police was ever made.
Mount Laurel Police said it appears the victim was targeted by the suspects and that this was not a random crime. During the assault, the suspects made statements indicating that they were familiar with the victim.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Mount Laurel Police at 856-234-8300.
Philadelphians are among the most honest in the country. That’s the truth revealed in the 2015 edition of "The National Honesty Index."
Philadelphia tied for third with 97 percent of people paying $1 on Honest Tea’s honor system in which the beverage company sets up a display of drinks in 27 different cities around the country and asks people to leave $1 in a collection jar.
Philadelphia tied with Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston with 97 percent of people forking over a buck for refreshment. Atlanta topped the list with 100-percent honesty while Providence, Rhode Island placed last with 83-percent honesty. Overall, 94 percent of people paid – slightly down from 95 percent last year. And, Woman (95 percent) were more honest than men (93 percent), said the company.
“It’s always refreshing to see that Americans are more honest than most people assume,” said Honest Tea founder and “TeaEO” Seth Goldman. “During these election cycles we are reminded that we have different views across the country, but that doesn’t mean people are dishonest.”
For all the good vibes, there were some dishonest people including one person in Providence who tried to pay with a faux $1 million bill and a person who stole the collection box in Washington, D.C.
