Throwing the Heater

There’s a senior-year tradition, apparently, at my high school called Senior Cut Day. It is supposed to occur when the number of days remaining in the school year matches your graduation year. For me, that means 98 days from graduation, I wasn’t supposed to be in school. I was supposed to be out doing completely non-academic things, like going to the beach, catching a flick, and playing table games at the Max. Wait, I didn’t go to Bayside High. I forgot.

I went to Shawnee, and as my good friends Joe, Dave, and Tim can tell you, on Senior Cut Day you go to WING BOWL. Why can’t I tell you for myself? You must have forgotten. I was a huge dork in high school. I was in class.

The idea of Wing Bowl was invented my Philly’s sports-talk station, 610 WIP some 15 years ago. Since the Eagles never had plans to oh, play football Super Bowl Weekend, the Philly faithful decided it would be a good time to stage another Bowl game, this one involving the competitive eating of mass quantities of single-serving poultry. Wing Bowl was born. And while I’ve never been, I know that it has evolved from a tiny Wing-Off in some lobby of some hotel to a Wachovia Center packed house consumption spectacle.

According to my records, my buddies 3 witnessed the triumph of the 1998 champion, Mark “Big Rig” Vogeding, who polished off 164.wings en route to the victory. Who’s hungry?

(It also should be noted for posterity that the same three hit the beach later our senior year, rather than attending class. This trip was notable for the fact that Tim almost got arrested for getting an extra refill at the Promenade on the O.C. Boardwalk, and Dave missed the playing of Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” over the morning loudspeaker, much to our dismay. Ok, we now return you to the point we’re eventually going to make theater.)

This year’s Wing Bowl, which for a few years has included professional eaters like that tiny Korean woman who lives in Alexandria, was held this past Friday. Now it is true that the finest Philadelphia regional celebrities have been known to make an appearance, including Pat Croce, the NBC10 news team, and Governor Ed Rendell. But now, it appears that all the stars can just step aside – because we had a supernova attend WB15. Who, you ask?

Mitch “The Wild Thing” Williams.

I’ve been a fan of Philly sports since 1986, and Williams is EASILY the biggest goat of that era for us in the City of Brotherly Love. (Rounding out the podium? Terrell Owens and Eric Lindros) He gave up the gopher ball home run pitch to lose the 1993 World Series to – yes, Canada – the Toronto Blue Jays. And even when the game or world championship was on the line, his erratic, stroke-inducing pitching style probably killed about 40 people during his tenure in Red Pinstripes.

He now manages a bowling alley in South Jersey.

And despite all the criticism and hatred that Philly might have for him, Williams proudly attended Wing Bowl 15. After all, he’s more the Wing Bowl type than current clean-cutters Pat Burrell and Jamie Moyer, right?

Yet, things didn’t turn out so well for Wild Thing. From Philly.com:

Waiting on a friend, he pulled his '06 Chrysler 300 into a parking spot. Soon, "I smelled something kind of burning in my car," Williams says. "I got out, finally, and saw smoke. I was trying to get the hood open, and I couldn't get it open, and I looked underneath." Someone had left a barbecue grill smoldering in the lot, and it ignited the car's engine.

Rumor has it Joe Carter was also in attendance, and he LOVES barbeque chicken.