Happy Thanksgiving Eve! It’s everyone’s favorite equine writer at the Good Phight continuing with his tradition of providing you with a Thanksgiving post. And for the second straight year, I’ve brought Jared Frank along for the ride.
Maybe you’re too tied up with Thanksgiving festivities to want to read much about the Phillies, but let’s be honest here: This post barely discusses the Phillies. Also, you’re going to want a distraction from all the Thanksgiving stuff at some point. One can only watch
so much football or have so many painful conversations with aunts and uncles before you need a break. Or maybe you need to excuse yourself to the powder room in between dinner and dessert and need something to read on your phone.
If you’re the type to take a “cousins walk” at some point, might I suggest reading this immediately afterwards? It tends to make everything we write seem that much better.
Let’s start out with a video about Thanksgiving stereotypes:
I liked the part where the guy talks about how he specially prepared and cooked the turkey. I was once at a “Friendsgiving” where someone wouldn’t stop going on about his special brine and flavor packets and was clearly fishing for compliments. Except the turkey wasn’t even that good, so I just had to smile and nod while pouring more gravy on top.
Football predictions
In years past, I’ve lamented the fact that Thanksgiving is far more associated with football than baseball and then predicted the outcome of the day’s NFL games anyway. This year, I’ve decided to put a baseball spin on things and predict each game based on the quality of the city’s baseball team.
Green Bay at Detroit
Both the Brewers (I assume everyone is okay with me using the Brewers here despite there being over 100 miles between Milwaukee and Green Bay?) and the Tigers made the playoffs in 2025, even if the Tigers did have a pretty significant meltdown at the end of the season. But they did recover to win a Wild Card series before falling to the Mariners in the NLDS. The Brewers won a major league best 97 games and then took out the Cubs in the NLDS. At that point they ran into the Dodgers who made quick work of them in the NLCS.
The Brewers had the better lineup, even if they lack that one major threat in the middle. However, as the Dodgers showed, they can be neutralized by top pitching, and no pitcher is more top than the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal. In a longer series, I’d give the edge to the Brewers, but for just one game, I’ll take Detroit.
Final score: Lions 27, Packers 20
Chiefs at Cowboys
Both the Royals and Rangers were mediocre this season, with the Rangers coming in at an even 81-81, and the Royals one game better. Looking at the Rangers’ roster, and you can see why they were a .500 team. Only one regular starter had an OPS over .800 (Corey Seager), and their lone All-Star was 37-year-old Jacob deGrom.
The Royals are led by Bobby Witt, Jr. who is one of the ten best players in baseball, but I don’t trust their pitching staff which depended heavily on former Phillies Michael Lorenzen and Carlos Estevez. Estevez had a strong season in 2025, leading the American League in saves, but I never fully believed in him.
Cowboys 30, Chiefs 21
Bengals at Ravens
The Reds snuck into the playoffs as the NL’s final Wild Card, but their stay wasn’t long. The Dodgers dismissed them in two games in their playoff series. The Reds were largely carried by their pitching staff, and their one star on offense in Elly De La Cruz.
The Orioles were a mess in 2025. Guys who looked like stars a couple of years ago (Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson) had disappointing years, while Jackson Holliday has yet to live up to his hype. The pitching staff couldn’t get people out aside from Trevor Rogers who made a strong return from injury in the second half.
I’m not wowed by the Reds, but they were far better than the Orioles.
Bengals 25, Ravens 18
The Four Phreedoms
It is an example of Americana so potent that it makes a star-spangled tear fall from the eye: Norman Rockwell’s image of a family sitting down to a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner, Freedom From Want, is a true icon of the season.
Freedom From Want is part of a quartet of paintings referred to as The Four Freedoms, representing the American values that Rockwell felt exemplified the nation: Freedom From Want, Freedom From Fear, Freedom of Worship, and Freedom of Speech (if you’ve spent enough time on Twitter, the last of these, having been memeified, may look familiar). The only thing more American than Rockwell’s Freedoms is baseball. But what if we got even more American? What if we combined the two, with a bit of Philadelphia flair? For your Turkey Day pleasure, we present The Four Phreedoms, to which every Phillies fan is entitled:
Phreedom From Bad Starting Pitching
Cue up the sad music and the Sarah McLachlan speech: every day, baseball fans across MLB face the plight of mediocre starting pitching. They go to the ballpark with joy in their hearts, then watch some poor schmuck allow a parade of bloops, bingles, dingers and frozen ropes. In a perfect world, no fan outside of Queens or Atlanta would have to experience such suffering. We do not live in a perfect world. But Citizens Bank Park looks pretty close to one. With the combined powers of their mighty rotation, the Phillies grant their fans liberation from dread, while sentencing their opponents to it.
Phreedom From Small Ball
There was a time when baseball was all singles and speed. But we no longer live in this world. We live in a more enlightened world, a sabermetric world, which, somewhat paradoxically, leads us to an almost caveman-like approach to baseball: smash ball hard, win game. Just as Americans could not, would not, return to the dark ages of black and white television once color TV arrived, Americans have developed a taste for the home run and the extra base hit.
Not every team delivers longball delights to their team with enough frequency. But the Phillies, gracious, hard-swinging sluggers they are, have delivered unto their fans freedom from the small ball game. The Phillies were top 10 in homers and top 5 in slugging percentage this past season. May it ever be so.
Phreedom From Boredom
Some people say baseball is boring. These people are to be pitied, or better yet, disregarded altogether. But it is true that some baseball games are more exciting than others. Pity the poor Yankees fan, who must, with stiff upper lip, pretend they prefer baseball without the loveable antics of a mascot (do not remind them of the existence of Dandy. In fact, it would be better for your psyche if you forgot about the existence of Dandy, or were simply not aware of him in the first place).
But the Phillies are blessed. We have the Phanatic, our flightless bird from the Galapagos (that’s his official backstory; I checked the media guide). Even if our Phillies should lose, we at least get to enjoy the delightful thrill of our Phanatic’s verdant self-hurtling across the even-more verdant BP outfield on his ATV. And it is not only the mascots who go above and beyond to entertain; we also have John Kruk, among the most affable, lovable figures in broadcasting, to take the quiet stretches of slow innings and spin them into aural gold. These two figures deserve our thanks, today and always.
Phreedom From The Mets
For many years, Philadelphian baseball fans enjoyed a world without Mets and Mets fans. But since 1962, every season has been marred by their presence. It is to be hoped that someday, Phillies fans will once again have their Phanatic-given right of not having to deal with Mets fans. Relocation of the hated rival is always a possibility; Nashville is ready for a team, and someone should tell Steve Cohen that if a wealthy benefactor brings the Expos back to Montreal, grateful Canadians will probably replace Queen Elizabeth’s face with his on their $20 bill.
But until that blessed day where the Mets follow their Senior Circuit predecessors in leaving the Empire State, we must persevere. This is not cause for despair. The world as it is is not the world as it must be. We must always strive to meet our ideals, and the striving makes our ideals all the sweeter.
That’s all for today. Whatever your Thanksgiving Eve plans may entail, please be safe, and come back tomorrow for more Thanksgiving fun!
