At long last, the hiatus is over. Allen's back from vacation.

In today's MADCAST, Allen and Mike engage in rampant speculation regarding NewsCorp's future after its purchase of Intermix and the company's announcement of an Internet division to handle online business for its sports, news and entertainment properties.

Why it seems like just yesterday that we were reading about Rupert Murdoch telling his fellow captains of the media industry and the Internet was changing everything...

The best mascot in all of sports--The Phillie Fanatic. The first segment is The Fanatic making a great entrance; the second is The Fanatic packing his bags to represent the Phillies at the All-Star Game.

Prior to the Atlantic League All Star Game on July 13th, sluggers from the league battled it out for the $1,000 "dinger" prize.

The final round pitted Dario Delgado of the Atlantic City Surf against Ryan Radmanovich of the Somerset Patriots. Who won? Check out the video.

Our interest in Ryan Howard dates back to Arizona Fall League. He was the slugging first baseman for the Phoenix Desert Dogs, the winners of the Fall League Championship last season. We got to meet Ryan after the game and snap quite a few pictures (which appeared in my former blog).

Howard has Jim Thome standing in his way to become the Phillies’ future first baseman. Howard hit 48 homers in the Minors last season, and has something like four in his short major league stay. He hit a laser beam homerun the game at which this at-bat is featured.

The rumor is the Phillies may trade Thome if 1) The pay part of his enormous salary to the team who winds up with him and 2) They get Big Jim to waive his no-trade clause. Clearly Thome is DH material.

Nothing against Thome (especially since the Phillies have sold something like 10 million Thome T-shirts), but Ryan Howard is not getting any younger (he’s 25) and is a future star whose time is NOW!

At last week's Atlantic League All-Star Game, held at Atlantic City Surf's Sandcastle, the individual team mascots were there in all their glory.

Here is a music clip featuring Eric D. Worthan on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. The Jazz on the Beach series is to honor "Chicken Bone Beach," a time and place in Atlantic City's past when Blacks were segregated into their own area on the beach.

As part of our baseball and beach adventure, we took time out last week to visit Philadelphia's Reading Terminal. Funny, I used to walk by the Terminal countless times when I lived/worked in Philadelphia, but never took the time to explore.

Oddly, the place is wired for free Wi Fi Internet!