Author: Sam Ruland

Another October, an even earlier exit: F

There wasn’t even a moment Thursday night when it felt like the Phillies were going to do it.

No big hit that made you sit up. No inning where the lineup started stringing things together. No “here we go!” moment. Aaron Nola gave up a three-run homer in the first inning of an elimination game, and from there, the Phillies mostly just watched their season end.

And maybe the most frustrating part is how familiar it all felt.

The bats disappeared again. The Phillies scored just two runs and never found a way to consistently get people on base and keep an inning moving. Bryce Harper’s eighth-inning at-bat almost felt like a snapshot of the whole problem: Facing Chris Sale, he chased three pitches outside the zone, struck out, and initially didn’t even realize the third strike had gotten away from the catcher.

This team has become far too dependent on Harper or Kyle Schwarber hitting the ball out of the park. The Phillies haven’t won a playoff game without a homer from one of them since Game 4 of the 2023 NLDS. Sometimes you need a single up the middle. Sometimes, somebody just needs to get on base.

And now look at the trajectory: World Series in 2022, NLCS in 2023, NLDS in 2024, NLDS again in 2025, Wild-card exit in 2026. That’s not running it back. That’s running backward.

Everyone feared last winter that bringing back essentially the same core would produce essentially the same problems. Somehow, it produced an even worse result. And now changing course gets harder: Harper, Schwarber, and Realmuto will all be 34 or older next season, while Trea Turner turns 33 with seven years left on his contract.

The window isn’t necessarily closed. The rotation alone gives this team too much talent to say that.

But the chance to change this roster before another wasted October has already passed.

They can’t spend another winter convincing themselves that next year the same group will finally be different.

Philly fights robots with a weirder robot: A

The Uber Eats robots rolling around Philly have been called dystopian, creepy, and a sign of our increasingly automated future.

Naturally, Philadelphia responded by making a much weirder robot.

Meet Orifice the Awebot, a two-foot-tall pink creature with blinking blue eyes, blond hair, a permanently hanging tongue and — because apparently those features weren’t enough — an actual orifice on its rear end, as Stephanie Farr reported.

Artist Madison Polidoro created Orifice for the Ministry of Awe to act as a lighthearted counterpoint to the delivery bots, and it now roams Old City remotely controlled by a human, startling tourists, confusing dogs, and occasionally confronting Uber Eats robots.

Imagine knowing none of this and turning a corner near the Betsy Ross House to find that thing silently rolling toward you. Is it less dystopian than an Uber Eats robot? Debatable. Is it significantly more Philly? Of course it is.

Please don’t make cheesesteak throwing a thing: F

Of all the things Philadelphia could become known for on social media, throwing cheesesteaks at people cannot be the next one.

A customer at Pat’s ordered a cheesesteak with Whiz and onions Wednesday, and instead of sitting down to actually eat it, the customer exchanged words with general manager Tom Francano, hurled the sandwich through the window at him, and ran away.

And yes, he was filming the whole thing.

The video later appeared online as a “food review” — titled “I Threw This Cheesesteak in His Face Geno’s Steaks.” Wrong cheesesteak shop, guys.

Pat’s owner Frank Olivieri offered a $5,000 reward, his IT team traced the video back to social media accounts, and by Thursday, the man had turned himself in.

Police charged him with harassment, and YouTube terminated the account where the video appeared. As Olivieri put it: “Thank God for stupidity.”

Hopefully that brings an end to Philadelphia’s brief experiment with cheesesteak-based assault. But seriously, let’s just eat the cheesesteak. There’s no need to weaponize it.

Can we stop embarrassing ourselves?: F

As if the Phillies hadn’t already done enough damage this week, the Eagles and Flyers decided to contribute.

The Eagles set the bar pretty low Monday night with a 27-7 loss to the Bears, a game in which the offense turned the ball over three times, the defense got picked apart by 38-year-old third-string quarterback Case Keenum, and Nick Sirianni acknowledged afterward that pretty much nobody played or coached well.

Two nights later, the Flyers opened their season at home with more excitement surrounding them than there’s been in years.

They lost 7-0. To the Penguins. The same rival they knocked out of the playoffs last spring. The Flyers were booed off the ice after getting outshot 38-19 and looking nothing like the team that made hockey fun again six months ago.

Thursday was better, if only because it would have been difficult to be worse. Backup goalie Joseph Woll made 41 saves against the Devils and somehow kept the Flyers in it. They even held a 2-1 lead in the third before giving up the tying goal and losing, 3-2, in overtime.

So, progress? Technically?

The Phillies are done. The Eagles just got blown out. The Flyers are 0-1-1 and have already been outscored 10-2.

We’re not even a week into October. Can everybody please stop embarrassing us?

Can someone please save the Academy?: D

The Academy of Natural Sciences closed Sunday after nearly 200 years of welcoming the public. About 8,000 people visited Saturday alone, more than 100,000 people signed petitions to save it, and families spent its final day leaving notes on the walls and saying tearful goodbyes.

And yet, there may still be a lifeline.

The William Penn Foundation has offered to cover the operating subsidy Drexel had been providing for at least another year, giving everyone time to figure out whether there is a sustainable way to keep the museum alive.

Drexel hasn’t said yes. It hasn’t said no, either. The university says it needs more specifics and that the building has significant maintenance needs, which are all reasonable things to be sorted out. But sort them out.

This people of Philadelphia just spent a month making it abundantly clear how much the Academy means to people. The money being offered wouldn’t solve every problem, but it could buy something Drexel claimed it didn’t have when it announced the closure: time.

The dinosaurs are already behind locked doors. At least give this a real chance before deciding they stay there.

The black jerseys are back. Again.: A+

Last year, the Sixers brought back the Allen Iverson-era black jerseys for the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Finals team. They were supposed to be a one-season nostalgia trip.

Apparently, everyone took one look and said, actually, let’s keep those.

The Sixers announced their six-uniform rotation this week, and the beloved black alternates made the cut again, despite classic uniforms typically being reserved for anniversaries. Which means this season we get the slightly surreal sight of LeBron James wearing an Iverson-era Sixers jersey!

Honestly, what more evidence do we need? They looked great in 2001, they looked great last season, and they’re going to look great on LeBron, Tyrese Maxey, and Jaylen Brown.

Definitely a uniform we should NOT retire any time soon.

Wonderland really is disappearing: F

Wonderland Pier closed almost two years ago. Now, Ocean City has declared part of the former amusement pier unsafe after a wall beneath the decking began caving in. Developer Eustace Mita says the iconic Ferris wheel — which his original hotel proposal called for preserving — is in such bad shape that it will have to be “literally torched” and cut into pieces to come down.

Oof.

For generations of families, that Ferris wheel was part of the Ocean City skyline. You could see it from the beach, the boardwalk, blocks away. Even after Wonderland closed, it was still there.

There’s plenty of debate over what happens to this property next, including Mita’s proposed hotel. But whatever eventually replaces Wonderland, this part is just sad.

A bad-luck sports September: F

Did the Phillies, Eagles, and Flyers collectively break a mirror? Walk under a ladder? Open an umbrella indoors?

Because in the span of 11 days, three of the most important players on three Philadelphia teams got hurt.

First, Phillies All-Star starter Jesús Luzardo landed on the injured list with a sore shoulder, just as the postseason approached. Then the Eagles lost three-time Pro Bowl guard Landon Dickerson to injured reserve with a bone bruise in his already twice-repaired right knee. And Tuesday, Flyers MVP Dan Vladař left a preseason game injured after a collision.

The Phillies were counting on Luzardo as a major part of an October rotation. The Eagles already look like they desperately miss Dickerson in the run game. And Vladař was the heart of the Flyers team that finally made hockey fun around here again last season.

Bad luck comes in threes, right? Well, apparently not.

Thursday night, Luis Arráez sprained his left ankle trying to beat out a grounder against Milwaukee and had to be helped off the field, unable to put weight on his leg. X-rays were negative, but with the playoffs days away (hopefully), it’s unclear when he’ll be able to return.

So much for completing our allotment of sports misery.

Whatever dark cloud is following Philadelphia sports around, please find another city. Four is plenty. We’ve officially met our injury quota for the month.

Fall understood the assignment: A+

Finally, fall in Philly actually feels like fall. The autumnal equinox arrived Tuesday, and somehow the weather timed it perfectly: cool mornings, highs in the 60s, and just enough color starting to show up in the trees.

This is the good stuff. Open windows, sweatshirts, and walks that don’t end in sweating. It’s the beginning of leaves changing along Kelly Drive and the few glorious weeks when sitting outside is actually pleasant.

Of course, Philly weather couldn’t just let us enjoy this. A powerful early-season nor’easter is expected to bring heavy rain and winds that could gust to 45 mph in the city this weekend, with even worse conditions and significant flooding possible at the Shore.

Fall arrived right on time. Apparently, it also brought weather.

The promise of a well-funded SEPTA: A

After years of hearing what SEPTA might have to cut, it’s refreshing to hear what SEPTA might actually add.

The agency unveiled an ambitious 10-year vision this week that includes new trolleys, new El cars, more accessible stations, and a pretty wild idea for Regional Rail: trains every 15 minutes or better on several lines. SEPTA says the change would essentially give the region another 75 miles of subway-level frequent rail service.

And people are riding again. SEPTA says it’s now carrying more than 800,000 daily riders, after reporting a summer spike tied in part to Philly’s huge slate of events.

There is, naturally, a very SEPTA-sized catch: Someone has to pay for all of this. The agency still faces a $192 million operating deficit next fiscal year, and much of this vision depends on additional funding.

But after years of “save SEPTA,” it’s nice to spend a week imagining a SEPTA that gets better instead of merely surviving. Regional Rail that comes every 15 minutes? Keep talking.

$350 for an old SEPTA sign?: B

Speaking of SEPTA, it may have accidentally discovered its next funding source.

Philadelphians have spent years complaining about SEPTA. Turns out, we like to own pieces of it.

SEPTA dug through its vault and put old transit signs, maps, and TransPass sheets up for sale this month, and people went nuts. More than 100 decommissioned signs sold, some for $350 apiece, and the old Broad Street Line signs were among the first to go. (Duh.)

The sale came about because riders kept asking what SEPTA was doing with the old signs as it switched the Broad Street Line to the “B” — a name change many Philadelphians are still politely declining to participate in.

And apparently nothing says the Broad Street Line will always be the Broad Street Line quite like paying $350 to hang the evidence in your basement.

Lynnewood Hall opens its doors: A

For 84 years, one of the most spectacular buildings in the Philadelphia region has been sitting in Elkins Park with its doors closed to the public, but not anymore.

Lynnewood Hall, the 100,000-square-foot Gilded Age mansion built for industrialist Peter A.B. Widener, is now open to the public for the first time since 1942. And naturally, a house this over-the-top is reopening (through Oct. 4) with thousands of flowers and a show inspired by HBO’s The Gilded Age.

But the really exciting part is what happens after the flowers leave.

The mansion sat abandoned for decades before the Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation bought it for $9.5 million in 2023 and began the enormous job of bringing it back to life. Now, the group is planning more public programming for 2027.

There are plenty of old buildings around Philly that people wish somebody had saved before it was too late, so it’s pretty nice to watch one actually get a second chance.

Retirement, but make it cheesesteaks: A+

Six friends from a 55+ community in Moorestown have embarked on a mission to find the best cheesesteak in South Jersey, trying a new spot every month and debating the important things: bread firmness, hot peppers, meat-to-money ratio and whether Cooper Sharp was actually the right call.

There’s a spreadsheet, but no real scoring system. They mostly decide whether a sandwich is “good” or not while talking about sports, movies, and whatever else comes up.

So far, Chick’s Deli is winning. Donkey’s lost points for the kaiser roll. And they refuse to cross the bridge because there are too many cheesesteaks in Philly and, as they put it, they’re not sure they have enough time to eat them all.

Forget pickleball, these guys have retirement figured out.

The Eagles go back (and give back) to school: A+

Apparently, being an Eagle now comes with homework.

On Tuesday, Jalen Hurts showed up at Northeast High with $600,000 for air-conditioning, while Jalyx Hunt headed to Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls to announce three scholarships and an endowment.

Not a bad day for Philly schools. Hurts got involved three years ago after seeing a TV report that Philly schools were closing because they were too hot. He has since helped bring down the number of school with out AC, but 52 schools still lack full air-conditioning. His response this week: “Let’s get it to zero.”

Hunt, meanwhile, has basically been adopted by Little Flower. What started with a fundraiser for its basketball team during his rookie year has turned into basketball-game visits, Little Flower sweatshirts on Eagles road trips, and hundreds of students he calls his “little sisters.”

Philadelphia asks a lot of its Eagles — win football games, mainly. Air-condition the schools and help pay kids’ tuitions weren’t technically on the list, but please, keep going.

Stop bullying our airport: B

For the sixth year in a row, Philadelphia International Airport finished dead last among similarly sized airports in J.D. Power’s customer satisfaction survey.

The terminals are old. The waiting areas are cramped. There isn’t enough natural light. Even the people from J.D. Power basically said PHL needs a new building.

But last? Again? This is where Philadelphia must become defensive about an airport we complain about constantly ourselves.

PHL is easy to get around in without boarding some weird little airport train. And have these people eaten there lately? We’ve got Middle Child, Federal Donuts, Oyster House, and Elixr. The lounges are legitimately good, there’s local art everywhere, and you can find places for your dog to pee. Kiki Aranita made this entire case last year when PHL got snubbed from another airport ranking.

Yes, PHL needs work, and nearly $2 billion in upgrades are underway. But outsiders calling our airport the worst? Only we get to say that.

Rittenhouse shows up for Sue’s: A

Philadelphia is very good at mourning the places we love after they close, but this time, Rittenhouse is trying something different: keeping one open.

Sue’s Produce Market has been part of the neighborhood in one form or another since 1976, when Sue Shin started selling fruit from a cart at 18th and Walnut. Now, after falling behind on rent, the family-owned market needs $40,000 to avoid eviction.

The neighborhood apparently heard that as a challenge. A GoFundMe has already raised more than $25,000, with hundreds of people chipping in. Rittenhouse Row is rallying businesses, and Her Place Supper Club is planning an entire Korean-inspired dinner next month, with the proceeds going to Sue’s.

It makes sense once you hear how this place operates. Tina Shin, 63, gets up at 2 a.m. to make the kimchi and kimbap before spending the day behind the register. People have been buying their fruit and groceries from this family for generations, and Rittenhouse clearly can’t imagine 18th Street without Sue’s.

Phillies, please start hitting: C

Here we go again. The Phillies are approaching October, the pitching is doing its part, and everyone in Philadelphia is once again staring at a very expensive lineup and asking: Are you guys going to hit or what?

Jesús Luzardo is on the injured list with shoulder inflammation. The bullpen is an adventure. The defense and baserunning have provided their usual opportunities to yell at the television. And yet, the Phillies still have enough starting pitching to win. Zack Wheeler reminded everyone of that Wednesday, throwing seven scoreless innings against Washington.

The offense responded by drawing 13 walks, leaving 13 runners on base and scoring three runs. It was the most Phillies way imaginable to win 3-0.

Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, and Luis Arraez are making a combined $111.2 million this season. Nobody expects all six to be hot every night. But Phillies fans have watched some version of this movie for four straight Octobers: great pitching, enough chances, and a lineup that suddenly forgets how to score when the games matter most.

By the time you read this, maybe the bats have woken up (please!). Because the Phillies have the pitching to make another October run, it would just be nice if the guys holding the bats came along this time.

Philly’s 57-year-old typo: A

Philadelphia has a typo carved into a monument outside the Art Museum, and after 57 years, somebody is asking whether we should fix it, reported Billy Penn. Absolutely not.

The Eli Kirk Price Fountain, installed in 1969, honors the man whose “wisdom and dedication were responsible for the developement of the parkway and art museum.” Yes, developement.

The best part is that the Association for Public Art dug up a photo from the fountain’s 1969 unveiling showing men literally pointing at the mistake. The inscription approved two years earlier had “development” spelled correctly, but somewhere between paper and stone, an extra “e” slipped in.

Monument companies say fixing it would probably mean replacing the entire stone and it would be costly. So at this point, fixing the typo would be the mistake. Millions of people have walked past that fountain on their way to run up the Rocky Steps, and almost nobody noticed. Now it has a story.

Bomb Bomb gets a Best of: B-

Philadelphia has apparently reached the point where having only one of the best restaurants in America feels like a slight.

The New York Times released its annual best-restaurants list this week, and just one Philly spot made it: Bomb Bomb Bar, the nearly 90-year-old South Philly tavern that chef Joey Baldino took over and reopened last year.

Philly spent years demanding the rest of the country recognize how good our food scene is. Now we have Michelin stars, James Beard Awards, and enough national acclaim that one restaurant on the Times list suddenly feels stingy. We got two last year and three in 2023!

Bomb Bomb is a pretty great one, though. Baldino took a neighborhood bar that dates to 1936 — and was literally bombed twice in its early days — and made it better without scrubbing away what made people love it.

Congratulations to Bomb Bomb, and the rest of Philly will try to cope with the snub.

The PPA is giving money back: A+

Somewhere in Philadelphia, thousands of people are about to experience something they never thought possible: getting money back from the PPA.

The Parking Authority voided 23,195 speeding tickets and is refunding $1.25 million in fines after discovering that a required speed-camera warning sign was missing from a stretch of North Broad Street. A construction crew had knocked it down, and somehow it took about three months to get a new one up.

To be clear, the drivers were still speeding. The PPA would very much like everyone to know that. But state law requires a sign warning drivers about the camera, so the tickets had to go.

There is something deeply satisfying about this. Philly drivers have spent generations feeding parking meters, sprinting back to expired spots and discovering orange envelopes tucked under windshield wipers. The PPA is usually where your money goes, never where it comes from.

So check the mail, 12,214 lucky speeders. Somewhere out there is a refund from the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

And really you should frame the check, this may never happen again.

Philly’s respect for construction barriers: D

A SEPTA bus got stuck in freshly poured concrete outside Termini Bros. last week, just two minutes after city crews finished pouring it.

How did it get there? Two passengers hopped off the bus, moved the street-closure barricades themselves, and then helped direct the driver around the construction. Shockingly, that did not go well.

It gets even better when you learn that the pothole-turned-sinkhole had been there for 14 months, long enough that it had started swallowing traffic cones. The city finally showed up to fix it, poured the concrete, and blocked off the street at 7:21 p.m. The 47 bus drove into it at 7:23.

Fourteen months waiting for a repair, and it took two minutes to ruin it.

And to once again make this story even better, it happened outside a century-old Italian bakery, the bus was covered in Top Dog Law ads, and when city workers returned the next morning to fix the fix, Joey Termini brought them cannolis.

Our new sports home comes into focus: A

We’ve known for a while that the Sixers and Flyers are getting a new arena in South Philly. Now, we finally know what the thing is supposed to look like.

The first renderings dropped this week, and there’s plenty to like: a facade inspired by the old Spectrum, a huge outdoor plaza, food and drink pavilions, and a giant screen outside.

But the coolest part might be seeing three teams attached to it. When the doors open in 2030, the Sixers and Flyers will be joined by Philly’s still-unnamed WNBA team, which will begin play that same year.

Four years away suddenly feels a little more real. Now, we just need a name for the team (and, eventually, the building).

The Eagles go 12-5, according to science: A

The Eagles season starts Sunday, which means this is the last beautiful moment when absolutely anything can happen. So Mike Sielski did the responsible thing and predicted all 18 weeks — mostly through song lyrics and increasingly unhinged scenarios.

His forecast has Jalen Hurts doing the macarena on the first play of the season, Vic Fangio throwing up on a Dollywood roller coaster, Aaron Rodgers blaming a loss on Anthony Fauci and the illuminati, and Brandon Graham once again considering coming out of retirement. Somehow, amid all of this, the Eagles finish 12-5 and win the NFC East for a third straight year.

And you know what? Wouldn’t that be great? Twelve wins, another division title, football at Christmas, and several months spent planning Sundays around the Birds again. After an offseason of roster moves, coordinator questions, and endless predictions about what this team might be, we finally get to watch actual football.

And if we get to keep the 12-5 season, Hurts doing the macarena would just be the cherry on top.

An $88 potato?!: F

There are certain things an $88 potato should be able to do. Like maybe change your life or fix your credit. At minimum, make you briefly forget you just spent $88 on it.

The baked potato at Mr. Edison in the Bellevue starts at an already pricey $48, stuffed with nearly half a pound of crab au gratin. Add a “blackout” of caviar and suddenly you’re sitting in front of an $88 spud.

And according to Inquirer food writer Kiki Aranita, it wasn’t good.

An $88 potato should be so delicious that you spend the next week becoming an annoying person who tells everyone, “OK, but you have to try the potato.” Instead, Aranita described hers as “all mush” and pointed out that better baked potatoes can be found a few blocks away for a fraction of the price.

Caviar or no caviar, at the end of the night, it is still a potato.

Temple’s $55 million gift disappears: F

Less than a year ago, Temple was celebrating the largest donation in university history: $55 million from alumnus Christopher Barnett. This week, the school announced it was terminating the gift, removing Barnett’s name from its College of Public Health and other programs, and accepting his resignation from the board of trustees.

The reason is quite a turn. Barnett’s company, ABA Centers of America, is under federal criminal investigation over allegations including money laundering and wire fraud. Investigators allege the autism-services provider improperly billed insurers, including for treatment while clients were napping or watching television. Barnett has not been charged and “strenuously denies” the allegations.

There is a small piece of good news buried in this mess, though. Temple hadn’t gotten any of the $55 million yet, which makes it a lot easier to give the money back.

Philly loses a piece of itself: F

The Academy of Natural Sciences has been an institution in Philadelphia for nearly 200 years.

Generations of kids have walked into Dinosaur Hall and stared up at the skeletons, pressed buttons, dug for fossils, looked at bugs, and wandered past those wonderfully old-school animal dioramas. Then they grew up, had kids, and brought them back to do the exact same things.

At the end of the month, that stops. The museum is closing as attendance has fallen and operating costs have risen, though the Academy’s scientific research and its collection of roughly 19 million specimens will remain. What happens to the museum is uncertain; Academy leaders say they hope public access can return in some form.

That uncertainty is what makes this feel like more than another attraction closing. Philadelphia’s identity isn’t just cheesesteaks and sports teams and the stuff that fits neatly on a tourism poster. It’s also the institutions that have been here so long that generations assume they’ll always be here — the Academy, the Franklin Institute, the Art Museum, the Please Touch Museum. They’re where Philly kids learn, and learn what their city is.

The dinosaurs aren’t just leaving the Parkway. Philly is losing one of the places that helped make us, us.

Cecily gives her final forecast: D

For 31 years, Cecily Tynan told the Delaware Valley what was coming. On Monday night, everyone already knew the forecast: This was going to hurt a little.

Tynan delivered her final weather report on Action News, choking up as she thanked viewers who had watched her through everything from the Blizzard of ’96 to Superstorm Sandy. She talked about meeting families who had watched 6abc for generations and even young Cecilys whose parents named them after her.

Then Jim Gardner — because apparently this goodbye wasn’t emotional enough already — returned to the studio to send off his longtime colleague (WITHOUT HIS MUSTACHE, let’s not forget to mention).

Cecily wasn’t just there for the giant storms people remember. She was there on thousands of ordinary nights, standing in front of that weather map while families ate dinner, packed lunches, wondered about school the next morning, or decided whether they needed an umbrella. She became part of the routine.

Even Cecily seemed to understand that relationship when she told viewers that although she was retiring, she’d “always be part of the Action News team.”

Philly needs an outhouse race: A

Every once in a while, another part of Pennsylvania comes up with an idea so stupid that Philadelphia should immediately steal it.

In Dushore, a tiny Sullivan County town of about 450 people, residents have spent the last 26 years racing outhouses down Main Street. The rules require a real toilet seat, four pushers and one person sitting on the throne to steer. Teams have names like Perfect Dump, Steiny’s Heineys, and the Coal Region Turd Herders. There are trophies. People train for this.

Naturally, the question is: Why aren’t we doing this in Philly?

Imagine outhouses flying down the Parkway, preferably with Gritty sitting on the toilet. Put one on the Manayunk Wall if we’re feeling reckless. Neighborhood teams would have to build their own: Rittenhouse vs. Fishtown vs. Delco, which isn’t technically a neighborhood but would absolutely show up with an outhouse anyway. Wawa could sponsor one. SEPTA could enter another.

Dushore drew a crowd several times larger than the town’s population to watch people push toilets up and down the street, and Philadelphia has closed roads for far less compelling reasons.

So bring the Turd Herders to Broad Street!

You cannot reboot ‘Jersey Shore’: C

Netflix is filming a new reality show, The Leftovers, in Seaside Heights with longtime Jersey Shore producer SallyAnn Salsano. They insist it’s not a reboot, which is smart, because you cannot recreate that level of magic.

Jersey Shore gave us GTL, “cabs are here,” Snooki getting arrested on the beach, Ron and Sam fighting about everything, and an anonymous note becoming one of the most important documents ever produced in New Jersey.

You can find another group of hot, messy 20-somethings, but you cannot make them accidentally invent GTL again. Reality TV contestants know too much now. They arrive with Instagram strategies and a preferred angle.

So let The Leftovers be its own beautiful Jersey disaster.

There is only one Snooki. And only one note.

Falling for the Phillies, again: A

The problem with this particular Phillies team is that we know better.

We have been here before. We’ve watched October end against Arizona, the Mets, and the Dodgers in increasingly creative ways, then spent entire off seasons insisting we would not let these people hurt us again.

And yet, look at us.

The Phillies have won six straight, moved into the top National League wild-card spot, and are suddenly just three games behind Atlanta in the NL East with a four-game series against the Braves this weekend. That is exactly the kind of September setup that makes all those carefully constructed emotional boundaries start to seem a little dramatic.

It helps that Bryce Harper looks like Bryce Harper again. After hitting .333 with a 1.069 OPS in August, he opened September by going 4-for-4 with a walk, extending his on-base streak to 34 games, and pushing his season OPS above .900. Jesús Luzardo is 9-0 on the road. The lineup is finding ways to score without relying entirely on home runs. Even when one part of this team isn’t carrying the night, somebody else seems to be.

This is how they get you. A month ago, October still felt like something to approach with extreme caution. Now the Braves are here, Harper is cooking, and Citizens Bank Park gets four chances at them this weekend.

Fine, the walls are down. We’re all in.

Kyle Schwarber and whatever the hell that ninth inning was: A+

For eight innings last Sunday, the Phillies did absolutely nothing. Four hits, zero runs, down 4-0, and two outs in the ninth. The Cardinals had their closer on the mound, and everyone could reasonably start thinking about dinner.

Then Edmundo Sosa cleared the bases with a double, Bryan De La Cruz tied it, and Kyle Schwarber hit a baseball 459 feet into dead center to end the game.

Six runs, all with two outs, and we ended the game with a 6-4 win, sweeping the Cardinals. Nine straight victories. The kind of finish that had Scott Franzke yelling “It’s over!” on the radio, Tom McCarthy doing the same on TV, and John Kruk apparently deciding there was nothing he could add to the situation.

Michael Barkann called it maybe the greatest regular-season finish he’s ever seen, which could sound like postgame exaggeration until you realize the Phillies hadn’t won a game after trailing by four or more with two outs in the ninth since 1983.

This team lost 10 straight games in April, and now has swept three straight series for the first time in 16 years and is suddenly breathing down Atlanta’s neck. Please let this happy chaos continue.

Patti LaBelle and Dolly Parton’s acrylic duet: A+

Dolly Parton was 80, had been famous for nearly 60 years, and somehow belonged to everybody — country fans, drag queens, kids getting free books, your mom, your grandma, anyone who ever owned a rhinestone.

Philly got its share of Dolly, from the Spectrum to the Mann and Atlantic City, where she once joked she’d keep performing until she dropped dead mid-song, “high heels to heaven.” But the clip we’ll keep replaying is her and Patti LaBelle in 1987, two icons in enormous hair and sparkly gowns, using their acrylic nails as percussion while singing “Short’nin’ Bread.” It looks less like television than two of your aunties got bored at a wedding reception and decided to put on a show.

She once said she hoped that long after she was gone, people would look back at her career and say, “Damn, that was good.”

And damn, Dolly. It was.

Back to school without the heat: B

There are certain signs that fall is coming in Philadelphia: Kids go back to school, the Eagles start playing games that count, and someone you know sets mums out on their porch.

And, for once, the first day of school didn’t come with a 95-degree forecast.

That matters in Philly, where 52 district schools still aren’t fully air-conditioned and hot days can mean early dismissals or remote learning. Nothing eases a parent back into the school-year routine quite like dropping a kid off and then finding out you need to leave work to pick them up three hours later.

The district did eliminate half days this year, so families have one less factor contributing to scheduling chaos.

And this week’s cooler mornings have been enough to make us start thinking about sweatshirts, football, and maybe opening a window at night. But next week’s forecast has temperatures creeping back toward the 90s, so it looks like we still have a wait.

‘National Treasure 3’ is finally happening: A-

It has been nearly 20 years since Nicolas Cage last went hunting for treasure, which is an absurd amount of time to leave a man who once stole the Declaration of Independence without another important American document to steal.

But National Treasure 3 is finally real. Director Jon Turteltaub broke the news at Philadelphia’s first National Treasure Weekend. (Where else should this announcement happen?)

The original movie filmed some of its most memorable scenes here, and Philadelphia has spent the two decades since happily accepting National Treasure into the local canon. Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence, and Nicolas Cage stole it.

There’s a script, Cage is expected back, and Turteltaub says they’re trying to bring back the rest of the cast.

No word yet on whether Philly makes it into the third movie, but after hosting an entire weekend in its honor, we better get robbed again.

Philly restaurants make another national list: B+

At this point, a national food publication naming Philadelphia restaurants among the best in the country is less breaking news and more a recurring calendar event.

This time it’s Bon Appétit, which put Honeysuckle and Sao on its list of 19 best new restaurants in America. They join spots in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and the other cities we’re apparently required to compete with every time somebody makes one of these lists.

We could pretend to be surprised, but both restaurants already have plenty of hardware — and attention. Honeysuckle is Michelin-recommended, while Sao comes from Phila and Rachel Lorn, whose first restaurant, Mawn, remains one of the hardest tables to get in town.

So yes, another national publication has discovered that Philadelphia is very good at restaurants. We’ll take the nod and act appropriately impressed.

The masked menace has been caught: A

Remember the guy in the creepy Halloween mask who spent a morning terrorizing people around City Hall? Well, he made it all the way to Las Vegas before the U.S. Marshals caught up with him.

The whole thing was bizarre even by Philly standards: A man in a cracked-doll mask allegedly spent half an hour chasing and scaring people, including asking one jogger if she was “ready to die.” One woman was injured trying to get away. Then he apparently packed his bags and left town.

There are plenty of characters around City Hall already, and we did not need one who looked like he wandered off the set of a low-budget horror movie.

Philly owns the holidays: A

Hope the rest of the country likes Philadelphia, because apparently we’re coming to their holiday gatherings this year.

The Eagles play on Thanksgiving and again on Christmas Eve. Then, we have the Sixers on Christmas Day. Really, can you blame the networks? The Eagles are one of the biggest draws in football, and the Sixers just added LeBron James. Basically if you need people to stop talking to their relatives and look at the TV for three hours, Philadelphia can help.

Not everyone considers this a gift. One fan corrected “running” the holidays to “ruining” them, while another pointed out that getting together with family is stressful enough without adding an Eagles game. But nothing brings a family together quite like a holiday, until a questionable fourth-down call has Uncle Mike pacing around the living room refusing to speak to anyone.

The only thing we need to complete the calendar, one fan noted, is the Eagles on Valentine’s Day in Super Bowl LXI.

The $10,000 Shore house: C

Every summer, someone discovers how much it costs to vacation at the Jersey Shore and the internet holds a small trial.

This year’s defendant is a Philly mom who went viral after revealing her family pays $10,000 for a Shore rental — one where they still have to bring their own sheets, toilet paper, paper towels, coffee, and, presumably, half the contents of their house, the New York Post reported.

Her description was pretty devastating: “Basically, we’re paying $10,000 to camp.”

Naturally, the internet had feelings. “For $10,000, you could go to Greece! The Caribbean! Somewhere with turquoise water where nobody makes you buy a beach tag!”

And, OK, they’re not wrong. Ten grand is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a house where you arrive Saturday afternoon and immediately realize someone forgot the cardboard box with the BYO ketchup bottle, olive oil, and salt and pepper shakers.

But the Jersey Shore has never been a purely rational vacation decision. For a lot of families around here, it’s the same town every summer, the same pizza place, the same mini golf course, the same people crammed into a rental house together. You know exactly what you’re getting.

Would $10,000 get you farther somewhere else? Sure. But Greece doesn’t have your family’s 25-year grudge over who gets the bedroom with the good air conditioner.

The Phillies bullpen experience: C-

At this point, a Phillies starter leaving the game with a four-run lead feels less like good news and more like the beginning of a hostage situation.

Jesús Luzardo gave them seven innings Sunday, struck out 12, and handed the bullpen a 5-2 lead. Orion Kerkering promptly helped turn it into a tie game. The Phillies eventually won, but only after 12 innings and considerably more stress than should have been required.

Then came Monday, when the bullpen was so depleted that Don Mattingly essentially had one reliever left. If the Cardinals forced extra innings, the backup plan was Garrett Stubbs. Yes, the catcher.

Luckily, Andrew Painter carried a no-hitter into the sixth, Alan Rangel got within one run of disaster before escaping the eighth, and Jonathan Bowlan needed only 10 pitches to record his first major league save. Mattingly summed up the evening afterward: “We survived, right?”

That’s pretty much where we are. The Phillies have enough talent to get to October, but we’re getting awfully close to the part of the season when “we survived” needs to become a less eventful way to win a baseball game.

Philly’s nameless chicken sandwich: A+

Apparently, one of Philly’s best chicken sandwiches comes from a corner store we’re not entirely sure how to name.

Some people call it Mrs. Lee’s. Others call it Jimmy’s. Credit card receipts say Kim Woa Store. There’s no visible sign outside to settle the matter, which hasn’t stopped people from finding their way to 17th and Wharton for nearly three decades.

In fact, former Point Breeze residents drive back from New Jersey, Delaware, and even North Carolina for the $9 sandwich, and TikTok has now sent customers from Canada. All for two crispy chicken cutlets on potato bread from a corner store where you can also grab a single roll of toilet paper.

The Cong family says they’re selling about 50 sandwiches a day now, although they seem considerably less impressed by their newfound internet attention than everyone eating them.

Philly vs. the universe: D

The universe put on quite the show Wednesday: a partial eclipse, four planets lined up in the sky, and the Perseid meteor shower reaching its peak overnight.

And Philadelphia got … clouds.

To be fair, we weren’t missing much with the eclipse. Only about 8% of the sun was blocked here, which an actual astrophysicist said you probably wouldn’t even notice. But the Perseids were supposed to be the real prize, with a moonless sky making this one of the better nights to look up and catch a few meteors.

Unfortunately, after a summer of heat, humidity, and random downpours, the weather couldn’t give us one night off.

The LeBron tax: B

Remember when we were all having fun with this?

LeBron James is a Sixer! People were sunburning his number into their backs! We’re getting a Christmas Day game! Maybe this really is the year!

Well, here comes the invoice.

Tickets haven’t even officially gone on sale yet, and the cheapest seats on the secondary market for the Sixers’ home opener against Cleveland are already flirting with $500, NBC reported. Last year, comparable seats for opening night were around $100.

It’s not exactly surprising. The Sixers added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to a team with Tyrese Maxey, and suddenly every game comes with the possibility of seeing something you’ll be talking about for years.

Still, there’s something cruel about finally assembling the kind of Sixers team we’ve been begging for and immediately discovering we may have to enjoy it from the couch. At least it won’t be $30 for a beer at home.