I'm a Philadelphia sports fanatic. I still watch Phillies games on my iPad, which is basically admitting to having daily torture sessions.

When I was at the 'Philadelphia Inquirer,' I was promoted nine times in my first 13 years. I ultimately went from general assignment to beats on St. Joe's and Temple, to backup writer, to NBA writer, to NBA columnist, to, ultimately, in 2003, to general sports columns.

Spatial racism, the erasure of black faces in a predominantly white city, is in full effect in both Crown Heights and Center City Philadelphia. This racism demands that bodies that don't conform to a mandated 'white' status quo can be redlined out of a space.

When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31, I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners, since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments.

I was meant to date the captain of the football team, I was going to be on a romantic excursion every Saturday night, I was destined to be collecting corsages from every boy in town before prom, accepting such floral offerings like competing sacrifices to a Delphic goddess.

I really disliked Philadelphia society - really, deeply disliked it. I spent a lot of my teenage years writing poetry attacking it.

I have very vivid memories of my parents talking about Nixon, my mom watching Watergate on the black-and-white set in the living room. The mayor at the time in Philadelphia was a guy named Frank Rizzo - a Democrat, a real bully, a racist.

My great uncle, my mom's uncle, had an appliance store in Philadelphia, and it was called Peter's TV. They sold stereos and televisions and washers, dryers, all kinds of stuff.

Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia.

Cultures have long heard wisdom in non-human voices: Apollo, god of music, medicine and knowledge, came to Delphi in the form of a dolphin. But dolphins, which fill the oceans with blipping and chirping, and whales, which mew and caw in ultramarine jazz - a true rhapsody in blue - are hunted to the edge of silence.

The Constitution was written by 55 educated and highly intelligent men in Philadelphia in 1787, but it was written so that it could be understood by people of limited education and modest intelligence.

John Huston was a superb master. He knew how to make good films. I did three things with him. One is called Independence. It plays in Philadelphia, for free. It's been playing there for 25 years.

Home is here in Philadelphia. I never like to be away too long.

In Philadelphia, our public safety, poverty reduction, health and economic development all start with education. We can't grow the middle class if we don't give our kids the tools they need to innovate and invent.

Stretching back nearly three decades, Brian Williams and I have forged an enduring friendship. It all began in 1986 at WCAU-TV in Philadelphia and has resulted in a set of noteworthy experiences, amazing successes, and a bunch of trips to NASCAR speedways.

My dad was an architect, and he wasn't a rich guy, but in our little world in Philadelphia, he was famous. He loved to see his picture in the paper. I wanted to be more famous than him.

I've always been intellectually restless, but it is the building part of it that most interests me. It is the constructing of the team that is my favorite part. Anyone who is familiar with the history of the A's franchise, even dating back to Philadelphia, knows that every five or 10 years, you have to tear it apart and rebuild it.

When I was a child, I was living in the housing projects of Philadelphia. I didn't even have a Christmas tree.

I really love Philadelphia and all of the fans, my teammates, the front office, the organization, everybody. I know I'm going to miss them. I really appreciate everything we did together. On the other side, I am happy because I have a chance to go to the playoffs. Another opportunity, maybe, to go to the World Series.

You can't be Allen Iverson on a football team. And even Iverson got run out of Philadelphia when he was still a spectacular talent because the Sixers got tired of the headache and his bad attitude.

When gangs took over the [abandoned public land in Philadelphia] and the neighborhood took a turn for the worse, horses became a way of saving lives. By getting boys interested in raising a horse rather than killing another human being, these cowboys gave the youth something positive: father figures, focus, and the ability to stand tall.

Wise random strangers at bars are modern-day Oracles of Delphi, except drunk and sometimes leaving abruptly when it's their turn for karaoke.

If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia you quickly come to understand that you have been set apart and that there's no will in this society to bring you back into the mainstream.

When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31 I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments.