Bally Photos: February 2008 Archives

The picture above is not of our travelin' hoops buddy. This is Bally's distant cousin Orangey, who retired to Fort Myers a few years back, let himself go, and took a job at a tourist-trap fruit stand near the Minnesota Twins' spring-training camp. What a sell-out. Here are some other snapshots of our soon-to-be-annual Florida swing.

As you've probably gathered, we were in MAC and Horizon League country last week. There was a lot of snow, but Bally lives in my bookbag on the road and is generally unaffected by weather. It's warm in there.

There's more than one Bally, and that's because we occasionally hold contests here and give away real-life versions of the cartoon buddy who goes everywhere with me on my travels. Like, for instance, our Hunan: Return Of The Phoenix movie treatment contest, which might be extended an extra day because the entries are so awesome, and we want more, more, more awesomeness.

Anyway, speaking of awesomeness, there's a secret e-mail address on the polybag that the orange guy comes in, along with an invitation to take him to games and send in pictures. And as you might know, UNC-Asheville beat Winthrop 71-56 on Saturday, and it was a crucial (and awesome) Big South game that provided separation in a league that WU has lorded over for seeming centuries.

But longtime reader and local legend Rod in Asheville, in bringing a certain friend to the game, set the Bally bar about as high as it could go. Anybody who sends in snapshots from here on out will have to face the inevitable comparisons to Rod's entries, and I just hope that this doesn't dissuade anybody from future submissions out of pure shame. After the jump, we have Bally with hot girls, and that's what you -- the future picture sender-inner -- have to compete with.

I'm just going to sit back over here in the corner, and let Rod take the story from here.