Castellanos’ paper goodbye, Philly’s Super Bowl cameo, and a 40-degree heat wave | Weekly Report Card

It was probably time.

On Thursday, the Phillies released Nick Castellanos.

Within hours, he posted a four-page handwritten note on Instagram — wide-ruled loose-leaf paper, photographed, and shared as-is.

Objectively? That part is funny. In a league of polished PR statements and Notes app screenshots, Castellanos went with visible margins.

In the note, he finally filled in the blank: “Ok apparently I need to address the Miami incident.”

For eight months, the “Miami incident” hovered over the franchise without much other information. It was a turning point, but no one outside the clubhouse knew why.

Now we know his side of the story: After being pulled late in a June game in Miami, he brought a can of Presidente into the dugout and confronted Rob Thomson about what he saw as inconsistent standards. Teammates took the beer before he drank it. He apologized. The next day, his starting streak ended. And after that, the relationship was never the same.

But still, this ending lands with nostalgia.

This was the guy who turned tragic news cycles into accidental baseball folklore. The timing of his biggest hits was just uncanny. The day I-95 collapsed, or the day a president was shot at, or the day another dropped out of a race.

Then there was Liam, and the joy of getting to experience Red October with his son in the stands. Back-to-back postseason multihomer games with his kid watching. Whatever else you thought about Castellanos, those nights felt special.

He was never boring, and that counts for something.

No Eagles. No midnight Broad Street mayhem. No pole-climbing debates.

And yet … Philly was absolutely on the field.

While the Birds watched from home, two people with Philly ties were part of one of the most-watched halftime shows in history. One was a literal blade of grass in Bad Bunny’s field-of-dreams spectacle. The other helped dismantle that same stage in under seven minutes.

An Eagles fan from Fishtown spent weeks rehearsing in a 50-pound grass suit, keeping the secret, grinding through 12-hour days, then waddling past Pedro Pascal and Cardi B on global television. A Northeast Philly marketing pro manifested her way onto the field crew and helped execute one of the most high-pressure seven-minute turnovers in live entertainment.

The plant story is peak Philly optimism: “The Eagles didn’t go, so I went for them.” That’s delusional in the best way. That’s Broad Street confidence. The field-team story hits deeper. In a halftime show centered on Latino pride and visibility, a Mayfair native who’s built community through Latin culture here in Philly ends up helping pull off the mechanics of the moment.

Would it have been better if it were an Eagle-and-Benito Bowl? Obviously. But Philly showed up anyway. Grass suit. Stage crew. Go Birds.

Forty degrees.

That’s it. That’s the temperature.

And yet across the city, sleeves are rolled up, sunglasses are out, and people are acting like they just survived a polar expedition.

After the biggest snowfall in a decade and an Arctic stretch that froze the leftovers in place like concrete, 40 degrees feels like a personal apology from the atmosphere.

People are planning vacations, talking about the Cherry Blossom Festival, and declaring the worst is behind us while carefully sidestepping three-foot snowbanks and skating past frozen crosswalks. Someone said, “It’s gorgeous out,” and meant it sincerely.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Philadelphia. While the apps are glitching, and someone you barely know is asking your “intentions,” McGillin’s Old Ale House hosts a reunion for couples who met the old-fashioned way: one bar stool over.

The 166-year-old pub gathered dozens of couples this month who found love under its low ceilings and tinsel hearts. Some have been married 50-plus years while others are newlyweds who matched over wings and Yuenglings. The upstairs bar looked like a class reunion for romantics.

In a city that loves to argue about everything, this one’s hard to fight: Proximity still works. (Eye contact and beer don’t hurt, either).

There’s something deeply comforting about the idea that the most reliable matchmaker in Philly isn’t an app. It’s a place with oak tables, framed liquor licenses from the 1800s, and bartenders who’ve seen it all. At some point, the legend becomes self-fulfilling. If everyone believes McGillin’s is where love happens, eventually it does.

There is something deeply Pennsylvania about thousands of people spending their morning refreshing a live webcam of a bald eagle nest in an undisclosed Lancaster County tree.

The content is simple: Just two bald eagles, Lisa and Oliver, sitting on three eggs. And people love it.

More than 100 live viewers at mid-morning, with nearly 700,000 views last year. The chat section is full of viewers who are emotionally invested in avian domestic life.

There’s something quietly moving about it. Bald eagles were nearly wiped out here with just eight known active nests in 1990. Now there are more than 300.

Spring is coming. And until baseball starts, this is what we’ve got.

It’s official: “Smokin’” Joe Frazier is moving to the Art Museum steps.

The Art Commission voted unanimously to relocate Frazier’s 12-foot bronze statue from the sports complex to the base of the museum steps — the spot Rocky has occupied for two decades. Rocky, meanwhile, is headed back to the top.

On one level, the move feels overdue. Frazier wasn’t a metaphor. He was a real Philadelphian, an Olympic gold medalist, a heavyweight champion, the man who handed Muhammad Ali his first professional loss. Meanwhile, Rocky, beloved as he is, is a fictional character who may have been inspired in part by Frazier’s life.

There’s something quietly powerful about visitors encountering Joe first, before heading up top to take a selfie with a myth.

Yes, there are valid conversations about symbolism, especially in Black History Month, about a real Black champion standing below a fictional white character. The city’s explanation is practical: Frazier’s statue is physically larger and not structurally suited for the top. Rocky’s footprint is smaller and easier to manage up there.

Logistics matter, but narrative does too, and this move reshapes the narrative. You climb the steps for the movie moment, but you pass the real champion on the way.

On paper, this is easy. The World Cup is coming, and along with it comes half a million tourists and a global spotlight. Other host cities pour until 4 a.m. Philly shuts it down at 2.

The pitch is simple: if Brazil and Haiti kick off at 9 p.m., and knockout games can run long, why send thousands of fans back to their hotels when Miami and New York are just getting started?

The last time Pennsylvania tried this, during the 2016 DNC, the response was tepid, reported Philly Voice. Businesses had to deal with expensive permits and confusing rules, and the result wasn’t exactly a citywide bacchanal. And even now, bar owners quietly admit the late-night crowds aren’t what they used to be.

There’s also the Philly tension underneath this: We want to be global, but we also want to sleep. Would it be cool to say Philly partied like a World Cup city? Sure.

But it’s also true that if bars will be pouring until sunrise, at least half the neighborhoods would immediately be on 311, complaining about all the drunk and noisy tourists.