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Round 1 voting is now closed. See the winners under each matchup.
Welcome to Billy Penn‘s pseudoscientific, made-up, but otherwise utterly reliable bracket-tournament-style contest so you, our users, can finally crown what we’re humbly calling The Most Philly Thing Ever. So, exactly like the NCAA, we picked the most Philly things we could think of in four categories: the most Philly person, the most Philly food and drink, the most Philly thing from the outside and the most Philly pastime.
So here’s how this will work: We picked two competitors in each sub-category, and then seeded them. Round One has 16 match-ups for a total of 32 Philly things. Vote in each match-up, and we’ll post the results later this week so we can get the second round (the Sweet 16) rolling. In the final four, the winners of each category will go up against each other.
Disagree with our seeding and selections? Send your angry tweets to @billy_penn and we may or may not argue back. As the Democratic union machine says, vote early and often, kids.
Most Philly person
Competitors:
Best Founding Father: Ben Franklin and William (Billy) Penn
Chef’s Empire: Jose Garces and Stephen Starr
Most Hollywood: Will Smith and M. Night Shyamalan
Most Political: Chris Matthews and Ed Rendell
The match-ups:
Jose Garces has brought countless good eats to Philadelphia, but Ben Franklin helped bring Philadelphia and America the freedom of choice that is allowing you to choose whether top-notch cuisine or democracy is more important. Let that marinate for a second.
WINNER: Ben Franklin
WINNER: Ed Rendell
WINNER: Billy Penn
WINNER: Will Smith
Most Philly food or drink
The competitors:
Most Philly Snack: TaskyKake and Soft Pretzel
Most Philly Sugary Sweet: Peanut Chews and Water Ice
Most Philly Beer: Yards Brawler and Kenzinger
Sammich-off: Cheesesteak and Roast Pork
The match-ups:
WINNER: Cheesesteak
WINNER: Soft pretzel
WINNER: TastyKake
WINNER: Water Ice
Most Philly thing from the outside
The competitors:
-Adelphia pun: Filthadelphia and Killadelphia
Most Philly cliche (that’s really true): Rocky’s town and Awful sports fans
Most musical representation: “Summertime” and Motown Philly
Most Philly establishment: Wawa and Reading Terminal Market
The match-ups:
WINNER: Wawa
WINNER: Awful sports fans
Everyone who comes to town wants to walk or run up the Rocky steps. And if you’re a good host you’ll take all of your guests away from there to Reading Terminal for lunch.
WINNER: Reading Terminal Market
Philadelphia is getting greener but still has a tremendous hazardous waste problem. Its homicide rate in 2013 was slightly higher than Chicago’s and New York’s per capita but decreased by about 25 percent from 2012.
WINNER: Filthadelphia
Most Philly pastime or activity
The competitors:
Best Baseball Team: Taney Dragons and Philadelphia Phillies
Best Basketball Team: Temple U. and Philadelphia 76ers
Best Drunken Party: Mummer’s Parade and Fat Tuesday on South Street
Best Parking Practice: Center lane parking and Saving parking spots
The match-ups:
Our nation’s oldest continuing sports pastime is the Phillies. Temple and its former longtime coach John Chaney always gave Philly residents a gritty, underdog team to identify with.
WINNER: Phillies
Many cities park in the center lane but none do it as much as us. Mo’Ne and Taney reignited our flame for baseball as Phillies GM Ruben Amaro was busy extinguishing it.
WINNER: Center Lane Parking
The Mummers have been doing their thing since before the United States separated from Britain. The #LOLSixers are still the third-winningest franchise in the NBA, despite being the #LOLSixers now.
WINNER: Mummer’s Parade
Philadelphians know that a good parking spot is a terrible thing to waste. And it’s just people getting drunk on South Street — nothing new, except for it seems like a good reason on Fat Tuesday.
WINNER: Saving parking spots
