Ben Franklin vs. the cheesesteak, Mummers vs. Reading Terminal: Ultimate Philly Final 4

Welcome to Round 4 of Billy Penn‘s pseudoscientific, made-up, but otherwise utterly reliable bracket-tournament-style contest crowning The Most Philly Thing Ever. 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. You voted in Round 1, Round 2 and Round 3— now the stakes are higher, and the competition is stiffer. Only two more rounds to go.

We picked two competitors in each sub-category, and then seeded them. We’re now down to just two things left in each category. Welcome to the Final 4, people. (Disagree with our seeding and selections? Send your angry tweets to @billy_penn; we may or may not argue back.)

As the Democratic union machine says, vote early and vote often.

Your Final Four:

In one corner, you’ve got the champion of the Most Philly Person category: Ben Franklin. This founding father hails from one of the toughest competitions, but reigned supreme in the last round over our beloved Philadelphian Billy Penn. But he’s up against a tough one: Coming from the most Philly Food group is the cheesesteak. We probably could have guessed this intense matchup from the beginning. So what will you choose? A man who contributed to the freedom of ‘Merica? Or the freedom to choose whether your want your sandwich wit whiz or not?

For your consideration:

Annnnnd one more time:

That is all.

WINNER: Ben Franklin

For the second matchup:

Needless to say based on our seeding, we were a bit more surprised by this kinda odd matchup of Philly’s most famous market up against its most famous really-very-bizarre-if-you-think-about-it parade. So what’s more Philly? A DiNic’s sandwich and a 4th Street Cookie? Or a bunch of drunk dudes dressed weird strutting down Broad Street?

Also important to consider: That time there was such thing as an opera flash mob in Reading Terminal and everyone was like wtf.