One law professor is not like the others.
David S. Cohen is not only a dedicated professor, practicing attorney and father of two young kids, he’s also a phanatic. A Philadelphia Phillies fanatic, that is.
His love of baseball dates back to when he first learned to read.
“My mother, a true baseball fanatic, says that I learned to read by reading the sports section of the newspaper to find out about the Phillies,” Cohen said.
And according to Cohen, it’s as if he’s seeing his life flash before his eyes as he watches his 7-year-old son do the same.
“He’s developing into a fanatic,” Cohen said. “We’re still waiting to see about my 5-year-old.”
His favorite Phillies player growing up was Mike Schmidt, a Hall of Fame third baseman. “I had the joy of watching most of his career growing up,” Cohen said.
More recently, Cohen took a liking to Bobby Abreu.
“He was under-appreciated here in Philly, but he did so much so well that it’s hard to truly grasp how good he was when he was here,” Cohen said.
Cohen’s love of baseball, especially the Phillies, has even led to a part-time hobby: writing for The Good Phight, a blog he and others started in 2005. After eight years, it has grown to be one of the leading Phillies blogs on the Internet. A steady group of about 10 writers—whom Cohen met through Phillies Internet discussion boards—contribute to the site daily, writing in-depth analyses, recapping the games and posting to comment threads as they happen.
Cohen and his fellow bloggers created The Good Phight when they heard about a then-fledgling sports blog network that was looking for a Phillies addition. The Good Phight has been part of Sports Blog Nation, now a network of more than 300 sports blogs from around the world, ever since.
Cohen’s favorite part of being a Phillies fan? Being at the stadium with 40,000-plus other devoted phanatics.
“There’s incredible shared excitement in the experience,” Cohen said. “That is, when the team is winning.”
It’s even more exciting when he catches an epic fly ball, like he did on April 15, 2010.
“It was truly a wonderful moment, but it could have easily been a ‘man falls over edge’ moment,” Cohen said. “It wasn’t, so the excitement of it all, as well as the smile on my son’s face, is something that will stay with me and my family forever.”
The video speaks for itself. View it here.