IS LEARNING THE PRINCETON OFFENSE
Photos: 2009 Phillies TO BEGIN WITH, John Goral isn't much of a Phillies fan. Not much of a baseball fan, really.
His wife, Gina, she's another story. She's a baseball nut . . . well, a newbie nut, one of masses who converted when the Phillies sprouted charisma during their 2007 run to the playoffs. She happened to take a shine to that slim Cole Hamels kid, the self-assured ace with the dreamy eyes. She even bought a Hamels jersey.
Really, though, they're a football couple. Their Bensalem basement testifies their allegiances: His Steelers banner hangs on one wall, its Roman numerals signifying the Super Bowls won by that team. An empty space on a nearby wall awaits her Eagles Super Bowl banner.
But the Phillies? Well, they figure, it's nice to have a summertime diversion.
Matter of fact, when John Goral saw those corny Phillies World Series badges tacked on the fenders of this silver Camaro SS at Thomas Chevrolet in Media, his first stipulation was, the guys in the back had to take that mess off.
This was his midlife-crisis car, and it had to be perfect.
Now, their nest empty of three children, the Gorals can splurge a bit. He is a truck mechanic at Penske Truck Rental in the Northeast. He always has driven pickup trucks.
Like a lot of responsible dads, he'd visit the car shows, and he'd dream. Now, at 49, he wanted his dream to come true. He wanted one of those retro-new 2010 Camaros, one like the "Bumblebee" Transformer in the movie.
But not with the Phillies stuff on it. Take it off, he said.
He was told that he might want to rethink that request.
See, this wasn't any old Camaro with corny Phillies emblems. This was Cole Hamels'. Or Heidi Hamels'.
Kind of.
Chevrolet gave Cole Hamels a 2010 Camaro as part of the prize for being the World Series MVP. The one on the field wasn't the one for Hamels. It was just a model. He got to order his, whatever he wanted.
Ever the romantic, Hamels ordered the testosterone-pumper for his wife, Heidi. Really, what else would the hottest "Survivor" in history want from her Hollywood hubby? And, being a daughter of the Ozarks, well, it had to be a stick shift, right?
"I grew up in the country," she says. "Everybody had a standard. My parents didn't allow me to learn to drive an automatic."
And what girl loves to double-clutch 426 horsepower with boot-crunchin' twang blaring on the radio? Little Heidi Hamels does, cowboy.
So, no wimpy automatics, please. Cole ordered her the stick.
But bailout companies sometimes get things wrong. When the car showed up in May, sure enough, no clutch.
No thanks, Heidi said. I want the stick.
"I agreed," says Cole, who can't drive a stick shift. He putters around in a Jeep, and has always shied away from muscle cars, regardless of their transmissions: "They scare me."
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