Bunch

Just another fine afternoon for "Big Zeek and the boys," as they call themselves, to sit around, trade fishing stories, listen to music, drink grape soda and relax with the bears at a shady corner in Southwest Philadelphia. Such was life yesterday at 49th and Paschall, where Zeek (second from left) and some friends enjoyed another gorgeous late-summer day. Though rain is expected later, today should be mostly sunny, mildly warm and clear. In other words, simply bearable. Weather details on Page 10.

OK, so you didn't win the biggest single-ticket lottery prize in Pennsylvania history. And, yes, somebody in PITTSBURGH did. Don't whine. There's no conspiracy. No favoritism. Philadelphia doesn't get stiffed. And forget about moving before there's another monster pot. Fact is, people throughout the state and even outside it have won the biggest prizes since the Super 7 game debuted in August 1986. And, among the top 10 single-ticket winners before yesterday, two were from Philadelphia and just one was from Pittsburgh.

It's going to cost more to fly to Boston. Just how much more is the question. Southwest Airlines Co., which began flying nonstop from Philadelphia to Boston in June 2010, is eliminating the route effective Feb. 11, leaving only US Airways Group Inc. to fly there from here. In February 2010, Southwest announced, with great fanfare, that it would provide another option to get to Boston. The airline hoped to steal away business travelers with lower fares. Apparently, that did not happen.

It was a mob scene at the Saloon, the popular South Philadelphia restaurant, during a Christmas party for a bunch of wiseguys. And it nearly landed mobster Steven Mazzone back in jail. Instead, Mazzone, 46, was sentenced yesterday to six months of electronically monitored house arrest for violating the terms of his probation by attending what authorities have described as a Cosa Nostra Christmas party Dec. 17. Mazzone, released last year after serving the bulk of a nine-year sentence for racketeering, is currently serving a three-year term of supervised release.

It was a night when the power of a tenor's voice, coming from the stocky look-alike introduced as Mario Lanza's "love child," left music lovers weeping. At the Italian Festival along the riverfront in the summer of 1991, the man who calls himself Victor Lanza segued through his repertoire. From "Be My Love" to "O Sole Mio," he belted out the trademark songs that made Mario Lanza the hottest tenor in Hollywood and the world during the 1950s. Those in the audience closed their eyes and pretended, just for a moment, that the South Philadelphia native who died in 1959 had suddenly come back to life in the vocal chords of his illegitimate and hitherto unknown son. Later, hundreds of teary fans lined up for Victor Lanza to autograph photographs of their idol, Mario.

It is a story more suited for The Sopranos than federal court; a saga of petty corruption and personal betrayal that may be as accurate a depiction of the beleaguered New Jersey mob - plagued by informants, hounded by the FBI, and decimated by a series of successful federal prosecutions - as anything the popular HBO series can offer. Call it the tale of the cop and the wiseguy. It opens Monday in U.S. District Court in Camden. The cop is James "Jimmy" DeLaurentis, 38, who is facing extortion charges that could end his career.

YOU MIGHT ARGUE that the Italian Mafia is harmless these days: La Cosa Nostra has been reduced to a bunch of has-beens making high-interest loans, running video-poker machines in bars and shaking down the occasional South Philly thug for a piece of the action. But you can't argue with a bullet-riddled corpse, a canceled wedding and a lonely German shepherd. Gino DiPietro had made a new life for himself and his family after doing 6 1/2 years in prison on a 1997 drug arrest and a couple of subsequent bumps with the law. He took his 72-year-old mother, Viola, to the gym. They rooted for the Phillies over the phone during games.

THE PAGAN stationed on a corner of Atlantic Avenue in Wildwood stood with his burly arms crossed over his belly, guarding the infamous motorcycle club's hotel-turned-fortress like a living, breathing gargoyle. Behind him, yellow caution tape and blue tarps draped the Binns Motor Inn - a signal from the Pagan's Motorcycle Club for "citizens" and nosy cops to keep out during the 2011 Roar to the Shore biker rally this month. It's the same hotel where federal prosecutors say that leaders of the Pagan's Long Island chapter at last year's rally told their minions to prepare for death or prison as they plotted a hand-grenade attack on the rival Hells Angels.

The garden's "off-season" used to be a time to rest and daydream about next year's triumphs, but for professional gardeners and many an amateur, that's the fantasy now. "The off-season used to be a nice time to decompress, but I'm actually busier then. It's more restful to go out and weed," says Joe Henderson, one of six full-time horticulturists at Chanticleer, the public garden in Wayne, who are expected to take on a creative project every winter. This keeps everyone "focused and busy," to put it mildly, and allows for "time to dream about future designs," according to Chanticleer's executive director R. William Thomas.

'IT'S A mathematical game," Chip Kelly was saying. He was talking about the extra man a defense can put in the box near the line of scrimmage, and the quarterback's ability to read that extra man and control him. But the Eagles' new coach was talking about more than that. You ask him about playing fast, one of his trademarks at Oregon. A lot is involved - a conditioning element for the players, a drastic shortening in what has been the typical verbiage involved in calling plays, and more.