There’s one less major event for Badlands Booker to prepare for, as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Peter Mucha explains (link swiped from Hugging Harold Reynolds)

Wing Bowl, Philadelphia’s annual gluttonfest, the biggest celebration of heavage and cleavage since Rome’s gladiator smackdowns, “the biggest annual promotion in radio in America,” will be a local-amateurs-only event once again, WIP (610 AM) sports yakker Angelo Cataldi proclaimed this morning.

“No pros! We kicked them all out!” he bellowed.

That means you, Joey Chestnut (above), winner the last three years, and other recent champs Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas (2004 winner) and five-time winner Bill “El Wingador” Simmons.

Spurred by the 25,000 fans who attended last year, “this year we have decided to do something dramatic about Wing Bowl,” Cataldi said to cohost Al Morganti, “This year, Al, we are going back to the roots of Wing Bowl.”

“We got rid of all the pros that came in from out of town,” said Morganti, who came up with Wing Bowl so frustrated Eagles fans could have some fun during Super Bowl week. “We decided to make it all Philadelphia and go neighborhood.”

WIP would also select its first contestant today, from among “six men with a dream and a plateful of Pilgrim sandwiches.”

The usual sports-talk fare was also on the menu – like asking callers to think of “something dumber than Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg,” Cataldi said, referring to an accident in a nightclub involving the New York Giants wide receiver.