I Love the Flyers, but...

I love the Flyers but I have one issue with the team.

Right now I'm watching the game against the Habs (what's a Hab, by the way??) and the fans are decked out in orange shirts... an "orange crush" as they call it.

But here's the issue I have...the Flyers hardly even have any orange in their freakin jerseys anymore!

For whatever reason, a couple of years ago, the Philadelphia Flyers management and marketing mavens decided to take out the classic orange color out of the sweaters. Now their home jerseys are black just like 68% of the other teams out there. (Okay, that's an unofficial calculation, but probably close to being true.)

When the Flyers wore the orange uni's, you KNEW the Flyers were playing. Now, the Flyers look like every other team out there. I miss the orange identity.

But at least the orange lives on in the stands...

Johnny Dawkins... Flying out of Duke to Coach Stanford

Most 76ers fans of the 90s will remember the unique kick-leg jump shot of Johnny Dawkins and his steady play as point guard playing alongside the likes of Charles Barkley and Kurt Nimphius. Now Dawkins is flying the coop at Duke to coach the Cardinal of Stanford. Good for him and good move for Stanford... he must have good experience not only as a player but as an assistant coach next to Coach K.

Lest you thought you'd get away with just informative news story, allow me to add some interesting side notes for thee:

-Johnny Dawkins had 29 career blocks in the NBA in 9 pro years. At this rate it would have taken Dawkins about 130 "Johnny Dawkins Years" @ approximately 3 blocks per year to equal the total number of blocked shots that Manute Bol had in his rookie year alone (397 blocks in 1985-6 for Washington).

-Conversely, Manute Bol tallied 171 assists in 10 years. At that rate, he'd take 35 Manute Bol Years to reach Dawkins' assist mark in his best year 1989-90 at 601 assists.

So take that for what it's worth.

At any rate, best of luck to Coach Dawk. I look forward to seeing a familiar face in the land of the Cardinal...

Thank the gods of hockey for...

...Mike Knuble!

Nice goal Mikey baby... big win for the Flyers tonight.

For those of you keeping score, here are the only other players in NHL history, according to hockey-reference.com to have names that begin with "Kn":

Bill Knibbs (great name by the way)
Rick Knickle (another one)
Fred Knipscheer (wow, they just keep getting better!)
Nick Knott
Paul Knox
Espen Knutsen

Other point of note here: Mr. Knuble is also the NHL's all-time leading scorer for "Kn" players with 182 career regular season goals. In second is Espen Knutsen with 30.

So that's just me trying to drop some KNowledge on ya. Now you KNow...

(Thanks to the Knew York Times for the great photo from '06, BTW.)

Dan Baker Announcement Maker

Caught a segment on Comcast Sports today about the old mainstay of the Phillies' PA system, Mr. Dan Baker, who has announced Phils' games for 37 years. The story showed how his gameday routine works from pre-game preparations like getting the pronounciation of players' names accurate (Julian Martinez is pronounced like Hulian Martinez, for those who didn't know) to fighting his way up through crowds to get to his PA booth.

While the story about him wasn't all that intriguing, quite frankly, I do find it intriguing that announcers (public address announcers or broadcasters alike) have the ability to last so long at their respective jobs. If you look around the city as well as national scene, it seems like once you get "in" you're "in" for life. For instance, consider these big names and how long they've been or once lasted on the job:

-Harry Kalas
-Merrill Reese
-Marv Albert
-Andy Mussberger
-Keith Jackson
-Howard Cosell
-Vin Scully
-John Madden
-and so on...

I'm not quite sure what the reasoning is for this, but my hunch would be that these on-air personalities develop a certain rapport and comfort with the fans and become instantly recognized with the team, channel, or sport they represent. As a result, these announcers maintain their job security and boost their salaries over the years (not to mention picking up endorsements and other speaking gigs), while simultaneously preventing younger up-and-coming announcers from getting their day in the sun. And as it is easy to see, not only do these announcers not gracefully just hang up the mic and go away... they practically have to be dragged out of the booth.

Ironically, this longevity is why so many college students go to study broadcasting... because once you establish yourself, you can be around a long time, not to mention get to watch sports and talk sports all day. Paradoxically, with so many broadcasters lasting so long and a limited number of announcing gigs, it becomes harder and harder for these young graduates to get work. Murphy's Law I guess.

So at any rate, thank you Dan Baker for your your three+ decades of in-game announcing. And if you happen to have an inkling as to when you plan to leave, please give me a shout and I'd love to try out for your job!