Yesterday Philadelphia Eagles fans had the privilege, errr, duty to root for three teams that we normally would have ignored or hated. The Oakland Raiders needed to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to help the Eagles pave the way to earn a playoff berth, which they did (sorry once again Tampa Bay!). Then we needed either the Houston Texans to beat the Chicago Bears (which indeed happened), or the New York Giants-- yes, the Eagles' bitter rivals-- to take down the Minnesota Vikings, which they didn't, but no matter.
The stage was set for the Eagles to have a chance at making the playoffs with a win against the Dallas Cowboys. And the rest is history.
But when, if ever, has the Philly fan had to root for three disparate teams to pull out wins like that? It could prove that yesterday was one of the weirdest and most historical days in Philly sports history. This will especially prove true if the Birds wind up winning the Super Bowl. But let's just root for a first round win by our boys in green before we think that far ahead...
Monday, December 29, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Phillies and the Hall: Not This Year, Not Even for a While... PART II
Around this time last year, I noted in this post about how the Phils were lacking in the Hall of Fame department as a result of the dreary teams of the late 80s and 90s.
Guess what.
The drought continues.
Last year the only player on the ballot who even wore Phillies pinstripes at some point in time was the GIDP-master Dale Murphy. An incredible hitter in his heyday, by the time he played in Philly, he was a shell of the player he once was. But he's still a borderline Cooperstown candidate simply because of his solid body of work from earlier in his career.
Besides Murphy, two more players wore Phils pinstripes at the tail end of their careers and now are on the HOF ballot: outfielder Ron Gant (like Murphy, another longtime Brave) and pitcher Dan Plesac.
To give you an idea of how long these three former stars donned Phils laundry versus how long they played in the MLB, the three of these players combined to play a total of 497 games as Phillies out of a total of 5076 games during their collective careers. That's about 9.7% of their careers played here. At the tail end, no less.
So the moral of the story, I reckon, is if you want to have a good career but not quite good enough to make the Hall of Fame, finish up your career in Philly. Or something like that.
Now, in order to give us Phils fans something to root for during the off-season, we must find a way to convince the baseball writers to get Desi Relaford on the ballot...
Guess what.
The drought continues.
Last year the only player on the ballot who even wore Phillies pinstripes at some point in time was the GIDP-master Dale Murphy. An incredible hitter in his heyday, by the time he played in Philly, he was a shell of the player he once was. But he's still a borderline Cooperstown candidate simply because of his solid body of work from earlier in his career.
Besides Murphy, two more players wore Phils pinstripes at the tail end of their careers and now are on the HOF ballot: outfielder Ron Gant (like Murphy, another longtime Brave) and pitcher Dan Plesac.
To give you an idea of how long these three former stars donned Phils laundry versus how long they played in the MLB, the three of these players combined to play a total of 497 games as Phillies out of a total of 5076 games during their collective careers. That's about 9.7% of their careers played here. At the tail end, no less.
So the moral of the story, I reckon, is if you want to have a good career but not quite good enough to make the Hall of Fame, finish up your career in Philly. Or something like that.
Now, in order to give us Phils fans something to root for during the off-season, we must find a way to convince the baseball writers to get Desi Relaford on the ballot...
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Mo Cheeks is Gone, Back to the Merry Go Round
The NBA is one big circus of coaches. I'm not sure what the mentality is with general managers, but it seems like once a month of every season there's another NBA coach getting fired. Maurice Cheeks, in his fourth season with the Sixers, was let go this weekend by the Sixers after his team just never took things to the next level as hoped, and in fact have gone through a slump in recent weeks. Now another coach will lead the team (temporarily it will be Tony DiLeo) until he proves that he cannot take the team to the next level, and so on and so forth. (Sorry to be negative Tony, even after winning today, but let's face facts, you're already on the hot seat, just like every other coach...). All in all, this is the fifth firing of the year in the NBA. In other words, don't get too comfy on your folding chair if you run a pro basketball team.
The NBA's internal job opening department must go through reams of paper to keep up to date with all of the new job postings, and each team's HR department must be scrambling to keep up with all of the interviews, personnel info, and health insurance plans with so many changes. Interestingly, it always seems to be the same coaches getting circulated amongst the teams. To a certain extent that's true in every sport, but seemingly more so in basketball. The Sixers are a perfect example, having had 6 different coaches in the last ten years and 12 different coaches in 20 years. That's a far cry from the Utah Jazz, where Jerry Sloan has reigned for the entire time in that span. But unfortunately, more teams are like the Sixers in this regard than the Jazz.
At any rate, best of luck to Mo Cheeks in whatever he does, and hopefully Tony DiLeo proves himself worthy enough to hang around for a while. Ultimately, as the saying goes, you can't fire the players, you fire the coaches, so we'll see how that old motto plays out. And we'll see how DiLeo's term plays out...
The NBA's internal job opening department must go through reams of paper to keep up to date with all of the new job postings, and each team's HR department must be scrambling to keep up with all of the interviews, personnel info, and health insurance plans with so many changes. Interestingly, it always seems to be the same coaches getting circulated amongst the teams. To a certain extent that's true in every sport, but seemingly more so in basketball. The Sixers are a perfect example, having had 6 different coaches in the last ten years and 12 different coaches in 20 years. That's a far cry from the Utah Jazz, where Jerry Sloan has reigned for the entire time in that span. But unfortunately, more teams are like the Sixers in this regard than the Jazz.
At any rate, best of luck to Mo Cheeks in whatever he does, and hopefully Tony DiLeo proves himself worthy enough to hang around for a while. Ultimately, as the saying goes, you can't fire the players, you fire the coaches, so we'll see how that old motto plays out. And we'll see how DiLeo's term plays out...
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