King Myno's Court

Can the Flyers win in 2012?

2012-02-18T12:50:00.003-05:00

Four days ago, Frank Seravalli wrote a column about how maybe the Philadelphia Flyers should be sellers at the trade deadline.

Two days later, the Flyers traded two draft picks for soon-to-be unrestricted free agent Nicklas Grossman. So I guess all that's cleared up.

But the real question remains: Can the Flyers compete for a Stanley Cup in 2012?

As someone who attended last weekend's 5-2 shellacking at the hands of the New York Rangers, I would have to say no.

Out of all the teams with 70 points or more -- the Rangers, Flyers, New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues, Nashville Predators and Vancouver Canucks -- the Flyers have given up the most goals against, 171. The Devils are second-worst with 158.

And when comparing the Flyers to the four Cup favorites -- the Rangers, Bruins, Red Wings and Canucks -- you can see a stark difference. The Flyers are second only to Boston in goals scored, but the Bruins have a +60 goal differential; the Rangers are +44, the Red Wings are +50 and the Canucks are +43. The Flyers are +18.

To me, this reinforces that there are two distinct tiers in the National Hockey League, and the Flyers are firmly in tier two. They might not even be the best of tier two, not with the way Ken Hitchcock's boys have been playing.

The sad part is that this team already has exactly what it needs: Chris Pronger. Unfortunately, their hulking captain is still struggling to resume regular life activities; returning to competitive hockey is nothing but a pipe dream.

Grossman seems to be the kind of stay-at-home, shot-blocking defenseman that's been missing post-Pronger, but is he really going to turn the team around? Can he teach Braydon Coburn to play the body, the forwards to backcheck, Ilya Bryzgalov to be less insane? If not, he's just a small piece of an glaringly incomplete puzzle.

After what I saw at the Wells Fargo Center last week -- a sloppy defensive team with tiring rookies and wavering special teams -- I just don't see how they can stand up to the big boys. I don't expect them to repeat last year's collapse; I just think that maybe 2013 might be a better time to strike. Bryzgalov will have a full year in Philly under his belt, and most of these guys aren't going anywhere. The rookies will get better and stronger. James van Riemsdyk will (hopefully) be healthy again. There's no reason for long-term pessimism.

Maybe today's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins will change my mind, but the fact is that right now the Flyers are closer to eighth place than they are to first. With only 25 games left to play and additional moves unlikely, this team is probably set. And what they have on the ice does not look capable of bringing home the grand prize.

Introducing the 2012 Philadelphia Phillies: Who's in.

2012-02-08T14:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we discussed those who have moved on. Today, we'll talk about the new guys! Ruben Amaro's offseason focus was pretty simple: Improve the bench, overpay a closer, add a few extra bullpen arms. And for better or worse, he can check off each of those goals. Whether it'll bring the Phillies, who won 102 games last season, any closer to the one more darn championship that everyone craves, that everyone believes will legitimize this mini-dynasty, is another story.

Ty Wigginton. Gettin' Wiggy with it! Most fantasy baseball players know Ty Wigginton as "that guy who gets hot for a month, hits a bunch of homers and then cools down for the rest of the season." This could actually work to the Phillies' advantage; his best month has historically been May, and the latest reports indicate that Ryan Howard won't be back until at least then.

There's no doubt that Wigginton's a part-time player on the decline, but he can still play a bunch of positions -- albeit not particularly well -- and provide a little bit of pop (22 homers in 2010, 15 in 2011). He'll be the primary right-handed bench bat and the logical replacement whenever Chase Utley or Placido Polanco go down with injuries. He's a hobo's Michael Cuddyer at a considerably cheaper price, and bringing him in was exactly the kind of smart move the Phillies should have made this offseason.

Laynce Nix. Nobody is really sure why Nix is in Philadelphia. He's 31, so it's not like he's suddenly going to blossom. He hits .181/.235/.271 versus left-handed pitching, so no one with a brain is handing him a starting job. And even a John Mayberry/Laynce Nix platoon in left field, which everyone initially assumed was the plan, seems silly once you check the numbers. Mayberry's .785 OPS versus righties in 2011 was a few points ahead of Nix's .781.

As David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News noted in December, a Wigginton/Nix platoon at first base (until Ryan Howard returns, of course) might make a little bit more sense. This would also ensure that John Mayberry gets more than his fair share of outfield playing time, which would be equally wise. The Phillies to find out whether Mayberry can be a full-time player. He's exactly what they need -- a cheap young(ish) outfielder -- especially since the organization continues to shovel dirt on Dom Brown like The Undertaker in a Buried Alive Match. Whether Nix stands in the way of Mayberry's continued growth or not should determine how he's accepted by the Philly faithful. Good thing Ruben Amaro signed him to a two-year deal!

Juan Pierre. There's no guarantee that Pierre will make the team, especially since he's a left-handed bat on a bench packed with them. But he's a skilled bunter (led baseball in sacrifice hits last year) who could also serve as the primary pinch-running threat. Also, his competition is Scott Podsednik, who's a little older and even more washed-up.

That said, Pierre's topped a 100 OPS+ once since 2004, and he was caught stealing 17 times last year while snagging only 27 bags (his lowest total since 2000). Sounds like a guy that's mostly cooked to me, but we all know how Charlie Manuel loves his veterans. Look for Pierre to make the squad out of spring training and probably be released by June.

Jim Thome. The big man is back. The last time he plied his trade in Philadelphia, an injury-shortened 2005 season opened the door for Ryan Howard, who began his rise to the top by stepping in and winning National League Rookie of the Year. So everyone on the Internet who despises Howard's gigantic contract, you only have Jim Thome to blame.

Thome hit .256/.361/.477 in 324 plate appearances last year, but he should see the plate much less in 2012 while serving as Howard's occasional first-base replacement and the bench's primary left-handed bat. He's very unlikely to bash 15 homers again, but that on-base percentage would have trailed only Hunter Pence and Carlos Ruiz amongst Phillies regulars. If Big Jim brings that good eye and the occasional dinger to the table this year, he'll be worth every penny of his $1.25 million.

Chad Qualls. Public enemy number one of Justin De Fratus, Michael Schwimmer, Phillippe Aumont and every other young Phillies arm who had hopes of starting the season with the big leaguers. But don't fret too much, boys, because Mr. Qualls' strikeout rate has been plummeting since 2008. And his 2010 was an unmitigated disaster: 7.32 ERA, 3.2 walks per 9 innings, 13.0 hits per 9 innings. He bounced back in 2011, but that was in the friendly confines of Petco Park in San Diego. And he threw 74 innings in the process.

If Qualls looks out of gas by the summer, a one-year deal worth just a little over a million dollars won't keep Amaro from releasing the 33-year-old and promoting a young gun. That makes this a risk worth taking -- mostly because you can never have enough decent arms on staff -- but there's a very good chance that Qualls won't outperform whoever the Phillies stash in the minor leagues. If Manuel does anything silly, like, say, give him the eighth inning outright, I fear for the Phillies' bullpen.

Dontrelle Willis. Juan Pierre, Jose Contreras, Jim Thome, Dontrelle Willis, Placido Polanco, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard. If only Ruben Amaro could acquire a time machine, this team would dominate Major League Baseball in 2005.

That's a clever way of saying the Phillies are old, but at least they're also smart: Willis, signed as a LOOGY, has held lefty hitters to a line of .200/.274/.288 in his career. If he can keep his walks in check (got them down to 4.4 BB/9 last year, still not good at all but a decent sign), this could be the shrewdest signing of the year. And for $850,000, there's no reason not to give it a shot.

For the most part, the Phillies went bargain shopping this offseason, and for the most part, the deals they inked are low risk and medium-to-high reward. I just wish we could lop a year off that Nix contract....

Jonathan Papelbon. And then, of course, there's the big signing. The one that had everyone talking, good or bad.

For the record, I like Jonathan Papelbon, and I think he's a top-5 closer. I see no reason that the Phillies can't get two stellar years out of him followed by two at least halfway-decent years (which probably won't add up to exactly $50 million of value, but them's the breaks). The organization wanted to lock up an elite closer for an extended amount of time, and they felt more comfortable giving that money to Papelbon instead of Ryan Madson. At the moment, I feel like that's six in one hand, a half-dozen in the other.

But it remains extremely unlikely that Papelbon (or Madson, or whoever the closer could've been) will live up to his end of this deal. I know most free agents don't entirely pan out, and the thinking here is presumably that the aging, top-heavy Phillies win the World Series either this year or next and justify all these expensive contracts in the process. That's probably not a gamble worth taking in most cities, but with Cole Hamels potentially a year away from free agency, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay getting older and Utley and Howard and Rollins beginning their inevitable, age-related regression, maybe it's the only choice Amaro felt he had. Go for break with a playoff-tested closer and hope that the bounces finally go their way again in the postseason.

That kind of wishful thinking won't score you any points in the sabermetric community, but it's where the Phillies stand in 2012. They're almost certainly the best team in the National League, and if all the aces finally decide to pitch like studs come playoff time, there's no reason they can't beat the Angels, Rangers, Yankees, Red Sox, whoever. Time is not on their side, though, and we'll see if doing nothing but tweaking a team with growing flaws proves to be dangerously short-sighted.

Remembering the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies: Who's out.

2012-02-07T15:50:00.000-05:00

Looking back is not usually the best way to move forward, but sports fans are pretty much obligated to compare what they're seeing now to what has come before. So as yet another Major League Baseball season approaches and the Philadelphia Phillies have (probably) finalized who will be attending the team's spring training in Clearwater, join me to say goodbye to those who are dearly departed and welcome those who will be joining our beloved squad for 2012 and, perhaps, beyond.

Dom Brown. For whatever reason, the Phillies are probably going to bury former top prospect Domonic Brown in AAA for 2012. My guess is that if he performs anything like the superstar-in-the-making he was considered to be only a year ago, he'll be shipped out of town in a trade deadline deal for another arm or a more established outfielder. The 24-year-old who put up a .725 OPS in 210 plate appearances with the big league club last year (only a few points behind the recently resigned Jimmy Rollins) has become almost an afterthought in Philadelphia these days; most fans think he's a bust, and John Mayberry Jr. has assumed the role of "up-and-coming outfielder" that many had earmarked for Brown.

I'd trade him for Logan Morrison (and I would've traded him for Hunter Pence) but I think the Phillies are silly for jerking Brown around these past two seasons and even sillier if they move him for anything less than top value. Barring injury, I don't expect to see him ever contribute in a Phillies uniform again, but I do expect him to become at least a starting outfielder somewhere out there. Those don't grow on trees, especially when you're a veteran team with a very high payroll that could use an influx of cheap, young talent. Unfortunately, I suspect that most of the Brown-related speculation in 2012 will be wondering which out-of-it team will spring for him first. You like Oakland, Dom?

Raul Ibanez. A tweet from yesterday: "I'd never boo Raul Ibanez or anything, but he only had half a good season over three years in Philly. He's the Tom Gordon of left fielders." Few people in Philadelphia will ever forget how scorching hot Ibanez was for the first few months of 2009; it wasn't quite comparable to Manny Ramirez in the 2008 playoffs (an otherworldly .533/.682/1.067) but it's as close as I've ever seen (.359/.433/.718 in March/April and a still-wonderful .312/.366/.661 in May).

Of course, he was never the same again. His OPS dropped from .899 in 2009 to .793 in 2010, and he was one of the worst outfielders in baseball last year. But he was a stand-up guy who tried his best to live up to a big contract that shouldn't have been offered to a guy his age, and he could've (and probably should've) been part of a championship team in 2009 if not for major regression from guys like Brad Lidge and Cole Hamels. He even helped the team out by declining arbitration on his way out the door! I won't miss Raul, but I won't sully his good name either. Unless he comes back in the World Series as a Yankee, of course.

Ben Francisco. For the life of me, I can't muster the enthusiasm to put together two paragraphs on Ben Francisco's time in Philadelphia. They brought him over with Cliff Lee. He hit a big homer. They traded him for someone named Frank Gailey. He'll never be more than a fourth outfielder. The end. There's not much residual hunger in Philly for the Ben Francisco Treat.

Wilson Valdez. While the versatile Valdez was certainly a fan favorite, jettisoning his .634 OPS won't hurt the team at the plate. Unless, of course, it leads to increased playing time for Michael Martinez and his .540 OPS. That could make dumping Valdez for a nobody look like nothing short of a disaster.

The 29-year-old Martinez has shown no signs -- repeat, no signs -- of being able to hit big-league pitching. If the Phillies kept him around as a Rule 5 pick last year to serve as the last man off the bench or, more appropriately, AAA infield insurance, fine. But if Martinez makes the team out of spring training as the utility infielder, it won't be long until we're all begging for the days of Abraham "No Hit" Nunez.

Roy Oswalt. Roy Story 2 remains unsigned at the moment, spurning the Pittsburgh Pirates earlier today in his continued quest to pitch for a contender in 2012. His time in Philadelphia was sort of a mixed bag, at least as far as aces are concerned -- 16-11 and 2.96 ERA in red pinstripes, but only 23 starts in 2011 and a meltdown against the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS -- and the team has what seems like very little interest in bringing him back for one more go-around.

He might make a contender like the Boston Red Sox or the aforementioned Cardinals very happy on a one-year deal, or his back might act up again and cause an abrupt end to his storied career. Either way, Oswalt wasn't quite the dominant pitcher everyone envisioned when the Phillies traded for him in July of 2010. Of the Four Aces, he'll be the one most easily forgotten.

Brad Lidge. Like Raul Ibanez, Brad Lidge could never again reach the heights of his first season in Philadelphia. But unlike Raul Ibanez, Brad Lidge helped the Phillies win a championship. In fact, you could argue he was the most valuable player on the 2008 team. That earns you a lot of goodwill, even if you absolutely stink your way through a subsequent three-year extension (which Bradford absolutely did).

No one will look back on Lidge's final three seasons in a Phillies uniform very fondly (7.21 ERA in 2009, including the backbreaking three-run inning in the World Series, and only 65 innings, albeit successful ones, in 2010-2011 combined) but I doubt anyone will boo him when he comes to the mound as a member of the Washington Nationals in 2012. Like Ibanez, Lidge is a class act who gave whatever he had left for the Phillies' cause. That wasn't much comfort over the past few years, when the team desperately needed a healthy Lidge on the field, but it means something to me now.

Ryan Madson. Finally, here's the one guy Phillies fans might actually miss. I think Jonathan Papelbon could end up being an upgrade, at least for 2012 and probably 2013, but Madson's one-year, $8.25 million contract with Cincinnati is leaps and bounds more reasonable than Papelbon's four-year, $50 million contract with the Phillies. I don't blame Ruben Amaro Jr. for being aggressive and bringing in the guy he wanted for a price that the Phillies have apparently allotted for the closer position, but I do blame Amaro for misreading the market big time and giving four expensive years to 31-year-old, fastball-oriented pitcher.

I wish Ryan Madson good luck in Cincinnati -- minus the time he stupidly kicked a chair, he ended up being maybe the best homegrown reliever the Phillies have ever developed -- and I suspect that he won't need it; last year's 2.37 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 32 saves and 9.2 K/9 were no fluke. I'm already dreading the week-by-week Madson/Papelbon comparisons that'll pop up on Phillies blogs all damn season.

From zero to close to good.

2012-02-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

For whatever reason, I've always found it difficult to get into new music.

My tastes tend to lean towards bands from the 70s and 80s, some of whom still release new albums (some terrific, some less so) and offer up the occasional tour. I like to dig deep into their back catalogs and unearth new gems, which - for a long time - soothed my musical appetite.

But music that came out in the 2000s and beyond? Meh. "Just not my cup of tea," I'd say. During freshman year of college, I'd laugh at the guys who'd crank Muse, Coheed and Cambria, Death Cab for Cutie or whatever new band happened to strike the fancy of young people everywhere (not to say, in those specific cases, that I was wrong).

It got to the point, however, where I couldn't tell you whether my preferences stemmed from genuine disinterest or casual stubbornness. Was I really giving new music a chance and then deeming it uninteresting? Or was I refusing to listen to it with an open mind, mostly to maintain a consistent - if powerfully uninformed - opinion?

At some point, I was able to move past all that and appreciate new music for what it was. Limiting yourself to only certain eras or genres of music is silly; even if I think "classic rock" is better than whatever most rock and roll bands are pumping out these days, that doesn't mean I should write off entire generations of music on a whim. Those are the kind of lazy assumptions I generally despise in other areas of art and culture, so it made very little sense to allow them to persist in my own life.

Looking through my Spotify library these days, I still see a bunch of Bruce Hornsby, Yes, The Band and Paul Simon. But I also see Architecture in Helsinki, The Black Keys, Holy Ghost!, M83 and Passion Pit. A year ago the only one of those bands I listened to was Passion Pit, and that was mostly because "Little Secrets" sounded so much like something from the Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack.

I attribute a lot this to the "(almost) anything, all the time" power of Spotify, which has improved my music-listening life to the point that I recently shelled out $9.99 a month for the premium version. But I also give a lot of credit to my good friend Kevin. He taught me what "shlong" and "bunghole" meant in the fourth grade, and he's also the drummer for Philadelphia-based band Close to Good.

He's recommended numerous bands to me over the last few months, including the aforementioned Architecture in Helsinki and Holy Ghost!, both of which I enjoy tremendously. And his great taste carries over to his own band, self-described as delivering an "aggressive burst of progressive dance-funk that often builds into a tightly composed tension-release, peaking in kick-driven melodic reprisals of their distinct central lyrical themes."

I'll admit that Kevin originally sold me on Close to Good with their focus on video game tunes:

Not to mention the occasional Talking Heads cover:

Because who doesn't love David Byrne and Final Fantasy VII? If I had a band, we'd open with "Blind" and then bring an NES on stage to attempt this:

But after enjoying one of their shows in South Philadelphia a few weeks ago (which can devolve, or evolve, into liquor-fueled dance fests), we put their album in the CD player for the ride home. You know, to sit down and really give it a listen. It may be a band comprised of/supported by my friends, but I can say with objective certainty (because I still feel a mostly beaten-down urge to disregard music outside my wheelhouse) that some of the songs were quite exquisite.

I'm not used to encountering skill like that so close to home, and it makes me feel good about expanding my horizons a bit and accepting music that I might previously have disregarded. So thank you, Kevin and Close to Good, for helping illuminate the error of my ways. If you're ever in the Philadelphia area, check them out. You won't be disappointed.

The magic of the Royal Rumble.

2012-01-25T13:28:00.002-05:00

Pro wrestling is for children.

Perhaps not like the cartoonish 1980s and early 1990s were, but the amateurish acting and simplistic storylines should make this clear to anyone over the age of 15. It's a fun bit of entertainment to overanalyze, especially if you're a long-time fan who understands how its backstage politics work, but I find it difficult to sit through even an entire episode of Monday Night Raw without scoffing and reaching for the remote. Perhaps that's why my roommate has perfected the "15-minute Raw," a masterfully navigated fast-forwarding of all the awful-looking segments and matches.

To me, though, the one thing that'll always cut through the treacle is the spectacle. The big, flashy events that, through either hype or history, seem a little more special. Unfortunately, beyond WrestleMania (which offers very little distinction and rarely lives up to the hype anyway) the WWE doesn't do spectacle like they used to.

Once upon a time there was the King of the Ring tournament, which typically featured eight to 16 wrestlers battling it out for a sort of nebulous supremacy. Whoever was dubbed "king" at the end of the night would often adopt some royalty-themed gimmick and occasionally earn a title shot at SummerSlam. It was a great way to turn a mid-carder into a main eventer, memorably perfected by "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. And, as WrestleMania IV and March Madness have proven, everyone loves tournaments.

And then there was the Survivor Series, an event that teamed up wrestlers with similar goals (sometimes "us guys hate those guys," other times "we're good and they're bad, let's fight") in eight-man, four-on-four elimination matches. The apex of the Survivor Series occurred early, in 1990, when the heel and face "survivors" all joined forces against each other in a "grand finale" match. The 1995 Survivor Series also featured a memorable Wild Card Match; the two teams featured a "random" mix of heroes and villains, which meant that tensions (and the inevitable double-crosses) were ample.

But all that magic is gone now. The last King of the Ring pay-per-view was in 2002 (though it occasionally resurfaces as a TV-only event of far less acclaim) and the WWE threatened to drop the Survivor Series name entirely in early 2010. It's still around but hasn't focused on strictly Survivor Series-style matches in years.

The Royal Rumble, however, has stood the test of time.

Every year since 1988, a predetermined number of wrestlers -- usually 30 but occasionally 20 or even 40 -- come down to the ring in two-minute intervals and battle for their shot at a championship belt at WrestleMania. Sometimes the finishes (Lex Luger and Bret Hart tying, Shawn Michaels holding onto the top rope) can be truly inspired; in fact, Michaels' victory is the moment when I became a true wrestling fan.

Watching the Royal Rumble is never boring. The traditional matches leading up to it might be subpar, but the main event is always at least an hour of entertaining spots, carefully plotted storyline tweaks and a few surprise entrants (like Booker T and Diesel last year) that enjoyably invoke nostalgia.

It also remains the most effective way to raise a middling wrestler to the top of the charts (which, from a business standpoint, is probably why Vince McMahon and company have kept it around for so long). There was never any real value or reward associated with being named "king," but the Rumble winner is automatically guaranteed a title shot at the biggest pay-per-view of the year. Not only that, but he can claim to have survived the onslaught of his numerous muscular peers; in the wrestling world, this means something.

More than anything, it's different. Wrestling promotions occasionally do battle royals, but not on the scale or scope of the Royal Rumble. This is all your favorite wrestlers, in the ring at almost the same time, competing in a match that comes with a surprising amount of unpredictability. If there was ever a time to bet on pro wrestling, it's the Rumble; narrowing the winner down to one of four or five guesses is simple, but then it gets hard to choose. There's really no mystery in pro wrestling these days, but you can argue that this particular night in January is the only time that comes close to recapturing it.

Maybe that's what really sets the Rumble apart. From week to week, Raw and SmackDown tend to run together. Most of the monthly pay-per-views are just extended, expensive replicas of their televised companions. There's just one event left with the potential to provide both the nonstop entertainment and peaked curiosity that used to be the industry's bread and butter. Long live the Royal Rumble.

A look at Bruce Springsteen's latest single.

2012-01-19T11:39:00.002-05:00

This is the first single off Bruce Springsteen's soon-to-come album, which is unfortunately titled Wrecking Ball. Yes, after that crappy song he used to close down the Meadowlands last year. The one everyone in attendance had to pretend they liked. Not a good start.

It's also not great when the notable musicians your new producer has previously worked with are your wife and Sixpence None the Richer. It's nice to see Bruce mixing it up a little -- Working on a Dream absolutely should've been the end of Brendan O'Brien -- but nothing I'm hearing about this new album inspires much confidence. Especially without the reassuring presence of the Big Man.

They say Wrecking Ball is to be Bruce's "angriest" work to date, but that's not evident on "We Take Care of Our Own." Instead it's another of Springsteen's "listen closer, gang" tunes, where he buries the meaning behind a chant-worthy chorus and arena-rousing beat. The problem is that when he's done this before, in songs like "Born in the U.S.A.," they were fiendishly catchy and fiendishly clever. The lyrics had something to say. This one sounds like a John Mellencamp outtake that should be playing over a truck commercial.

Other than that, it's standard latter-day Springsteen. It'll go over well in packed stadiums -- if only because it's the single and most people will ignore the rest of the album -- but when it comes to crowd-pleasing post-reunion anthems, "We Take Care of Our Own" comes nowhere near "Radio Nowhere," "Livin' in the Future," "My Lucky Day" and pretty much everything rousing on The Rising. If this is the best he's got, most serious fans are gonna be left wanting.

I do not have high hopes for Wrecking Ball, although song titles like "The Depression," "Shackled and Down" and "Death to My Hometown" sound just desperate enough to get everyone hoping for another Darkness on the Edge of Town. But this is 62-year-old billionaire Bruce, not the angry, weary post-litigation Springsteen of 1978. We know "Wrecking Ball" and we've heard "We Take Care of Our Own" and I doubt anyone's pants have been blown off by either.

Best case scenario, we get another Working on a Dream: Three great songs, a few decent ones and a lot of tacked-on crap. At the end of the day, adding a few extra hits to my Bruce playlist and getting another tour should be all that matters. But I really enjoyed Magic and thought Springsteen still had more to say. Another stinker here would be proof that all we've got left is nostalgia.

The evolution of pro wrestling entrance themes.

2012-01-14T15:08:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, professional wrestlers entered the ring to simple, instrumental entrance themes. Only real stars like Hulk Hogan and Ted DiBiase were granted theme music with lyrics; even then, the songs were cartoonish and silly. As pro wrestling became flashier, catering to both children and television audiences, these themes added a bit more spectacle to those previously bland few minutes when the wrestler walked down the aisle. If your senses weren't being assaulted at every moment by blaring music or some kind of visual stimulation, whoever was producing this particular wrestling event wasn't doing his or her job.

This continued, relatively unabated, until the Attitude Era of the mid-90s. That was when themes started getting a bit more serious. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin came out to his glass-shattering intro, maybe the most recognizable entrance of all time. The Rock's music helped him become a all-time legend. Themes began to focus on riling up the crowd; a catchphrase or recognizable cue in the first few seconds got fans to their feet, cheering or booing their favorites. It was a kind of Pavlovian response that the WWE became extremely proficient at inducing.

But at the end of the day, these entrance themes were still instrumentals, remarkably appropriate but relatively forgettable tunes put together by legendary WWE composer Jim Johnston for the sole sake of introducing wrestlers. Sweeping changes didn't really occur until the introduction of D-Generation X. WWE hired a real band, The Chris Warren Band, to record their theme; a trend had begun. Vince McMahon adopted "No Chance in Hell," the 1999 Royal Rumble theme, as his own. Triple H's solo efforts received the awful "My Time," also by The Chris Warren Band. The wheels were in motion.

Chris Jericho's debut in August of 1999 was also a watershed moment for wrestling themes; "Break the Walls Down" sounded like a real song that Jericho co-opted as his own. Themes were getting a little more serious, a little more real. WWF The Music, Volume 4 included a few more themes that could've doubled as popular music. Soon there were efforts like WWF Aggression, an album of theme covers featuring Run-DMC, Method Man and other famous rappers.

And then there was Lemmy. I know he doesn't deserve to be lumped together with the other, far crappier rock and rollers that turned entrance themes into what my friends and I like to call "butt rock," but Motörhead's new Triple H theme, "The Game," really changed the course of wrestling themes forever. All of a sudden, real musicians, real purveyors of butt rock, started contributing music to the WWE. Vince McMahon had begun to outsource entrance theme production.

I suppose some people might not use the term "real musicians" to describe bands like Alter Bridge and Downstait, groups that aren't exactly beloved or critically acclaimed. But they are real-life bands with record deals and thousands of fans, and by using them to put together new themes, the WWE was taking advantage of an already-existing market. Somewhere along the way, McMahon and his music team realized something: Pro wrestling and butt rock go together perfectly. Wrestling wasn't a real-life cartoon anymore; its fans had grown up, and the target audiences for the WWE and hard rock clearly had some crossover. Hence, the "legitimization" of wrestling entrance themes.

It proved to be a great economic decision for both the WWE and the bands themselves: Produce a bunch of recognizable themes that could also exist as standalone music, sell the songs on iTunes, keep pumping out theme compilation albums, strengthen the link between hard rock and sports entertainment. And, occasionally, suck in casual fans like myself. Normally I would never listen to the bands WWE brings on for these entrance themes, but I do admit to enjoying some of the songs they've produced. I add them to my running mixes, I listen to them at work. They're legitimately catchy. It might not be good music, but it's certainly butt rock done right.

Now even the shittiest wrestlers have real entrance themes. And on occasion, McMahon and company are willing to take the entrance theme business to a whole other level. Late in 2011, CM Punk debuted a new theme: "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour. Punk had used this as an entrance song in his earlier indie wrestling days, but it fit his current WWE character so perfectly that the music department ponied up the cash to buy the rights. This was the old ECW method: Find an existing song that suits your wrestler perfectly and link the two. And to his credit, McMahon went against his usual entrance theme principles and shelled out.

Pro wrestling is silly in many ways, but the dynamics that go into planning and executing the development of storylines can be surprisingly detailed and complex. Entrance themes have become a big part of how characters are defined; tracking the evolution of those themes, from cheap synthesizers to epic butt-rock anthems, offers real insight into the how the WWE climbed to the top of this billion-dollar industry.

Any room left on the Sixers' bandwagon?

2012-01-11T13:06:00.002-05:00

From the recap of last night's 27-point thrashing of the Sacramento Kings: "The Sixers are one of theNBA's up-and-coming teams; they've won five games by at least a20-point margin."

Steve Kerr: The Philadelphia 76ers are "probably the best story in the league to this point."

Dei Lynam: "The Sixers have won six straight for the first time since January of 2009."

My roommate: "Should we get NBA League Pass?"
Me: "....maybe."

What the hell is happening in Philadelphia?

I'm a well-documented basketball frontrunner; when the Sixers aren't competitive, I could care less about the sport. Until last week, the only remotely recent 76ers game I'd seen was the return of Allen Iverson. And even then, I tuned out after the first quarter; they lost to the Nuggets by 10.

But these Sixers appear to be competitive and then some. Third in points per game. Second in rebounds per game. Seventh in assists per game. First in points allowed. MVP chants for Spencer Hawes. Yes, the season is only nine games old, but you can make a legitimate case that the Sixers have been the best team in basketball thus far.

I can state this with relatively certainty because our free preview of NBA League Pass just ended, and I actually sat down to watch a few of these games. Before the season, I read a whole bunch about the Sixers and coach Doug Collins expected continuity to serve them well in this shortened season; so far, that does appear to be the case. They look like an extremely functional unit, playing smart team defense and spreading out the scoring (six players averaging 10 or more points a game, not including Elton Brand at 9.6 PPG).

Yes, the seven teams they've beaten have a combined record of 25-41 (Indiana being the one shining win), but you won't get anywhere if you don't smack around the bad teams. And "smack around" is putting it mildly; they beat Phoenix by 20, Golden State by 28, Toronto by 35. That sends a message to the league, and to fair-weather fans like me: This team could be for real.

Tonight's match-up with the 5-4 New York Knicks will be telling, especially because it's the Sixers' third game in a row. This season is jam-packed into four months, which means that injuries and fatigue will start to play a big role in deciding a team's fate. Will it help that the Sixers are so young (according to Henry Abbott of ESPN.com, they're the third-youngest team in the NBA) or will such a baby-faced squad fall apart under this kind of oddly scheduled grind?

All I know is that, for now, I'm sold. I'll be front and center (albeit in the cheapest possible seats) at the Verizon Center in DC this Saturday night for Sixers vs. Wizards. And if they keep this up, maybe we'll spring for the NBA package after all.

My 10 favorite movies of 2011.

2012-01-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

A time-honored tradition on King Myno's Court, and one of my favorite posts to write, is this list of the year's top 10 movies. Keep in mind that these aren't the ten best; that word implies some level of objectivity, which I'm not offering here. These are just the ten movies that I enjoyed the most in 2011, for reasons that I'll try to explain in conjunction with each choice.

(Editor's note: I haven't yet seen Carnage, We Need to Talk About Kevin, A Separation, Certified Copy, Attack the Block, Tabloid or Project Nim. And probably a few others. I hear they're all varying levels of good. Please don't verbally bludgeon me for missing them.)

The Artist - I don't quite understand why this movie, so anticipated in the build-up to its release, is now being bombarded by heaping amounts of scorn. Is it just the inevitable post-hype resentment, the "ov-er-rated" chant that follows a lengthy period of being underrated? I sure hope so, because I'm not sure what else is wrong with this charming little callback to the days of the silent era. Especially when you factor in the virtuoso starring performance from Jean Dujardin (my pick for Best Actor) and a few other big Hollywood names (John Goodman! James Cromwell! The coach from Not Another Teen Movie!).

It's funny, it's sweet, it's extremely well-made. It's also the work of a European director and two foreign stars, lending an air of authenticity to what would probably be a clunky mess had it been produced through the Hollywood system. Because of that, and because everyone involved seemed to be having a whole lot of fun while making it, I never took The Artist as anything but an homage, a loving tribute to a genre that only old-time cinema fans and film students appreciate these days.

To me, it's nostalgia done perfectly right -- a simple story that purposely forgoes nuance -- and writer/director Michel Hazanavicius and Dujardin, who I can't praise enough, make it all shine. I have a feeling that when the backlash subsides, critics (professional and otherwise) will see The Artist for what it truly is: a captivating picture that's deserves all this praise. People are really fucking nitpicky sometimes.

Drive - If Drive was a high school student, it would easily win "Most likely to be a cult hit." The funny thing is, this is a movie that shouldn't appeal only to a cult audience. It stars Ryan Gosling, one of America's sexiest stars, and Albert Brooks, one of cinema's most beloved neurotic Jews. It also features Walter White, Hellboy, Joan Holloway and that sexy British girl from Never Let Me Go. What's not to like?

Something, apparently, because Drive only made $35 million at the American box office. But when it comes to movies like this, box office totals aren't everything. I imagine that the dark, drawn-out style of director Nicolas Winding Refn turned a few people off along the way, not to mention the David Cronenberg-esque violence that seems to pop out of nowhere every 20 minutes to shock everyone's pants off. It's a movie that can be remarkably blunt at times, maybe a little too aggressive and realistic for even the staunchest lovers of smashing and crushing of heads and other body parts.

But I haven't been more captivated by a film all year. From the heart-pounding introduction to the pitch-perfect score to the sparse, understated dialogue that adds a bit of mystery to the proceedings, it's shocking, satisfying cinema with real thrills and a smooth twist of art-house sensibility.

Hugo - When I first heard that Martin Scorsese was directing an movie based on a children's novel about movies and robots and train stations, my first thought was "Huh?" I instantly disregarded it as a sort of director-for-hire decision, maybe in order to make Kundun 2 in 2012. Luckily, however, a series of good reviews raised my interest back up to optimal levels. There's already a great Hugo debate up on the hit website The A.V. Club; suffice it to say that I agree with Scott Tobias, who found Hugo to be "enchanting" and a "whimsical vehicle through which [Scorsese] expresses a serious love of the movies."

It's been said a bunch of times already, but Scorsese's use of 3D is nothing short of marvelous. It's immersive without being intrusive; the best thing a good 3D movie can do is make you forget you're wearing the stupid glasses. James Cameron used Avatar to bring a magical world of giant blue creatures to life, and Scorsese uses it to slowly draw you into his fantastical, alternate-universe version of Paris.

It's not a film without flaws: The subplots involving all the regular patrons of the train station are mildly entertaining but largely underwhelming, mostly serving to pass some time in between Hugo's adventures. But the movie looks marvelous and unexpectedly sucked me in; I cared about the relationship between Asa Butterfield's Hugo and Ben Kingsley's Georges Méliès, I loved the casting of Michael Stuhlbarg as the cinematic scholar (more Michael Stuhlbarg in everything, please) and I was impressed to see Christopher Lee still acting at the age of 89. 89! I don't expect to be alive at 89, let alone starring in a Martin Scorsese movie. Get that guy a Lifetime Achievement award.

Meek's Cutoff - It's easy to call Meek's Cutoff a Western -- the entire movie takes place during a quest to move out West -- but I don't think it's accurate at all. Westerns are traditionally about gunfights and blustery heroics, but Meek's Cutoff has no interest in those kind of pandering-to-the-audience moments. Big chunks of this movie are spent watching the party's wagon travel from one side of the screen to the other. Michelle Williams, who continues her quest to become the ultimate indie darling, pulls a gun once. That's it. My dad typically loves Westerns, but this is one I probably wouldn't recommend.

Meek's Cutoff is about what it must've really been like to travel across America in 1845: boring. Really, really boring. Several thousand miles across fields and desert and hills and waves of grain and other repetitive landscapes. Sure, there's the occasional threatening Indian, and sometimes your guide can be a charming rapscallion (in this case, Bruce Greenwood's Stephen Meek, and it's safe to say that Greenwood has never, ever been better), but for the most part, you're going to trudge slowly for months on end. Some of you will get lost. And many will die.

That's what lies under the surface throughout Meek's Cutoff, a contemplative look at the struggles of 19th-century Americans pursuing the unknown. No one in the traveling party really knows what awaits them in Oregon; they don't even know if there's a tribe of savages just over the next hill. It takes a lot of hope, faith and courage just to trek forward day after day, when even the best intentions and most rational bouts of courage don't mean shit and the bland, dry passage of time can end your life just as prematurely as a gun or a tomahawk. Not many films would attempt to convey a series of bleak ideas like that, and few could ever do it as well as Meek's Cutoff.

Moneyball - Bennett Miller and Brad Pitt took one of the world's biggest questions -- "How do you make a nonfiction book about a baseball team that never made it out of the first round into an entertaining movie?" -- and, pardon my shitty pun, knocked it out of the park. It was easy to make fun of Moneyball in the months leading up to its release, especially since it went through years and years of development hell, but the end result was a simple, smart movie that impressed some baseball people (if not Keith Law) and enjoyed a solid amount of mainstream appeal (broke $100 million at the worldwide box office).

Maybe it's Pitt's magnetism as Billy Beane; if Tyler Durden was the part that 35-year-old Pitt was born to play, Beane is picture-perfect for a mellowed Pitt who's now nearing 50. Maybe it was helped along by the unexpected calm, cool and collected work of then-fat Jonah Hill. Or maybe it's the clever, quick-talking Aaron Sorkin touch-up of the screenplay, which isn't as in-your-face as The Social Network but still gives Pitt and Hill some witty banter to work with. Plus, how can you not love a movie that boasts an intense scene where Billy Beane, after months of trying, finally acquires the great Ricardo Rincon?

To make a movie that's at least partly about an ALDS-losing team work, Miller, Pitt and the writers (Steven Zaillian and Sorkin) smartly tone down the baseball-oriented tension and crank up the character-based drama. It's not about whether the Oakland Athletics will win the World Series (which would be considered a pretty lame movie by everyone except Peter True) but whether the intensely competitive Beane will finally prove his doubters wrong. Sure, there are some inaccuracies, but the only people who seem to give a shit are the ones who were extremely biased against the movie version in the first place. As for me, I don't think it matters if you're a baseball fan or a cinema buff; if you go into Moneyball with an open mind, you'll find something to enjoy.

Submarine - I've seen this referred to in several places as "Wes Anderson lite," probably due to its off-beat humor and the Max Fischer-esque qualities of its protagonist, Craig Roberts' Oliver Tate. This isn't a bad thing; in fact, it's what convinced me to rent it in the first place. But Anderson's style is far quirkier, and his dialogue more dramatized and stilted, than writer/director Richard Ayoade's. Wes Anderson never lets you forget that you're watching a movie, but that's not the goal of Submarine, which makes Ayoade's insights into the slightly twisted universe of a 15-year-old boy a bit more poignant.

Submarine takes place in Wales, which is a place I've actually visited while studying abroad in London. Now, I was climbing rocks and going on hikes, not living next to a spiky-haired Paddy Considine and pursuing an awkward childhood romance, but based on how people in London spoke of Wales (and vice versa) I can see its residents being as dreary and filled with yearning as the movie depicts. Young Oliver Tate copes by storing his successes away like completed film scenes, but the piled-up troubles of his immediate family and friends serve as a reminder that life can be more complicated than art.

A terrific score by Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys and a quietly adept performance from Noah Taylor (another Wes connection, I suppose) as Roberts' oft-depressed father give the film more depth than your typical "coming of age" story. And any movie that effectively uses the line "My mum gave a handjob to a mystic" in a key moment is alright by me. Shit, a handjob reference! Maybe Submarine is more Wes-like than I'm willing to admit. Or at least paying lots of homage to Rushmore. Either way, it's an unexpectedly refined and hilarious film debut from first-time director Ayoade.

Take Shelter - I covered my thoughts on Take Shelter in relatively comprehensive detail back in early December, but I'd like to take a moment to say that Michael Shannon really, really deserves an Oscar nomination for this movie. He probably won't get one, not after missing out on a Golden Globe nom (and going up against supremely handsome luminaries like Pitt and Michael Fassbender and George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio), but it's time to give him his due for being far more than just a supporting-cast star and one of Hollywood's premier crazy dudes.

Seeing Shannon put a genuinely human twist on the "devolved psychotic" character he's played over and over was truly a delight, one that raises this movie above being just the study of a delusional man. I don't know if Shannon is right about it taking "a bit of guts to go see our film," as the content isn't as shocking as Shame or as inaccessible as The Tree of Life, but it's certainly a small, haunting picture that I didn't fully appreciate until I started to further evaluate certain themes and scenes.

But, by virtue of being excellent and thought-provoking, the movie remains easy to revisit. It's unfortunate that it couldn't draw a larger audience (only $1,674,839 in domestic box office as of January 2), but it is one of those films that maintains a never-ending sense of dread throughout; I kept waiting for the shit to really hit the fan. That's not the stuff of mainstream film and mass appeal, but the ability to rise above that aura of reserved creepiness is an important part of what makes Take Shelter so special.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - A bit of a letdown, if only because I was hoping it would be the greatest spy movie of all time. Instead, I got a quiet, contemplative look at the harrowing but often nondescript life of a secret agent. Director Tomas Alfredson, who also helmed the tremendous Let the Right One In, paints a dreary picture of a world where treachery lurks around every corner, only the corners are dark and shabby, and your adversaries are often pudgy Brits.

I greatly appreciate a film that requires the audience to keep up, but Tinker Tailor, much like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, tries to pack too much into an already ample runtime. The pace is consistently brisk throughout, which is not something Dragon Tattoo can boast, but such continual progress makes it difficult to process everything that is happening, especially when it comes to eliciting an emotional response. The grand finale, in particular, came about while I was still piecing together just how Gary Oldman's George Smiley (who was terrific, by the way) had gotten from A to B to C and solved the whole damn mystery in the first place.

And then there's the ending itself. The trouble with this kind of movie -- and this applies to any film that relies on a big reveal -- is that audiences these days are very smart. So when Smiley is told that one of four men is the spy nestled high atop British intelligence, and only one of those characters has his backstory developed, it's not hard to guess which one is the culprit. This isn't a knock against the movie; I realized that this was how whodunits always worked around the time I saw The Recruit and fingered Pacino as the bad guy about an half-hour in. It just makes it tough to stick the landing, and Tinker Tailor was a movie that propelled you forward right from the start. Still, this kind of ambitious project, despite some rockiness, ended up being well worth the ride.

The Tree of Life - My long-time associate (and future comedy superstar) Rob Turbovsky and I had a discussion earlier this week about what the Oscars (and other year-end cinematic awards) really mean. I mentioned how I thought Avatar and The Social Network should've won Best Picture; despite what I think about them (loved the latter, was relatively entertained by the former) they were certainly the defining movies of their year. Even cinephiles who loathe big-budget Hollywood claptrap probably gave Avatar a chance in 2009, and I don't know anyone, even uppity jerks, who disliked Social Network. So when it comes to 2011, even though the actual Best Picture winner will be something solid like The Artist or The Descendants, the most memorable movie of the year is The Tree of Life.

It didn't make much money at all, but it got people talking. Even people who aren't bloggers or Internet-based film nerds; I think even my mom knew what it was. It was provocative, it blew minds, it spurred movie theaters to provide odd pre-film warnings for some of their stupider patrons.

I know that, not too long ago, I compared this movie to Thor. In retrospect, perhaps that was a little harsh (even though the goal wasn't to be harsh, just to point out how both movies had no real interest in being overly comprehensible or catering to an audience). I still think The Tree of Life keeps you at arm's length, but it dazzles in the process. It may be difficult to get inside Terrence Malick's films (or his head) but he's a master artist with a specific, precise way of telling his stories. Maybe his work is best examined months after being viewing, when it's had time to simmer in your brain. Either way, when you spend as much time as I did mulling over this movie, it's hard not to include it as one of your ten best.

Win Win - As evident by his Best Original Screenplay nomination from the Writers Guild, writers enjoy and appreciate the work of Tom McCarthy. I fancy myself a writer as well, even though I think McCarthy's greatest contribution to the world of cinema is as Amanda Peet's smarmy boyfriend in 2012. Either way, I think McCarthy is a genius. The Station Agent and The Visitor were both gems, and he struck gold again in 2011 with the thoroughly enjoyable Win Win.

McCarthy makes character dramas about quietly tortured souls. He's not very flashy, which makes it very odd that HBO originally tapped him to direct the eventually scrapped Game of Thrones pilot. But his style is perfect in Win Win, a film about a struggling lawyer who comes to nurture the amateur wrestling career of a client's grandson. When casting a cinematic couple, you can't do much better than Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan, two inherently likable actors who have an air of "meaning well" about them. This sort of instant credibility allows McCarthy to dig Giamatti's character into a bigger and bigger hole, knowing full well that we'll be rooting for him to come out whole at the end. Add in Jeffrey Tambor as Giamatti's assistant coach and the great Bobby Cannavale, who turns in his best performance since either The Ten or this Louis C.K. Internet video, and you've got it made. There's gotta be a meaty leading role (one that's not a shitty ABC sitcom) in Cannavale's future.

And all the rest: Three of my favorite lead performances of the year came from Brendan Gleeson, George Clooney and Michael Fassbender in The Guard, The Descendants and Shame, respectively, but the movies themselves were all a bit too flawed for the top ten. If you loved the witty banter between Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story like I did, then you'll love The Trip. Our Idiot Brother was a wonderful little comedy, despite the fact that I didn't laugh outloud once. War Horse would be a much better movie without Steven Spielberg constantly implying that horses are people, too! Rooney Mara sure was weirdly sexy in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, even if the movie's pacing wasn't. And Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was maybe the best action movie I've seen in years. My greatest regret is not getting it onto the top ten. It's tremendous, really. Stop reading this and go see it, preferably in IMAX.

Worst movie of the year: Midnight in Paris. God, this was awful. Woody Allen no longer has any idea how regular people talk, and I imagine he doesn't want to know. If he ever deigns to gaze upon normal folk, he will view us through a powerful telescope. And in between these very occasional viewings, he'll make dangerously terrible movies about rich people being pretentious and then suffering from the kind of lazy malaise that only rich and pretentious people will ever know. Plus, time travel! Just die already, Woody Allen. Your best days are long gone. Stop suckering in morons with your elitist bullshit.

Ain't no goalie conundrum in Philly.

2012-01-04T13:20:00.000-05:00

Don't buy into all the bullshit; there is no goalie controversy in Philadelphia.

You know why? Ilya Bryzgalov signed a nine year, $51 million contract in June.

Yes, Sergei Bobrovsky has the better numbers this season. But it's foolish to worry about stats (or even quality of play) in the winter when Stanley Cups are won and lost in the spring. The most important part of the regular season is solidifying an invite to the big dance and making sure that, when you do arrive, it's with a hot goaltender.

That means the Flyers have 45 games left to get Bryzgalov back into top form, which won't happen if you're rolling Bobrovsky out there 2-3 times a week. It's not just about a financial investment in Bryz; it's about the skill that earned him all those bucks. He's a top-10 goalie, and with the second-highest scoring offense in the league around him, he has the potential to be so much more.

Now, Bobrovsky is a darn good backup who could certainly become a top-tier starting goaltender in the NHL, and I'm very pleased that general manager Paul Holmgren held onto him in the offseason (for a while there, a trade and Michael Leighton call-up seemed like a reasonable plan). The Flyers wouldn't be 22-11-4, good for fourth in the Eastern Conference, without Bob (8-3-1, 2.56 GAA, .914 save percentage).

But he's a spare part, and a enticing one at that. According to capgeek.com, he's making $1.75 million per year through next season, after which he'll be a restricted free agent. That means he's a reasonably priced asset that a young team without a franchise goalie might consider building around. As Eagles fans who've seen Andy Reid ship off backup quarterbacks for a king's ransom over and over again, we know that the most tantalizing trade chip is a flavor-of-the-month reserve with (presumably) vast hidden potential.

As I said earlier, there's certainly an argument for rostering two top-caliber goaltenders. Especially when you employ an emotionally fragile starter who's struggling, a slightly unexpected turn of events that makes Holmgren's trade restraint look quite prescient. But if Brayden Schenn's goal in the Winter Classic is a sign that he's ready to contribute in the NHL, suddenly you've got a slight logjam at forward and a talented, cheap young goalie who's mostly sitting on the bench. You've got options.

And you've got the lack of Chris Pronger starting to become an issue. I like Marc-Andre Bourdon and I'm looking forward to the return of Erik Gustafsson, but this team isn't a real Cup contender without another veteran, top-four defenseman. If the Flyers want to win this year -- and I think they do -- at some point you need to pull the trigger on a blockbuster, especially if it ends up not really weakening the starting lineup.

I doubt the Flyers have got the goods to pry someone like Shea Weber loose from Nashville, but another going-nowhere team might pay top-dollar for a James van Riemsdyk/Sergei Bobrovsky package. I hate to give up on JVR at age 22, but the Flyers have enough forwards. They've got the offense. And JVR certainly seems to be in Laviolette's doghouse this season, injury or no injury. Preparing in full for life without Pronger might be the smartest move they can make, especially if it means shoring up the defense in front of Bryzgalov.

Bryz's mental state is always going to worry some people, especially since the beat writers monitor him like a hawk and devour every morsel that emerges from his mouth. Even if he's winning games, the silly things he says are going to make headlines. I still find them endearing, but I also think it would have helped his psyche and the fans' if Peter Laviolette had played Bryzgalov in the Winter Classic. I figured the enthusiasm of getting the call for such a high-profile game would have outweighed the kick in the butt provided by a benching. He chose otherwise, however, and now we'll get to see how Bryz responds on Thursday versus Chicago.

No matter what your thoughts are on the first few months of Ilya in Philly, we all know that Bryzgalov is not the train wreck he's appeared to be. John Vanbiesbrouck thinks it's largely mental -- the pressure of living up to a giant contract in a hockey-crazed city -- and I've heard some theories about it being practice-related: Bryz just needs to focus more on the basics with goalie coach Jeff Reese.

Either way, now that 24/7 has wrapped and the hubbub surrounding the Winter Classic is fading away, it's time for Peter Laviolette to throw Bryz in net for 6-7 games and let him tend some goal. For better or worse -- and I remain convinced that it's "for better" -- Ilya Bryzgalov is the starting goalie for the Philadelphia Flyers. Any speculation otherwise is a waste of breath, and the time may be coming for the Flyers to make this inevitable commitment to their goaltender (and this year's team) painstakingly clear.

Bringing 'em all back home.

2011-12-27T16:16:00.001-05:00

The Philadelphia Eagles will close out the 2011 season with a win over the Washington Redskins on Sunday, and Andy Reid will return as head coach in 2012.

These may not be certainties, but I feel pretty comfortable in making both assumptions.

The real question will be what to do with the rest of the team in 2012. Resign DeSean Jackson? Trade Asante Samuel? Buy into the maturation of Kurt Coleman and Brian Rolle?

And, of course, bring back Juan Castillo as defensive coordinator?

The facts are these: The Eagles are now eighth in yards allowed and tied for 12th in points allowed. Back on November 28th, the Eagles were 15th in yards allowed and 21st in points allowed. Pretty big jump. They've allowed only 67 points over the last four weeks, and that's including the debacle in Seattle.

They're first in sacks with 49. They've given up the sixth-most touchdowns through the air (26) despite holding teams to only 210 passing yards per game (eighth overall). Their 23 takeaways (14 picks, 9 fumbles) are middle of the pack, while their 36 giveaways on offense are tied with Tampa Bay for worst in the NFL.

This tells me a few things: The Eagles' defense -- despite early-season, late-in-game struggles and some poor work in the red zone -- is above average. You could even argue that it's good. The offense, on the other hand, which was supposed to be the team's strength, has faltered at key times. More than faltered, even; they've given the ball back to the opposition more than anyone else in the league, creating a strain that'd crush even the best teams.

Simply put, Juan Castillo seems to be running a damn fine defense these days. And maybe the Eagles should give him the chance to prove that the last few weeks are no fluke.

There are a few intelligent arguments against this idea. My dad and I got in one such debate recently; his take is that a easy late-season schedule has made Castillo's defense look better than it really is. A mirage, so to speak. But Miami was on a roll when the Eagles came to town (27.8 PPG over their last five games), and the biggest non-New England defensive hiccup of the last two months was the result of Seattle feasting on Vince Young's mistakes (two TDs off interceptions, another returned for a touchdown).

And now the inevitable Steve Spagnuolo talk has begun. In a vacuum, no one with a brain would argue for Juan Castillo over Steve Spagnuolo. In fact, Spags seems like the perfect candidate: history with Andy Reid and the Eagles, Super Bowl ring, etc. But you have to admit that Juan's defense has improved in pretty much every aspect of the game. If Spagnuolo is looking to strip down and start over, is it worth suffering through another bout of growing pains for a former head coach who's probably not looking to settle down in Philly too long? Not sure if going with a hired gun, even one that's a known quantity, is wise in what very well may be Reid's last season.

Unless, of course, upper management would consider Spagnuolo a possible replacement for Reid down the line. But that's a whole other can of worms that we'll have the pleasure of opening if/when the time is right.

Honestly, I didn't want to bring Juan Castillo back. I thought it was a fun experiment that had flopped in embarrassing fashion. But if you believe in the strides that the team's been making, if you buy that Juan's finally earned the trust of his defense, if you think Jim Washburn's pass-rushing strategy is doing its job, then don't blow it up. Don't bring in another coordinator who might want something totally different, even if he does come with a link to the glory days of Jim Johnson.

Give Andy and Juan a short leash; one more season to show what they've got. Juan was Andy's call; let him make or break Reid's tenure. I don't want to see another maddeningly inconsistent year of football, but I like what I've seen over the last few weeks. I think it's for real.

I was all ready to go cold turkey on this team after the Seattle game, but they haven't quit on themselves. With a few smart personnel moves, some continued improvement from young players and seriously cutting down on turnovers, there's no reason the Eagles won't bounce back in 2012. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater until you're damn sure it can't be cleaned.

In praise of The Tobolowsky Files.

2011-12-20T14:26:00.000-05:00

Until recently, I wasn't much of a podcast listener. And I'm not sure why The Tobolowsky Files became my gateway into the world of long-form digital chatter.

My only guess is that I love character actors. Harry Dean Stanton, James Rebhorn, Fred Ward, Richard Jenkins. Some are a little more well-known than others, but they're all adept at making even the smallest part seem important. Casting Frank Vincent as a mobster can give the role a little more gravitas than going with some unknown Italian guy. In many ways, they end up having far more interesting, and lengthier, careers than big-time blockbuster stars.

Stephen Tobolowsky, of course, is quite the character actor; one of the most prolific of all time. I knew him chiefly from memorable roles in Memento and Groundhog Day, but also from guest spots on Seinfeld, Heroes and Deadwood. He's one of those performers who always looks happy to be there, even in a do-nothing part or a lame children's movie.

And that's probably because he is pleased to be there, pleased to be working, no matter what thankless task he's assigned. Stephen Tobolowsky isn't quite rich, and he's only mildly famous. He's not exactly handsome or dashing. He's a professional actor, yes, and a successful one, but he's also very much a human being. He's not disengaged from reality, and he suffers from the same kind of loss and heartache as we do, the kind that we don't always associate with Hollywood folk.

Even though I don't know the man personally, I can say all this with certainty because I'm 38 episodes deep into his wonderful and illuminating podcast series. In it, Tobolowsky talks candidly, sometimes remarkably so, about his ups and downs in "life, love and the entertainment industry." Listeners who're just starting out may only know him from a movie here or there, but Tobolowsky does not hesitate in welcoming you into his own little world.

Every episode is a new story from Stephen's life. Some are pleasant and occasionally eye-opening tales from his many films and TV shows: the complications of guest starring on a melting-down Heroes, the antics of Bill Murray on the set of Groundhog Day, the joy that comes with being cast on a future hit show like Glee.

But it's not all about the work. Stephen also discusses lost loves, the deaths of friends and family, those dark moments when you can barely get out of bed, let alone go star in movies. He's not afraid to delve into his previous problems with drugs and alcohol, the difficulty of finding a job in an industry built on saying "no," the horrors of having your dreams nearly dashed by a vengeful peer or superior. He's an expert storyteller with tremendous skill at relaying roller-coaster-like tales of the past, and the podcast is a perfect vehicle for these kind of 40-minute, multi-part narratives.

What's most impressive, however, is the clarity with which he describes the events of his life. One of his stories touches on how Jane Lynch, star of Glee, has a supernatural ability to detach herself from personal disasters when relaying them in anecdotes. Tobolowsky's certainly not emotionally detached from his past -- he's been known to break down a bit when relaying a particularly heartbreaking tale -- but he seems to have figured out how each of his life's major moments fits into the giant puzzle of human existence. He can find lessons in both the good and the bad, and illustrate to his listeners how they made him, if not a better person, at least a more complete and satisfied one. At age 60 Tobolowsky boasts a pretty firm, and rare, grasp of the big picture, and an understanding of how each of his many years helped to paint it.

Not only is Tobolowsky still hard at work on The Tobolowsky Files (the latest episode dropped in late November), but he's also writing books, giving live performances and using pretty much every available medium to bring his stories to life. It's been a pleasure to see this truly charming actor -- a classically trained thespian with more range than people give him credit for (here's hoping some talented indie director crafts a Tobo-based lead role in the near future, a la Jenkins in The Visitor) -- tap into yet another creative outlet at this point in his career. The world is a better place for it.

If you're interested in breaking into The Tobolowsky Files, start with The Voice from Another Room. Or check out Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party, which is the feature film that sparked the podcast. Since you've taken the time to read this blog post about a podcast in the first place, I suspect you won't be disappointed.

A buncha movie reviews.

2011-12-07T09:57:00.001-05:00

As my esteemed life partner Kat Devlin pointed out to me last night, writing up a batch of movie reviews only a month before my top 10 list comes out might be a bit repetitive. But I've seen four movies lately that have piqued my interest and deserve some attention. Plus, I don't have much else to write about (unless Ruben Amaro trades for Gio Gonzalez later today), so here we go.

Shame - The film I've seen most recently, and the one I was most excited for. I loved Steve McQueen's feature debut Hunger, about the hunger strike of IRA member Bobby Sands, and I was extremely excited to see what the great Michael Fassbender could do with the role of a New York City sex addict.

Well, Fassbender did not disappoint. By following up his scene-stealing performance in Inglourious Basterds with both X-Men: First Class and now Shame, he's shown an ability to throw himself into any performance, even if it involves wearing a big anti-telepathy helmet. Not only is Fassbender asked to perform a series of degrading, shocking acts in this movie, he's also forced to keep those tensions, that inescapable desire for filth, bubbling just below the surface while his character inhabits the real world. His disconnected demeanor may seem intriguing to some, but to an audience that has just seen him masturbating in the work bathroom, it betrays a twisted individual within who needs help.

But McQueen, in only his second feature film, comes up a little short. I loved how narrow and dark he made New York seem; every storefront Fassbender walks by seems barren; every bright light is either in the distance or obscured by a window. The movie, and the world of the movie itself, is unquestionably Fassbender's alone. But for all of his visual acumen, McQueen sets a very slow pace. Scenes and conversations are drawn out, ostensibly to heighten tension or increase intensity, but they tend to drag on a bit too long in the process.

And most of these lengthy moments are surprisingly limiting, offering little-to-no character development or plot detail. I usually enjoy when a filmmaker offers the viewer an opportunity to fill in a few of the blanks, but you have to present the blanks in the first place. Sometimes this movie felt aloof for the sake of being aloof, as if providing no backstory was a necessary part of making a provocative independent film.

Shame looks great and its lead performance is dynamite, but in the end it was more of a vehicle for those excellent elements than a complete work of art.

Martha Marcy May Marlene - Another movie, like Shame, that could have greatly benefited from a bit more backstory.

Elizabeth Olsen, the youngest (and by far the most talented) of the Olsen children, plays a young girl who's just escaped from a cult (run by the quietly creepy John Hawkes). She moves in with her sister, who's married a well-to-do businessman from the city and vacations in a home not far from the cult's headquarters. And, of course, scary dreams and mental breakdowns ensue.

I don't mean to shortchange the film too much; it's the first feature from director Sean Durkin, and Olsen should get an Oscar nomination for displaying such a healthy mix of both helplessness and combativeness.

But if Durkin had provided a bit more clarity, maybe Olsen's distraught behavior would carry more weight. Instead, in the end, we're left with the memories (or nightmares) of an untrustworthy narrator. While this comes with an implied sense of curiosity and dread, it also leaves the door a bit too wide open for my tastes. Was it all exaggerated, or even imagined? Is she going to live the rest of her life in fear of something that isn't even there? The possibilities offered up are intriguing but not enthralling. I was left wondering what more was there; how much impact a few more defining scenes would have added to the movie.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a damn fine debut for a young filmmaker and actress, but it feels incomplete and lacking the follow-through on what felt like an incoming knockout punch.

The Descendants - And now we get to the crowd-pleaser.

Even though George Clooney's movies don't gross as much as everyone thinks, he's one of our most beloved actors. Which is weird, when you look at his track record. I love Fantastic Mr. Fox, Burn After Reading, Michael Clayton and Good Night, and Good Luck as much as anybody, but they're not exactly moneymaking hits. In fact, minus Up in the Air and the Ocean's movies, Clooney's been practically an indie darling for the last decade.

But I'm not arguing with the guy's choices, especially his increasingly obvious desire to snare roles that aren't right in his wheelhouse. After supposedly campaigning hard to play Thomas Haden Church's character in Sideways, Clooney finally gets his leading gig in an Alexander Payne movie. And he knocks it out of the park.

This is frumpy, conflicted Clooney, not dashing spy Clooney. This is the kind of Clooney whose wife cheats on him with Matthew Lillard, as inconceivable as that may be. This is the Clooney who runs around corners at full speed in flip flops, the kind of Clooney who's best buddies with Mary Birdsong and Rob Huebel. He's still charming and smooth-talking, but you can see the handful of hardships he's suffered in his face.

What at first confused me and now interests me about this film was its relative lack of narrative structure. Things don't exactly fit together. There are emotional moments and the story flows along, but no one really learns anything. No characters go through big internal changes. They find out a little more about each other, and then they all eat ice cream together.

This threw me for a loop at first, mostly because I was expecting a conventional film with a beginning and an end. But it did feel more real, how a family might actually react to tragedy and controlled chaos. People are who they are, and in The Descendants, said people are a well-to-do "Hawaiian" family with issues like internal communication and not enough attention being paid to certain details. In this neat little slice of their lives captured on screen, they figure it all out well enough to function as a slightly tweaked version of their same selves.

I'm still not sure why this is garnering so much award show praise, but it is probably Payne's least quirky and most accessible film to date. Add in a little Robert Forster and a pinch of Judy Greer and you've got a somewhat perplexingly enjoyable movie.

Take Shelter - The first film I saw starring Michael Shannon was Bug, William Friedkin's adaptation of a play in which two people slowly go insane in a motel room. My brother loved it; I did not, but I was definitely intrigued by Shannon and his increasingly unstable performance. He played an excellent psycho.

And now here we are, after Revolutionary Road, Boardwalk Empire and a handful of other career-propelling roles, and Michael Shannon's finally a "leading man." Perhaps surprisingly, after so many movies where he's unquestionably mad, Take Shelter offers a nuanced take on Shannon's onset of mental illness and how it affects his family and the people around him.

In Shame, Michael Fassbender's character is developed through brief glimpses into his private life, offhand gestures and snippets of information. His dialogue is minimal and his backstory is basically nonexistent. As I said, this can be a fine way to make a movie: allowing an intelligent audience to fill in the holes as they see fit. But it doesn't always hold up when you're also asking us to emotionally invest. It makes it easy to detach.

In contrast, Take Shelter offers numerous scenes with Michael Shannon's wife and child, scenes where you can see how much he cares about them and how his descent into madness is tearing them apart. It makes what's happening onscreen less clinical and more affecting. Conversations with his coworker (Eli from Boardwalk Empire!) and his brother (the reverend from Deadwood!) make Shannon's character more than just another psycho, and they make his illness more than just a plot point that gives Shannon free reign to scream and flip over tables. This is a person with connections, and those might be taken away by forces out of his control. That's some heartbreaking stuff right there.

Maybe the point of Shame was to make Fassbender's character unreachable, to keep his twisted desires away from the audience and induce either pity or disgust. He had no connections, because he couldn't emotionally form them in the first place. No matter the case, I preferred Take Shelter's method. I cared about what I saw on screen, and when the movie ended with a curious final scene, I was compelled to discuss it with my friends and work out its meaning. As either a metaphor or reality, it captured the hell that his family would continue going through.

Take Shelter was an unexpectedly moving look at a simple man combating demons brought about by genetics and bad luck. Shannon's face and features have been long associated with a dignified sort of creepiness, but hopefully this movie will make it clear that his range extends beyond the neatly tortured souls he's specialized in up to this point.

Coming apart at the seams.

2011-11-28T10:23:00.001-05:00

A college friend of mine used to have a saying that we all loved. Maybe it was the way he said it (or the frequency of use) more than the saying itself, but every time something would go awry or someone would get a little too graphic with a story, he'd yell, "That shit is gross!"

Those words kept ringing in my head throughout yesterday's Eagles game.

I've alternately cast the Eagles aside and believed in their potential to bounce back, but now we know for sure. This is a bad football team, one that's coming apart at the seams.

I don't think the Eagles will fire Andy Reid. He's got two years left on his contract, and the players still seem to have his back. Plus, there would have to be a sterling replacement lined up: Jon Gruden, Jeff Fisher, Bill Cowher. No matter what you think about Reid and his 2011 season, he's proven himself many times over as a successful head coach; it wouldn't make sense to replace him with anyone less qualified.

But if Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner come to a lesser conclusion -- that Juan Castillo must go -- I don't see how they can relieve him of his defensive coordinator duties and keep Reid onboard. Castillo is Reid's guy. Andy stuck his neck out for Juan, and so far, Juan has not delivered.

Maybe Reid and Howie Roseman didn't supply Castillo with the defensive personnel necessary for success; he didn't have much to choose from in the linebacker and safety department. But the facts are the facts: After 11 games, the Eagles have given up 251 points (21st in the NFL) and 344.6 yards per game (15th in the league). Sean McDermott's defense allowed 321.1 yards per game in 2009 and 327.2 yards per game in 2010. And that got him fired.

You don't need numbers, only eyes, to know that Tom Brady picked the Eagles defense apart last night. They're not the first team he's torched, nor will they be the last, but the disorganized mess that spent three hours chasing after Deion Branch and Wes Welker did not inspire any sort of confidence or hope for the future. This wasn't another blown fourth-quarter lead, but it was the worst home loss since 2009 and the fourth-most points allowed at home in 13 years under Andy Reid.

And now the fans are calling for not only Juan's head but Andy's, too. Will that sway Lurie at all? Will the sight of thousands of ticket holders streaming out of Lincoln Financial Field in the third quarter have any impact on the owner's state of mind regarding his floundering franchise?

Eagles fans have always been both passionate and reactionary -- present company included -- but an adjective no one's ever used to describe them is "apathetic." Yet I suspect that's how most fans will feel in the weeks to come; the season is cooked, the coach has all but worn out his welcome, every player not named LeSean McCoy (and maybe Jason Peters) has underwhelmed in one way or another. Perhaps an abundance of apathy, not rancor, will inspire change.

At this point, it's all but impossible to argue with the growing disinterest. This was, and I guess still is, one of the more overhyped, disastrous seasons in recent sports history, Philly-based or otherwise. There's no easy way to right the ship; the talent is (arguably) there but the results are nowhere to be found. Maybe the only real question going forward is, massive overhaul or tweak and pray? Either way, the skies over Philadelphia football seem to keep on getting darker.

The value of value.

2011-11-12T11:46:00.001-05:00

Every fantasy league has that guy who's constantly trying to one-up everyone else.

You know who I'm talking about. The dude (or dudette) who needs to come out on top, no matter what. He'll open negotiations by offering LeGarrette Blount for Ryan Mathews and Greg Jennings, and then call you names when you counter with something reasonable. He doesn't just want to help his team; he wants to squeeze you dry, and he wants everyone in the league to know just how smart and savvy he is in the process.

Lately, many Philadelphia Phillies fans have become that kind of guy. It's not enough for the team to make noise, sign some good players and compete for a championship year after year, which they do. To them, the Phillies need to win every trade; they need to get maximum value from every signing; they need to be the most well-oiled, smoothly operated machine in the history of baseball. Some folks make it seem like treason to expect any less.

And yet, it used to be that the Phillies didn't sign anyone of consequence. Once upon a time, they gave Rheal Cormier three years and $8.75 million; players like him were the best they could do. They operated on the periphery, occasionally thinking big with guys like Gregg Jefferies and Andy Ashby, only to see these attempted forays into respectability blow up in their faces.

Now, they're able to sign respected veterans like Raul Ibanez, Placido Polanco, Cliff Lee and Jonathan Papelbon at the drop of a hat. It's no big thing to spend $120 million on an ace or $50 million on a closer; it's what a competitive team in a big market does. You'd think that long-time Phillies fans would be ecstatic; look at all the money they're spending! And almost all of it on talented players who, in one way or another, can help the team. But you'd be wrong; every signing (sans Lee, of course) is nitpicked to no end. It's not just about bringing in good players anymore; it's about getting fan-approved value.

Is this justified? With all this cash being thrown around, is the team consistently getting its money's worth? There is a way to calculate this sort of thing, at least when it comes to numbers. According to FanGraphs, Raul Ibanez returned $18.1 million of "value" in his three years with the Phillies (compared to his $30 million salary) but that was lowered considerably by the left-fielder actually "costing" the team $6 million with his disappointing 2011 season. But he did return $17.4 million in 2009 alone, when the poor play of Brad Lidge and Cole Hamels, not Ibanez, cost the team its second championship in a row. If Raul had ended up being a key cog in another title run, do we really care how much he "lives up" to his deal?

Contracts in sports are based on performance, sure, but in the end they're all business decisions. The Ryan Howard extension might end up being a mess in terms of value on the field, but if they get a few more years of Howard's recognizable presence at first base, along with 30+ dingers a year and some mashing of right-handed pitching, maybe the bucks all even out. And hopefully, the other perks of employing Howard and Roy Halladay and Papelbon -- name players who'll sell jerseys, ticket packages and other revenue-generating goodies -- mean that the team around them will continue to improve. Even if Howard isn't worth $25 million on the field, the money can be made up elsewhere. And if the Phillies recognize Howard's on-field limitations and allocate the rest of the payroll wisely, the team stays competitive.

I'm not saying we need to agree with every move Ruben Amaro Jr. makes, and I don't think we should rationalize each signing by saying, "But think of how many tickets he'll sell!" But I am saying that the team won 102 games last year and will almost certainly contend for a title again in 2012 and 2013. And there's no way Amaro thinks Papelbon is the last piece of the puzzle; he wouldn't blow his last $12.5 million on a closer. In the end, will Jonathan Papelbon earn his inflated salary? Probably not. But will he increase the team's chances of winning in the near future? Yes.

The Phillies don't have to win every move they make; that's short-sighted. They need to bring in veteran personnel that can help them compete for a championship while also developing (and eventually, relying on) cheap young talent like Antonio Bastardo, Dom Brown and Trevor May. A solid mix of both is key, along with ensuring that the big contracts you do offer up aren't back-breaking. Is blowing $50 million on a closer smart? I'd say there are better uses for the money, but if Amaro still has a big chunk of cash to spend on the Michael Cuddyers and Jimmy Rollinses of the world, why not?

In the end, I respect his give-to-get, rolling-the-dice style of aggressiveness, and I remember the days when that kind of fire, and especially the kind of dough to bankroll said fire, weren't a part of baseball in Philadelphia.

Blind faith in Happy Valley.

2011-11-10T12:26:00.000-05:00

From 2004 to 2008, I attended Boston University. Many of my fellow students fell in love with the oft-competitive hockey team, and a few even got into Terrier basketball. But college athletics have never been my bag, and that didn't change just because I was now in college. I went to maybe three hockey games in four years and never really regretted a thing.

So I don't understand how the students of Penn State University, past and present, feel about Joe Paterno and the Nittany Lions football program.

And frankly, I don't want to understand.

I get that this scandal is swirling up boatloads of emotions -- mostly anger at the accused perpetrator and compassion towards the victims -- and I know that many of the people who care the most are those who have attended, taught at or otherwise supported Penn State and the school's football program.

But when Joe Paterno was fired last night, an uncomfortable amount of emphasis was placed on his legacy, his own personal struggles over the past week, his previous battles with PSU's Board of Trustees and other matters that have nothing to do with the current situation.

Even if Paterno is innocent of all legal wrongdoing, even if he followed procedure to the letter when dealing with rumors of Jerry Sandusky's foul play, the fact remains that a pedophile spent years in a position of power, legitimate or implied, on the Penn State campus, many of them coming after investigations were launched into his wrongdoings with young children. If that shouldn't be rectified with a complete ousting of all of the university's leading personnel, football or otherwise, then I don't know what should.

I tweeted earlier this week that Joe Paterno, like Jon Arryn of Game of Thrones, has been Lord of the Eyrie for far too long. For those non-nerds out there, the Eyrie is an impregnable fortress on top of a mountain, one that often chooses not to get involved in matters of worldwide importance. And quaint little State College, Pennsylvania, while not perched high in the sky, is equally as isolated from the rest of college athletics. Once a bastion of respectability and honor, we now see that foul play at Penn State was not only prevalent, it was swept under the rug when deemed inconvenient by coaches and administrators alike.

Since his promotion to head coach in 1966, Joe Paterno rose to become king of Happy Valley. He was beloved by the students and revered by former players. Did all this power cloud his judgment when it came to Sandusky's transgressions? Did it lead to Sandusky's abrupt "retirement" in 1999, an event that many have linked to an investigation into his behavior in 1998, a sort of "out of sight, out of mind" policy that may have saved the university the "trouble" of increased snooping and, eventually, legal liability?

Either way, Joe Paterno has been relieved of his abilities to directly influence matters at Penn State. He's now an unemployed, disgraced old man, one who has made at least a few dubious ethical decisions over the last decade; decisions that may have led to the continued molestation of numerous young children. And to look upon that with anything but scorn and dismay blows my mind.

To anyone with common sense, Joe Paterno's time as a respected leader of young men is at an end. And good riddance. For some, though, he's still their coach, one who won a bunch of football games, donated a bunch of money, and then was caught up in a whirlwind that only included him tangentially and therefore shouldn't land on his plate.

But as Bruce Springsteen once said, "Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed." Sandusky may be innocent until proven guilty, but the facts have been pretty neatly laid out: He did wrong, and Paterno was aware. Blind faith in a football coach may not get you killed, but it will make you truly blind to what really matters.

Andy's adaptation abilities.

2011-11-04T11:40:00.000-04:00

Andy Reid has his flaws. Extremely frustrating failings that'll make you want to rip your eyes out or, more reasonably, flip to another game.

Clock management is one. Stubbornness is another.

Like the time he assigned the completely untested Greg Lewis and J.R. Reed to return punts. It cost the Eagles the game and forced the hopelessly mediocre Reno Mahe back into our lives.

Like his refusal to spend on linebackers and safeties. Maybe we shouldn't lament the loss of Stewart Bradley, but I wonder how the Eagles defense would have looked earlier this season with Quintin Mikell in the defensive backfield instead of Jarrad Page.

A few weeks ago, I would have also added "like the time he hired offensive line coach Juan Castillo to be the new defensive coordinator." But a funny thing happened along the way; the Eagles defense started to improve.

They've allowed only 127 rushing yards over the last two games. Nnamdi Asomugha looks increasingly comfortable in Castillo's schemes. The wide nine has apparently been tweaked (or maybe better grasped by the players), rookie Casey Matthews has been banished from the starting lineup, and the Brian Rolle/Jamar Chaney/Moise Fokou trio has shored up a previously detrimental linebacking core.

And therein lies Andy Reid's genius: His ability to adapt. He's one of the best coaches in the league, maybe in the history of the game, at rolling with the punches.

He's 13-0 after the bye, and he's 62-33-1 in the second half of the season. Take out 2005, which turned into a lost season, and the handful of late-December losses that came after the Eagles had already locked up a playoff spot, and you've got an almost-immaculate record from November on.

Some coaches wither and die after being dealt a bad hand. To his credit, Andy Reid is not one of them.

His in-game decision-making isn't always top-notch, but give him a bye week -- or even sometimes just an intermission -- to get situated and you'll often see the play-calling or the scheme do a complete 180° flip. The team that destroyed Dallas on Sunday night was not the team that pissed away wins in Atlanta and Buffalo. That's Andy Reid out-coaching Jason Garrett and Rob Ryan, that's coaches flip-flopping starters and building up the confidence and capabilities of rookies like Danny Watkins.

Unfortunately, making midseason changes isn't always enough; despite two very strong games in a row (and the promise of more to come) the Eagles remain two wins behind the New York Giants with only one head-to-head match-up remaining. They'll have to take at least 6 of their last 9 games to have any chance at the playoffs. Luckily, they have the personnel to pull it off.

I really thought this might be Andy Reid's last hurrah. Turnovers abounded, and the defense and offensive line took some time to get going. But Castillo's straightened his boys out, and Howard Mudd looks to be every bit the Hall of Fame line coach they said he was.

With the NFL's leading rush attack, a healthy Michael Vick and a boatload of everyone's favorite intangible, momentum, the pieces are there for another dominant season-ending stretch. If the Eagles are able to rebound from 1-4 and live up to the preseason hype after all, this just might be Andy Reid's masterpiece.

Jimmy Rollins or Ryan Madson?

2011-11-01T14:56:00.000-04:00

In roughly 34 hours, Major League Baseball free agents will be allowed to sign with whichever team they please.

For the Philadelphia Phillies, this'll require saying goodbye to players like Raul Ibanez, Brian Schneider, Roy Oswalt and Ross Gload. For the most part -- or, in Oswalt's case, for the money it'd probably take to keep him around -- they won't be missed.

And then we come to Ryan Madson and Jimmy Rollins. The general consensus is that one of these two guys will be back for 2012 and beyond; figuring out which one it'll be has been the tough part.

I've advocated resigning both of them in the past, but I also recognize that doing so might be a financial stretch. The Phillies are a big market team, one that shouldn't have to cut too many corners, but even the richest teams have a breaking point.

So if it comes down to one or the other, bring back Jimmy Rollins.

I know that Ruben Amaro Jr. has already expressed his desire for a "proven closer," and Madson certainly fits that bill after last year's 32 saves and 2.37 ERA. But I think bringing back Madson -- or blowing a bunch of bucks on a name guy like Heath Bell or Jonathan Papelbon -- would be a poor allocation of resources.

Is it really wise to go big (and long) for a closer? The Phillies locked up Brad Lidge after his epic 2008 season and were rewarded with a disastrous 2009 and only 65 innings in 2010-2011. Maybe if they had made the smart business decision and turned to Madson in 2009, Amaro wouldn't have been forced to trade Cliff Lee in December of that same year for quick salary relief and (as of right now) a bunch of prospect-shaped doorstops.

Granted, there's no Madson-esque arm-in-waiting for 2012. Antonio Bastardo's numbers might suggest that he's ready, but the way he faltered down the stretch (and his left-handedness) probably convinced Amaro to look elsewhere. Phillippe Aumont is a fun name to throw around, if only to prove that the aforementioned Lee trade wasn't a total disaster, but he have to perform at the Major League level before they hand him any important innings.

If the Phillies insist on signing a veteran, I pray that they think old and cheap. Joe Nathan and Francisco Cordero are long-time closers, and their age (37) would, presumably, increase their interest in a shorter, simpler contract. Guys like Jon Rauch and Frank Francisco have closed before -- albeit relatively unimpressively -- and they can also slot into a setup role if one of the young guys decides to step up after all. And if you really want to roll the dice, the bloated corpse of Jonathan Broxton is also available. Just keep him away from Matt Stairs.

Meanwhile, there are two Type A shortstops on the market this offseason: Jose Reyes and Rollins. And although it would be a sportswriter's dream, the Phillies are unlikely to spend the nine figures necessary to snare the 29-year-old Reyes.

So if not Rollins or Reyes, then who? Rafael Furcal? Alex Gonzalez? Of all the names on this list, they're the only two even remotely "worthy" of starting on a legitimate contender. I'm really not interested in either one, and I highly doubt they tickle Amaro's fancy.

The solution could end up being Freddy Galvis, the 21-year-old prospect with the supposedly dazzling glove. But, as more than a few commenters on Beerleaguer have noted, a team with World Series aspirations and a league-average offense probably shouldn't turn to an unproven rookie with a weak bat.

Plus, there's the intangibles-oriented argument: Jimmy Rollins is the Phillies, he's meant so much to this organization, etc. I don't know how you'd quantify that, but I do agree with the idea that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. I'm not sure Jimmy "deserves" one more big contract from the Phillies, but I'm not sure I'd want to roll the dice with anyone but him.

Some fans are probably (justifiably) nervous that Rollins will break down by the end of any deal (he's 33), and I know that there's a lot of rumbling about whether players can truly "live up" to extravagant deals like the ones Rollins and Madson are sure to sign.

But most free agents (or players in their 30s that choose extensions over free agency) rarely perform at the level, or for the length, of their new deals. The key, especially if you're a team with a massive payroll, is to limit your mistakes. Organizations like the Phillies and the Red Sox can survive a Geoff Jenkins, a J.D. Drew, even a John Lackey or (gulp) a Ryan Howard. But bury yourself under too many massive deals (like the Yankees may have done in a few years, as Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia continue to age) and you might find your window of championship opportunity has suddenly slammed shut.

The Phillies aren't even close to in trouble. Whether it's Dom Brown or John Mayberry in left field next year, the end result will (finally) be a cheap, young, competent bat to go with the old, expensive ones. As for their long-term financial interests, the only Phillies signed beyond 2012 are Howard, Lee, Roy Halladay and Chase Utley. And even after the Hunter Pence trade, the team's farm system should still be ranked as (at least) average.

Simply put, signing Jimmy Rollins won't cripple the Phillies. Neither will bringing back Ryan Madson. But when it comes to what they need, what they should really be willing to spend for, the stud shortstop trumps the stud closer.

The Walking Dead is not as good as you think.

2011-10-25T22:14:00.000-04:00

If you're a male between the ages of 18 and 45, you probably spend an hour every Sunday night watching The Walking Dead on AMC. This is not the worst way to end your weekend, as it prominently features gratuitous zombie killing. But is The Walking Dead "good television"? Is it deserving of all the attention it's gotten?

In my opinion, it's actually pretty darn mediocre. Borderline bad. The concept's top-notch, it's beautifully filmed and the zombie makeup deserves a boatload of awards. But once you get past all that, the gore and the occasional moment of well-plotted tension, there's not a lot of substance there.

Ostensibly, the show is about a group of people attempting to band together in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world, but you wouldn't know that they're banding together or that the world has ended by listening to some of the petty arguments between assorted characters.

The writers have focused on how human interaction -- the "core" of society -- continually frays under the pressure of the end of the world, but the characters aren't constantly hovering at the edge of sanity, like you or I might be. Instead, they blindly trudge through a desolated landscape, wasting precious minutes deliberating about the most inane things.

For example, Shane drunkenly tried to rape Rick's wife near the end of last season, but instead of it being a horrific moment that defines their relationship going forward, she mostly ends up perturbed that Shane has begun treating Carl poorly. He tried to rape you! Who cares if he's also being cold towards your son? (For more wonderfully apt observations like these, consult the mockery-heavy weekly reviews at videogum.com.)

They extend discussions for twice the reasonable amount of time, usuallyjust enough to fill out an episode, while continually refusing to respond like actual human beings up against such a terrible, mind-shattering scenario. One of the things my dad hated about Lost was that no one ever asked the right questions; the writers had everyone dance around the real issues to keep the mystique of the island alive. Well, on Walking Dead, no one ever does the right thing, which is "stop blathering, gather weapons and run like hell, the zombie army is all around you." This may keep the show on track, but at what cost?

So the characters are poorly written; they're also not particularly memorable. I think we all know Rick, Shane and Carl (may he, hopefully, rest in peace), but what is Rick's wife's name? I only found out two days ago that it's Lori. What about the old guy who drives the RV? The black guy? The racist hick with the crossbow? The attractive blonde girl who wants to die? The mom with the lesbian haircut? The stupid daughter who has gone missing?

I have no idea who any of them are. And this isn't because the show is overly complicated like The Wire; it's because they're all bland, stereotypical, and irrelevant. You don't need to learn their names because it's not worth the effort; most of them are only interesting when they're running away from undead creatures, and even then it's fleeting.

The old man is given a few good lines an episode, but he's mostly there to be wise and offer counsel. The daughter disappearing was meant to create tension, but I don't think anyone's overly concerned with her survival. Carl getting shot was mildly interesting, but after the original shock it was just another plot-forwarding element.

Basically, the show works when the characters are encountering/evading zombie attacks. Or when they're learning more about the zombies. Or when someone's stabbing a zombie in the head with a screwdriver. Moments like that make The Walking Dead a fun show to watch.

But when characters are talking, or arguing, or engaging in a drawn-out love triangle that'll seemingly never end, The Walking Dead's flaws are exposed. And they are ample.

This isn't to say that people shouldn't watch the show; just don't pretend like it's God's gift to television. There are plenty of wonderful shows on TV nowadays, but The Walking Dead isn't one of them.

Bill Simmons went to a hockey game and a basketball lockout broke out.

2011-10-19T21:01:00.000-04:00

Bill Simmons is now a hockey fan. Hooray?

For all of Simmons's flaws, he's a very knowledgeable basketball fan and an excellent writer on the sport and its inner workings. But hockey? Him? I don't see it.

So let's examine Bill's first "hockey-oriented" piece of the season. Join me, if you will, for yet another Fire Joe Morgan-esque adventure on King Myno's Court.

During the NBA's latest "crucial" labor meeting in New York City yesterday, I was attending the home opener for the Los Angeles Kings 3,000 miles away.

Only a true hockey fan would skip out on, uh, tweeting about a labor meeting for the first regular season game of the year. Good start, Bill.

Let's leave the idiocy of the lockout aside for a second.

Oh, wonderful. Simmons and his lockout rants are certainly entertaining, but it'll be nice to read his opinion on a different subject, one that he can really sink his teeth into. The Kings are certainly an interesting team to write about: studmuffin Anze Kopitar, the trade that brought former Flyers captain Mike Richards to LA, Dustin Penner's struggles, Drew Doughty's post-holdout injury...

(one paragraph later)

Of course, I never would have bought Kings tickets without a lockout. And that's the part these NBA numbskulls are missing.

Fuck. Let's fast-forward a little here, as you probably know the drill by now:

(strained reference to new favorite television drama)

(attempt to speak for a sport's entire fanbase)

(brief anecdote involving chat with super plugged-in source)

...you know how in hockey when two guys screw up the faceoff - either they keep jumping the gun, or they keep hitting each other's sticks - and the official finally gets pissed off and kicks them out of the faceoff? That should have happened with this lockout weeks ago.

And there we are, back to hockey. Sort of. It's actually just a brief comparison that immediately leads into almost 1,000 more words on the lockout. This piece is entirely about the goddamn NBA lockout!

The fact of the matter is, he's probably right on all points. The leadership of both the NBA and the NBPA sound like they're being shortsighted and idiotic; there are no winners when a professional sports league cancels games; and only the NFL could survive a drawn-out work stoppage, because they're that big and powerful.

But if you say you're gonna write about hockey, Bill, write about fucking hockey. I bet a decent amount of people were intrigued by how you'd respond to being forced into a chilly arena, attempting to enjoy a sport that you've publicly sworn off in the past, but you spent maybe two sentences on the game itself.

Fans adapt. Habits change. People like me say, "Screw it, I'll give hockey a real chance."

You wouldn't be able to tell by reading these last 2,000 words.

Right now? The door has swung wide-open for the Kings.

It may have, for the Kings and every other prominent NHL team. Not since 1994 has the league had this kind of moment in the spotlight. Hockey leadership seems to finally understand how to market the sport; the rule changes post-lockout emphasis offense and talent; stars like Alex Ovechkin, Ryan Miller and Sidney Crosby (if he ever plays again) are ones that every sports fan now knows.

But, by using hockey mostly to talk about basketball, Simmons offers up the real issue: People won't start watching and discussing hockey, they'll just talk about how the possibility of watching and discussing hockey. For whatever reason, hockey isn't for everyone. Even if the NBA shuts down forever, I imagine hockey would get the same solid ratings on the same mediocre cable channel and draw the same 18,000 fans every single night.

This doesn't bother anyone who truly likes hockey; the sport and all its major teams aren't going anywhere. But to act like its about to explode, that America is going to embrace hockey, is just silly. I'm glad that it'll have a little more time on SportsCenter, and maybe a handful of fans will be quicker to recognize names like Henrik Lundqvist and Claude Giroux. For now, though, it'll remain more a talking point and less a surging enterprise.

Keep up the good work, Bill. Your first hockey piece was everything we expected and more.

There's gonna be no dancing.

2011-10-10T10:55:00.000-04:00

Honestly, it's been three days and I'm still not sure what to say. So I'll just ramble, which is pretty much what I do anyway.

I imagine this is how some of the more levelheaded Boston Red Sox fans felt after their team crapped the bed in the last game of this year's regular season: A grim realization that, even if they'd made it to the dance, they weren't staying out too late.

Because at the end of the day, even if Raul Ibanez's shot in the fourth inning gets over the outfield fence and Roy Halladay helps to steal a win, the Philadelphia Phillies weren't getting by Zack Greinke, Shawn Marcum, Yovani Gallardo and the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS. Blame it on injuries, bad approaches at the plate or just a general, team-wide awfulness; this pitiful, beaten-down Phillies offense was out of gas.

Six runs in the final 34 innings of the series, three of those on an out-of-nowhere Ben Francisco pinch-hit home-run. That's not gonna beat the hapless San Diego Padres in spacious Petco Park, let alone the Cardinals, a team that led the National League in runs scored.

And, to a lesser but still valid extent, let's not ignore Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt coming up very small in Games 2 and 4, respectively. This team won plenty of 1-0 or 2-1 suckfests in the regular season, but only Halladay and Cole Hamels threw like the aces we expected -- and desperately needed -- in the playoffs. This, unfortunately, will be Roy Oswalt's legacy in Philadelphia: "Not quite good enough anymore."

As always, the Phillies will remain competitive next year. Halladay, Lee and Hamels remain the most talented starting pitcher trio in baseball, and the always-aggressive Ruben Amaro Jr. saw, just like the rest of us, that sometimes "veteran hitter" is just code for "old guy with slow bat." He has to know that trotting this same offense back out there in 2012 isn't going to work.

But how much magic can he really perform? The team's already got an extremely high payroll; how flexible will ownership be when it comes to upgrading this increasingly elderly group of bats?

Since 2007, the year of their first National League East title, Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Carlos Ruiz have been the cornerstones of the Phillies offense. All of them are now at least 30 years old, and considering that Victorino just wrapped up a career year that he'll probably never match, all of them have seen better days.

Does the offense need an injection of youth? A better approach at the plate? Or just more talented hitters in general?

Is Howard, the renowned slugger whom Tony La Russa and his pitchers challenged without fear after Game 1 of the series, as replaceable as certain sabermetricians would have you believe? (I say no, but for the sake of argument...) Considering that he'll probably be out until at least the summer with a torn Achilles tendon, I guess we'll find out once and for all.

Is Placido Polanco finished as an every-day player? His defense at third base remains sterling, but his bat has worn down almost to a nub by the end of the last two seasons. If Amaro chooses being realistic over counting dollars and cents, Polly should probably act as the most expensive ($6 million in 2012) utility man in baseball next year.

Bring back Rollins? Resign Ryan Madson? I'm onboard with both, if the years are right and if Amaro has no better use for the money. Bring in a stud third baseman somehow and I'm suddenly OK with the two guys walking.

Start Dom Brown every day in left field? Start Dom Brown every day in left field. Or trade him for Logan Morrison. Either way, lower the age of this starting lineup and start trusting in some young players.

It's a lot of questions for a 102-win team to answer. But all I know is that I spent all of Friday night screaming at the never-ending stream of ground balls weakly hit to the right side -- I'll have nightmares about those softly rolling baseballs for years to come -- so just imagine how nuts they must've driven Amaro and Charlie Manuel. It's one thing to lose; it's another thing to come up unspeakably feeble against a team you could've easily beaten. To paraphrase Harry Doyle, "one goddamn run." That's all they needed.

I believed in this team; I told everyone not to worry a boatload of times. But it turned out that a Halladay gem couldn't save them after all; it turns out everyone else was right. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but in the playoffs, a win's a win and a loss is a loss. I never expected to say this, but the Phillies really and truly choked on Friday night; only the goodwill left over from 2008 kept us all from going mad in the process. Let's hope we don't suffer the same fate in 2012.

This one's on you, Doc.

2011-10-07T11:03:00.002-04:00

Why did the Philadelphia Phillies battle for 102 wins and home-field advantage throughout the postseason?

For a game like tonight; to host a deciding showdown at Citizens Bank Park with their ace on the mound.

Am I nervous? Absolutely. All of a sudden it's do or die, and I'd hate to see a team this skilled (not to mention beloved by me) go out so early.

But am I worried? No. Roy Halladay's on the mound. 43,000 screaming fans will have his back. It's the best-case scenario for the Phillies.

Sure, they could lose, and that would be disappointing. But the Major League Baseball playoffs often turn out to be a crapshoot. Maybe you run into a scalding-hot team, like the San Francisco Giants last year. Maybe you burn out after a grueling regular season, like the Phillies in 2007.

Only eight teams out of 32 make it to the big dance, which is awesome, and so much unlike how basketball and hockey do it. The regular season holds purpose; you can't sneak in as an eight seed with a record under .500. After 162 games, any franchise that makes the postseason should pat themselves on the back for a successful year.

Obviously, you'd love to win it all. Unfortunately, only one team gets that privilege, and it's not always the most talented one. Should Cody Ross and Edgar Renteria have carried the Giants past the Phillies and Cliff Lee's Rangers last year? Not on paper, but they did. And at the end of the day, they deserved it.

The teams that don't take it home, however, are often unfairly and derogatorily labeled as losers by fans and the media. As an astute commenter put it on Beerleaguer early this morning, the slogan for the MLB postseason might as well be "8 TEAMS-7 CHOKERS-1 LUCKY SURVIVOR." When Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Howard end a playoff run by striking out, it doesn't matter that they've each brought their teams a World Series trophy and hit hundreds upon hundreds of home runs. They blew the big game, and that's the narrative that sticks.

In a sense, I understand; the 2011 season won't be a true success unless the Phillies win the World Series. But after making the playoffs five years in a row and winning only one championship, I think most Philadelphia fans realize how hard it really is.

So then we come back to Roy Halladay. I've thought a lot about how I'd love for the Phillies to "win one for Doc" or "win one for Cliffy," but it's only recently, after watching the starters struggle through a few games of this series, that I realized the team isn't gonna win one for them. They need to win for the team.

Roy Halladay's getting paid a lot of money, mostly to win Philadelphia at least one more title. Cy Young awards are nice, 20-win seasons are neato, but championships are the ultimate goal. Halladay and Lee and Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt are here to out-pitch the other team's best starters, whether the Phillies offense puts up zero runs or a hundred. So far, Halladay and Hamels are the only ones living up to their end of the bargain.

With that in mind, tonight is Halladay's chance to add one more notch to his lengthy belt of a career. I can't tell you whether the Phillies offense will wake up and hit Chris Carpenter again, but I do know that another gem from Doc will make moving onto the next round that much easier. The Cardinals are a pesky offensive team, but that didn't stop Harry Leroy Halladay from mowing them down six days ago.

If he can do it once more, and give Lee a chance to redeem himself in the NLCS, maybe baseball's most talented team can live up to the promise, and the hype, that they earned with those 102 wins.

The haphazardness of Anytober.

2011-10-05T11:30:00.000-04:00

I'd like to extend Major League Baseball a rare "thank you" for scheduling its postseason games so haphazardly.

For most people, the random start times bring nothing but consternation and frustration. But for me, it offers up a bit of strategizing that's been severely lacking since fantasy baseball ended.

"Alright, the game's at 5," I'll think. "That means I need to get out of work precisely on time, grab food, maybe pick up some beer -- if I can fit it in -- and get onto the couch by at least five past five." Because it's the playoffs, you guys, and missing something crazy like a leadoff homer might mean missing the game's most crucial play.

Luckily, yesterday unfolded just as I hoped. I busted out of work at 4:28 PM (cushy life, I know) and the race was on. A quick walk to Subway for a footlong (it's Anytober!), a dash to the Metro when I spotted my train pulling into the station, a very brief stop at the market attached to my apartment complex for a six-pack of beer, and bam. Home at 5:05 PM on the nose, ready for the game.

And what a game. Jaime Garcia mowed the Phillies down, just like everyone expected, but Cole Hamels battled through 117 pitches and kept the game at zeros until Ben Francisco's miraculous homer. Cole had a bit of trouble putting some Cardinals hitters away, but so have a lot of the pitchers in this series. The most important thing was limiting the damage; giving the Cardinals a lead, with Garcia rolling and the ballpark going wild, might have crushed any team's spirit. Luckily, the battle-tested playoff ace gave them no such chance.

But he did only go six innings, which the Phillies need to avoid as much as possible throughout this postseason run. Vance Worley, Antonio Bastardo and Brad Lidge don't inspire much confidence; Worley's stuff isn't exactly perfect for the bullpen, Bastardo still looks a little shaky, and Lidge walks that tightrope every single time he steps onto the field. One day, all those runners won't end up stranded.

I don't want any of the three on the mound for any more than one inning with anything less than a two-run lead, and they're our best non-Madson bullpen guys by far. Luckily, the Phillies have enough stud starters to limit that concern.

Tonight, that "pitch long and well" responsibility falls on Roy Oswalt, who is gonna be asked to give the Phillies at least seven innings. And you know what? I think he will. I know his numbers against Albert Pujols are pretty darn awful (26 for 86 with 5 homers, a more-than-reasonable sample size), but I doubt many pitchers could force one by big Albert at this point. His slash line for the series, .538/.571/.769, is "Manny Ramirez in the 2008 NLCS" all over again.

The key is controlling Allen Craig before him and Lance Berkman/David Freese after him. In 2008, Manny was smashing doubles off the wall and dingers into the seats with nearly every at-bat, but he never had anyone on in front of him or hitting behind him. One slugger -- unless you're Ben Francisco -- rarely wins a baseball game by himself. And while Albert is mashing, he has only two NLDS runs and one RBI to his name. If Oswalt can keep that up, he'll bring home the game and the series.

I told Phillies fans not to worry two weeks ago, I mentioned it again yesterday afternoon, and I'm telling you once more right now: Do not worry. When the Phillies get into an elimination game, I'll get a little nervous. But even the best teams don't always sweep their opponents, especially when they're as pesky and talented as St. Louis.

It shouldn't matter after tonight anyway, as the Phillies have their foot on St. Louis' throat. Every ball the Cardinals put into play drops for a hit; every ball the Phillies smoke gets snagged by a Cardinals defender; their "ace" for the series absolutely decimated the Philadelphia offense for six innings yesterday...and they still lost. Their would-be savior is Edwin Jackson, but his career xFIP isn't much better than Kyle Kendrick's (4.38 versus 4.65). He's a back-end rotation guy, and a righty to boot. He can get wild; he can be knocked around.

A good team (and the Phillies are a very good team) will smell blood in the water and feast. This isn't like facing the Giants last year, a buzzsaw of a team with a hot offense and aces on the mound. This is a solid foe that's just a little bit worse than the Phillies, and it's starting to show. I predicted the Phillies in 4, and I'm still very much expecting some champagne to be sprayed tonight in St. Louis.

Leaving the Eagles behind?

2011-10-04T11:26:00.001-04:00

I watched the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday at a sports bar in Boston. The bar had two giant TVs, one showing Steelers/Texans and the other showing Lions/Cowboys. The Eagles game was off to the left, on a screen one-fourth the size. But rather than ask to switch seats or change channels, I kept getting caught up in the other games, forgetting to look over and check the score. I ended up leaving with 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter to catch a flight back to DC.

Granted, it was one of the worst games of the Andy Reid era, an unmitigated disaster that has even the most level-headed Eagles fans up in arms. But as recently as a few years ago, this would have felt like an act of treason.

Late in high school and throughout college, from August to January I would live and breathe Eagles football. I was at the Vet for the Wild Card game in 2002 when the Eagles took down the Buccaneers 31-9, and I witnessed the backbreaking loss to Carolina in the 2003 NFC Championship Game with mine own two eyes.

Nowadays, though? I'd just as soon sit down with Scott Hanson and his wonderful NFL RedZone channel than suffer through a boring Eagles loss. If that makes me a traitor, well, I apologize for preferring a better form of entertainment.

For example, the Eagles melted down in the fourth quarter of a Week 3 showdown with the Giants and basically handed them a victory. Normally, this would be enough to ruin my day. But instead, my roommate and I switched over to RedZone and watched the underdog Bills battle back to defeat the hated Patriots. Rather than bitch and moan about the Eagles all afternoon, I savored the great ending of this meaningless (to me) game.

If I was watching a random football game and it stunk, I'd change the channel. I'm just now expanding that idea to include my own team.

A few years ago, I saw a guy in an NFL Starter jacket walking down the streets of Boston. No team; just NFL colors and a giant league logo on the back. I instantly texted this information to a few of my friends and we made fun of him for a while; why didn't he just pick a franchise to root for? Did he just cheer for every game to be fun and every player to have a good time? What a weirdo.

But now, I think I understand where he was coming from. For whatever reason, I can't get into the Eagles like I used to. And it's not because I'm frustrated with Andy Reid or the defense or Mike Vick or anything having to this with this particular Eagles squad; I felt this coming on way before Week 1, which was back when this year's team was still full of promise and not leaking gas at a tremendous rate. I'm just low on Eagles passion, and I don't know if it'll ever return. I must begrudgingly admit to becoming more of an NFL fan and less of an Eagles fan. Someone buy me a new jacket.

I still love the Flyers, and especially the Phillies, with all my heart. When they lose a big game, I'm crushed. But when the Eagles lose, I can just flip the channel. I won't sit through Brewers/Diamondbacks or Blue Jackets/Coyotes, but I do get a great deal of pleasure from Packers/Cardinals. And even though it sounds weird to admit, this doesn't bother me anymore. I guess I'll find out down the line whether this is really time to move on.

Don't worry about the Philadelphia Phillies.

2011-09-23T11:21:00.001-04:00

Yes, the Philadelphia Phillies did just get swept in a four-game series by the Washington Nationals.

Yes, Beerleaguer pointed out earlier this week that over the last 10 years, "only two teams have struggled down the stretch and gone on to win the World Series."

And yes, famed Phillies blogger Zoo With Roy's (possibly incorrect) playoff calculations have John Bowker's squad being unexpected eliminated from postseason contention after last night's stinkfest. Good year, gang.

This is all causing some fans to remove their belts and set up chairs under low-hanging ceiling beams. But I'm here to tell you that, this year, late September baseball and early October baseball could not be more different, and the Phillies know that as well as anybody.

Almost everyone on this team's been to the Big Dance before; a lot of the core already took home rings in 2008. They all understand the importance, and the urgency, of every playoff game, and I can't imagine that they'll come out slacking when it's Division Series time.

So what if the hitters can't hit right now? They're running Pete Orr, Ross Gload, John Bowker and the walking, talking corpse of Chase Utley out there every night. I'm amazed the Nats didn't shut them out for the series. Meanwhile, Jimmy Rollins is (hopefully) getting his swagger back, Hunter Pence is finally enjoying some much-needed rest and Ryan Howard should be ready to go after that nice big cortisone shot was jammed into his injured ankle.

Anyway, this team is built around starting pitching. Roy Oswalt said last night was the "best he's felt all season," and Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee all appear to be healthy. With the steady Vance Worley and Kyle Kendrick strengthening Ryan Madson and his suddenly shaky bullpen cohorts, innings 1-9 should be in good shape.

Utley (.174 in September with 1 home run) and Antonio Bastardo (6 earned runs in 8 September appearances) are certainly question marks, but those are individual issues, not team ones. We can only hope that Utley's issues at the plate are mechanical, not injury-related, and that someone like Joe Savery can unexpectedly contribute in October if the previously wonderful Bastardo continues to falter.

Basically, this "slump" is being blown wildly out of proportion. As the Philadelphia Flyers have proven in the past, being talented isn't a cure-all when your team's in shambles. The Phillies aren't in shambles, though; they -- probably inspired by their manager and his "whatever" lineup choices -- are choosing not to show up for utterly meaningless regular season games. It's not exactly what we'd like to see as fans, but it's also not indicative of what this team is really all about.

Charlie Manuel apparently plans to play his starters starting Saturday, which will give them five games to get their sea legs back and five days to calm the stomachs of overreacting fans. Then they'll run into the Milwaukee Brewers or the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLDS, two top-heavy teams that shouldn't pose too much of a challenge to the deeper, savvier boys from Philadelphia.

And if, God forbid, they do lose in the first round, it'll be because of Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Zack Greinke. Or Ian Kennedy, Justin Upton and Miguel Montero. Not because the Phillies backups couldn't hit Brad Peacock on a Thursday night in late September.

So far, the Phillies have spent 2011 proving that they're a veteran squad with a burning desire to win and a taste for the theatrical. If it turns out that they have somehow lost their competitive fire after scuffling through a week of irrelevant baseball, well, they didn't deserve to win a championship in the first place.