Pence Trade

Always good when you trade for the best player on another major league trade. Cossert or Singleton may be all-stars at some point but since both are under 21, that won't be for at least 3-4 years.

Lt. Kendrick?

Mitch Williams thinks Kyle Kendrick is going to be one of the 2 players to be named later in the Hunter Pence trade.

Brown to AAA?

So now that Hunter Pence has been traded for and penciled in at RF, do the Phils send Dom Brown back down to AAA for seasoning and playing time with the intent to bring him back up in September and for the playoffs or do they keep him on the major league roster for spot starts and pinch hitting?

The Exit Door

Everyone is expecting Kolb to be traded, but were any of you (I wasn't) expecting the wholesale turnover of the roster?

Akers and Mikell were already gone, but letting go of Stewart Bradley, Nick Cole, Max Jean-Gillies, Omar Gaither, Akeem Jordan and Sav Rocca?!

I think giving up on Bradley is a huge mistake. In fact, I thought he would definitely return to pro bowl form in the second year back from the ACL tear. Oh well.

I heard again the Redskins beat reporter say on the Washington sports radio station down the other day that he has a source who is a close friend to Andy Reid who says that Reid is getting close to retiring and is ready to make a big super bowl push because he wants to get that monkey off his back before he leaves the Eagles. 

DRC Jersey Rumor

Word has it that the Eagles' website had Dominque Rodgers-Cromartie's Eagles' jersey for sale earlier today but that it has since been taken down. Not sure whether it is true or not - or whether a deal to trade Kolb for DRC will even happen, but it does highlight that in the big business of professional football it's usually the marketing guys that are the first to know.

Lunacy

The usually stellar Phil Sheridan has lost his ever loving mind in suggesting that the Phillies trade Vance Worley or Dominic Brown (!) to rent Carlos Beltran from the hated Mets for the next four months.

I'm all for giving up minor league prospects, many of who don't necessarily pan out. But the point of trading for a Beltran is to exchange future talent for immediate playability. Trading Worley or Brown right now are not prospects they are actual talent that is helping the team with the best record in baseball win. Trading them is an even swap at best and likely actually weakens the team this season.

Not Players but Future Players

This point in the NYTimes story about the pending settlement of the NFL lockout caught my eye since it is so obviously wrong.

A new rookie wage system in which even the top picks in the 2011 draft could sign contracts worth about half of what the top picks signed for in 2010, a concession by players.

A rookie wage scale is not a concession by the players but a concession to prospective players. Indeed, such individuals aren't even in the NFL much less part of the union yet. It reminds me of a legal analysis of possible challenges to the draft. The weak point isn't the league's anti-trust exemption, it's the union's rule imposed upon individuals that aren't actually part of the union. 

President Romney

NYTimes' Nate Silver has two recent analysis that should give the Obama White House pause as it dismantles the New Deal legacy by slashing funding for the poor and elderly in ongoing debt ceiling negotiations with congressional Republicans. 

As Silver points out, the "deal" Obama has proposed to the GOP is significantly to the right of the average Republican voter. This remarkable fact is likely owed to the Obamaites obsession with moderate and independent voters and the 2012 election. Put aside the remarkable fact that a Democratic President has signed off on fiscal plan that is more austere to social programs than even average Republican voters want as a betrayal of the Democratic party.

But Obama's focus on out Reaganing Ronald Reagan could put his re-election in jeopardy...the exact opposite of the intended outcome.

For now comes Nate Silver's newest analysis that indicates Obama would be in a toss up election if the GOP nominee were Mitt Romney. Romney, of course, is the former moderate governor of Massachusetts who realized health care coverage for all the citizens in his state but who has now taken a hard right turn to appeal to the hard core conservative base that makes up the bulk of GOP primary voters.

Surely if Romney were to win the nomination, he would begin walking back to his moderate positions not only to appeal to centrist voters but also because that is where his true positions lie. 

If Obama continues on his bizarre right wing deficit cutting mission, it is entirely possible that Mitt Romney could be considered the more liberal candidate in the general election. Thus, the cynical assumption by Obama campaign operatives that liberals and progressives will have to support Obama because there is no alternative would not be accurate. Liberals and progressives may come to the realization that a President Romney will be more favorable, or at least more receptive, to their concerns than the Democratic incumbent. Strange times indeed.

Obama winning...thus on verge of surrender

New public opinion surveys show that Democrats and Obama are starting to win the debt ceiling debate. (Or is it merely that Republicans are losing it?)

Either way, momentum has shifted to the President, which is why, in inimitable Obama fashion he is now much more likely to cut a deal with his reeling opponents - a deal that will no doubt be very favorable to Republicans and their fat cat base at the expense of significant cuts to government programs that aid the poor and elderly.

All of which raises the question. Is Obama a crypto-conservative, or just an incompetent negotiator?

Quotable Rep. John Runyan

From today's NYTimes profile of House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy.

Says Rep. Runyan:

"You know, when I was playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, we didn't start losing 'til Terrell Owens joined the team," he told McCarthy. "It only takes one guy to bring down a locker room."

Huge Win for the National League

Er, I mean the Phillies.

As my brother and friend PK note:

Awesome win for Phils/NL tonight. Shame Cliff couldn't finish off that 4th inning - or else the story of the night could have been Phillies pitching dominance.

As for what the all-star wins for the World Series:

The recent Red Sox-Phillies interleague series was enlightening.  Big Papi doesn't play in Philly. The Sox lose one of their top 2 hitters in Citizens Bank Park for games 1,2,6 and 7.  That's HUGE.

It could also effect rotation if it came to it.  Throw the lefties in Boston when he's in the lineup and pitch Hamels in games 1 or 2 because he hits well?

More Flyers' "Madness"

Again, from my hockey-knowing friend:

Watch this video of Homer's presser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aAipoOohrSU#at=324

He looks downright depressed.  The implication here is Snider wanted to make the big Bryzalov move and Homer had no option but to make these moves.  Again, I get and accept this with Carter, we assumed he was gone.  But to move Richards, the captain and face of the franchise?  There must be something bigger here.

Im listening to WIP online and reading the Inquirer right now, trying to make sense of this madness.

Flyers' Trades

My Flyers' fan and hockey-guru friend chimes in:

I am completely floored. 

They traded two guys in the prime of their careers. Again, I think this speaks to a fundamental problem with Richards behind the scenes. Giving up this much doesn't add up. There needs to be a story behind this. I'm sure it will come out soon and he won't look good.  I'm fine with Carter leaving 

Only silver lining- major youth movement in Philly: shenn, Giroux, JVR, leino, versteeg etc.  And they're relying on a pretty young goalie.  That sounds good, but no way we're winning it all for a while 

Flyers Overhaul

I get the need to clear cap space but I thought the idea was that bryzgslov was the final piece to a championhip team and not the start of rebuilding. 

Crazy. Richards did wear down over the season and wasn't much of a playoff factor. Last year he was awesome

1 More Year for Reid

Chris Russell, the Redskins beat reporter for DC sports station 106.7 "the fan" FM, says a "source close to Andy Reid" tells him that this will be Reid's last year as Eagles Head Coach. It's an unsubstantiated report but does jibe with top Eagles' executives' pronouncements that the team is "going for it" this season.

Howard

Phil Sheridan dances around the unspoken issue of racism regarding Ryan Howard's unpopularity (particularly in relation to Chase Utley's popularity) among Phillies fans.

More Battle Rattle

Stan Collender says Wall Street is already reacting negatively to the uncertainty of the debt limit vote. He also touches on theme and idea I already mentioned. To wit, that Dems and the administration should rattle the markets to bolster their negotiating position.

Writes Collender:

Try to imagine the virtually immediate impact on the stock price of government contractors if the administration announces on Aug. 2 that money owed to those companies will be paid after 120 days instead of 30, and you start to get a sense of how much the White House rather than Congressional Republicans are in control of the situation.

My point is, why should the administration wait till August 2nd to make such an announcement. Why not do it now, or at least mid July, to increase their leverage and put the heat on Republicans for playing politics with the debt vote and wreaking havoc with the market?

Phillies Fans Best Says Legendary Dodger

Davey Lopes says Phillies fans are the best.

"The fans, I consider the best in baseball."

$100?!

Giovanni Ramirez's alibi involves giving his 9 year old daughter a $100 bill to go buy a soda at a nearby store.

Who gives their child a $100 bill to buy anything without them present?

Still no word on Ramirez's immigration status.

NBA vs. NHL

I have often said that the NBA is a paper tiger as far as popularity and particularly media coverage is concerned. When was the last time you actually paid money out of your own pocket to attend a basketball game? Do you know anybody that in recent years has similarly paid money out of their own pocket to attend a basketball game? Certainly not for a regular season game. Maybe...maybe, a playoff game.

The result of this disproportionate media coverage of the NBA is that the NHL gets incredibly short shrift, as it competes against pro basketball during the regular season and especially in playoff time . (Though the fact that the Stanley Cup playoffs didn't start till June 1st is an NHL travesty.)

The discrepancy is noticeable in newspapers - note the sports page front of the NBA playoff results and the buried coverage of the NHL playoffs, but is most obvious when it comes to the "world wide leader."

Rich Hoffman takes aim at the issue and hits several targets squarely.

ESPN was going to spend a goodly portion of the hourlong show pumping up the start of the NBA Finals, which were to be aired on its corporate sister, ABC, was entirely understandable. ESPN, long ago, acknowledged that its news shows were a promotional vehicle as well as a journalistic enterprise.

Hoffman also highlights some surprising facts:

If you look at the four major leagues, look at them in terms of annual revenue generated, you get this kind of a rough breakdown:
NFL, $9 billion.
MLB, $7 billion.
NBA, $4 billion.
NHL, $3 billion.

Wow, the NBA is only $1 billion ahead of the NHL. Again, given the imbalance in media coverage you would assume the NBA is a much bigger, more popular sport. But it's not.

And then there's this:

But in there somewhere is the notion that the NHL seems more interested in serving its current customers in 2011, more interested in growing revenues by enhancing the experience for people who already love the game - because it already has the most affluent fan base among the four sports...In the meantime, though, it has to settle for pockets of strength, like Philadelphia (where the Flyers on CSN averaged a 2.4 rating this past season while the resurgent Sixers averaged only a 1.6).

Hockey is getting by and doing just fine. Can the same be said for basketball. Sadly, ESPN won't answer the question...or even ask it.