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First Word | We Share Because We Care

7/31/2015

Not for nothing, but …

Now that the Cole Hamels’ trade to Texas is official, you might think Phillies fans would be able to move on. Think again. Even the media can’t let go of this guy, so much so that one columnist bucked the local trend and cranked out a well-written piece Thursday laced with actual facts to make the case that the team should have kept Hamels. Only one problem … the reality of just how bad this team is, and will be for quite some time, never enters the equation. Oh, the irony, considering it was the exact same inability to see and face reality by the movers and shakers in the front office that sent the club in a typhoon-like spiral. Perhaps math would help: Bad Team + 1 Good Starting Pitcher = Bad Team.
Good luck to the Seattle Seahawks with keeping their locker room intact, or someplace this side of insane. Paying $87.6 mil to a nice, game-managing, rely-on-others athlete to steer their offense away from a brick wall over the next four years has cataclysmic contractual repercussions written all over it. It took linebacker Bobby Wagner about 2 seconds to tweet out, “Can’t Keep Everyone,” once the signing was announced. A quarterback’s “value” to his team may have an entirely new meaning after this.
University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh is looking kinda scary … and we ain’t talking about his motivational genius sending shivers down the spines of opposing Big Ten members. Like, has this guy skipped all meals since accepting the job several months ago? He looks as if Ichabod Crane and an Albino got together, created a love child and then slapped a pair of khaki pants on it. Jimbo, have a sandwich or something. Work a little sugar and protein into the diet. Maybe get out in the sun, too.

Kooky, crazy stuff. It’s almost as if Junior Galette got another NFL contract or Dom Brown another MLB home run ... or the Phillies actually convinced some sap organization to take Ben Revere off their hands.

- Jack Kerwin | ydkjack1@gmail.com

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Philly File | No Joshing, He's Good

7/31/2015

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If nothing else, he has been a breath of fresh air in a city void of voices willing to break the mold of ripping ass or kissing ass on select individuals, teams or organizations as decided by the whims of a provincial think tank consumed more with dirty helmets, blowhard BS and other assorted old-school nonsense instead of actual performance on the field or court or rink.

Coming clean can leave the dirtiest and filthiest of stains.

But sometimes a person just has to get it out. All of it. Whatever IT is.

With that, here is my IT: I’ve come to appreciate Josh Innes. No, seriously. He’s grown on me. The whining and look-at-me douchey-ness that dominated most of his first year in Philadelphia on WIP has faded even as the young sports talk show host continues to clamor mostly about himself and all his flaws to a burgeoning audience. Somehow, with time and a new time slot, he has emerged as a voice – even, gulp, of reason – in the city and beyond, one strong enough to knock a provincial favorite in the most provincial of towns off the most provincial of radio mountaintops, the coveted afternoon drive time in Mike Missanelli’s home.

Innes, brilliantly, has tapped into the biggest of sports markets – the geeks. They’re out there en masse and he is reaching them, and while doing so he has allowed his schtick to expand from ramblings about “would ya” with Caitlin Jenner to intelligent, insightful discussions about, get this, sports – Philly sports and beyond.

If nothing else, he has been a breath of fresh air in a city void of voices willing to break the mold of ripping ass or kissing ass on select individuals, teams or organizations as decided by the whims of a provincial think tank consumed more with dirty helmets, blowhard BS and other assorted old-school nonsense instead of actual performance on the field or court or rink.

Frankly, his union with Tony Bruno was ill-conceived despite the success they had in knocking the Fanatic’s Mikey Miss from his perch. Bruno, like Innes, is a headliner, or someone who needs to be heard, not drowned out by anyone, least of all his partner. Innes is a tornado of talk, spewing snarkiness, geekiness and common sense in a rapid torrent that can overwhelm even the most talented of those who might sit next to him, or call into his show.

Bruno needs a sidekick, or two, like when his producer was “efforting” guests for his nationally syndicated “Into the Night” show.

Anyone working with Innes will be a sidekick … with one caveat, and it appeared today with former Fanatic host Nick Kayal getting his trial run. If a partner can match the energy, quirkiness and quick wit of Innes, then maybe, just maybe, they could co-exist, if not excel as a tandem. For one day, that was the case with those two. Every other pairing during this “replace Tony” period paled in comparison.

Regardless, Innes has proven himself to me. He knows sports better than the average Philadelphia fan, and way better than the Philadelphia super fan.

Mikey Miss? I like him, always have and think he made a brilliant decision for himself (and listeners) by switching his focus from a writing career to one on radio. He’s just as entertaining and just as good as Innes in his own, different, “I’m cooler than you” way – which, for me, makes the battle on the airwaves way better than anything we’ve seen from our sports teams in the last eight or nine months.

- Jack Kerwin | ydkjack1@gmail.com

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College Football | Aww, Shucks, Bucks

7/30/2015

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HEISMAN HIGH-FIVE

Ezekiel Elliott, RB, Ohio State
Nick Chubb, RB, Georgia
Taysom Hill, QB, BYU
Corey Clement, RB, Wisconsin
Trevone Boykin, QB, TCU

BEST-KEPT SECRET

Tyler Matakevich, LB, Temple
Entering his fourth season as a starter for the Owls, T-Mat is a throwback whose instincts and intangibles outweigh his measurables – which are considerable anyway when you realize he has 355 career tackles and could become just the seventh player in NCAA history to rack up 100 or more for four seasons if he passes the century mark this fall. Still, the 6-1, 235-pounder is largely unheralded in national circles despite being coach Matt Rhule’s linchpin in Temple becoming a truly legit program in the American Athletic Conference and beyond.

It's here.

Yep, as entertaining as it can be each offseason gauging the difference between Michigan Wolverines fans’ social media-fueled ignorance against the intelligence of the football players they support, it never hurts to have the first few hints that the actual season is upon us.

Thank you, USA Today, for releasing your 2015 preseason poll Thursday.

Thank you, teams across the land, for alerting us that training camps commence in short order.

Thank you, Ohio State, for throwing a wrench into any scarlet- and gray-stained perfectionist’s dream.

Wait … what?

Yes, with the help of some, uh, recreational drug issues and equally laissez faire academic activities, the Buckeyes will be without All-American defensive end Joey Bosa, wide receiver Corey Smith and H-backs Jalin Marshall and Dontre Wilson when they try to avenge their lone defeat of 2014 in a season-opening affair at Virginia Tech. All were suspended for that Sept. 7 contest due to their indiscretions.

Will the defending national champion Buckeyes still win that game? Perhaps. But this news doesn’t exactly bode well for a team whose former Heisman candidate quarterback now plays wideout while questions still remain as to who replace him as THE MAN running the offense. Granted, J.T. Barrett was brilliant in that role last regular season and Cardale Jones was equally brilliant in that role last postseason.

Only nothing is settled.

Which is kinda the same place Ohio State found itself when the Hokies visited them last season and registered a 35-21 victory.

The Big Ten not being your father’s Big Ten, and certainly not your grandfather’s Big Ten, the Bucks should be OK once they get things in order. But a hiccup against, say, Penn State wouldn’t be out of the question … and one at Michigan may seem outrageous, but, frankly, it is possible.

Right now a loss at Tech even may be likely.

- Jack Kerwin | ydkjack1@gmail.com

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Philly Phile | Goodbye, 2008

7/30/2015

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It had to be done.

It had to be done two, three years ago. With a 2008 world championship season fading in the rearview mirror a bit more with each passing pitch since 2011 ended with a first-round loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, Cole Hamels and his quality, professional left-handed arm held less and less value to the Philadelphia Phillies on the field. He was a commodity, a luxury whose performance had no impact on the team’s standing in the standings.

Once a team goes south, and the Phillies were a classic case of “downhill on roller skates” when a sore and slowed-down Roy “Heart of the Organization” Halladay showed up in the spring of 2012 to complement a once-powerful, but-by-then-punchless offense, a starting pitcher, no matter how good he is – and Hamels at times could be very good – becomes, essentially, one thing: a bargaining chip.

Finally, mercifully, the franchise pulled the trigger with its last tradeable piece from that magical campaign seven years ago. Oddly, Hamels had become the symbol for both the glory that had been and the team’s inability to see its current state, accept it and move on. He was Ruben Amaro’s “binky” as the GM displayed a refusal to grow up, afraid to let go of his fanhood and think more like a player-personnel businessman.

Just 31, Hamels could have several productive, perhaps even postseason-producing, seasons left in him. Despite Philly sports fans and media claims to the contrary, he was never an ace. He never reached the sustained level of greatness that Halladay displayed in 2010 and ’11, or that Lee showed in recording a 2.86 ERA in his first 105 starts for the Phillies. But he was good throughout his 10 years with the club, and he was very good at crunch time, as evidenced by his being named the World Series MVP in ’08.

In short, he was every bit worthy of commanding a cadre of high-caliber prospects in Wednesday’s trade deadline-beating deal with the Texas Rangers. Those thinking he wasn’t are just as silly as those thinking he was worthy of more.

Kudos to the Phillies for doing something that had to be done … albeit two to three years late.

- Jack Kerwin | ydkjack1@gmail.com

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Philly File | Passion vs. Reality

7/29/2015

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My hometown ...

For decades, if not generations, it has self-proclaimed for decades how it is the end-all and be-all of sports knowledge and scope, how its fans are the most passionate and insightful in all the land, and I’ll agree with one thing: Philadelphia is passionate about sports. Pro sports.

Its knowledge or insight … ummm, let’s just say I think that emotion overtakes any ability to see a full, clear picture of what is – instead of what is hoped – by many inside and out the city limits.

A perfect case in point is the current goings-on with the Phillies, which provoke pretty much the entire spectrum of what Philly sports fans experience, if not endure, on a seemingly never-ending cycle:

BEING LATE TO THE PARTY … on Ruben Amaro. Despite being presented evidence that he was in over his head as GM while steering the ballclub into the abyss for years, it’s only now, seven years into his reign, that the masses have truly started calling for his head. To me, the moment Amaro, newly christened as organizational player personnel chief, offered 45-year-old Jamie Moyer a 2-year deal on the heels of a “quality start” no-decision in the 2008 World Series and provincially charged rantings to extend the pitching elder statesman signaled his incompetence as a GM. It was clear-cut pandering with no thought to the long-terms effects on his business, which was the success of the Phillies on the field. When Moyer, for all intents and purposes, removed the red pinstripes for good midway through the 2010 season due to injury, the club was rid of his bloated ERA, but the precedent had been set by Amaro. He had proven he was more a fan than GM, that his liking a player was more important than what that player actually was doing, and that he’d make decisions based off that. In business, that’s never smart and deals with Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins proved more costly than what read on the yearly ledger. His ode to “pitching is everything” in 2011, while hailed by most and resulting in a club-record 102 wins in the regular season, perhaps was his biggest faux pas of all, as it kept the club and fan base clinging to a glory years run that actually ended in a 2009 World Series defeat at the hands of the New York Yankees, not in the first-round playoff loss to the St. Louis Cardinals two years later.

UNABLE TO LET GO AND MOVE ON … with Cole Hamels. The left-hander has been both a testament to performing regardless of the drudgery that surrounds him and an albatross-like link to the past. He won the World Series MVP 7 years ago, but if you listen to most they’ll cite his current worth with that at the top of the list. Reality check: He’s a quality pitcher who has done well to compile a 114-90 career record with a 3.30 ERA, receiving less offensive support than Allen Iverson did in the Sixers’ run to the NBA Finals almost a decade and a half ago. Hamels is no more; he is no less. A no-hitter in his 294th major-league start does nothing to change that. Comparisons to the likes of Clayton Kershaw have been ridiculous from the get-go. To wit, Hamels is 31, and has earned what is noted above, just not a Cy Young award. Kershaw has three Cys, and is in the running for a fourth – at age 27. He has a 105-55 career mark with a 2.50 ERA. Stop with the comparison, Philly fans. You’re embarrassing yourselves. Stop with the ones to David Price, too. Hamels isn’t him, either. His prime value years are over. In fact, his years of value to the Phillies, aside from being a trade chip, have been over since 2012. When you’re playing on a club that isn’t going to win 75 games with you or without you, you have no value as someone pitching for that club.

BITTER NO MATTER WHAT … with Jonathan Papelbon. Mostly vilified for his quirky comments, Paps had his supporters and produced some very good numbers (14-11 record, 2.31 ERA and 123 saves) while in Philly. But he held less value to the 2015 Phillies than Hamels, and a trade deadline-looming deal with the Washington Nationals should have been ballyhooed as Exhibit A in “addition by subtraction.” Only it hasn’t been. Instead, Amaro has taken hits for not getting anything in return. That this move is just another mindless transaction that yields nothing. In reality, the team unloaded a player who didn’t want to be in Philly, an aging, power-pitching reliever who hadn’t had power the whole extent of his tenure in town for a Double-A pitching prospect who may, or may not, pan out as a back-of-the-rotation starter in the majors if he ever gets his act together. Papelbon’s 2015 stats rate, at worst, the second-best of his career, perhaps trailing only his first full season in the bigs, 2006. But on the worst team in the sport, what do they mean? At worst, the Phillies got nothing for nothing in this deal. At best, Amaro finally 86’d one of the most pointless moves of his reign.

No, I’m not a hater. If anything, I feel for the Philly sports fan base, believing it deserves much more in return for its investment of passion. Because that always has value.

- Jack Kerwin | ydkjack1@gmail.com

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First Word | We Share Because We Care

Philly File | No Joshing, He's Good

College Football | Aww, Shucks, Bucks

HEISMAN HIGH-FIVE

BEST-KEPT SECRET

Philly Phile | Goodbye, 2008

Philly File | Passion vs. Reality

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