Baseball Rumors - Phillies Included

It's very nice having the ESPN Insider subscription. So let me bring this good news to you from the Rumor Central department at ESPN.com.

Yanks definitely cooking up Sheff deal?

Oct 31 - The Yankees' auction of Gary Sheffield has progressed to the point that general manager Brian Cashman has a potential deal in place if he wishes to pull the trigger, an official from another American League team told Newsday.

But Cashman isn't quite ready to make a trade. A person familiar with the team's plans said "there is no urgency" to the process. The Yankees seem inclined to wait at least a little longer with the hope that the market for Sheffield improves.

The Cubs and Phillies are believed to be among the most aggressive teams in pursuit of Sheffield, who is set to make $13 million in the final season of his contract in 2007, with at least $4.5 million deferred. The Yankees have until Sunday night to officially pick up Sheffield's option, and they are expected to do so shortly after agreeing to a trade, according to the newspaper.

As long as the Phillies don't go signing him to huge deals that ruin the team in future years, like say Pat Burrell then I guess it might work out. We aren't exactly in need of an outfielder though. We do need protection for Burrell though so I guess thats what this is good for.

You Just Gotta See This

I know this post does not have anything to do with this site but this is a news article that is definately worth reading.

Black and white twins born by one in a million chance

Barry Bonds to be Free Agent

I don't really like to give this asshole news, but this is worth noting. Bonds plans to file for free agency since the Giants have realized that he is not really worth anything anymore to them. So some American League team, maybe the Angels, will the league's biggest distraction on their team. If a National League team signs them it will make no sense and probably piss a lot of people off.
It will be interesting to see the Giants without Barry Bonds.
Next season will be America rooting against Bonds breaking Aaron's record.

ESPN - Agent says Bonds will file for free agency quickly

P.S. According to this article Bonds will have already filed for free agency.

World Series is Over

The Cardinals have won, somehow in some unbelievable way. Basically the Tigers did help them out a lot and the Cards were pretty lucky. 5 games with at least one unearned run will kill your chances in the World Series. So you could blame Verlander's horrible throw last night that lost the game. I guess the Cardinals are going to want some sort of respect now. They probably deserve it. It's good for the National League at least that we won the World Series. So when the American League people say our League is crap we can just ask them who won the World Series.
Every team in the National League that won more games is really kicking themselves right now. The Phillies are one of those teams that had more wins than the Cardinals.

Jamie Moyer for 2 More Years

You're thinking we got this really good, experienced veteran who is 43 (will be 44 at start of season), let's keep him on the team. No, not just this season. Let's sign him to a two year deal for a pretty decent amount of money.

I don't know what the reaction to this is going to be since it was just announced this morning. I'm all for the Phillies spending money on pitching though. There's not many pitchers available out there right now to go for anyway. Moyer should be a pretty solid starter. Definately not a #1 or #2 starter or even #3, but still a good sign I think by the Phillies. It assures them of having a veteran in the staff as opposed to trying out a bunch rookies again. As long as he stays healthy this should be a good deal.

He made 8 starts for the Phillies and here they are:

DATE	OPP	RESULT	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	GB	FB	TBF	#Pit	Dec.	Rel.	ERA
9/29	@Fla	W 14-2	5.0	4	1	1	0	2	3	4	6	22	88	W(5-2)	--	4.03
9/24	Fla	W 10-7	6.0	8	5	5	3	2	3	11	6	26	97	W(4-2)	--	4.27
9/19	ChC	W 4-1	7.0	6	1	1	1	0	3	10	9	27	98	W(3-2)	--	3.79
9/14	@Atl	L 1-4	6.0	5	4	4	2	0	2	12	8	23	71	L(2-2)	--	4.32
9/8	@Fla	W 3-2	8.0	5	1	1	0	0	4	11	7	29	90	W(2-1)	--	3.95
9/3	Atl	W 8-7	7.1	6	3	3	2	2	3	13	5	28	103	--	--	5.12
8/28	@NYM	L 3-8	6.0	9	7	5	0	0	4	12	6	28	98	L(1-1)	--	6.00
8/22	@ChC	W 6-3	6.0	6	3	3	0	1	4	10	4	26	94	W(1-0)	--	4.50

Philies sign lefty Moyer, 43, to two-year extension

Cheer Up Eagles Fans

I got some YouTube Videos to cheer up all you Eagles fans. Look at it this way, this season is still looking bright and it's not 2005. We'll be alright.

This is definately one of the best YouTube videos out there and its a Brian Dawkins Career Highlight Mix with some very good effects and good music.


This one is a just a nice Eagles season get pumped video with the help of Rocky.


Remember that body slam Dawkins did. Here it is.


Why Not? Here's 4th and 26.


That's enough for now.

McNabb Puked

17-7 and about 11 minutes left in the game today and McNabbs pukes. Since I didn't watch the game I didn't see this, but here it is. Thanks to 700-Level for the quick YouTube find of it.

BCS Week 2

BCS Standings - October 22, 2006

Ohio State is #1 still, deservedly so.
The new #2 is Michigan.
Ohio State plays Minnesota, Illinois, and Northwestern before November 18th.
Michigan plays Northwestern, Ball State, and Indiana before November 18th.
November 18th these two teams meet. Looking at those schedules there is no reason these teams shouldn't still be ranked #1 and #2. It will be a great game that decides which teams goes to the BCS championship game.

#4 West Virginia (undefeated) takes on Big East rival #6 Lousiville (undefeated) on Thursday, November 2nd. Both teams have this week off so that game will decide which Big East team will have a chance to make it to the National Championship game.

Other Notable things in the BCS standings:
Notre Dame is #8, but still has to play USC (#3).
Rutgers is #7 in the computer rankings and #14 overall.
Boise State is #12 (computer) and #15 (overall).
Washington State is #25 in the BCS, but #37 in USA Today poll.

62 Yards!?

...and another last second field goal. The Eagles can't finish these games off. As Brian Westbrook said afterwards we got to get started earlier in games and finish off the games at the end. That's a lot to do really, but they are so close to being a great team this season. Westbrook heathly is one of the most dangerous players in the NFL. McNabb is having an amazing season. Hopefully we'll get Donte Stallworth back next week since he started practicing this week. The defense has room to improve. Andy also has to look at some of what he's doing.
All these are the impressions I got even though I couldn't watch the game.
Hopefully next week I'll be able to watch the Eagles mess up the Jaguars.

Flyers - WOW

Flyers GM Clarke resigns; coach Hitchcock fired

The Flyers have started off the season 1-6-1 and lost last week 9-1. Firings like this don't happen that often in Philadelphia and it sure is surprising to see Bob Clarke out of office. A shake up is probably a good thing for this team because not many people in Philly cared about hockey and 1-6-1 record wasn't helping that. But, now people will pay attention to see how the team does after this shake up.
Stanley Cup, here we come.

NFL TV Distribution Maps

www.gribblenation.net/nflmaps/

On this site, every week you get to see what part of the country will get to see what game on CBS and Fox. Very good for those of us that are living in the wrong part of the country.
Apparenlty Baltimore isn't going to get to see the Eagles this week, which sucks.

Lamar Thomas wants you to know "We Ready"

You probably already seen the fight, but skip forward to the 1:45 mark and you get to hear the great remarks of Lamar Thomas that got him fired and his part edited out of the tape.
Classic video here, I hope YouTube doesn't take it down, ever.



Back To You In The Booth, Lamar - Deadspin

New Coaches for the Phillies

Art Howe, Davey Lopes and Jimy Williams were added as coaches. All 3 have been managers and all 3 were signed to 1 year contracts. So after the 2007 season the contracts of all 3 of them along with Manuel will be up.
Howe will be the 3rd base coach - Art Howe Managerial Record.
Lopes will be the 1st base coach - Davey Lopes Managerial Record.
Williams will be the bench coach - Jimy Williams Managerial Record.

"This completes Manuel's 2007 staff. Pitching coach Rich Dubee, hitting coach Milt Thompson, bullpen coach Ramon Henderson and catching instructor Mick Billmeyer had already been retained."

Phillies News

Howe - Lopes - Williams

6-0? Nope 4-2

The Eagles after 6 weeks are 4-2. They could easily be 6-0. Their two losses were both close games. They blew a huge lead to the Giants in the 4th quarter and that was the first loss. Yesterday, Michael Lewis gave up a huge touchdown and the rest of the defense couldn't stop the Saints at all in the last 8 minutes and the Eagles ended up losing on a last second field goal. McNabb watched from the sideline with the rest of the offense unable to do anything in the final minutes of the game.

Carney's field goal at buzzer lifts 5-1 Saints over Eagles

One way to look at the 2 disappointing games is that its good the Eagles got the losses out of their system earlier in the year and they should be a stronger, more prepared team in the future because of it.

LCS Time - The Teams to Remember

Think back all those years of baseball playoffs that you have known, for some it hasn't been that many years, for others it's been a very long time. Since 1995 8 teams have made the playoffs total from both leagues. 8 teams isn't many compared to other sports, but it is still a lot to remember.

So after the years have gone by most people don't remember who was in each divisional series. People will remember this year the Yankees got knocked out depending on how much happens with the A-Rod situation, but no one is going to remember the Dodgers and Padres were in the Playoffs (except for their fans obviously). This is the stage of the playoffs were teams go down in immortality. Making it to the World Series is a ticket to always being remembered. Not only will every person in that team's hometown remember you, but people all around the country will remember that you played in the World Series.

In some years there are some pretty memorable teams that didn't make it to the World Series - Yankees (04), Atlanta (more than once), Cubs (03), Pirates (90,91,92), Baltimore (96).

Making it to the World Series lives on in history though. Making it to the World Series guarantees the memory will be lived on by the fans of that city. So the LCS does really decide who the best team in the league is that year. It might be who was the best team throughout the whole year in the league, but it does decide who was the best team in the league in October - and what else matters?

So do the Cardinals and Athletics both want to become known as the Braves of this decade because they sure as hell are trying to do that.

The Cardinals have made the playoffs every year since 2000 except for '03 and have only made the World Series once (in '04 where they got spanked by the destined Red Sox). They got some aging veterans and they need to take advantage of this team. That being said they are only down 1-0 in the series. I'm just anticipating more of the same from them. Maybe next year they could do everyone a favor and not waste a playoff spot on themselves.

The Athletics have had a consistenly good team that has been able to hang around in that AL West division. They are down 2-0 to the seemingly destined Tigers this year. If they can't turn the series around, it's going to hurt them next year not having Zito anymore.

The Mets and Tigers - the two best teams for a majority of the start of the season. They are both proving that it does not matter how you play in September, only that you make it to October.

The League Championship Series - which team wants to be remembered forever as being the AL/NL representative in the 2006 World Series. We shall see which team wants it more.




P.S. I apologize to all fans of teams that I may have misspoken about in this post. Yes, I am jealous that your team made it to the playoffs period. Yes, I am a Phillies fan. Yes, the last time they made it to the Playoffs was 1993.

76ers in Europe

The Sixers are in Europe for the start of training camp on this NBA world tour thing. It's nothing good for us really besides being able to hear about European teams beating up on the Sixers. Rodney Carney is blogging on NBA.com about the trip. Rodney Carney’s Europe Live Blog.
American players just love to complain about how Europeans play the game differently.

Obviously, free throws are something we need to work on. But their kind of game was not like the NBA. They drove and kick, and you're supposed to stop the ball. We'd rather give up a jump shot than a layup. They knocked down shots.

When we get to playing NBA teams, I think it will be a little different. We weren't really prepared for how they played.

Hopefully they are actually good this year, maybe people will follow them then.

The focus today was defense. We can run and we got scorers, but we need to defend better. Coach Cheeks made a point in our meeting earlier that our offense was seventh in the NBA last year, but our defense was like 23rd. And that's not good enough. That doesn't cut it.

Our offense is good enough. We just gotta fix a few things on the defensive side. We gotta help more and we gotta trust each other more. I can see the trust now. We just gotta get it down in these next few days of practice.

I just can't wait to get at it. The first day was fun. We're out here bonding. I can see it's going to be a much better team this year.

Fitting Sports into Your Time

So this is a super busy week for me in terms of work, but its also a great week in terms of sports.
Some interesting events taking place.
-I happily took a break and watched all of the Eagles game yesterday - that made me happy and made me $4.17 (welcome to the world of sports gambling).
-T.O. sucks and I wanted him to attack Drew Bledsoe, its only a matter of time. Dallas has a great team, but Bledsoe is doing everything to make them suck.
-Philly has two great 'Howards.' Darren Howard had an amazing game yesterday and Ryan Howard should be finding out about his MVP title soon (who knows when that comes out?).
-The Yankees love drama and there's going to be a lot of yankees talk for a while now.
-The Tigers - A's series will be great.
-The Mets should be able to handle the Cardinals as long as their offense scores runs.
-Who's going to hire which managers?


There probably more interesting stuff I'll think of, but now back to studying.

Buck O'Neil

Baseball lost a Negro League Legend last night.

Buck O’Neil, a star first baseman and manager in the Negro leagues and a pioneering scout and coach in the major leagues who devoted the final decade of his life to chronicling the lost world of black baseball, died last night in Kansas City, Mo. He was 94.
...
He professed no regret for his lost chance to play in the majors. “Waste no tears for me,” he said in his autobiography. “I didn’t come along too early. I was right on time. You see, I don’t have a bitter story. I truly believe I have been blessed.”
...
For O’Neil, baseball represented a lifelong joy. “Nowadays, whenever us Negro leaguers put on the old uniforms for autograph-signings and such, you can just see the years peel away,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I’ve seen men lose 50 years in just a few hours. Baseball is better than sex. It is better than music, although I do believe jazz comes in a close second. It does fill you up.”

New York Times

Buck wasn't bitter about the fact he never made it into the majors nor was he was bitter about the fact that he didn't get elected into the Hall of Fame.

He wasn't even mad when he came up one vote short to get into the baseball hall of fame this year.

God's been good to me. They didn't think Buck was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame. That's the way they thought about it and that's the way it is, so we're going to live with that. Now, if I'm a Hall of Famer for you, that's all right with me. Just keep loving old Buck. Don't weep for Buck. No, man, be happy, be thankful.

Deadspin

Now I know it's ashame when we begin to recognize the achievements and greatness of person when they die, but still from what I have read about Buck O'Neil is story is an amazing story. I haven't seen the documentary "Baseball" though I would really like to. Buck has some amazing stories in this short PBS interview.

...I did see something I admired just about as much, with Satchel Paige and Babe Ruth. This was in Chicago, after Ruth came out of the major leagues. He was barnstorming, playing with different teams, and he played us. Satchel was pitching and Ruth was hitting. Satchel threw Ruth the ball and Ruth hit the ball, must have been 500 feet, off of Satchel. Satchel looked at Ruth all the way around the bases and when Ruth got to home plate, you know who shook his hand? Satchel Paige shook Ruth's hand at home plate.

They stopped the game and waited, he and Satchel talking, until the kid went out, got the ball, brought it back and Satchel had Babe Ruth autograph that ball for him. That was some kind of moment.

...

But let me tell you about a part of Satchel that no one ever hears about. On the road once, we were going to Charleston, South Carolina, and when we got to Charleston the rooms weren't ready. So Satchel said to me, "Nancy, come with me." I said, "Okay." I had an idea where we were going. We went over to Drum Island. Drum Island is where they auctioned off the slaves. And they had a plaque saying what had happened there. And we stood there, he and I, maybe ten minutes, not saying a word, just thinking. And after about ten minutes he said, "You know what, Nancy?" I said, "What, Satchel?" He said, "Seems like I've been here before." I said, "Me, too." I know that my great grandfather could have been there. My great grandmother could have been auctioned off on that block. So this was Satchel — a little deeper than a lot of people thought.

Now one last page for you to read. These interviews with Buck are amazing, the stories he has about baseball should never be forgotten. Here's an old ESPN Page 2 interview.

See, steroids. That's different. When we came along, some guys had to have some gin. That's true. A guy would be at his best when he had a shot of gin in him. That's what would build him up. Another guy, scotch was his choice. For all athletes, it's always been something. For another guy, it was iced tea.

Now, you've gotten sophisticated. You've come up with a drug.

...

The best player I've ever seen. He had it all. Willie Mays was the best major league player I've ever seen. But Oscar Charleston would hit you 50 home runs, steal you 100 bases. And the old-timers would say that the closest thing to Oscar Charleston was Willie Mays.

And not only that, Oscar was tough. You'd say "Oscar Charleston" and you'd say "Ty Cobb" as far as meaness. I remember once, we're playing in Havana. A ball was hit in the infield and he was on third base. So he's scoring and he hit the catcher and knocked the shin guards off, knocked the chest protector off (the catcher). Then they jumped up. This (catcher) wanted to fight. And Oscar knocked him down.

The security in the ballpark in Cuba were soldiers. The soldiers rushed out on the field and they were going to get Oscar and take him down. Every time one of the soldiers comes up -- Boom! (slaps fist into his palm) Oscar would knock him down. After he knocked down about five of them, they wanted to gang-rush him and take him to jail.

The general was in the stands and he said, "Uh-uh. Any man that can do that, don't you touch him." That was Oscar Charleston.

Rest in Peace Buck O'Neil

T.O. is crazy

Let me first say thank you to the people at 700Level for this awesome video.

T.O. is crazy.