A month unlike any other in Philadelphia sports

The Eagles winning the Super Bowl would have been enough for quite a while. After the Super Bowl, there’s not much on the sports calendar for the rest of February. But, when your team wins the Super Bowl, then who cares about the rest of the month? I’m sure that’s how plenty of Philadelphia sports fans felt following the evening of February 4.

But, what has followed with the two teams that reside at Wells Fargo Center lends credence to the old cliché “Winning is contagious.” After each team won today, the Flyers and Sixers are a combined 16-0-1 since that memorable Sunday night for the Eagles in Minneapolis.  When you think about where all three of these teams were at the beginning of February in 2017 and look at where they are now, it’s night and day.

The Eagles had finished last in the NFC East and both the short-term and long-term futures of the organization were difficult to decipher. Granted, it was the first year of a new regime, but there was much more unknown than known when it came to Philadelphia’s football team last February. The Flyers were on their way to becoming the first team in NHL history to miss the playoffs in a season in which they had a 10-game winning streak. There were many more questions than answers surrounding head coach Dave Hakstol, whose team had clearly regressed after making the playoffs in his first season.

                                                     Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid have the current and future
states of the Sixers looking very fruitful.

The Sixers had just lost Joel Embiid for the rest of the year to a torn meniscus after it was later revealed he played with the bad knee in what would be his final game of 2016-17. The game was televised on ESPN and the optics of the situation were that the ownership group wanted their best player in front of the national audience despite his injury. Only a couple weeks after Embiid’s final game of the season, the Sixers announced the first overall pick of the 2016 NBA Draft, Ben Simmons, would be held out for the rest of the year with a foot injury. Fans would have to wait until the fall to see the two prized possessions of “The Process” take the floor together. 

Fast forward to the end of February one year later and the Eagles have won the Super Bowl, the Flyers may well win the NHL’s Metropolitan division and the Sixers could host a playoff series in the first round. The writing was on the wall for all the professional teams in Philadelphia to improve, but certainly not this quickly. In one year, the Eagles went from last place to Super Bowl Champions, the Flyers went from out of the playoffs to perhaps winning the NHL’s deepest division and the Sixers went from non-playoff team to potential top four seed in the Eastern Conference. If this month has been any indication of what the rest of 2018 may hold for Philadelphia sports, the Phillies are due for a sharp increase in wins in what figures to be a wide-open NL East after the preseason favorite Washington Nationals.

                                               Bill Streicher/USA Today Sports
Young defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere and Ivan Provorov
are at the forefront of the Flyers' success this season.

The most encouraging thing about all of this is that none of it appears to be a fluke and the teams in Philadelphia are positioned well for the long-term future. All four teams are rife with young talent. While there’s never a guarantee that bad teams are going to be able to stockpile draft picks and prospects and turn things around, the futures for all four teams in the City of Brotherly Love are bright. Before this year, the Eagles had not won a playoff game in nine years. The Flyers had missed the playoffs in three of the previous five seasons. The Sixers were trapped in the middle of the NBA for a decade and the Phillies lost the most games out of any team in Major League Baseball since the start of 2013. All four teams went through coaching changes and front office makeovers. It’s nice to have those last five years for all four teams in the rear-view mirror now. Time to enjoy a new era. A

winning era.

Photos: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2745215-who-ya-got-nba-experts-debate-joel-embiid-vs-ben-simmons-as-better-cornerstone

https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/sports/nhl/flyers/flyer-files/2018/01/20/flyers-5-takeaways-why-ivan-provorov-shayne-gostisbehere-top-pair/1051337001/

Basking in the glory of a Super Bowl championship

It’s been difficult to come up with words to describe what the last five days have been like since the Philadelphia Eagles became Super Bowl champions. I grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, about 10 miles east of the City of Brotherly Love and have been a huge Philadelphia sports fan ever since I laid foot in Veterans Stadium. I followed all four professional teams like it was my job. I fell in love with the city’s college basketball tradition. But, it didn’t take long to know there was one team that mattered more to everyone in the Delaware Valley. Even if football wasn’t your favorite sport, you knew that team was the Eagles.

The North Jersey transplants that had migrated down the turnpike were insufferable during the two Super Bowls the New York Giants won in the 2007 and 2011 seasons. Of course, there’s annoying Cowboys fans everywhere.  So even when things were going well for the Birds, and every diehard says Birds, not Eagles, all it took was one person to say “Yeah, but the Eagles still have never won the Super Bowl.”

I remember where I was when St. Louis Rams safety Aeneas Williams picked off Donovan McNabb ending an upset bid for the Eagles after a strong 2001 regular season and big playoff wins over Tampa Bay and Chicago had them in the NFC Championship game. They were ahead of schedule after three years of the Andy Reid era. I also remember where I was the next year, when Tampa’s Ronde Barber intercepted McNabb in the NFC title game in what was the final football game at The Vet. It was a different defensive back the next year but same story as Carolina’s Ricky Manning Jr. had three picks against the Birds, to again deny them of a trip to the Super Bowl. Then, they finally got over the hump. A victory over the Atlanta Falcons in the franchise’s fourth consecutive trip to the NFC Championship game sent the Eagles to Jacksonville for Super Bowl XXXIX. But, all that meant was the disappointment came two weeks later as New England defeated the Eagles 24-21 for its third Super Bowl in four years. I was 10 years old during Super Bowl XXXIX, so what I had been through was nothing in comparison to the older generations of Philly fans. But, even at that young age, I was already becoming numb to disappointment.

During my childhood, the other Philly teams weren’t even good enough to disappoint you. Aside from a magical run by the Sixers to the NBA Finals in 2001, when they never had a shot against the Lakers, the Sixers, Phillies and Flyers were never even close to a title. Fortunately, I have no recollection of the Flyers getting swept by Detroit in the 1997 Stanley Cup Final, and was barely a thought when Joe Carter ended the 1993 World Series against the Phillies.

It all changed in 2008 though. An up-and-coming Phillies team stacked with homegrown talent ended a 14-year playoff drought in 2007 and ended the city’s 25-year championship drought in 2008. Between the four teams, Philadelphia fans that were old enough had gone through 100 seasons without a championship. As a 14-year-old, I figured my waiting was over. This was the beginning of a dynasty for the Phillies. Ryan Howard was the 2005 National League Rookie of the Year and the 2006 NL Most Valuable Player. Jimmy Rollins won the NL MVP award in 2007 and the team erased a seven-game deficit in the NL East with 17 games left in the regular season to stun the hated New York Mets. The Phillies were ready for a championship and they delivered in 2008. Bring on 2009, time to repeat. Not quite. They got back to the World Series, but the Yankees halted their title defense. It’s no fun losing to the Yankees, but surely, they’d be back. The team’s roster improved in 2010 and 2011, but they exited the playoffs earlier each year and haven’t returned since. After tasting one championship from my four teams, I figured they would start coming faster. After all, during the Phillies’ run of five straight NL East titles from 2007-2011, the Eagles returned to the NFC Championship game after the 2008 season and the Flyers got to the Stanley Cup Final in 2010 and erased an 0-3 series deficit earlier in the playoffs against the Boston Bruins. But, the World Series title in 2008 was still the only thing I had to hitch my wagon to and I learned that I didn’t enjoy it long enough.

                                                     Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

Then, all the teams got bad again. From 2012 until a couple weeks ago, Philadelphia professional sports teams had not advanced at least one round in the playoffs. As a Temple student, Villanova’s men’s basketball team winning the National Championship in 2016 wasn’t that much fun. Then, this Eagles season happened. After a 7-9 season last year, the Eagles looked like the best team in the NFL and were cruising right along. However, as the injuries piled up, there was a sense of “Here we go again” amongst many Philly fans, especially after quarterback Carson Wentz went down for the year with a knee injury late in the regular season. But, this team was different. Several analysts, media members and fans all looked past the Eagles once Nick Foles took over under center. But, they embraced the underdog role in the postseason and rallied behind the home crowds at Lincoln Financial Field to earn a trip to Super Bowl LII. I’m now 23 and didn’t know many of my best friends when the Birds were last in the Super Bowl. It was fitting that it was the same opponent and even more fitting that it was a different result, given the way this team’s season was unfolding.

Rather than discuss all the great stories involving the Eagles this year, as many journalists have told them much better than I would, I wanted to express some of my feelings. Getting calls and text messages on Sunday night when it was over was just as good as the game itself. Working 1500 miles from Philly meant I couldn’t attend yesterday’s parade. But that wasn’t minimizing my emotions at all. To so many people, myself included, the Eagles are more than a football team. They’re family. Now, they’re Super Bowl champions and nobody can ever say “Eagles have no Super Bowls” again.

Photo: https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/2/8/16986810/eagles-parade-2018-live-updates-highlights-super-bowl-philadelphia

2018 National Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

The 2018 National Baseball Hall of Fame announcement is today and it might as well be Christmas again. I don’t have a hall of fame vote, but here’s how I’d vote if I was lucky enough to be able to.

Chipper Jones: Shoe-in for the Hall on his first-ballot. One of the best switch hitters of all-time and held up well for a 19-year career, most which was played at third base. Not much else to say here.

Jim Thome: Another first-ballot lock. While 500 homers doesn’t necessarily appear to be the benchmark it used to be, Thome has 600 and was never tied to performance-enhancing drugs. This is easy.

Vladimir Guerrero: Vlad was so much fun to watch. He terrorized baserunners from right field with regularity. The scary thing is he’s not known for his arm. He’s known for his lifetime .318 batting average and being one of the best bad-ball hitters in the game. He was close last year, he’ll get over the hump this year.

Trevor Hoffman: Saves aren’t that valuable of a statistic at all. As a matter of fact, they’re kind of useless. However, Hoffman closed games time and time again. Ultimately, if you do your job as well as he did for as long as he did, regardless of how people feel about the degree of difficulty that comes with your job, you’re a hall of famer.

Edgar Martinez: One of the best offensive players in the history of baseball. That’s a fact. His career slash line was .312/.418/.515. The only six players to best that career slash line in all three categories are Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx. Edgar’s going to get close, and he should get in.

Barry Bonds: I’ve changed my mind on Bonds. Last year, I didn’t have him in my 10, but I’m putting him on this year. The case for him because more obvious the more you read about his career. Last month, baseball statistician Ryan Spaeder, fired off a series of tweets about Bonds’ career that were very telling. My two favorites? If you took away all seven of Barry Bonds’ MVP seasons, he still has a better WAR for his career than Ken Griffey Jr. On top of that, his career WAR is better than the career WARs of Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas combined. Look at the seasons Bonds had in Pittsburgh and his early days in San Francisco and try telling me he wasn’t a hall of famer before he took steroids.

Roger Clemens: He’s sort of a package deal with Bonds in my opinion. I think the argument about being a hall of famer before steroids applies to Bonds and Clemens and that’s it when it comes to the players linked to performance-enhancing drugs. I’m more passionate about Bonds getting in than Clemens, but ultimately, I do feel like voting for one warrants voting for the other.

Fred McGriff: Now that Tim Raines has a plaque Cooperstown, Fred McGriff is the most underrepresented candidate on the Hall of Fame ballot every year. All he did was hit, hit and hit. Crime dog hit at least 30 homers in every season from 1989-94. His lowest OPS in those six seasons was .890 in 1990. Maybe it’s not a long enough peak, but he held up at first base for enough time to post a very respectable career slash line of .284/.377/.509 to go with 493 homers. Hopefully the today’s game committee puts him in because it doesn’t look like the writers will.

Curt Schilling: One of the best big-game pitchers in baseball. His postseason performances were always clutch and for a borderline candidate, that’s enough to get over the top in my eyes. Are people really dumb enough to not vote for him because they don’t think he’s a good person?

Johan Santana: It’s sad to think he might fall off the ballot today. But Johan was one of the best pitchers in baseball during the first decade of the 21^st century. Injuries derailed his career, but look at what he was when he wasn’t injured.  He had three straight seasons with a WHIP under 1.00 from 2003-05 and won the AL Cy Young award in two of those three seasons. Lifetime 3.20 ERA and 1.13 WHIP. Another guy that was also so much fun to watch when he had it all going.

Notable exclusions: I wanted to vote for Andruw Jones, but he falls victim to the rule of 10. I think it’s a stupid rule and the ballot should expand to 12. Billy Wagner would be my 12^th vote if it did go to 12. There’s almost always one or two guys that the writers who vote for 10 candidates each year, feel like they left out. Mike Mussina never passed my eye rest and neither did Scott Rolen. As for the rest of the PED guys, sorry but if Pete Rose isn’t in the Hall of Fame then I can’t get behind putting you in either.