The Phils were tossed from the first round last year, the Dream Team barely showed up, the Sixers are on a three-game skid and Philly's hockey news cycle is focused on the psychoanalysis of Ilya Bryzgalov. Things have been better for Philly sports fans. But, things could be worse—way worse. We could be Washington, DC.
Banning Phillies Fans From Nationals Games Won’t Create Nationals Fans
The Nats are trying to force themselves into relevance instead of proving they’re a legitimate ball club.
Monday night, Villanova found out exactly what it is like to get a 30-foot knife in the throat, when Shabazz Napier completed UConn’s gigantic comeback by draining a long-range heartbreaker with 0:00.6 left to lift the Huskies to victory. It was the second straight game in which the Wildcats had coughed up a huge lead, and it was the perfect metaphor for a season that has gone horribly wrong.
If you've talked sports with Philadelphia fans over the years, you're probably familiar with the oft-repeated notion that "the Phillies are cheap." For many years, a strain of Philly fandom has believed that the team's historic lack of success was largely attributable to rich, reclusive, out-of-touch owners hoarding cash and refusing to spend on players.
For a long time, there was some truth to this. According to an MLB salary database maintained by USA Today, the Phils were in the bottom half of payroll in Major League Baseball for the bulk of the 1990s, despite playing in the nation's largest single-team market. Even the 1993 World Series team was fielded with a $26.8 million budget, the 20th highest out of 28 clubs at the time, and a little more than half the league-high payroll of the team that beat them in the World Series, the Toronto Blue Jays.
The ’93 Phillies Inspired Billy Beane’s Moneyball Team
And if Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Placido Polanco and Chase Utley want to win in 2012, it’s time for them to get inspired, too.
We now know that the 1993 Phillies not only led the majors in dispatched tobacco juice, surly media treatment and off-field good times; they also had an influence on Hollywood.
Indirectly.
Last Friday, Oakland A’s GM and Moneyball darling Billy Beane revealed the inspiration for his approach to turning his small-market, cash-starved franchise into a contender was indeed the ’93 Phils, and not just because they set MLB records for most chicken wings consumed between games of a doubleheader.
So over the weekend, Daily News columnist Buzz Bissinger, a writer who should know better, whipped out the race card to explain why the world loves Jeremy Lin. Buzz opined in the Daily Beast that the reason so many NBA fans are gaga for the Harvard hoopster who’s been tearing it up for the Knicks over the past week or so is that we’ve all been covertly wishing for a Great White Hope. According to Buzz, we like Lin “because he is light-complected and, in his Christian beliefs and prayer penchant, echoes much of white America.”
Q&A: Megan Soisson, the Senior Sports Editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian Who Exposed Sexism on ESPN’s Website
How her tweet turned into a national news story.
It was a normal day for Megan Soisson, a junior at Penn and the senior sports editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian. She was working on a run-of-the-mill story for her section when she was reminded of the industry's gender disparity by none other than the World Wide Leader in Sports.
