Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Better team or not, this Super Eagles team more fan friendly
Just over a week before the Eagles would play in a Super Bowl, there was Doug Pederson in the Wells Fargo Center for a hockey game. He was rocking an orange Flyers jersey. There was no more evidence necessary to prove why the Eagles are not as annoying as they were the last time they played for a world championship.
The arrogance is gone. The War of 11th and Pattison is over. And the ridiculous behavior of so many Eagles front men of the 2004-2005 NFC champions has cased.
Then, the Birds were quarterbacked by Donovan McNabb, whose distaste for Philadelphia was thick. He never recovered from hearing boos the day he was drafted No. 2 overall, and he still holds a grudge. It’s why he spent much of this season on TV, consistently trolling Eagles fans, finding any reason to diminish the on-field grandeur of Carson Wentz.
Then, the Eagles were coached by Andy Reid, a self-important underachiever who actively limited his postgame com-
ments while well aware that a market full of Eagles fans simply wanted to hear him explain how he’d wasted so many timeouts. His record could have made him popular. He declined to be popular. He had to do a better job.
Then, the Eagles’ football operation was run by Joe Banner, who oversaw a repugnant marketing ploy to subliminally big-time the other major-league teams on his street. “One team, one city, one dream,” was that mouthful, and its implication was plain: Only the Eagles mattered to the seven million people of the four-state region.
The Eagles were always charitable. They had their off-field episodes, as all teams do, but those were on the low side by profootball standards. Their fans were loyal; their fans are always loyal. But even if it is only urban legend that anyone wearing a Phillies cap to work was turned away from the NewsControl Compound during the 2008 worldchampionship baseball season unfolding across the street, that image endured of them being selfabsorbed.
This time? It’s different. And it breaks both ways. The Phillies have decorated Citizens Bank Park with a Go Eagles flag. Nightly, Sixers coach Brett Brown sprinkles his public comments with support of the Eagles and Philadelphia fans. The quarterback is Nick Foles, who so truly loves the city that he wanted to play no place else. And Pederson always answers reasonable football questions … and, it seems, might have some hockey opinions, too.
This time, unlike the last time, the Eagles get it. And oh, by the way...
Meek Mill and Mike Trout like the Eagles, just in case you haven’t heard that enough.
I don’t get red-light cameras. And, by the way, spare me waiting for that red light to blink to green
at a highway on-ramp.
••• Pete Mackanin didn’t mean anything derogatory. He just kind of said the obvious late last season, when he was asked about the future of the Phillies’ pitching rotation.
Aaron Nola, he acknowledged, was surfacing as a reliable piece. After that? “The usual suspects,” he shrugged. What else could he have called that roll call of talented, often-injured, always inconsistent, ultimately disappointing right-handers? How else to describe Zach Eflin and Jerad Eickhoff, Jake Thompson and Vince Velasquez, Nick Pivetta and Ben Lively? What, was he supposed to call them the 1969 Orioles?
In 17 days, the Phillies will hold their first spring training workout. They’ve added on-baseaverage magician Carlos Santana to their lineup. They will have powerful Rhys Hoskins on the roster for the entire season. Odubel Herrera and Maikel Franco should be ready to ease into the prime of their careers. If Aaron Altherr can stay healthy, he has power. AllStar Pat Neshek is back, with Matt Klentak having bettered his bullpen. Yet the starting rotation has not changed.
The Phillies are said to be pricing free agents Jake Arrieta and Yu Darvish, two of the more gifted throwers of their generation. There was some chatter about building some package around Mickey Moniak and trading for the Rays’ Chris Archer. They have some surplus in the outfield, and might be able to work something out for an innings-eater.
Until the Eagles’ Super Bowl experience is over, and that could include a parade, the Phillies are wise not to do anything that otherwise would create a hum. If their plan is to spring for Arrieta, they might as well wait another week and win some headlines.
But they must do something. Either that, or it will be Gabe Kapler lamenting in August about Nola and those usual suspects.
Did you ever get the phrase, “tilting at windmills?”
When Jim Thome enters the Hall of Fame this summer, his plaque will show him in an Indians cap. Of course. He played 13 years in Cleveland, once helping the Indians to a World Series. His legend belongs to Cleveland. But Phillies fans can and will celebrate, too.
Thome only played three of his prime seasons with the Phils, then one more when he was 41. But there have been few more popular players in the organization’s history. There may not have been any.
Thome agreed to come to Philadelphia as a free agent when that idea seemed impossible. He committed to the Phillies when their new ballpark was still developing, and when the promises of what was said to be a rich farm system were still in question. He came for the money, of course. But he was not a drive-by mercenary. He fit in. He befriended ballpark construction workers. He was decent with the press. And, most importantly, he produced. Right away. He had 47 home runs and 131 RBIs in his first season here. He was a power hitter at his peak, and he gave the Phillies exactly what they’d paid for, with his swing, with his work ethic, with his team-first approach, with his immediate grasp of what made the market tick.
Jim Thome belongs to Cleveland. But he made Phillies fans feel he belonged to them. As achievements go, that was high among his most impressive.
Who gets Auld Lang Syne? Hands? Anybody?
••• Larry Nassar, the former doctor for the United States women’s gymnastics team, will spend up to 175 years in jail for assaulting athletes, many underage. Some of those crimes were committed while he was working for Michigan State University.
Since the sentencing, Michigan State’s president and athletic director have resigned. Previously, so did a gymnastics coach.
Nothing will un-do the damage to those abused. That’s sickening and unfortunate.
Nothing will un-do the damage to the reputation of Michigan State and those who were in charge at Michigan State while it was happening. That’s appropriate.