It was bittersweet week in sports for our region

Andy Reid and Kobe Bryant dominated the sports landscape for strikingly different reasons.

It’s been an odd sports week. We’re thinking about two guys who have dominated the sports landscape, for circumstances that could not be more different. Andy Reid and Kobe Bryant. The sports world is still trying to get its arms around the tragedy that eclipsed Bryant’s star, a helicopter crash that took the life of the Lower Merion star and all-time Lakers great, along with his 13-yearold daughter and seven other people.

At the same time we are preparing for that annual sports nirvana known as the Super Bowl. And there is a local interest this year because former longtime Eagles head coach Andy Reid is seeking the elusive ring with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Both men have somewhat complicated relationships with Philly fans.

Bryant, despite his roots here, his dad Joe being a La Salle star who played for the Sixers, was not always embraced by local fans. Some still hold it against him that he once said of coming to Philly in the NBA Finals to play the Sixers: “We’re coming to cut their hearts out.”

Bryant believed it was something the passionate, rabid Philly fans would understand. Obviously he did not expect the reaction it triggered and was stung by often being booed on his hometown court, including during an appearance at an NBA All-Star Game.

For Reid, he enjoyed a lot of success as coach of Eagles teams that made a habit of winning — winning the NFC East, dominating the division for years.

But fans never forgave Reid for what he did not do. He never won the biggest game, the Super Bowl. He lost several NFC title games, including a couple when the Birds were the clear favorites.

And when he finally got the team to the Super Bowl, he was ridiculed for his clock management habits, consuming much of the 4th quarter on a long, drawn-out drive when the Eagles were down by two scores.

The clip of Patriots coach Bill Belichick openly wondering if he was reading the scoreboard correctly, seemingly perplexed at what Reid and the Eagles were doing, playing as if they were the team that was ahead, will always hang over Reid.

The fans for the most part made their peace with Kobe.

Maybe Sunday they can do the same with Andy Reid.

A plea to Toomey

Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania is temperamentally and politically moderate — not unlike his Democratic counterpart Sen. Bob Casey and, for the most part, the commonwealth that they both represent in the Senate. That is especially so in comparison with the partisan flamethrowers and Trump acolytes who have come to dominate Toomey’s party.

President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, as it has been structured by hyper-partisan Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, raises the question for Toomey whether that partisan prerogative will supersede the pressing need for comprehensive disclosure of President Donald Trump’s conduct.

There are two juries that must render verdicts on that conduct.

Senators themselves are jurors by constitutional designation . ... The second jury comprises all but the 100 Americans who are not U.S. senators, especially voters. They are entitled to all of the information necessary to render their own verdicts, including documents that the Trump administration has refused to release and an array of witnesses who have first-hand knowledge of the matters at hand.

Impeachment testimony in the House demonstrated clearly that Trump tried to strong-arm the Ukrainian government into announcing an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and to support a long debunked conspiracy theory promulgated by Russia that Ukraine, rather than Russia, had meddled in the 2016 president election with the goal of helping Trump. There also is no doubt that Trump attempted to stonewall the House investigation.

It’s one thing if the Republican senators’ partisanship leads them to conclude that such conduct by a president is acceptable. It is unacceptable, however, for those senators to deny relevant information to the second set of jurors.

Toomey should be among Republican senators who vote to call witnesses and subpoena documents in the cause of comprehensive disclosure of the president’s conduct.