WBC battery should match the lineup caliber
In chapter one, page one, line one, sentence one, clause one of the how-not-to-annoy-sportsfans pamphlet, there is the warning that the idiots behind the World Baseball Classic ignored. Try.
That’s all.
Try.
Do not insult potential viewers by presenting a team as serious, yet only to a point. In the case of the USA baseball side that fell in the final of a tournament few demanded, that would have meant not forming a spectacular batting order and then fitting it with above-average, old or damaged, relatively unknown and only mildly compensated pitchers. Since every now and again pitching might matter in that particular sport, its fans deserved better.
As long as major league owners are spending a quarter-billion per world-class arm, they are not going to approve their use in exhibition games. That’s just business. But if so, the World Baseball Classic is fundamentally bad business — useless as anything but a way to grow baseball interest in Nicaragua.
Hip, hip, horray for the victorious Japanese, who were solid enough to win any baseball match at any time. But even they deserved better than being made to wonder how different it might have been had Justin Verlander started the championship game, not Merrill Kelly.
* As the Phillies gathered in Clearwater, they had talked themselves into believing that their everyday eight was something close to baseball perfection. Except for one spot, they were close. Trouble is, it would be Brandon Marsh in center field.
A mistake-prone defender and a career .248 career hitter who had seven hits in 45 plate appearances in the last postseason, Marsh has never consistently shown power, which is why he was traded to the Phillies for Logan O’Hoppe. Thus, the question: Why has Scott Kingery had to fight for that everyday job as if it were being held by Joseph Paul DiMaggio?
With the bases larger, the throws to first less frequent and runners still placed in scoring position after the ninth inning, any team neglecting to keep the fastest player in its organization on the regular roster is being irresponsible. The Phillies need JetPax for his glove, his quicks and the potential to hit 19 home runs, which he did in 2019 before an illness dulled his career.
Kingery is said to be healthy, has been hitting .350 in Clearwater and, at 29, could again be an everyday force. So give him the No. 1 centerfield job he deserves and complete that near-perfect everyday eight.
Chatbots. No thanks.
The least surprising development in Philadelphia sports in the last 10 years was that Aaron McKie proved not to be as qualified to coach basketball at Temple as Fran Dunphy. No. 2 was that Saint Joseph’s would be a lesser basketball product without Phil Martelli.
No second-guessing there. Everyone with half a feel for college basketball in Philadelphia screamed as much when the two coaching legends were replaced for zero decent reason. Those who didn’t protest were message-board malcontents never satisfied until a coach is fired. Even a defensive coordinator will do in a pinch.
Now McKie is gone and even the NIT has become a fantasy at the Liacouras Center. And as for the Hawk, it’s dead.
Oops.
Nothing I look more forward to than the daily updates about what Gisele Bundchen is thinking.
The betting windows are closed. No objections. Prices official. Danny Briere wins the race for quote of the year in Philadelphia. So remember it, live by it and slap it as a mural on any blank wall of the Wells Fargo
Center: “I felt we were an easy team to play against. You don’t realize how important culture is until you lose it.”
The Flyers long have received criticism for trusting too many of their own as curators of that culture, for hanging onto the past, for playing God Bless America, for trying to preserve everything the late Ed Snider stood for. But it meant fans in the building. It meant regular playoff runs. It meant pride in the emblem, as John Tortorella has said. Chuck Fletcher either didn’t realize that, or he was just too incompetent a talent evaluator to fill a roster with the kind of players Briere will be entrusted to hire in his role as interim general manager.
To Fletcher’s credit, he did begin that process by hiring Tortorella, who has demanded tougher play. Briere has the right attitude to help fit the right coach with the right players.
“I felt John Tortorella was the perfect guy at this time to get us back on track and I really feel we’ve seen this,” Briere said. “We’ve seen it this year. You look at not just the way we play, but talking also to players around the league, executives around the league, and they all say the same thing: The Flyers are tough to face.”
Not only is that a good start, it was the only start for an organization that has begun again to find its way.
Those fancy, chef-prepared foods that might take up one inch of a plate … I don’t get it.