MacPhail’s indifference is a fireable offense

Andy MacPhail is contracted to be the Phillies’ president through 2021. That would be him, Mr. If We Don’t We Don’t, yawning.

“If John Middleton thinks he can land a big fish by moving me aside and getting somebody to become the president,” MacPhail said, “I would happily do that.”

And so, the question: In what era, in what league, in what organization or situation would any baseball operation tolerate MacPhail’s chronic indifference?

Would it be embraced on the basepaths? From a manager? In spring training? In the ninth inning of the seventh game of a World Series? In the Grapefruit League?

Where, exactly, has it ever ben OK to behave as MacPhail has behaved since agreeing to preside over the Phillies in 2015?

His inability to produce a single winning team in six seasons aside, MacPhail has been steadfastly unavailable for questioning outside of three-ish press conferences a year. He had the job five minutes and turned all the work over to Matt Klentak. And even if his most famous quote was taken slightly out of context when he shrugged off the Phillies’ chances of winning a playoff spot with, “If we don’t, we don’t,” his recent blast of indifference did make it resonate.

A legacy executive with deep family roots in the sport, MacPhail never displayed urgency to make the Phillies champions. He waited for Middleton to spend or for Klentak to go all-analytic, ignored the fans, ignored the press and produced losing team, after losing team, after .500 team, after losing team.

So go already. Let Middleton land a whale, a minnow or a turtle, just as long as the next president projects the message that he cares.

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Popcorn ceilings … don’t get it.

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There’s something wrong with the Sixers’ organization.

There. Something wrong. How else to explain going all-in for two proven, respected basketball minds in Doc Rivers and Daryl Morey, yet apparently demanding that they endorse the ever-exasperating Ben Simmons? What is that, some kind of fraternity initiation?

It makes some business sense for personnel sorts to tout what they have, all the better to inflate its value in the marketplace. But unless Rivers and Morey are bracelet-qualified poker geniuses, their offseason attitudes have been clear: They are first going to try to win titles with a point guard who won’t shoot.

Are they alone? Hardly. Brett Brown said, or was made to say, the same thing. Elton Brand, too. The Colangelo Family Tree. Josh Harris.

Jimmy Butler was on the right trail, and you see what happened to him.

Listen long enough to Rivers and Morey and it’s clear they are not committed to the current Sixers nucleus forever.

Just once, though, it would be nice to hear a strong Sixers voice saying what enlightened basketball minds already know.

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Don’t know about you, but I can never hear enough fife music.

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Floyd Mayweather alleges that the problem with boxing is that there are too many world championships. Why would he say that? What fight fan doesn’t care deeply whether WBO belt-holder Kazuto Ioka is the true super flyweight champion, or if it is WBC champ Juan Francisco Estrada?

Is there not an ongoing debate about whether the WBU is a more reliable dispenser of champions, or if it is the IBO?

And what’s so great, anyway, about having one world heavyweight champion when it’s possible to collect enough for a winning offensive line?

All right, so Mayweather has a point, even if he is about 40 years late to the rumble. He also has two other things: Cash and cache. And the best thing about a champion boxer is that he cannot only talk big but back up what he says.

So get to work, Money Man. Use your connections, voice, bank account and muscle to do something about it. Roll all of your political skills into a coalition to streamline the system. Pay people. Sway people. Do what it takes to get a sport in line before it is too late.

Either that, or retreat to a neutral corner.

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Coconut water. Yum.

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There was Ivan Provorov’s second-overtime playoff goal over the Islanders.

And there was … there was … there was …

No, that’s it. There was just Ivan Provorov’s second-overtime playoff goal over the Islanders.

That was the only reason for fans of Philadelphia professional sports to rejoice in 2020.

Comes, now, another opportunity, Sunday at 3:30 Subaru Park, where if the Union can defeat the New England Revolution it will win the Supporters’ Shield as the best MLS regularseason team. Even without injured goalkeeper Andre Blake, it can happen.

The World Cup it is not. But it is a real accomplishment. And the faithful that has been chanting from the river end since 2010 deserve the moment.

So do the Philadelphia fans who have put up with a 3-4-1 football team, a baseball team that channeled the 1964 Phillies and a basketball team that was swept from the playoffs in Round 1.

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Alec Bohm is right where he deserves to be: At the top of the Las Vegas board for N.L. Rookie of the Year.

• No Gold Glove winners for the Phillies. Only Didi Gregorius deserved consideration. Bryce Harper would have too, except that minor injuries and load management necessitated by an unreasonable schedule too often shuttled him into a DH role.

• And the Eagles are eight regular-season games away from blaming their medical staff again.