According to Bill Conlin in todays Phila Daily News Carl Crawford is now on his knees saying, "thank you Jesus". Crawford, the Tampa Bay free agent star ought to put Scott Boras on the top of his Xmas list for setting the free agent market with the 7 year $126mm deal secured for his client, Jayson Werth. Crawford, who is younger than Werth and who is considered at the top of the free agent market should benefit greatly from the Werth Deal.
This long suffering fan is glad that the Hot Stove stuff is starting to get interesting as I was getting tired of nothing happening and having to listen to the fools on MLB talk about pretend deals - especially those proposed by Ken Rosenthal. Rosenthal is in the HOF for making shit up, and should be tasered every time he lies - which would be every time he opens his mouth.
But lest this turns into a screed on the media, lets talk about the deals announced this weekend.
The Sawx made their move with the deal about to come down with the Padres which will bring Adrian Gonzalez to Boston for a bunch of prospects that most of us have never heard of. (Kind of reminds me of the guys we got for Cliff Lee.) The Yankees, as expected did deals with both Rivera and Jeter, and Jeter will now make less than Werth.
All of the above happened before the winter meetings even started - so maybe we will be entertained with a deluge of deals and gross amounts of money being paid to guys who could never even make the minimum in the real world - but MLB is not the real world.
Our boy Ruben has stated that the Phillies had made a signifigant offer to Werth - reported to be in the neighborhood of $60mm. (This is the same Ruben who a couple of weeks ago tried to tell us that Ibanez and Werth were comparable players. Uh huh!) Sixty million dollars is a lot of money, but $126mm is a whole lot more. Ruben now has a problem which I'll speak to in a bit.
For his part, Werth said that the negotiations with the Phillies made him feel unwanted here, and that he no longer felt part of the teams plans for the future. Poor baby felt unwanted! Gang if anyone ever offered me any amount of money to play in the show I would feel very wanted.
Werth now gets to play for the Nats, which means of course that he goes from first to last and will play in front of a more than half empty stadium in front of Ryan Zimmermans family and a few lobbyists who go to the park to celebrate bribing a few congresspeople to let the banks do what ever they want. Contrast that with playing in front of a packed house of true baseball zealots which include tons of women who thinks he has a nice ass. The bottom line of course is that the Nats made Werth a godfather offer - which Werth had to take. Yes, it's that simple - money talks and everything else doesn't matter squat.
That Werth signed the 13th largest contract in MLB history doesn't bother me in the least. The fact that he will be playing against our beloved candystripers 18 times a year doesn't bother me either, especially since we still have the aforementioned Raul Ibanez, and the untouchable Domonic Brown.
You remember Brown. He was the guy that Ruben said was absolutely untouchable as far as trades were concerned. Ruben told us that Brown had all the tools and the potential to be a superstar for many years. I wonder if this is the same Domonic Brown who went 2 for 29 in the DR, and was just sent home due to his being tired and exhausted from playing so much baseball over the past year. (Duh) The guy coming back from the DR can't be the same guy who was going to be our right fielder for the next ten years and make us forget Jayson Werth. No, this must be someone else, because our guy could hit, and this guy showed when he came up this past season that he can't hit ml pitching, and had no clue how to play defense. No, our guy is in hiding somewhere because so far this 2 for 29 guy hasn't shown this long suffering fan that he can replace Eric Bruntlett let alone Jayson Werth.
So now our boy Ruben has his work cut out for him. Let's see.....a right fielder, some middle relief, and more suckers to pay 5.00 for a friggin Hatfield hot dog. The challenges are daunting for Ruben, and we'll just have to wait and see just what he'll come up with. I know it won't be Carl Crawford.
On other fronts. I watched my NFL Red Zone yesterday and saw several players get penalized for making horse collar tackles. The mamby pamby league ought to just outlaw tackling all together and fit everyone with a flag. I, like most who watch the NFL look for and want vicious hitting. I live for a good chop block, and have a hard time with the whole concept of protecting "defenseless players". It's bad enough I have to watch grown men run around in silly looking uniforms, but if I can't see guys go down like they have been shot I'll look for something else to occupy my time on Sundays.
On a high note, while I didn't see it, I was thrilled to see Tiger go into the last day of his tournament with a lead and have him blow it. Tiger, you remember is the guy who likes waitresses and has until yesterday never lost a tourney when he had the lead going into the last day. His loss yesterday meant that for the first time since turning pro in 1996 he went through an entire season without a victory. Makes me believe that there are gods of golf out there somewhere.
Growing up in the greatest city in the world when I did meant that you got to see some of the greatest basketball on the planet. I mean we had it all.
There was of course the Big Five. Big Five doubleheaders were played at the Palestra twice a week in front of capacity crowds. Nationally ranked teams would come to the Palestra and go home wondering what the hell had just happened to them. To go along with the colleges, the Philadelphia Public League was fielding some of the greatest teams of all time with the likes of Overbrook, West Philly, Gratz and Bartram. Graduates of these schools could be found all over the NBA.
Then of course we had a 76ers team that not only featured home grown talent like Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain and Wally Jones, but also contended for championships every year. It was a special time, and no one loved it more than a guy named Phil Jasner. Phil Jasner grew up in Wynnefield, attended Overbrook High School and Temple University at a time when both 'Brook and Temple played great basketball. Phil couldn't play the game very well, but he could sure write about it and became the 76ers beat writer for the Daily News, a post he had since 1981 until his death the other day at the all to young age of 68.
I met Phil back in the early 80's when we joined the now defunct Gamma Swim Club. Most of the members were people who had grown up in West Philly, Wynnefield, or Overbrook Park, and most of us knew most of the members since childhood. While Phil and his wife were not part of our inner circle of friends, everybody knew the guy from school or the old Jewish 'hood we grew up in.
Phil was always approachable and would talk basketball at any time with anyone. I always enjoyed his inside stories of Wilt, Billy C, and the Doc. He never gave up dirt, but always humanized these stars. As a writer, Phil had an integrity not always found by sportswriters today looking to make a name for themselves. Unlike fools such as Gonzo (a real bad toupee?) or Eskin, Phil's writing wasn't about making Phil look good. Rather it was about reporting the facts and getting them right. If you read something in Phil's column you might not agree with him, but you knew that he had done his homework. He didn't print it if he couldn't verify it.
For most of his tenure, the Sixers sucked, but he never let that get in the way of his reporting, and unlike people like Stephen A. Smith who wrote angry, Phil stuck to the facts and always gave up quality reporting. I'll miss his columns, but I'll miss the man more.
Phil and I were not close friends. He was always cordial whenever we bumped into each other long after the swim club days were over. I'd bump into him at the Genuardi's in St. Davids from time to time and always enjoyed our 5 minute chats while picking out tomatoes. Phil's wife suffered from Lupus and despite his grueling travel schedule he found time to do the grocery shopping and other such mundane chores for his family.
The sports world and the human race lost a mensch the other day, but this long suffering fan is glad that I had the opportunity to know the man just a little.
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