A Phun Time to Be a Philly Phan

There's a liner (short promotional blurb) that often runs during Glenn Beck's show on his affiliate here in Philadelphia, where he says, "Nothing like being in Philadelphia... especially this time of year!" How true he is right now, because this may be a peak weekend of Philly phanaticism. Whether you consider this a good or bad thing requires some explanation.

Let's start with baseball... the Phillies won their 4th straight NL East championship and are resting up for the first round of the playoffs. The Braves are hoping they'll rest just enough this weekend to allow Atlanta to pull out the requisite wins to get into the playoffs. The Phillies fans are downright giddy but I'm glad my Mets were able to prevent them from clinching the division on their home field. Little victories (and more on the Mets later). They also are proclaiming that they will be playing Cincinnati in the first round of the playoffs next week, although this is not a foregone conclusion. The Padres are still alive and have a chance to catch Atlanta for the wild-card spot or San Francisco to force a one-game NL West playoff.

Also, I'm not sure why the Phillies want so badly to play the Reds. The Reds of 2010 are a lot like a younger version of the Phillies. They play in a homer-happy ballpark, but also feature lots of good pitchers. On paper, Johnny Cueto, Mike Wood, and Edinson Volquez don't appear to match Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt, and the Phils did win 5 of 7 from the Reds this season, including a 4-game home sweep. However, a closer look reveals that most of these games either came down to the bullpens or were 1-0 games. The fact that the Phillies couldn't seem to score runs if their lives depended on it from about mid-May to about mid-July suggests that the Reds' young arms are definitely capable of shutting down the Phillies' bats. Add in flamethrower Aroldis Chapman (who wasn't in the bigs yet when these teams last played) in the bullpen, and this series becomes a toss-up. Treating this series as a walkover will result in early tee times for the Phillies.

But first, there's the events of Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, and that's what really makes this such a major weekend for PhillyFan. Donovan McNabb returns to Philadelphia this weekend, but it's not what it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be the game where The Chosen One, Kevin Kolb, would prove why some Eagles fans thought he was better than McNabb. Except Kolb's reign as Eagles starting quarterback lasted all of two quarters. He sustained a concussion in the opener against Green Bay, Michael Vick came in and led a frenzied second-half comeback that came up just short, then he excelled in wins over Detroit and Jacksonville. As a result, Vick is now the starter and other teams are calling the Eagles about picking up Kolb in a trade... which many Eagles fans would be okay with. From "chosen one" to trade bait in two quarters... that's world-record fast even for Philadelphia.

So the Eagles will be counting on Seven (Vick) to beat Five (McNabb)... yes, the Philly media loves to nickname Eagles QBs after their jersey numbers. Meanwhile, PhillyFan will be counting on the Eagles D to beat the crap out of McNabb. The media is treating this story with kid gloves compared to what I'm really hearing from Eagles Nation. We see stories on TV and in print of "will the Eagles fans cheer McNabb when he takes the field as a thank you for the 11 years he gave them, or will they boo him because he's the enemy." Simple answer... they will BOO. LOUDLY. Just as they have ever since Draft Day in 1999 when they booed his selection by the Eagles. PhillyFan has always hated McNabb, has never appreciated the 5 NFC title games and 1 Super Bowl he got the Eagles to, and need I remind you that on the morning after he was traded to DC, local talk show hosts were suggesting a parade so they could officially run McNabb out of town. I have friends who are calling for a return to the Buddy Ryan "Bounty Bowl" days of Eagles players getting paid bonuses for knocking players out of the game. Never mind that most objective (read: not in Philadelphia) NFL fans considered that a classless chapter in the history of a classless city.

If it sounds like I'm rooting for McNabb to whoop the Eagles, you're completely correct. I want to see McNabb shred the Eagles defense, win by 3 TDs, and have Eagles fans freaking out over it. They deserve it for the way they treated one of the best quarterbacks (if not the best) in their beloved team's history.

And that may not be the only spectacle at the Linc tomorrow. This will be Vick's first home start as Eagles QB, and this has sparked renewed anger from some of the animal-rights crowd that was outraged when the Eagles signed him. Does this mean we're going to see a repeat of the dueling protests at his first home game as an Eagle last year, when PETA protesters sparred with NAACP members who were defending Vick's right to make a living? Well, considering this game is already going to have a circus atmosphere, may as well add another ring to it, right?

And the Flyers are about to begin their defense of the Eastern Conference championship. Their Stanley Cup playoff run last season has reinstilled a sense of hockey pride for PhillyFan, and I was reminded of this not too long ago while catching a bus. The SEPTA bus was (as usual) early, but the driver actually realized he was running early and he stopped, opened the door and saw me and a lady coming, so he waited for us to get there. Then he saw I was wearing a Buffalo Sabres jersey... and he told me matter-of-factly, "I should have shut the doors in your face for wearing THAT jersey." We're not even in the same DIVISION! Suffice to say that when the Sabres played the Flyers in a preseason game here last night, I was not in attendance because I'm sure I would not get the same tepid response I got last season. Does getting "Flyered up" mean increasing the rage quotient?

The real problem I have with PhillyFan these days is that when their teams aren't winning (as was the case all the time in the 1990s and in many postseasons before 2008), they're comical to watch. Not that they aren't funny to watch nowadays when they're getting tasered, but I digress. Their indignation and hypercritical attitudes are amusing when their teams fail... but since they've started winning, they've become different. They've turned up the shove-it-in-your-face factor almost to the point of (dare I say it) YANKEES FANS. Proving once and for all that my problem isn't really with the local sports teams, especially the Phillies... it's their FANS I hate. The Phillies play the game the way it should be played, they play hard, they're focused, they're a classy bunch. But how ironic that their fans are the epitome of NOT being classy...

And on that note, we return to my Mets. Recent news reports have the team firing both manager Jerry Manuel and GM Omar Minaya when the season ends tomorrow. I am more than okay with that decision. The goal for this season was to finish above .500; others had more lofty goals for this team and when the team was in contention in June, that seemed possible, but the more realistic expectation was a winning season. They failed to do that. The team imploded when Carlos Beltran and his "I don't care" attitude returned in July, and hopes of a winning season went down the crapper when the Mets just seemed to give up following a mid-September sweep by the Braves. Add to that an embarrassing situation where Beltran and fellow malcontents Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez skipped the team trip to Walter Reed to visit injured soldiers last month, and K-Rod's season-ending injury that he suffered while he was fighting with his girlfriend's father. This team had NO heart, too many players who had no interest in playing hard or winning, and it weighed the Mets down the entire second-half of the season.

The worst part is Beltran, Castillo, Perez, and K-Rod are all signed through next year to bloated contracts, making it very difficult to either trade any of them or waive them and eat the money. You can blame Jerry Manuel for not being able to fire up his players, but I don't think ANYONE could motivate these guys. Omar Minaya put this team together, paying out 8-figure deals for players who only care about their numbers and their paychecks, and in so doing he's made us into the baseball version of the New York Knicks. We have a ton of big contracts we can't get rid of and we can't get any decent free agents because our payroll is tapped out. The 2006 team had Paul LoDuca and Tom Glavine and others who had the pedigree to keep the clubhouse in line and everyone oriented toward the goal of winning a championship. As the years passed, Minaya let all of those players go. The end result is a 4th-place, sub-.500 team. The reward should be a swift kick in the ass out the door.

Now is the time to make a major move, because we have lots of young talent who, with the right personnel on and off the field, could gel into a contender as soon as next season. So this is my prescription for 2011: hire a winner, someone from a winning organization. Minaya was a good judge of talent, but not of temperament; we need someone who knows what a winner looks like. So I suggest swiping Damon Oppenheimer from the Yankees, for whom he is currently their scouting director. Not only does it look good on the back pages but it installs someone who knows how to help put together champions (although to be fair, he's also responsible for the abortion known as Joba Chamberlain).

Then you put a veteran winner in the clubhouse who knows how to handle players and keep them united. Bobby Valentine. He's managed the Mets to a World Series before, and he was unfairly thrown under the bus in 2002 for the misdeeds of another discredited former GM. He deserves this. Then you roll out the following lineup on Opening Day: 1B- Ike Davis, 2B- Ruben Tejada or Luis Hernandez, SS- Jose Reyes, 3B- David Wright, LF- Jason Bay, CF- Angel Pagan, RF- Daniel Murphy or Lucas Duda, C- Josh Thole, Starting Pitchers- Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, Jonathan Niese, R.A. Dickey, Dillon Gee, and Hisanori Takahashi as your closer. Notice all the names missing... Castillo, Beltran, Perez, K-Rod... that is because they must all be TRADED IMMEDIATELY. If you have to suck it up and get only beans for them, it doesn't matter, GET THEM OUT OF HERE. Do all of this, and maybe next year at this time, we Mets fans will be chuckling over PhillyFan returning to its natural, miserable state.