I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but the following snippet out of Ed Moran’s column in today’s Daily News resonates with something that has been bugging me for a while now.
Ranger lawsuit
Flyers president said yesterday he was staying quiet on the New York Rangers’ lawsuit against the league until he has a better idea of the facts.The Rangers filed the suit in federal court claming that the league is violating U.S. anti-trust laws by fining the Rangers $100,000 a day for not giving the league control over the team’s Web site.
The Rangers’ suit alleges they have the right to run their own Web site and control the sale and promotion of team merchandise and branding and that the league seeks to take that away.
“By seeking to control the competitive activities of independent businesses in ways that are not necessary to the functioning of that legitimate joint venture, the NHL has become an illegal cartel,” the suit said.
Anyone that has a vested interested in the Web as a vehicle for marketing and promoting your business should be offended at the NHL requiring all of its teams to be held hostage to a content management system and e-commerce platform that is dictated by the league in almsot every regard. This has been slowly rearing its ugly head over the last few years. When you go to the Flyers website, it will look, act and behave exactly like the NY Rangers, New Jersey Devils or even the Nashville Predators site. Yeah that makes sense – because Nashville, New York and Philadelphia are so perfectly equivalent in their respective marketing, business and sports merchandising strategies.
I really hope the Rangers win this one; I have to believe the Flyers would welcome the chance to let their marketing and IT departments take back control of their website and internet marketing. By the way, this trend is not restricted to the NHL. MLB enforces the same stupid template and strategy on all of its teams.
Tags: Flyers Hockey
Ok, where to start? Well, I’d be slightly hypocritical were I to say “I told you so!” I’d also be lying if I told you that I thought this could happen to this team in this season. However as I reflect back on this final weekend of the baseball season, I realize that the events of this weekend have already created endearing memories for millions of Philadelphia sports fans. And before I begin, let me just say that the Phillies – these 2007 Phillies are now officially playing with “house money.” Regardless of what happens or doesn’t happen over the next 4 1/2 weeks of the baseball post season, this Phillies team will go down in history owning a very special part of the heart and soul of the average Philadelphia sports fan. Yes there have been others (the 1980 Eagles, the 1993 Phillies, the 2001 76ers, the 2004 Eagles) who have achieved long-lasting city-wide affection without the benefit of a championship, but this team’s ascent to the emotional mountain top seems about as unlikely as any other team in recent memory. No doubt the New York Mets helped things out a little bit, but it was this Phillies team that was able to ignore and overcome all the criticism, pessimism and fatalistic negativity that Philadelphia fans have learned to conjure and vent over the last 24 non-championship years. So as this weekend began and ended, here are some of my personal thoughts and experiences that will stay with me forever:
Tags: Phillies Baseball
Well after a long hiatus, the Flyers are about to take to the ice again for their 40th season of NHL play. After the absolutely brutal display that was the 2006-2007 regular season, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this year’s team. However, for as many positives as there appears to be, there are just as many BIG questions that must yield answers before we will all find out how the 2007-2008 season will turn out. Last year’s debacle can be briefly recapped in a couple of bullet points:
- Lethargic training camp, the Keith Primeau questions, Hitchcock openly wondering where leadership would come from
- A god-awful start, Bob Clarke and Ken Hitchcock falling on the proverbial sword after 8 games
- Continual beatings at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres and the upstart Pittsburgh Penguins
- The Peter Forsberg “skate-gate” melodrama
- A horrendous losing streak @ home
- A completely lackluster power play
- A couple of intriguing trades (including Peter Forsberg) in the final 1/3 of the season – by “Mr Excitement” (Paul Holmgren)
Tags: Flyers Hockey
Well, the Phillies have gone completely belly up (no surprise) and I have abandoned my willingness to invest time in getting upset each night. So with the football season officially underway last night, it’s time for the annual exercise for Eagles fans: Win? / Loss?
Tags: Eagles Football
When Marlon Anderson played for the Philadelphia Phillies he was often crtiticized for not being a smart ball player. Ultimately, Phillies management got rid of Marlon because they had lost patience with him. Well tonight, it came back and helped the Phillies win a game against the division-leading New York Mets. Having already won the first 2 of the 4 game set, the Phillies nursed a one-run lead going into the 9th inning. With Brett Myers on the mound, the Mets organized runners to first and third with one out. Interestingly, the Phillies kept their infield @ double-play depth and waited for the improbable to help them win a game!
Richie Ashburn frequently mused about the beauty of baseball and how on any given night you could see a play that you had never seen before. Well tonight in the 9th innning and with runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out, his “Whiteness” must have been looking down on CBP and readying a smile. As Shawn Green grounded into what was clearly NOT a double play ball, the aformentioned Marlon Byrd decided that breaking up the double play was the only way to guarantee the tying run crossing the plate. The problem is that he egregiously and overtly ran outside the basepath to take out Phillies 2nd basement Tadahito Iguchi. Immediately, 2nd base umpire C.B. Bucknor identified the obvious interference and ended the game on an interference-based double play.
Thanks Marlon, you finally helped the Phillies win a ball game!
Tags: Phillies Baseball
Well, we’re now 125 games through the 2007 baseball season and yet again the Phillies are mired in the middle of their standard mediocre-average season. While it is true that at 66-59 they are only 1 game off the National League Wild Card hunt, the cumulative effect of 1 playoff appearance in the last 24 seasons is beginning to wear on me and hundreds of thousands of other Phillies fans. Unfortunately, I’ve grown used to this summer roller-coaster that my emotions are forced to endure.
However, what I heard today on 610-WIP really had me scratching my head (if not slightly annoyed). The mid-day guys (Gargano & Martarano) spent most of their afternoon bemoaning the fact that if the Phillies do (yet again) fail to make the playoffs that we should all in some way give them a “pass” for a good season. While I freely ackowledge that they have been beseiged by injures, I am having a hard time characterizing this season as a success when the main act has yet to be concluded. To briefly recap, their bullpen has been dreadful, the landscape of their starting pitching has been inconsistent (at best) and Charlie Manuel is still fumbling his ways through games each night. While there is a lot to like about this team (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins & Cole Hamels) – there is still the 10-ton gorilla in the corner ….. PLAYOFFS? PLAYOFFS!
Tags: Phillies Baseball
Wow! For those of you who didn’t get a chance to see former Phillies catcher Darren Daulton on Comcast SportsNet (Philadelphia) last night, you missed one for the ages. Daulton who has been retired from baseball for over 10 years now, has been a bit on the wacky side for quite some time. Among the topics that the Daily News Live (DNL) panel discussed with “Dutch” during yesterday’s in-studio interview: varying meta-physical realms, talking with lizards, and of course (drum roll please) – THE ARRIVAL OF THE 4TH DIMENSION. According to the one time-leader of “macho-row”, we will all be transported to a new level of consciousness on December 21st, 2012 when our “astral plane” arrives.
Now here’s my thought as I was watching this “train-wreck” of an interview. Will anyone ever be able to watch highlights of Darren Daulton or the 1993 Phillies again without thinking about what type of lost-soul Dutch has become in the 14 years since that magical carpet ride of a baseball season?
And what about the producers @ DNL? Isn’t their willingness to bring Daulton on the air a bit misguided? Everyone likes to see revered athletes interviewed after their playing days are over. Most of us are curious if they still follow their old team, what they think of Ryan Howard, etc. However the DNL producers knew about Daulton’s “dettached” view of the world (as did most of us) before he went on. DNL is a show for the hardcore Philadelphia sports fan: we care about the scores, the teams, the players, the controversies … and NOW apparently (according to the DNL producers) the arrival of the 4th dimension.
Tags: Phillies Baseball
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