Little White Bag: Joey Ryan (behind cloud) hits Necro Butcher with a bag of “cocaine” in a November Ring of Honor bout.

Photo | Neal Santos

As a companion to this morning’s cover story by Shaun Brady on the South Philly indie wrestling scene — there are no less than four independent promotions working The Arena — we had our vid-man Neal Santos and intern Scott Yorko head down to the Nov. 5 Ring of Honor show to take some pics and record some audio to give a better sense of the scene.

Watch and enjoy.

Yes, it’s difficult to argue that the Phils need fixing per se, but the need to do a little something something to get back to the World Series and get over a hump we’ll call the Yankees.

Here at The Clog, we’ve isolated four main areas the Phillies need to lavish a little TLC on over the off season:

1. Third Base (Feliz has to go)
2. The Rotation (Is Moyer the best we can do at fifth starter? Will Happ repeat his strong rookie performance?)
3. The Bullpen (Can we count on Lidge to recover? Should we sign free agent? Should we groom hard-throwing youngsters Scott Mathieson and Antonio Bastardo for bigger roles down the line?)
4. The Batting Order (Can we really thrive with a .290 OBP at the top of the order? Can we please split up Howard/Utley vs. lefties?)
5. The Bench (No more Bruntlett?)

and have concocted a poll with what we believe to be the main options for the team.

Take the poll after the jump: (more…)

The winners of the Internet Baseball Awards — essentially the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie and Manger of the Year awards as chosen by stathead fans — were announced of the last two days.

More than 1,200 ballots were cast in this year’s installment. The hometown nine  fared well in the National League though, much like this year’s post-season, nobody took home any hardware:

MVP:

Chase Utley and Ryan Howard finished 4th and 10th respectively in the MVP voting.
Jayson Werth (20),  Raul Ibanez (24) and Cliff Lee (28) also made showings

Cy Young:

Cliff Lee finished 9th in the balloting, which is not bad considering he put in less than a half season of work in the red pinstripes. J.A. Happ placed 16th with Cole Hamels clocking in at 19th.

Rookie of the Year:

This was a nailbiter, as J.A. Happ finished 2nd to the Braves’ Tommy Hanson in a photo finish. Happ racked up 5,473 points to Hanson’s 5,487. To my knowledge, no other Phils rookies received votes.

Manager of the Year:

Charlie Manuel finished 4th, behind Jim Tracy (whose miraculous reversal of the Rockies season was deserving of praise even if his handling of the NLDS was not), Joe Torre (who’s kind of coasting on reputation at this point) and Tony LaRussa (see Joe Torre).

For this week’s cover story, I listed what I consider the Top 10 Spectrum Sports Moments. Disagreements are welcome — but first let’s look at the footage:

1. The Flyers Win Their First Stanley Cup 5/19/1974

You can watch the entire game here. I recommend you at least check out the last few minutes, when the fans storm the ice and the Flyers basically have to fight them off to protect the Cup. Dave Schultz, especially, takes things too far.

2. Flyers vs. Russian Red Army 1/11/1976

Yep, that’s Gene Hart and Marv Albert with the call.

3. The Sixers Win It All, 5/26/1983

See Also: “Fo Fi Fo” by Pieces of a Dream

(more…)

Ring of Honor must be doing something right, though the evidence comes almost strictly in bad news for the Philly-based wrestling promotion. Within the past year and a half, which saw the company make the move to weekly TV on HDNet, ROH alumni CM Punk and Samoa Joe have both held world championships in the WWE and TNA. And between their last TV tapings in September and this weekend’s, they’ve had to bid farewell to two more of their top stars, as “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson headed for Vince McMahon’s greener pastures and Nigel McGuinness has been reborn as Desmond Wolfe in TNA (where he’ll now have to contend with the won’t-go-away Hulk Hogan). So look for the year’s last batch of TV tapings — six hour-long episodes over two nights — to look towards the future and the next round of rising stars.

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Thu. & Fri., Nov. 5-6, $10-$30, The Arena, 7 Ritner St., 215-781-2500, rohwrestling.com.

As if you didn’t know: The Phillies won a tense game 5, forcing a game 6 tomorrow night in New York wherein Pedro Martinez will get a second chance to end the “who’s your daddy?” chants once and for all.

Also, SEPTA called an audible, announcing a 3 a.m. strike shutting down all city subway, bus and trolley service, essentially holding true to the letter of their word to not striking during the World Series home games. Yes, yes, we support the union’s right to strike, but tell it to the people waiting at bus stops at 5:30 this morning.

So we’ll take this opportunity to share a word with the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia who suggest you “Bike the Strike”:

PHILADELPHIA - November 3, 2009 - The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia urges SEPTA travelers to bike instead of driving. Commuters who bike will win out over those stuck in traffic jams of epic proportions.”Avoid the crush and bike the strike,” says Alex Doty, Executive Director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. “Bike the Strike to save time, money and help shrink your waistline.  Plus, I guarantee you will have more fun than anyone trying to drive during the strike.”

In cooperation with Philadelphia’s Office of Transportation and Utilities, the Bicycle Coalition has established a Bike the Strike station at City Hall (Dillworth Plaza). The station has bike parking corrals, free coffee, bike maps and Bicycle Ambassadors on hand to give tips on bike commuting and personalized route planning.

Keeping safe while bicycling is critical.  “Bicycles are considered vehicles, so we also urge all bicyclists to obey the rules of the road,” said Education Director Breen Goodwin.  “It’s important for all bicyclists to be civil, courteous and comply with traffic laws, such as walking their bikes on sidewalks and stopping at all signals, to ensure the everyone’s safety.”

More biking tips after the jump: (more…)

Jim Horwat

Click image to see full print.

Jim Horwat, our favorite Phillies-loving, smile-crazy illustrator — the man behind last year’s championship-celebrating tribute/collage — is back with a 2009 print featuring all the stars of this year’s run and Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett. Oh, and it’s also got HK and the Phanatic done up like some kind of Mayan priest.

This year’s print is full color and available in a signed and numbered first edition on Horwat’s web site. Do some early x-mas shopping and maybe buy the Phils a little karma tonight.

Dunno if it was the shaky first inning by Joe Blanton, the continued struggles of Ryan Howard vs. lefties, the reliance on the solo home run, the uncanny ability to convert a 2-on-nobody-out opportunity into a goose egg, or the almost comically preordained bullpen collapse that was most emblematic of the Phils season.

Last night’s World Series game 4 had a little bit of everything for your local neighborhood Phils cynic. Let’s not forget that while the Phillies are indeed a very formidable team, they’ve got their weaknesses — and almost all of them were exposed against the best power pitching and power hitting money can buy.

• CC Sabathia — his inability to do anything with Chase Utley notwithstanding — continued to make Phils lefties Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez look look like Rico Brogna and Travis Lee.
• Joe Blanton, a yeoman 4th starter, despite a sick run from the second inning into the fifth where he painted the corners deftly, was undone in a fifth inning where nobody hit the ball all that hard, but, given Blanton’s lack of an out pitch, was unable to drop the hammer and end an ill timed two-run rally.
• Charlie Manuel, despite finding himself in a situation — tied at 4 in the ninth after an improbable Pedro Feliz tying shot — where he might be facing extra innings, decided to not try to get another inning out of his best/most durable reliever, Ryan Madson, and went to Brad Lidge in a situation that called for perfection.
• In a bit of irony too rich for words, when the Phils employed a severe defensive shift against Mark Teixeira — the same one used so often against their own Ryan Howard — they got burned on a steal of second wherein Johnny Damon kept running right on down to an uncovered third base.
• Of course, then there’s the mystery of why Brad Lidge stopped throwing his slider — his best pitch and possibly the best pitch on the entire staff — while facing Johnny Damon in the first place, but Brad Lidge mysteries could fill a book at this point.

Did I miss anything?

Courtesy of Laurel Hill/West Laurel Cemetery

Here’s an official MLB urn from the West Laurel Hill Cemetery, although it’s sold at other funeral homes as well. For $650, you can spend eternity with the Phillies, purchased from the final resting place of early Phillies owner Alfred James Reach, Ben Shibe (who created the two-piece cover baseball), his sons Thom and John who helped Connie Mack out with the A’s and, of course, HK.

On the face of it, the effort to introduce table games to Pennsylvania casinos didn’t seem like a major expansion of gambling. Table games, after all, are expected to produce only about $200 million a year, including licensing fees, in state  revenues, compared to the nearly $1 billion that came in from slots last year (with some casinso yet to open).

Table games are also less directly tied to gambling addiction and problem gambling.

But a tiny clause in table game legislaiton – one that has gone almost completely unreported – makes table games, expected to pass any day now, potentially a much bigger deal indeed: a clause that would let casinos extend credit to slots and table games players.

Why is this a big deal?

When I first began reporting on the ever-growing casino industry and its ever-growing dependence on slot machines for its profits, I encountered horror stories about what happens when casinos extend credit lines to gamblers.

Some of those stories related to Foxwoods – not the facility being built here but the one already operating in Connecticut. Foxwoods’ owners, acording to work done by journalist and professor Jeff Benedict,  had pursued gambling debts to the point of placing liens on the debtors’ houses and appearing as creditors in foreclosure documents.

The idea that casinos – which, according to respected studies, make a disproportionately large amont of their profit from problem gamblers – would be acting as mini-banks for those very gamblers seeemed pretty disturbing.But the issue, i was told, was a red herring: because Pennsylvania doesn’t allow casinos to extend credit to gamblers.

Apparntly, however, they’re about to.

Both table games bills being considered – Senate bills SB711 and SB1033 – contain the following clause(1326A.b):

A certificate holder may make credit card advances and debit card withdrawals available to patrons at its licensed facility [ . . . ] A certificate holder may extend credit to patrons for the purpose of playing slot machines or table games.

This goes directly against the current law, which states, in unusually direct language, that:

Slot machine licencees may not extend credit. Slot machine licensees may not accept credit cards, charge cards or debit cards from a player for the exchange or purchase of slot machine credits or for an advance of coins or currency to be utilized by a player to play slot machine games or extend credit in any manner to a player so as to enable the player to play slot machines.

The Daily News recently called table games “a trojan horse,” but mentioned the extension of credit only briefly. Other than that, this news has gone – as far as I can make out, anyway – virtually unreported.

The idea of this legislation being a trojan horse demands serious attention. Were table games really just a way to get previously-banned practices, like the extension of credit, into the slots parlors?

And why is no one talking about this? The difference between a casino that can lend money to its lots players and one that can’t would seem pretty significant.

Hoodie | Birdland/The Fightins

Beat NY: What they can’t buy, we’re gonna take

Running a little behind on this, but tell us who’s gonna win the World Series and how:

Yesterday our own contributing sports editor  E. James Beale sat down with Daily News sports editor Josh Barnett on Marty Moss-Coane’s Radio Times to talk about the World Series. Listen below.

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Philly Boy Roy, in his natural habitat

Last night, in the early moments of The Best Show on WFMU, PBR made a bold prediction: It will only take one game for nem Phightens to humiliate nem Yankees and win the World Series.

This led to a very improbable bet between the show’s host Tom Scharpling of Newbridge, North Jersey and Philly Boy Roy Ziegler of Roxborough.

Also discussed in this clip:

• Lipstick City, Barney Miller and Raul Ibanez guitars
• The appropriate age to begin dropping the F-bomb
• The Cin-A-Bon/milkshake deathwish
• Spinal Tap, Drum Power and WaWa Records
• An army tank driving through a lake of fudge pudding
• The time Peter killed a grip on the set of the Brady Bunch
• Whether pimpin’ is easy or not
• Whether it’s OK to put Peanut Chews into piñatas
• Whose bathroom area hurts

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