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Starter Tome

Having stalled in my effort to finish a book whose first line isn't "In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon," I decided over the Thanksgiving weekend to put down Dashiell Hammett's entertaining but somewhat slow The Thin Man and pick up the latest from his imitator Robert B. Parker. Parker's Spenser novels are quick reads -- short paragraphs, short chapters, and too-familiar characters and plotlines allow you to storm through them in a couple of days. My hope was that reading the newest, Bad Business, would kick-start my reading habit and propel me into more meaningful books.

Bad Business is strictly standard-issue Spenser; it's Parker's take on the Enron scandal, with murder and wife-swapping (no, really) thrown in for good measure. There's really nothing at all surprising about it. The more Parker writes, the less interesting the virtuous Boston P.I. and his cohorts become. The earlier books featured a more flawed and interesting protagonist -- a wiseguy who sometimes failed in his work and showed some personal stumblings as well. Now we get the same-old, same-old, every time out: Spenser, still possessing an impossible combination of smarts, wit, toughness, culture, and looks; Susan Silverman, eternally dazzling -- essentially Spenser's female doppelganger; and Hawk, menacing yet cultured, incapable of screwing up. The recurring characters seemingly never change, and the tertiary characters, the new ones that show up in each book, are straight out of central casting. It's a shame that Parker is mailing in the Spenser books, because he clearly still has some good writing in him, as his Jesse Stone novels show.

The comparison between Spenser's work and that of Hammett is interesting. Thin Man's focus thus far -- I'm about halfway through -- isn't the murder that Nick Charles is investigating, but the alcohol-saturated, speakeasy-fueled good life that he and his wife, Nora, live. Nick isn't as macho as Spenser, but certainly as quick-witted; Nora is less sophisticated than Susan, but as attractive and more interesting. There are no bald, African-American sidekicks to be found; Hammett wrote 70 years ago, after all. We'll see if at all keeps up.

The holiday is over. Time to get serious after the nice diversion. So here's hoping that Bad Business turns out to be, if nothing else, at least a good catalyst.

Back to Reality

I'm thankful for the usual suspects -- health, home, wife and daughter, extended family, friends, job, etc. -- but also for your patience. I was off-line for just about all of the holiday weekend, eating a lot, catching up with family, drinking more red wine than I should have, and playing an enormous amount of Halo 2. What I didn't do was blog. But I'll be back to regular posting soon. So hang in there, and thanks.

Welcome Aboard

Despite a quiet off-season thus far, at least by recent standards, the Phillies have inspired a new blog, Ed Han's All Things Baseball. Ed's recent advocacy of Odalis Perez was echoed earlier today by Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, who listed Perez among his top 10 free-agent bargains. Welcome to the Show, Ed, and good luck.

A Tune-Up for the Phillies

Both papers report today (Inquirer; Daily News) that the Phillies will slide up the radio dial to WPHT/1210-AM for the next few seasons. WIP/610-AM will carry games on Friday nights, which 'PHT reserves for its well-known Sinatra program Fridays with Frank. The move makes a ton of sense, as former outlet WPEN/950-AM was a tough listen whose weak nighttime signal wobbled in and out of reception, especially if you were in a moving car.

The only downside I can envision is having to hear more promos for the new stations' respective talk-radio programming. The combination of Sean Hannity, Howard Eskin, Dom Giordano, and Angelo Cataldi, after all, is playing on hell's transistor radio. Listening to the "Big Talker" and "Philly SportsRadio" boast about their respective lineups of gasbags and juvenile delinquents won't do much for my mood while Chris Wheeler is trying desperately to put a shiny red bow on another Phillies waxing by the Braves on some suffocating August night.

Bulletin Points

In a few hours Philadelphia will rejoin the ranks of three-daily cities. The Inquirer reported Friday that the new Evening Bulletin will hit the streets with its first issue today at 3 p.m. today. In an interview with the Inky, the Bulletin's publisher offered no grand goals or even compelling reasons to read. More encouraging is the quasi-mission statement laid out by editor Kevin Williamson, who importantly pledges, among other things, "powerful, honest journalism" and "a rigorous separation between news and opinion." I have trouble believing Williamson's aim of nonpartisanship, but as long as he can keep a clear division between his newsroom and his editorial board, that won't matter. Regardless, I greatly look forward to seeing the paper later today.

A Reason to be Optimistic about Charlie Manuel

Mike Berquist has wrapped up his exhaustive season-in-review series with a thoughtful and provocative set of conclusions. I don't agree with all of them, but it's a great read. Mike predicts 90 to 93 wins for the 2005 Phillies, thanks in part to the hiring of Charlie Manuel. In addition to the "He's Not Larry Bowa" line of thinking, Manuel inspires optimism for another reason, as Michael Klein explains in his Inqlings column in today's Inquirer:

New Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, quizzed on his favorite cheesesteak spot, lets on that it's not one of those big, well-marketed joints. He likes Mama Angelina's, a neighborhood place at 1337 Locust St., across from the Doubletree Hotel. For overall grub, he says he favors another out-of-the-way spot: Popi's, an Italian joint on 20th Street near Passyunk.

As I've pointed out before, if you want a real cheesesteak, and not a $7 rip-off, you stay away from Pat's and Geno's and head for the 'hood. Just as you don't need to go Starbucks to find a great cup of a coffee in Seattle, you can scarf a great steak sandwich on any of a zillion streetcorner shops in Philadelphia. Charlie Manuel earns major props in my book for recognizing that. Maybe he's not as aw-shucks goofy as we think.

You Cannot Be Serious!

If Will Carroll's sources are to be believed, the Phillies have a 10-year, $155 million offer on the table to Carlos Beltran.

I'll wait a minute so that you can clean your monitor screen of the beverage you just spat onto it in disbelief.

Carroll supplements his report on the Beltran bidding war with appropriate caveats, but insists that his sources are solid. Todd Zolecki begs to differ, when asked on an Inquirer bulletin board whether the Phils' "offer" is serious:

If that's a serious offer, the Pope isn't Catholic. And the last time I checked, he is. (Going to Catholic school for 12 years helps me know these things.) I don't know where that number came from, but that's ridiculous. From everything I hear, the Phillies won't be serious contenders for Beltran. They just don't have the financial room to make a deal like that happen.

The only reason for the Phillies to commit that much time and scratch to a really good but not great player is that they know they have to overspend, again, to make Philadelphia an attractive landing spot. By squandering two years of potential, and by allowing Larry Bowa to soil South Philadelphia for two unnecessary seasons, the Phils once more are starting from scratch. Just as they did two years ago, they face the prospect of using truckloads of cash -- instead of institutional reputation -- to foster any sort of desire for other players to come here. Beltran is a fine player, he'd fill a hole, and his skill set is desperately needed -- but the money Carroll believes the Phillies are willing to pony up would be better spent on pitching.

Racer Excellent

Eleven teams of two sprinted for a Chicago subway station as the sixth season of CBS's unparalleled The Amazing Race got underway last night. The lengthy premiere gave producers a chance to really put each team under the microscope, and the images weren't very pretty. While the Accidental Blogist praised Race -- accurately -- as marked by "non-stop action and a lack of whining," the new teams are a generally unpleasant lot. Yes, there are some likable pairs, but the number of self-described "intense" and "eccentric" and otherwise annoying racers is at an all-time high.

Thankfully, the very irritating New York Jews -- hey, don't blame me; they described themselves that way about every 15 seconds last night -- got cashiered first. My hope is that the married entrepreneurs, Jonathan and Victoria, go next. She's tame enough, but he's a California bulls--t artist who likes to browbeat his wife and operates in only two gears, roughly equivalent to "coked out of his mind" and "crashing off the high." And don't even get me started on the married pro wrestlers (no, really).

Regardless of the disturbingly juvenile behavior displayed by too many teams last night, the premiere displayed all of the show's usual zip and creativity. With this season's Survivor sagging under the weight of dull challenges and colorless players, and The Apprentice boring viewers with vacuous pretty people and an increasingly disengaged Donald Trump, reality TV needs Race more than ever. Recent stories in the New York Times and the Philadelphia Daily News have offered an interesting look behind the scenes -- and offered hope that the fun will continue.

Gooooooodnight

The Eagles' win over the Cowboys safely in hand midway through the fourth quarter, my brother and I called it a night. We left the watering hole where we were watching the game, shook hands, and jumped in our cars to head our separate ways. I flipped on 'YSP to listen to the remainder of the dismantling, as any night that sees Dallas get abused, and especially by the Birds, is one to savor fully.

And that's how I came to hear one of the more surreal moments in the lengthy career of play-by-play man Merrill Reese. He's been paired the last several seasons with former receiver Mike Quick, whose last name, alas, is a bit of a misnomer when it comes to his on-air presence. Anyway, as the game ground toward its conclusion, Reese, both giddy with the Eagles' offensive explosion and desperate to keep people from turning off the lopsided contest, tried to engage his partner in some speculation:

Reese: Mike, have you ever imagined what it would have been like being a wide receiver in the West Coast offense?

Awkward, 10-second pause.

Quick: No.

Awkward, 5-second pause.

Reese: Really? You never imagined it?

Quick: No.

Reese: Well, I have.

Just a guess here, but I suspect that clip won't be played when Merrill is inducted into the broadcasters' wing at Canton.

Managing Expectations; Pitching Pitchers

With the Inquirer devoting a stand-alone section to last night's Eagles win, the paper fills the gap in today's sports section with a lengthy profile of new Phillies manager Charlie Manuel. Jim Salisbury's piece is a fairly standard, color-by-numbers affair: Manuel is a tough competitor, don't be fooled by the Southern drawl, etc.

More interesting is Salisbury's story reporting that the Phils have officially entered the hunt for prized free-agent catch Carl Pavano. I'm still not sold on Pavano's status as a stud; one season does not a trend make, after all. I supported Ed Wade's decision to overpay for Jim Thome and David Bell, since he needed to send a message to the rest of baseball that the Phillies would be -- finally -- players. Now that their financial cred has been established, though, and especially since that overspending resulted in two second-place finishes, Wade needs to be more judicious in his spending. If the Red Sox and Yankees want to get in a bidding war for a 29-year-old with one good season on his resume, I say be my guest -- and keep us out of it.

Update: The Phillies today brought back Cory Lidle, and pretty cheaply -- two years at average of $3.15 million a year. Not a bad move -- but still doesn't address the need for a legit top-of-the-rotation starter.