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Mall Bats

At Granite Run, a Wary Crowd Gets a Glimpse of the '06 Phillies

A HEALTHY CROWD, though hardly a swarming throng, was on hand at Granite Run Mall yesterday for Comcast SportsNet's taping of Meet the Phillies 2006. Balls, Sticks, & Stuff and I were there, too, to watch Jimmy Rollins, Tom Gordon, Aaron Rowand, Ryan Howard, Pat Gillick, and Charlie Manuel field softballs from Michael Barkann and Leslie Gudel. Nobody said anything shocking or even mildly surprising. The closest anyone came to true candor was when Gillick acknowledged that the Phils' offseason moves have probably not moved the team substantially closer to his previously stated goal of five additional wins for 2006. The Jason Michaels-Arthur Rhodes trade was a step in the right direction, Gillick said, but there were no grand pronouncements about vast improvement.

What in the World?

The Downside of Global Sports Competitions

DID YOU KNOW that the Winter Olympics will take place next month? Does it make me a bad American or, worse, a bad consumer of entertainment, that it all rather snuck up on me? The Games are being held in the Italian city of Turin, which the natives and, apparently, NBC like to call Torino, which was also the model of Ford that my parents drove when I was a kid. It was an enormous hulk of badass blue steel, with a black interior, and probably got about 4 miles to the gallon. But I digress. NBC no doubt has been working feverishly to develop personal storylines, since the thrill of world-class athletes who are the best on the planet at what they do competing against each other just can't compare to the backstory of a Norwegian luger who once lost his favorite teddy bear in a fjord.

Hearing Things

Michaels: Going? Piazza: Coming?

PHILADELPHIA'S FINEST shouldn't pop the champagne corks just yet. Jason Michaels, aka Best. Mugshot. Ever., may still be headed to Cleveland for set-up reliever Arthur Rhodes, but for now the deal is on hold, pending the repair of a busted transaction between the Indians and the Red Sox. A trade for Rhodes would open up an outfield spot for the deserving Shane Victorino. More important, it would allow the Phillies to swing Ryan Madson into the starting rotation, something both he and manager Charlie Manuel are angling for and something, it seems to me, worth pursuing, given Pat Gillick's inability to land another starter.

Ape Is Enough

Big in Every Way, 'King Kong' Is Another Score for Peter Jackson

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE to overstate just how visually dazzling Peter Jackson's King Kong remake is. From the title simian to raging dinosaurs, from giant insects to 1930s New York, Jackson's picture is an unprecedented delight for the eyes, a popcorn picture that produces countless "How'd they do that?" moments.  If that's all the film boasted, it would have made a pleasant little mid-winter diversion, but the filmmakers invested in real writers and actors as well, and as a result, King Kong is an enormously enjoyable, professionally made, and very watchable capital-M Movie.

You Don't Know Jack

An Outstanding Flashback and a Gripping Encounter Anchor Wednesday's Very Good Episode of 'Lost'

J.J. Abrams & Co. turned in a gripping hour of Lost last night, managing to pull off the rare double feat of both advancing the plot and filling in a major part of a character's back story. Chasing after Michael -- who himself had taken off in search of Walt -- Jack, Sawyer, and Locke were intercepted by the Others in a terrifically chilling encounter. Meanwhile, we finally learned what happened to Jack's marriage, and in the process gained more insight into his desperate earnestness. The hour was tense, layered, complex, and unexpected -- everything that's made Lost such a damn compelling show to watch.

Blogjam

HEY, BEEN a while, huh? In the comments section of my last post, there was an interesting discussion about the snark factor of the various Gawker sites, and how quickly the Wonkette/Defamer/Gawker/etc. attitude can become tired. (Oh, yeah, also about the relative hotness factors of Ana Marie Cox and Maureen Dowd.) At the same time that that conversation was happening, I think maybe I got a little tired of my own snark. Posting something worth reading was becoming an obligation, not something fun, and frankly, there have been other aspects of my life that needed tending to. So I stepped away for a bit.

It's Just Kids ... Kids ... More Kids ... Stupid Kids

A Changing of the Guard at Wonkette Gives Me Blog Envy

IT WAS BAD ENOUGH when blogging hottie Ana Marie Cox confirmed that she was turning over her very, very funny (and quite profane and often smartly inappropriate) political site Wonkette to a couple of second-stringers. Then I came across this depressing item in the story about Cox's departure and about the two new guys:

[David] Lat will be joined by [Alex] Pareene, a 20-year-old dropout from New York University, who will co-edit the site.

That sound you hear? That's me smacking myself over the head with my bachelor's and master's degrees while I set at a desk at my day job.

Priority No. 1: A No. 1 Guy

To His Credit, Gillick Doesn't Try to Perfume the Pig

EVEN AFTER getting his ass kicked virtually by every Phillies fan with a word processor and a high-speed Internet connection, Pat Gillick at least has the stones to stand up in public and concede that signing Ryan Franklin is hardly a robust first step in planning a parade down Broad Street (Inquirer; Daily News). Okay, technically, here's what he said:

The one area that we've been trying to focus on for the last 2 months, since I've been here, is really our pitching. That's the area we have to improve, both the front end and the back end of our pitching.

The Best Medicine

Zach Braff Et Al. Finally Scrub In

MAKING A WELCOME return to the airwaves last week was NBC's underrated, unconventional sitcom Scrubs. J.D. and Co. have grown as characters over the years, but remain flawed, relatively real people who wrestle with careers, personal lives, and all of the other issues that make life the great crapshoot that it is. The show remains quirky, but not self consciously so, and there is, as always, a sweet undercurrent flowing through all of the surreal camera tricks, fantasy sequences, and quick cutaways. Even after the success of Garden State, Zach Braff has kept his head in the game, and the always incomparable John C. McGinley is terrific, turning in Emmy-worthy performances episode after episode. Along with My Name Is Earl, which I caught for the first time last week, the Peacock has a couple of smart, atypical, blessedly laugh-track-free comedies that aren't afraid to do their own thing. Frankly, it's amazing each made it to the air in the first place.

Rating: ***1/2 (of 5)

Snooze Junkies

AS THE INQUIRER continues to struggle with sagging circulation, it need look no further than yesterday's issue to realize why fewer and fewer people -- especially young people -- are reading the paper. On the front page of the metro section, columnist John Grogan spent a mind-numbing 700-plus words bitching about unwanted AOL free-trial CDs he receives in the mail. No, really. And in Morning Bytes, the estimable Frank Fitzpatrick prattled on for nearly 350 words about inflation in sports, and, yes, how much better things were in the old days. I swear on whatever book you consider holy -- the Bible, the Koran, the 2006 Baseball Prospectus -- that I'm not making this up, as Dave Barry would say. The only thing missing is musty reminisces about manual typewriters and 5-cent Hershey bars the size of Oldsmobiles. Seriously -- go pick up yesterday's Inky; if you hold it close to your ear, you can actually hear the paper calcifying.