Shallow | Center

Wiki, Wild Stuff

Because it went over so well last time, Wiki Wednesday returns. You know the drill: Point your browser to Wikipedia, click "Random article," and see what pops up.

Today we celebrate "Inspector Horse and Jocky," a short-lived strip in the U.K. comic The Beano, about a crime-solving equine and his sidekick boy jockey. Think Quick Draw McGraw, but set in contemporary Britain instead of the Wild West. With a set-up like that, how on earth could it have been short-lived? One wonders if there's also a British version of El Kabong.

They Revere Horses, Don't They?

BARBARO WAS put down yesterday, and from all the eulogizing going on, you'd think a beloved sitcom star had passed away. I don't mean to discount grieving for an animal: The official pet of the Shallow Center household is a 10-year-old cat, and when his time is up, I know I'm going to be a wreck. But the public outpouring of emotion seems a bit much for, well, a horse. A horse that won just one race that anyone outside of the small circle of racing aficionados cares about. A horse that few people actually interacted with. TV covered Barbaro's death with somber music and live reports from his home in Chester County, while both the Inquirer and Daily News splashed the news all over their respective front pages. Meanwhile, two people were fatally shot last night in Philadelphia, keeping the city on pace to average more than one homicide per day in 2007. Where, exactly, is the public outcry about this far greater tragedy?

Mets to J-Roll: Thanks for the Bulletin-Board Fodder

CHANNELING HILLARY "I'm in to win" Clinton, Jimmy Rollins yesterday publicly deemed the Phillies "the team to beat" in the National League East. It was a pretty ballsy statement, considering they finished a dozen games behind the division champion Mets in 2006. I'm all for a little bit of swagger, something sorely missing from the too-cool Phils of recent years, but I think it's way too soon to be making such claims. The last time playoff baseball occurred in Philadelphia, Senator Clinton's husband was in his first term, after all. The current roster, while seeming to be an improvement over last year's bunch, hasn't even played pepper together, let alone gone out and competed as a team in anything meaningful. Why couldn't Rollins have said something about taking more pitches and working higher counts? Now that would have excited me.

That Is Some Wiki, Wild Stuff

THUSLY INSPIRED, and with a hat tip to Mark at The Long Cut, it's time for a new feature at Shallow Center: Wiki Wednesday,
in which I browse to Wikipedia, click on the "Random article" link, and post about what comes up. Yes, it's lazy. Yes, it's like when columnists who are out of ideas print their readers' letters and tack a snide comment onto the end of each one. Yes, I'm going to do it anyway.

And so today, friends, we learn a little something about Sainte-Julie, Quebec, a city of 49.5 square kilometers, located east of Montreal. As of 2001, Sainte-Julie's population was nearly 27,000, but it was growing at a rate that would put it at about 35,000 by now. C'est incroyable!

Frozen Out

YESTERDAY MORNING, with a dusting of snow on the ground and sub-freezing temperatures causing some school districts to open late, I browsed over to KYW NewsRadio's website to see if my daughters' daycare was experiencing any delays. At the top left of the page was a link for school closings. I clicked it, and a new window opened with the URL kywschools.com. A new window opened, but no content appeared. Instead, I read the error message from Firefox suggesting that the site's servers might be too busy. Tsk, tsk, KYW. If you're going to tell listeners ad nauseum to check your website for closings, and promise advertisers that bad weather will drive countless pairs of eyes there, you'd be ready to deliver. I'll give them another shot, but if the same thing happens again, I'll eschew the online resource from then on and call the school. Why not just listen to the radio? Come on -- do you want to spend your entire morning listening to hundreds of numbers being recited?

The Commitments

A DAY after he got married, Chase Utley agreed to a seven-year, $85 million contract extension with the Phillies, one of the best pieces of news to come out of South Philadelphia in some time. Utley is clearly the real deal, and I love the Phils' making a public statement acknowledging that. Moreover, the Phillies have become Chase's team, and instead of being an underpaid junior member, he now has the paycheck to back up his leadership. This is just a terrific, terrific development, for both the Phils and Utley, and makes me that much more excited for Opening Day.

Also, Rainy Days and Mondays Really Get Him Down

IN CASE you were wondering, Ed Snider, grand poobah of the Flyers and 76ers, "ain't happy" that the teams under his charge completely suck ass:

"Whenever it gets to the point that I don't want to win, I'm quitting," Snider said. "If that's the way I have to be responsible for the team, I'm quitting.

"If you think I'm sleeping well... I'm miserable. This is the worst year I've ever spent in sports, and I ain't happy."

A clear-eyed glance in the mirror might do Snider some good. He was the one who allowed Bob Clarke to eschew the NHL's evolution from big and slow to fast and skilled. While the rest of the league changed, the Flyers remained dinosaurs, and are now paying the price. And it was Snider who forced out Pat Croce, setting in motion for the Sixers an appalling series of coaching changes and roster makeovers, none of which have helped. Croce isn't everyone's cup of tea, but he placed results above all else, and when he didn't get them, he didn't waste time farting around; he fixed his mistakes quickly and moved on. Ed Snider did a lot of good for Philadelphia sports, but he is an executive whose time has passed.

The Eagles' Poorly Executed Audible

ANDY REID'S flip-flop refusal to let Donovan McNabb speak to the media yesterday is puzzling. Reid has long been credited as being a head coach who treats his players with respect, and certainly McNabb, a veteran who has carried himself with maturity and poise ever since being booed on draft day, has earned the right to do his own thing. The reason cited by Reid for canceling yesterday's presser was that he wanted his rehabbing quarterback to avoid distractions and concentrate on his work. Well, come on. How is sitting for 45 minutes and answering inane questions that he's already seen in print and heard on TV and the radio dozens of time going to keep McNabb from being ready for training camp?

At My Fitz End

IN HIS "Morning Bytes" column in today's Inquirer, Frank Fitzpatrick writes:

As you're watching what remains of the NFL playoffs on TV, try to come up with one good reason why Jimmy Johnson and Tony Siragusa are employed.

Funny, I've been wracking my brain on that very question, but instead of "watching what remains of the NFL playoffs on TV" and "Jimmy Johnson and Tony Siragusa," I use "reading what remains of the Philadelphia Inquirer" and "Frank Fitzpatrick and Stephen A. Smith." Seriously, the writers' union set back journalism in Philadelphia decades by selling its younger talent down the river while protecting veteran hacks who are just mailing it in at this point. (And not just in the sports section, either -- I'm talking to you, Jonathan Storm.) Never mind Fitzpatrick's rote NASCAR digs, his subtle misogyny, his habitual ethnic stereotyping. How can any publication that's considered the region's paper of record -- hell, any publication that's not given away for free at train stations -- actually print this:

Work on your golf swing. If you got a new driver for Christmas, have him drop you off at the range.

Hey, Frank, Shecky Greene called. He wants his sense of humor back.

Putting the "O" in O.R.

MRS. SHALLOW Center is quite a fan of ABC's soapy medical drama Grey's Anatomy, surely the worst good show on television, and so I "watch" (read: am in the same room as she while she's watching) most episodes. A recent plot line has featured George's father being hospitalized at Seattle Grace, where, naturally, things take a turn for the worse, necessitating the arrival of George's entire family to monitor the situation. George is sensitive and passive, and so the producers have given him a couple of testosterone-fueled, meathead brothers, one of whom is played, of course, by ... wait for it ...