March 29, 2006
Healing Wounds in Philadelphia
Rich Jurnack sent me a very good article on African-American fans and players in Philadelphia. There's some hope there that Ryan Howard can heal a half-century of animosity between the black community and the home town team.
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Posted by David Pinto at
03:17 PM
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what about jimmy rollins?
re: ryan howard & black fans in philly
The Philadelphia Weekly piece has it right.
Ryan Howard is the second coming of Dick Allen, albeit from the lefthanded side.
He hits moon shots, 500 feet or longer.
His home runs are usually in the 8th or 9th inning, when the Phils are tied or losing.
He was rookie of the year, like Allen.
He hit 10 homers in spring training this spring, breaking Allen's spring training mark of 9 in 1964. We all know what happened in 1964--Allen had 40, count 'em, 40 win shares in the greatest rookie season by a 3rd baseman ever.
We can all see where this is going. Howard is going to have an explosive year this year.
Will he heal the divisions between black & white? I think not entirely, but Ryan Howard is bigger than life. I often wait for his at bat in games.
--arthur john kyriazis
--philly
re: the Phils generally
Charlie Manuel has made a wise decision at the end of spring training.
he is going with Gavin Floyd and Ryan Madsen in the starting rotation instead of Ryan Franklin, whom he is placing in the bullpen for long relief.
This gives the Phils Lieber, Lidle, Myers, Floyd & Madsen, and suddenly, the Phils have 3/5s of a rotation that is young and can eat up innings, and two experienced starters that can eat up innings.
While not of these guys is a start, Myers posted around 10 win shares last year, and the door is open for anyone to pick up Wagner's 15 win shares out of the bullpen.
--arthur john kyriazis
--Philly