Pot, Kettle: Meet Phillies

Today’s Daily News reports on, uh, a blog postthat was taken down after people got upset.

The blog post in question was by phillyBurbs.com’s Dave Ralis, who started selling wife beater — if the only media you’ve ever seen is this site, a wife beater is a tank top undershirt — t-shirts with Brett Myers’ number on them. (Not the one at right: that’s from The Illadelph, although nothing was being sold there.)

I saw the wife beater post and Cafepress store yesterday, and I decided not to write about it because, uhm, it’s the stupidest, easiest joke in the history of the world. Want to know how stupid and easy it was? I didn’t even make it.

Naturally, however, the Phillies are upset:

“It makes me sick,” one Phillie told the People Paper’s Marcus Hayes when the player learned of the site’s offering.

“The Phillies find it extremely offensive that any person or business would make fun of the very serious issue of domestic abuse much less attempt to make money from it,” the team said in a statement on its Web site.

Ahh, yes. Some dude on a blog making fun of Myers with a tasteless joke is way worse than sending Myers out to pitch the day after he was arrested for beating his wife because he’s your best pitcher.

Personally, I think the Phillies are just pissed they didn’t think of the idea first and weren’t getting a cut of the sales.

Update: phillyBurbs.com has posted an apology. I’ll throw it after the jump.

Dave Ralis’ Home Turf [phillyBurbs.com]
Phillies tire of alienating their few remaining fans; make belated effort to save face [The Illadelph]
Dan Gross | Newspapers’ ‘wife beater’ clothing sparks outrage [Daily News]

More »

Abridged ‘Daily News’ Columnists

Michael Smerconish: Boy, Brett Myers probably wouldn’t have gotten arrested if not for witnesses! (Even Smerconish couldn’t tie 9/11 or his pro-racial profiling stance into this column, but he was able to get the military into it. Of course.)

Ronnie Polaneczky: The Home Rule Charter states that…. something… resigning to run… mayor… City Council… Stalberg… zzzzzzz….

John Baer: The citizens of Philadelphia totally need more than one handgun a month, according to state legislators. (I mean, duh. My gun-of-the-week club is radical!)

Stu Bykofsky: Isn’t it sexist to say a man can’t beat his wife when she’s probably allowed to beat him? Allowed, of course, in the most important court of all, the court of sports talk radio!

TV Reporters, On The Other Hand, Are Crying

Exhale, people. (Well, if you live in Manayunk.) It’s all downhill from here.

Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service: Philadelphia [National Weather Service]

Blogicized: Tremendous Upside

• Hey, the NBA draft is tonight! Get ready to watch the 76ers pick the player who will disappoint fans at least 41 times next season. That is, if he shows up. [Philly-Sports.Net]

• Alert! You can buy FireCharlieManuel.com if you really, really think that firing him will solve all the problems of the Phillies. Or if you have a lot of time on your hands. (Incidentally, the Phillies are losing 6-0 today.) [The 700 Level]

• The body of this blog entry about the housing bubble in Philadelphia is essentially just C&P’ed from the Inky’s story the other day, but the comments are somewhat interesting. Yes, it’s a slow day. [The Housing Bubble Blog via Phillyist]

Lost anything?

It might be here.

Photo by PW photographer Jeff Fusco

Bunch Of People You Don’t Know Want Michael Nutter’s Job

Yesterday, Michael Nutter officially declared he was stepping down from City Council and running for mayor. That means there are only 14 council members, and since nine votes are required for legislation to pass… well, there might not be much legislation passin’ until 2007.

One could argue this is good. Gridlock! They can’t screw anything up! One would probably be right. But some want a special election to fill the seats of Nutter, Rick Mariano and the late David Cohen. And Nutter’s replacements are already lining up, according to the Inquirer. They name several possible replacements, notably W. Wilson Goode, who lives in Nutter’s district and could move from his at-large seat. Ward leader Louis Agre says he’s considering it — “And it should be a ward leader from the area who fills the seat. I wouldn’t mind the job myself. I’m planning on considering it.” — which means he really wants the job.

Will City Council have a special election in November? (The candidates would be picked by ward leaders. Oh, goodie.) City Council prez Anna Verna isn’t saying, which probably means no. Or yes. Basically, I wrote about this so I could share this paragraph from today’s Inquirer:

Fattah, who has been listed as the presumptive front-runner, said in a statement that he wished Nutter well. FattahNutter, whose Council term would have ended at the end of next year, represents the Fourth District, which includes parts of Manayunk, West Philadelphia and Roxborough.

Tee hee. FattahNutter kind of sounds like a really good brand of cookie.

Nutter move sparks Democratic scramble [Inky]
Contenders start to emerge to fill Nutter’s Council spot [Inky]

Phillies Strike Out On And Off The Field

By now you’ve undoubtedly heard that Phillies pitcher Brett Myers, arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife, has taken a two-and-a-half week absence from the team.

The story goes that the pitcher asked for a leave of absence himself, rather than be told by the team to take one. Phil Sheridan has a very nice column today about how the Phillies’ front office managed to handle Myers’ arrest even worse than anything else:

The Phillies failed miserably. Montgomery attempts to explain why in his statement.

“We have been engaged in a difficult balancing of concerns for the rights of our employee, the presumption of innocence, the rights of his spouse, and the legitimate public concern about allegations of spousal abuse by a Phillies ballplayer,” Montgomery’s statement reads.

And it’s true. These matters are complicated. Everyone involved has rights. This is a matter for the courts to handle. That’s why no one has reasonably suggested the Phillies handcuff Myers to the bumper of the team bus, or beat him with fungo bats or do anything else that would trample his rights.

But holding him out of one turn in the rotation - 36 hours after he was fingerprinted and booked on felony criminal charges - would have been an obvious and benign and even charitable thing to do.

Sheridan’s right. (Overall. Honestly, I think beating Brett Myers with fungo bats would be kinda reasonable. And cool.) The Phillies had a chance to show that they were competent in at least one area, and they blew it big time. Putting the obvious things aside, what exactly did the Phillies think was going to be the reaction to letting Myers start the day after he allegedly beat up his wife?

Hopefully, no one needs to be told that hitting a man hitting his wife is wrong. Really wrong. And I don’t think the Phillies think it’s right. But by not saying anything, they looked like they simply don’t care. Oh, one of our players beat up his wife, oh well, let’s move on, there’s a game to be played. And they didn’t even really do everything right yesterday, either. Among other things, could either prez Dave Montgomery or GM Pat Gillick have made themselves for comment, instead of leaving it up to Charlie Manuel? (CHARLIE MANUEL!!)

Hopefully, the Phillies will get Kim and Brett the help they need, whatever they need and hopefully this story can have some sort of happy ending. But with their track record, well…

The Phils, though, have done one thing that at least makes sense. Brett Myers Back to School Pack Day is now:

See? That’s a start.

Myers granted leave of absence [Phillies.com]
Phil Sheridan | After stumbling, it’s too late for Phils to wipe slate clean [Inquirer]
Archives: Brett Myers

Cry And Cry Again

The Daily News‘ Dan Gross writes today about CBS 3’s Alycia Lane, who Gross says is having marital problems. Her husband, Jay Adkins, lives in North Carolina, and Gross writes that Lane hasn’t spent much time with him over the past few months.

Now that’s where the column gets good (emphasis mine):

Lane yesterday morning met with Inqwaster columnist Michael Klein at Starbucks (8th & Walnut) to discuss her marital situation and seek counsel, sources say. Klein has been separated from his wife for two years.

Klein confirms the two had coffee yesterday, but says he wouldn’t characterize the conversation that way.

Adkins, who operates several insurance agencies, did not return our call yesterday. Lane emotionally declined to comment.

Holy shit! Did Dan Gross just make Alycia Lane cry?

Dan Gross | Distance takes a toll [Daily News]

Abridged ‘Daily News’ Columnists

Jill Porter: Let’s hope some good can come from the whole Brett Myers situation.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Good idea: The Daily News sports department expands its online coverage.

Bad idea: Making this your new online logo:

AHHHHH! What is that? AHHHHH! No, seriously.