Screen shot 2011-06-27 at 8.57.25 AMRichards' Twitter profile

Good morning, human beings!

Bit of a slow weekend here. It turns out planning a tailgate with six kegs, 400 hot dogs, three hoagie trays, 250 soft pretzels, 100 hamburgers, 100 hot wings, chips and water is quite a bit of work. Thanks to everyone who came out. A good time was had by all (I think). I’m not sure if it was the heat or the bumpy ride from No Libs to Jetro, but some of the kegs were spouting off more head than an insecure drug-binging Lindsey Lohan. We’ll have pictures later… of the tailgate, not Lohan.

 

Couple of quick notes: 

– BIG Phillies – Red Sox series this week. Is there a better way to watch the games than while sipping $1 beers and eating $1 delicious dogs (Tex Mex- yes and please) at any of the three Drinker's Philadelphia locations? I think not. Go here for locations, details, specials, and all that jazz.

– Chase Utley puppet. Plush. Talking to yourself. It’s all here. BC Sports has the new Phillies plush puppets in-stock. And yes, they have Chaseton. Click here to buy them.

– This is where we would normally tell you about the cool Shorthanded Assassin Mike Richards shirt… but, since he’s gone (weeps in corner), check out the other great t-shirts from Philly Phaithful.

– As we mentioned, the Sox are in town this week, and guess who has tickets? We do. They start as low as $33. All available tickets, from all the secondary sites, rounded up into one neat little package. They are sortable by price, location, and deal at Crossing Broad Tickets.

 

The roundup:

– Roy Oswalt lost six pounds worrying if he’ll ever pitch again. Not the sentence you want to read about ace #3. The Flyers’ trades took a lot of sting out of this last week, but there’s no denying that it's big news.

– Interviews!

Ted Sobel talks to Mike Richards about being traded to LA. Warning: more dejected Richards talk. Very tough to listen to. Again. I can’t take it. This is a must listen.

"You go away from your best friend. A guy that you’ve had success with before. Both of us signed long-term contracts there, and thought that we’d play together for the rest of our careers and win a championship together… pretty disappointing. And there were some things that happened in Philadelphia that we weren’t overly happy about, but I think you understand that much more that it’s a business.

We signed long-term deals and got the boot in Philly."

 

The School Philly talked to James van Riemsdyk and got his thoughts on Judgement Day.

"I think, like everyone else, I was pretty surprised to see two guys like that get traded. At the end of the day it’s a business. My agent told me a long time ago, ‘If Wayne Gretzky can get traded, any one can get traded.’ Obviously those two guys were great teammates, great friends, and it’s tough to see guys like that go. But at the same time, it’s part of the business and it gives other guys a chance to step in. Some big shoes to fill for sure."

 

Lavs spoke with CSN. He managed to show almost zero pursed-lipped emotion. There’s a part of me that thinks he was dancing around his house like Hugh Grant in Love Actually when heard the news about Richie. I’ll take you down, I'll take you down. He may be the only guy under a larger microscope than Bryz. The Captain was the fall guy for last year. If this doesn’t work out, the sights will be set squarely on Lavs. He’s done an amazing job at sidestepping any criticism here…

– Our sleuth in Sea Isle tells us it was a low-key weekend for Carts, who still hasn't spoken to the media. His father was down and they went boating.

– Don't forget, later this morning, Jimmy Rollins will try to keep up his 4-for-4 momentum by hitting a ball 600 feet. More details here and here.

– The guy who got yelled at by Jayson Werth for interfering with a foul ball last year caught two over the weekend.

– Bill Lyon, legend, writes about our new Russian goalie. Cold War reference? Oh, you know it. In Soviet Russia, legend scriptual write on internet!

– Rob Ellis and Ryan Bright have more on the trades. We could analyze laying face-up on the couch of fan ridiculousness for years to come. If the Flyers don’t win anything in the next two years, that just may be the case.

Finally, to aid in the grieving process, a reader sent me this:

Like most Flyers fans I am crushed that Richie got traded. Anyway, i’ll be at the Kings vs Devils game Oct. 13th (Just to see Richie) and I have seen a bunch of people saying they’d love to give Richie Thank You letters. So I’m going to put together a scrapbook of Letters from fans thanking Richie, I think it would be great if we could get a ton of fans to write letters, so spread message please! I will wait after the game and give the scrapbook to Richie from all of us. Everybody will get one page, on this page you can have a letter of course with your name (So you get credit) and if you want to include pictures (Maybe you with Richie) that will also go on the page. If you want to send a letter please send it to: [email protected] If you have any questions you can message me on here or at the email above and i'll get back to you ASAP. I promise this is legit, i’m really making this book for the player I love who needs to know that some fans did really think he was great. I’ll be using this page to keep everybody updated on the scrapbook, i’ll post pictures and everything. PLEASE SPREAD THE MESSAGE! RICHIE DESERVES IT.

Happy Monday…