Your Monday Morning Roundup

Good morning! Jim here, with my first Monday Morning Roundup. Kyle is currently south of the border honeymooning in Mexico, where I assume he’s having a better time than most fans of Mexico’s World Cup team. So let’s get right to it.

But first, a word from our sponsors:

T-shirts. We’re From Philadelphia And We Fight. Now in green. Get one.

More. Already have all of our shirts? May I recommended checking out Philly Phaithful.

Perfect. Meet Roy Halladay and Jim Bunning at the Philly Sports Card & Memorabilia Show at the Valley Forge Casino Resort on Saturday, September 27. Details and tickets here.

Tickets. Crossing Broad Tickets probably has them.

The roundup:

The Phillies played four games in three days. They scored eight runs. They allowed twenty-two and got swept by the Braves. This has finally gotta be what makes Ruben decide that it’s time to sell, right? If not now, perhaps very soon, according to CSN’s John Finger:

“It’s not going to be easy, with three games in Miami, three more in Pittsburgh and four in Milwaukee before coming home to close out the first half with three against Washington. It’s conceivable that the Phillies could be buried by the time they leave Pittsburgh if the offense continues to roll over with runners in scoring position.”

Meanwhile, one move was actually made as the Phillies shipped infielder Ronny Cedeno to the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for catcher –and owner of a real name — Raywilly Gomez.

In the future, when publications and talking heads go on their usual rants about how Philly fans threw snowballs at Santa, they’ll be required to stop and say “But hey, they do some things right, like that time they booed Gary Bettman relentlessly for three full minutes:

Ron Hextall, like Sam Hinkie right before him, reportedly made a run at grabbing the #1 pick in the draft:

“The Panthers wanted Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds and at least one other player, possibly Braydon Coburn. The Flyers balked at Simmonds. In return, however, the Panthers were also willing to take Vinny Lecavalier and his $4.5 million contract off their hands.

When things didn’t pan out with Florida, multiple sources said Hextall even tried to finagle a way with Buffalo and Edmonton to get to Ekblad, who has a hard, right-handed shot.”

The World Cup’s elimination round of 16 started, and two of the first four games went to penalties to decide a winner as Brazil, Colombia, the Netherlands, and Costa Rica moved on, sending Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, and Greece packing.

Two ex-Sixers got traded for each other.

Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh both also opted out of their contracts (as did Udonis Haslem, the BIG 4!), leaving the Heat with an NBA record salary cap so they can resign all three (probably four) for less money and build a better team.

Clemson’s K.J. McDaniels, drafted by the Sixers at #32, thinks skipping his senior season to enter the draft was the best thing he could have done.

And a New York Times interactive map that claims to show where “Americans are healthy and wealthy, or struggling,” ranked Chester County as the 33rd best in the nation (out of 3,135). The general Philadelphia area did alright overall, with MontCo ranking 82nd, Bucks Co ranking 173rd, Delco coming in way behind at 770th, and Philadelphia County (the city proper) dropping way down at 2,420th. The so-called “worst” counties are all clustered in Appalachia.