Howard Eskin is having a good day.
Late last night, he was the first to mention the Ryan Howard family lawsuit craziness, and this afternoon, he almost stuck the landing on his Claude Giroux report. Almost.
He reported that Giroux practiced this morning and could play tonight. He was half right. Giroux didn’t practice this morning, and most of the beat writers were quick to point that out by mocking Eskin. BUT. But Eskin followed up and clarified that while G didn’t practice in the morning, he would participate in the pre-game skate and could play against the Rangers tonight:
And sure enough, a few minutes later:
The beats, most of whom EMPHATICALLY downplayed Eskin’s report… well, they had one job, and Howard scooped them. Their reaction was fun.
Sam Carchidi– G’S ON A BOAT, MOTHERFUCKER:
The responses to that Tweet are worth your time.
😛
Carchidi then went into full ass-covering mode:
Carchidi had previously tweeted “He is out tonight” in response to Eskin’s report about Giroux.
Dave Isaac, the youngest in body but oldest in spirit of the bunch, went with his usual anti-social media shtick, because he’s a 102-year-old man:
Isaac had previously tweeted “hahahahahaha” in response to Eskin’s report.
Tim Panaccio, who just assumes you can attach “gate” to anything even remotely controversial:
Panaccio had previously tweeted “he is not here, not skating today” in response to Eskin’s report about Giroux.
Frank Seravalli
Hasn’t tweeted all day.
Sarah Baicker
Though she downplayed Eskin’s earlier report, she merely tweeted that Giroux didn’t participate in the morning skate, which he didn’t.
Randy Miller
Flyers center Claude Giroux, ruled out of Wednesday night’s game at Madison Square Garden due to an ankle injury, might be able to play, after all.
The Flyers tweeted Wednesday afternoon that Giroux will be taking part in the pre-game skate hours after he supposedly wasn’t in town.
Oh, he’s in town.
Giroux was seen by NJ Advance Media entering the Garden at 5:40 p.m. with a walking boot on his left foot. Flyers PR official Brian Smith was with Giroux.
A sign that something was up came early Wednesday when NJ Advance Media noticed Giroux’s equipment arriving to the arenain a Flyers bag with No. 28.
Miller had previously written, after that sign that something was up, “He’s not playing Wednesday and probably won’t play Thursday” in response to Eskin’s report about Giroux.
…
And then there’s me. I have some egg on my face, too (it’s delicious, in case you were wondering). That’s what I get for (for once!) believing the beats and the matter of fact way they stated Giroux wouldn’t play tonight. And believe it or not, the one thing on which Eskin is typically well-sourced is Flyers injuries. Hell, I’ve even written about it. But he’s cried wolf so many times in the last two years that it was hard to take him seriously, especially in the face of virtually every single beat writer shooting him down. And yet, he was still wrong here(!). He did, in fact, misfire. Giroux didn’t practice this morning, but he will apparently practice tonight. He may or may not play in the game. On a scale from 1 to completely accurate, Eskin was at about a six. The Flyers beats? A two. The bar wasn’t set very high.
What probably happened? Giroux wasn’t planning on skating today, but felt better as the day went on, decided to head to New York, someone in the organization with whom Eskin has a relationship tipped him off about it, the message was partially lost in translation (skated this morning-skating tonight), Eskin tweeted his unique version, trumpet beat writers couldn’t find that press release in their inbox, they mocked Eskin, Giroux showed up, Eskin was half right, egg for everyone… and Giroux probably winds up sitting out tonight anyway. Or not. Whatever. Everyone sucks.
