Russ and Bob recap the Phillies’ recent lack of offense and fan apathy, compare the Phillies broadcast team to the other Philly teams’ crews, and discuss a radical way to restructure the baseball season.
Please subscribe to the show ([iTunes] [Google Play] [Stitcher] [RSS]), leave a 5 star review, and follow us on Twitter: @JoyOnBroad @BWCrossingBroad
Audio after the jump:
Kyle and Russ answer the question: Who are the must-follow personalities in Philly Twitter? The guys also discuss the Eagles’ first preseason game, the BGN break-up, other podcasts, the Bachelorette finale, Tim Tebow v. Johnny Manziel, John Kasich, a Trump card, and the Union advancing to the USOC Final.
Please subscribe to the show ([iTunes] [Google Play] [Stitcher] [RSS]), leave a 5 star review, and follow us on Twitter: @CrossingBroad @JoyOnBroad
Audio after the jump:
Looks like the Union completed their GM search before the Sixers did.
Go figure.
Kristian Dyer at The Athletic says the team will bring in Ernst Tanner from Red Bull Salzburg to replace Earnie Stewart, who left to take a job with U.S. Soccer after two and a half years in Chester.
Multiple sources tell The Athletic that the Union is set to announce this week the hiring Ernst Tanner. Most recently at Red Bull Salzburg as the head of its academy and youth set-up, Tanner has a strong reputation throughout Europe for mining talent and developing it for Salzburg’s youth team.
He held similar posts in Germany with 1860 Munich and Hoffenheim. At Hoffenheim, he also served as sporting director for a season.
Looks like a great hire on paper.
The Red Bull teams, which include New York, Salzburg, and Leipzig, all have a strong track record of promoting youth and bringing home grown talent through the pipeline. That’s what the Union are trying to do as they start a pair of local 19 year olds in defense and continue to promote domestic players from Bethlehem Steel and the YSC Academy in Wayne.
I do wonder, however, how Tanner will approach the international transfer market and wonky MLS rules. He was Salzburg’s academy director and not a senior player-personnel executive, so I assume he was not involved in outside transfers and contract negotiations and things like that.
It’s funny how most people who leave the Philadelphia Union organization go on to bigger and better things. A pair of public relations folks ended up with the LA Galaxy and Atlanta United. A third works for Adidas. Nick Sakiewicz became commissioner of the National Lacrosse League and Taylor Twellman steered his color commentary job into an international ESPN gig.
Sporting Director Earnie Stewart is the latest to hit the upgrade button, turning his two-and-a-half seasons into a national role as the very first General Manager of U.S. Soccer. I don’t know exactly what the job entails, since it’s brand new, but Earnie is a former USA international who appeared 101 times for his country and went on to have success navigating the transfer market and promoting homegrown athletes in player-personnel roles with Dutch clubs NAC Breda and AZ Alkmaar.
I’m confident he’ll do a good job with the USMNT, hopefully better than what he did in Philadelphia, because his tenure here was average, at best.
Kyle is doing a panel this morning as part of the Philadelphia Business Journal’s “Business of Sports” conference in Center City. There are actually four total panels and his goes off last, so I figured I’d come down here for the other panels and put together a running thread with some of the more interesting notes from the event.
It started at 7:45 a.m. with a “teams” panel featuring the following folks:
Philadelphia Eagles: Don Smolenski, President
Philadelphia 76ers: Lara Price, COO
Philadelphia Flyers: Shawn Tilger, COO
Philadelphia Phillies: Dave Buck, Executive Vice President
Philadelphia Union: Tim McDermott, Chief Business Officer
Notes:
One of the first things that jumped out was a question to Buck, who was asked why Phillies attendance seems to be down. We are, after all, talking about a first place club that just took 2 of 3 games from the Dodgers. Buck explained that season ticket numbers are not what they used to be, currently around 9,500 STH vs. numbers that eclipsed 20,000 during the height of the Chase Utley and Ryan Howard era.
When Chase Utley heads to the plate during what may be his final series at Citizens Bank Park this week, I hope Phillies fans give him a lengthy standing ovation, then proceed to boo the ever-living shit out of him.
I think that’s always been the blueprint for beloved former athletes. We show our respect for what those players did in Philadelphia, then shift gears to remind them that they’re now wearing the wrong colors and playing for the wrong team. The stakes are higher as two first-place clubs meet on the diamond, and the meaning is amplified since Utley is retiring at the end of the season, so I’d expect heightened senses and louder volume tonight.
Chase is a competitor, so I can see him as a guy who would appreciate and understand that kind of treatment. After all, he saw it on display for many years, enjoying the wonderful home field advantage that Phillies fans provided at CBP and oftentimes also at Nationals Park and Citi Field. The savvy fan respects the past while understanding the present.
So I think Utley’s situation is very cut and dry.
I’m more interested to see how Manny Machado is received tonight, a guy who was the subject of incessant Philly trade rumors, but ended up in Los Angeles instead.
Tuesday marks the start of the world’s largest soccer tournament’s semifinals with an excellent match between France and Belgium leading off two days of final-worthy matchups. Our friends at Draft Kings are offering Crossing Broad readers a free entry (for first-time depositors) to a one-day, six-player tournament contest:
Crossing Broad fans – You’re invited to a FREE 1-day Fantasy Soccer contest for the knockout round of the World’s Biggest Tournament!– Win Big Cash Prizes– A $5 first-time deposit gets you a free $3 ticket which you can use on this contest– Simply select 8 soccer players to participate– Collect any winnings when the contest endsEligibility restrictions apply. See website for details.
C.J. Sapong has been through a lot with the Philadelphia Union.
We’re talking about a guy who, during his debut season in 2015, broke his face, suffered two concussions, and was suspended for three games due to DUI charges that he ultimately beat in court. He’s been asked to run at the top of Jim Curtin’s 4-2-3-1 formation as the lone striker, thanklessly battling two center backs by himself as he tries to hold the ball up, bring teammates into the play, and win fouls. If you’re talking about auxiliary target man qualities that can’t be measured statistically, C.J. has always excelled in a Union shirt.
Where he doesn’t excel is in the areas that can be measured, the metrics most important to the forward position: goals and assists. He’ll roll key passes for his teammates but just isn’t seeing enough of the ball, nor is he taking his chances when they do come. He’s missed at least five sitters and a penalty this season. He will not and cannot turn and face, dribble a defender, and create his own shot. In basketball terms, he’s a catch and shoot guy with a loose handle who can’t get to the rim.
And that’s absolutely killing the Union right now, because the rest of the team is playing rather well. Union fans are watching Sapong, a guy who scored a career-high 16 goals last season, go through a drought where he’s bagged just two goals and one assist through 1,290 minutes and 18 games, which is now beyond the mid-point of the regular season. He’s making $500,000 this season and is the sixth-highest paid player on the team, behind Borek Dockal, Alejandro Bedoya, David Accam, Jay Simpson, and Haris Medunjanin.
Simpson can’t sniff the field and and will go down as the worst signing of the Earnie Stewart era. Accam, the prized offseason acquisition from Chicago, was bumped to the bench after looking like he forgot how to play soccer coming off a 14 goal and 8 assist 2017. He’s contributed a whopping 0 goals and 0 assists for Philadelphia this season.
Sapong, Simpson, and Accam have put up these combined numbers:
Union have roughly $2.4 million wrapped up in Accam, Sapong, Simpson. Just 2g, 1a in 35 combined games for that group.
— Ryan Bright (@RBrightUnion) July 9, 2018
35 combined games for three guys who are putting up one goal per 1,098 minutes and 1 assist per 2,196 minutes.
