Danny Carcillo, The Little Punk

Danny Carcillo. The little punk. He’s like the Philadelphia Flyers in a nutshell. Little guy, big ol’ fight. Every time he touches the ice, it’s a jab here and some words there. But he gets the job done. Every time he graces my television screen, my cousin and I are compelled to yell “Danny Carcillo, the little punk.” Sure, she works for the Bruins. And sure, I’m a Flyers fan. But the message is the same, and Danny Carcillo, the little punk, embodies these Flyers perfectly.

When my mom was about my age, the Flyers won the Stanley Cup. I’m sure she lived by the saying “Only God saves more than Bernie Parent.” We watched the HBO special on those Broad Street Bullies, and my mom kept saying how what they showed was real. The city truly rallied around that group. The players would go to local bars and supermarkets and really interact with the city. They embodied this city.

The best part about these Flyers, about those Flyers, they were the underdogs. They use their brute force to fight back. They may not have the raw talent the Blackhawks, or Penguins, or Canadiens have, but they’ve got the team. These Flyers will fight for one another, stand up for one another. Take Ian Laperriere. He took stitches, concussions, and the works, and came back. But he didn’t just stand there, or take it easy once he was back on the ice. He dove. And he didn’t care. Teamwork.

Hockey’s not my first choice for a sport. And I can’t find the puck half the time, to be honest. And I still think it’s weird that I’m watching a hockey game, a winter sport, on Memorial Day weekend in 90 degree heat after watching a baseball game. But the way this city could rally around the underdogs, it’s incredible. They keep saying “History Will Be Made.” It’s the NHL’s catchy new slogan. But we don’t need records and history books to document the emotion around this series, this team. We don’t need history to remember this Stanley Cup Final.

And I knew they could come back from three down against the Bruins in the series, and three goals down in Game 7 (sorry, Sammy). They have that much heart. And they may be up against the #2 seed in the Western Conference, but they aren’t the team to back down easily. And they’ll give the Chicago Blackhawks quite a fight before giving up the Stanley Cup. And leading the charge to the upset?

Danny Carcillo, the little punk, & company.

Mystery in the City of Brotherly Love

As Philadelphia Flyers continue their miraculous journey to the Stanley Cup Finals this NHL post-season, the Philadelphia Phillies' offense has continued to sputter. This prolonged lack of offense got me to thinking about the reasons for such a prolific offense to have such a hard time scoring any runs. The Phillies, in their 49 games played thus far this season are at or near the top of every statistical category for offense. They're batting .261 on the season as a team and score at a clip of 4.71 runs per game. I began to do some research on the Phillies' struggles during the second half of this month. They're struggles have been well documented: Daisuke Matsuzaka took a no-hitter in the eighth inning against them on May 22 and they've been shut out five times, including three straight times against the New York Mets on May 25, 26, and 27. So, I began looking at the statistics, breaking down each pitching match-up, analyzing at which time Jimmy Rollins went on the DL, and I believe that I created a relatively possible theory pertaining to the Phillies' struggles scoring runs this month. You may remember, or you may not because it was swept under the rug so quickly by the Phillies organization and Commissioner Bug Selig, that on May 10th, while playing against Colorado in Denver, the Rockies players informed Umpire Jerry Crawford that the Phillies bull pen catcher, Mick Billmeyer was using binocular to look at signs from the outfield bull pen. The Phillies have denied the allegations that Billmeyer was using the binoculars to steal signs, but television footage clearly shows Billmeyer only using the binoculars when the Phillies were batting. My theory is that Billmeyer quite possibly was stealing signs, and now, without that advantage, the Phillies hitters are struggling. To garner data in order to test my hypothesis, I recorded the hits, at bats, extra base hits, result, score, opponent, and opposing pitcher of each game prior to May 10 (the day that Philadelphia was allegedly stealing signs). In the 17 games played from May 11 to May 31, the Phillies recorded a win-loss ratio of 8-9, surrendering the National League East Division lead to the Atlanta Braves. They were a combined 132 for 565 in those 17 games, which is a dismal batting average of .234. With 58 total runs scored, they only scored 3.41 runs per games in this 17 games span. In contrast to the games prior to the binoculars incident, the Phillies were 8-2 in their first ten games of May from the first to the tenth, in which the scored 59 runs (5.9 r/g). That is one more run in the first ten games of May, then the scored in an extra seven games. Maybe this is the reason for the team's slump or maybe it's just purely a coincidence that they will eventually break out of. The only games in which this team has scored in double digits were on May 15 against Chris Narveson (5.528 era) and May 17 against Charlie Morton (9.346 era). Some people may say that it is the quality of pitching or the amount of away games that they have played. But haven't winning at away ballparks and hitting quality pitching well been staples of the Phillies during these past two deep runs into the post-season. Sure, hitting many of the teams aces or number-twos (ex. Tommy Hanson, Anibal Sanchez, Josh Johnson, Mike Pelfrey, John Lackey, Ryan Dempster) and facing two straight knuckle-ballers (Tim Wakefield on May 23 and R.A. Dickey on May 25) isn't easy. But if these team expects to advance to the World Series once again this fall, then they better learn how to hit quality pitching once again. As for the allegations of cheating, the stats are quite scary, but I am not sure they are enough to confirm these allegations. There are far too many variables in the game of baseball to blame a team's struggles on one aspect. If they cheated or not, I don't really care. It seems like the commissioner and all the fans have moved on, now all we have to hope for is the Phillies to be able to move on......