Winter - and spring - of our sports discontent

It's playoff time in the NHL and NBA.

Which means the winter of our sports discontent has turned into a miserable spring for Philly sports fans.

The Sixers are looking for a new coach, picking through the rubble of a season that went awry shortly after they acquired what they thought was one of the best players in the league, 7-foot center Andrew Bynum. Of course, Bynum never stepped on the court for the Sixers. Hell, he didn't even take part in a full practice. He did, however, do some bowling and was recently spotted doing a pretty mean Flamenco dance.

The Flyers, who have rewarded Philly fans for a long time, are also watching the playoffs this year.

The Wells Fargo Center sits quiet.

Across the street, fewer people are going through the turnstiles at Citizens Bank Park, as the Phils get off to a shaky start made all the more dicey with the news that Roy Halladay was being placed on the 15-day DL with a sore right shoulder.

This week, unless we work the late shift or are devoted night owls, we don't even have the luxury of watching the games, or writing about them in the paper. The Phils are out on the West Coast. They opened a series against the Giants last night and certainly appeared to have their work cut out for them. Their weak-hitting lineup looked like it might be overmatched against Giants starter Madison Bumgarner, who entered the game with a sparkling 3-0 record and 1.55 ERA.

And he's a lefthander, who always give the Phillies left-handed dominated lineup problems.

So what happened? Of course the Phillies won. Cliff Lee outpitched Bumgarner, and Dom Brown hit a homer and made a great catch in the outfield. You can read it here.

That's something else that's different. While the 6-2 win by the Phils ended too late for our print edition, we can still deliver the news to you online.

Is it what I would like? No. I hear from print readers all the time who are irate every time we offer something online that is not available in print. I'll no doubt hear from them again today when they read the notice with our coverage of the Roy Halladay visit to the disabled list  that last night's game ended too late for the print edition and that they should go to DelcoTimes.com for complete coverage.

Just one more little nugget of sports in what is quickly shaping up as the desert of Philly pro sports.

Comments