http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann RSS Feed for DN Col Rich Hofmann en-us Thu, 24 May 2012 19:48:07 GMT http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/20120524_Rich_Hofmann__The_Phillies__Cole_standard.html THE NATIONAL correspondents - newspaper, online, television, or some combination thereof - arrived in the Phillies' clubhouse, one after another, in the hours before the game. MLB Network informed its viewers that it would cut to Citizens Bank Park at the appropriate time. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/20120522_Ted_always_has_Birds_rsquo__backs.html LYONS, TEXAS (population: 40) is where Eagles running-backs coach Ted Williams was born, one of six children. The house where he was delivered is now under water, the site of the biggest man-made lake in the state. It was 1943. It was the age of Jim Crow, fully 2 decades before the passage of major civil-rights legislation by the Congress. “My father wanted to make sure we didn’t grow up in the South,” Williams said. “He felt we would have a better chance in the West.” He went back a couple of times as a kid and remembered, “You talk about a guy who hated Lyons, Texas. I looked around and said, ‘This isn’t life.’ ” http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/152242555.html Truth be told, we all are a little bit bored. The Phillies are marking time until Chase Utley and Ryan Howard come back, at which point they will begin marking time until October. It is too early to be worried in a world with two wild cards and too late to do anything about the age of the team’s core players, so we wait. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/151985725.html HE STEPPED UP on the stage for his press conference, and gave his coach a playful pat on the back, and you could not have smacked the smile off LeSean McCoy’s face if you had tried. On the day he got paid, signing a 5-year contract extension worth $45 million overall and $20.765 million guaranteed, the Eagles’ elite running back admitted that his dominant emotion might just have been relief. “It feels good just to wake up tomorrow and go to work knowing that the deal is done and it’s over with,” McCoy said. “Just thinking about what could have happened, and like I said before, I’m not a guy to try and hold out and do this and do that. I try and do things the right way. I’m just happy that everything is done and over with, and I can go to work happy tomorrow and enjoy myself.” http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/151480835.html IT TURNED OUT to be a good bullpen night: Antonio Bastardo got two strikeouts in the eighth inning and Chad Qualls followed him and got the third out, surviving a line drive that was caught by Hunter Pence in rightfield. Then Jonathan Papelbon — warming up in a save situation — still pitched the ninth after Placido Polanco’s home run turned it into a non-save situation. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/150859285.html IT IS HARD not to think back to Game 1 of the Flyers-Devils playoff series, which is the last time anything made sense. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/20120509_Rich_Hofmann__Another_bad-luck_puck_for_Flyers.html AND SO, THIS is how it ends, one of those only-in-Philadelphia nights. It is a story that we pass down through the hockey generations, like baldness. The Flyers lost a playoff series to the New Jersey Devils and this will be the enduring symbol from the final game: http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/20120507_Rich_Hofmann__Will_Giroux_face_suspension_for_Zubrus_hit_.html NEWARK, N.J. - Claude Giroux has become the Flyers' leader, and no one questions it. He is them and they are him and that is that, at least for now. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/150269275.html The Philadelphia Flyers hold “The Meeting” every spring, and this was the one in 2006. The team employs more than a dozen scouts, scattered in outposts around the globe. Their task is both simple and simply daunting: to identify kids who will grow up to look good in orange and black. In the weeks before the NHL draft, the scouts gather to assemble and sift through a list of these kids. Arguments are had. Voices are raised. It is the scouts’ business, after all, and their passions are being tested, their reputations on the line. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/rich_hofmann/20120504_Rich_Hofmann__Still_hard_to_find_words_to_explain_Flyers-Devils_series.html NEWARK, N.J. - For people who play hockey at this time of year, the desperate search is for victory in any of its many shapes and forms: pretty, ugly, does not matter. For people who watch hockey and write about hockey at this time of year, the quest is for a narrative to explain it all, to validate every personal preconception and cover every eventuality.