Philly sports in 2017: No titles but plenty of memories

1. Rhys Hoskins hit 18 homers in his first 34 career games (though he hit none in his final 16).

2. Aaron Nola's run of 10 consecutive starts of pitching at least six innings and allowing fewer than three earned runs from June 22-Aug. 12 was something no other Phillies pitcher had ever done. Not Steve Carlton. Not Jim Bunning. Not Roy Halladay. No one.

1. The Phillies set a team record by scoring 12 first-inning runs in a win over Washington in the first week.

2. The Flyers followed up a 10-game losing streak by winning six in a row, nearly tying the 1966-67 Maple Leafs for most polar-opposite streaks back-to-back. Toronto responded to an 11-game winless streak (one tie) by winning seven in a row. They went on to win the Stanley Cup in what was then a six-team league.

3. The Flyers were big winners in April's draft lottery, moving up from No. 13 to No. 2, where they won the right to select Nolan Patrick, who admittedly is off to a slow start.

4. Back in January, Wayne Simmonds scored three goals and became the first Flyer to win MVP of the All-Star Game since Reggie Leach in 1980.

1. Joel Embiid had a jaw-dropping 46 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists and 7 blocks in a November win at the Lakers.

2. Embiid played 48 minutes, 39 seconds of a triple-overtime loss to Oklahoma City on Dec. 15.

3. Embiid's performance on social media is nearly as entertaining as his basketball skills. His trolling of Karl-Anthony Towns was golden.

Euro stepping our way through Minnesota and we ended up raising the cat last night #TheProcess

A post shared by Joel "The Process" Embiid (@joelembiid) on Dec 13, 2017 at 5:48pm PST

1. Ben Simmons recorded a triple-double in just the fourth game of his NBA career.

2. Josh Harris bought the Sixers in 2011 for roughly $290 million. In May, Forbes magazine estimated the team was worth $800 million.

3. James Harden's 51-13-13 in Houston's win at the Wells Fargo Center in January deserves a mention. Asked about trying to defend Harden, Sixers guard T.J. McConnell exclaimed, "It's damn near impossible."

4. How fun was having the NFL draft on the Parkway?

5. Carson Wentz broke the team record with his 33rd touchdown pass. Even more remarkable is that he did it four plays after tearing his left ACL.

6. In his first game starting in place of Wentz, Nick Foles threw four touchdown passes in a narrow win over the lowly Giants.

7. Jake Elliott's 61-yard field goal at the buzzer to beat the Giants in September. What a way to set a team record.

1. Mike Schmidt clumsily saying in June that Odubel Herrera cannot be a team leader because of a language barrier. Herrera's foibles on the field, however, are another matter.

2. Two weeks later, Herrera ran right through a ninth-inning stop sign from third-base coach Juan Samuel and was out at home by five feet. The Phillies lost the game in 10.

3. Plans to induct Pete Rose into the Phillies Wall of Fame were hastily scrapped when it was revealed that Rose had consensual sex with a teenage girl in the 1970s.

4. Hector Neris blew a save against the Dodgers in April by allowing back-to-back-to-back home runs. That's not easy to do.

5. Free-agent pitcher Clay Buchholz lasted just 7 1/3 innings before an April injury ended his season. With a salary of $13.5 million, Buchholz received $613,636.36 per out from the Phillies.

6. Flyers coach Dave Hakstol's replay challenge backfired and resulted in a crucial two-man disadvantage in an October loss at Nashville.

7. Lonzo Ball was picked to win rookie of the year in a preseason poll among the NBA's general managers. Ben Simmons was second.

8. The Sixers gave the Celtics a conditional first-round pick for the right to move up two spots to take Markelle Fultz, who has played in just four regular-season games.

9. Joel Embiid was miffed at the Sixers for telling the public that a January knee injury was simply day-to-day when they told Embiid it was going to keep him out at least three weeks. It actually wound up ending his 2016-17 season – and any chance he had to be the rookie of the year.

10. Doug Pederson should have thrown the challenge flag — or been instructed by assistants to throw it — after a lateral by Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson appeared to be a forward pass. It was a pivotal play in the loss at Seattle.

1. First baseman Carlos Santana is Matt Klentak's biggest catch of this offseason.

2. Phillies named Gabe Kapler as manager | Matt Gelb talks Kapler on podcast

3. These guys made their big-league debuts in 2017: J.P. Crawford, Rhys Hoskins, Nick Williams.

4. Phillies first-round pick Adam Haseley, an outfielder from the University of Virginia

5. Flyers goalie Brian Elliott

6. Made NHL debuts: Nolan Patrick, Travis Sanheim.

7. Ben Simmons started his career looking as if he was going to be a perennial All-Star. Still waiting to see about Markelle Fultz.

8. The Sixers finally added a shooter in JJ Redick.

9. Alshon Jeffery, Jay Ajayi, Tim Jernigan, LeGarrette Blount, and Ronald Darby arrived in town, and Nick Foles and the NFC East crown returned. Jeffery has performed so well, the Eagles gave him a 4-year contract extension in December.

10. First-round pick Derek Barnett has been a solid addition to the Eagles defensive line.

11. The Eagles fired wide receivers coach Greg Lewis and replaced him with Mike Groh.

1. Freddy Galvis, the Phillies' longest-tenured player, was traded to San Diego on Dec. 15.

2. The Flyers traded Brayden Schenn to St. Louis over the summer. Naturally, he's putting up career numbers.

3. Steve Mason signed with Winnipeg.

4. A day after trading Ersan Ilyasova to Atlanta, the Sixers shipped Nerlens Noel to Dallas.

5. The Sixers cut Hollis Thompson in January. They were 50-206 (.195 winning pct.) in the games he played during his four seasons here. Yo. That'll leave a mark.

6. Shortly after the Eagles traded Jon Dorenbos to New Orleans, doctors there found an aortic aneurysm that required immediate surgery. The discovery probably ended his football career, but likely saved his life.

7. Jordan Matthews was another prominent Eagle to be dealt. He went to Buffalo.

8. Former first-round pick Marcus Smith was cut by the Eagles in training camp.

1. Aaron Altherr's grand slam on Sept. 18 off Clayton Kershaw was the first ever given up by the superstar pitcher.

2. Cesar Hernandez started the Phillies season by homering off Cincinnati's Scott Feldman.

3. The Flyers put up a snowman and beat the Capitals, 8-2, in the 2017-18 home opener.

4. A crowd of 67,318 showed up at Pittsburgh's Heinz Field to watch the Penguins beat the Flyers in February.

5. Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, a season removed from finishing second in the rookie-of-the-year voting, was benched for three games back in February.

6. The Sixers beat the Mavericks by 42 in March for their biggest blowout in nine years. "We have been on the other side of these types of things," coach Brett Brown said afterward.

7. The regrettable gif of Jahlil Okafor showing zero effort defensively on a play in March against Miami. Sixers writer Keith Pompey wrote about it here after it happened.

8. The night in February Steph Curry missed all 11 three-point attempts at the Wells Fargo Center.

9. Odell Beckham Jr. celebrated a touchdown at Lincoln Financial Field by lifting his leg as a dog would on a fire hydrant. The receiver afterward claimed it was a response to Donald Trump's calling NFL players sons of (female dogs). Not sure I'm buying that.

10. The Eagles won a coin toss with the Colts for the 14th pick, which is where they nabbed Derek Barnett. The Colts, at 15, picked safety Malik Hooker, whose promising rookie season ended when he ripped up his knee in Week 7.

11. Jeffrey Lurie in January blocked quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo from interviewing for the Jets offensive coordinator's job because he didn't want anything to stunt Carson Wentz's growth. Chan Gailey eventually got the job for the Jets, who are 5-9 and whose offense is ranked 25th. They were 5-11 last year, and the offense was 26th.

1. • Ruben Amaro Sr., former Phillies player/coach
   • Jim Bunning, so much more than the 1964 perfecto
   • Darren Daulton, one of the most popular Phillies of all time
   • Jim Gallagher, Eagles PR man
   • Dallas Green, manager of the Phillies' 1980 world-championship team
   • Roy Halladay wasn't here long, but his mark is indelible.
     • Halladay's memorial ceremony: Matt Gelb's description | Yong Kim's photo gallery
   • Darrall Imhoff, acquired by the Sixers from the Lakers for Wilt Chamberlain
   • Jack McCloskey, former Penn coach who built Pistons' title teams
   • John Reaves, former Eagles quarterback
   • Max Runager, punter for the 1980 Eagles
     • Runager's lonely death
   • Ilkka Sinisalo, member of Flyers'  Stanley Cup finalists in 1985 and 1987
   • Bill Sutherland, scored the first goal in Flyers history
   • Daniel Te'o-Nesheim, Eagles third-round pick in 2010
   • Special mention: Rollie Massimino, not a pro, but he coached Villanova's first title team. That 1985 run was pure magic.

1. • • Zach Witt, a 12-year-old cancer patient, caught a Tommy Joseph home run on Aug. 24. A month later, Joseph invited him to meet the team.
     • Phillies radio analyst Larry Andersen, 64, announced in September that he will work only about half the season starting in 2018.  He said it was "just a personal decision that, in my waning years, I wanted to do some things while I was above ground."
     • Carlos Ruiz returned to Citizens Bank Park as a visitor. He was treated to an emotional video one night and knocked in four runs for Seattle the following day.
     • Brock Stassi's reaction to making the Phillies Opening-Day roster.

1. • • Claude Giroux, a career centerman, was moved in September to left wing alongside Jake Voracek and Sean Couturier. The move has energized the 29-year-old captain.
     • The Sixers finally unloaded Jahlil Okafor. As expected, he trashed them after he settled in with the Nets.
     • Eagles trip to Los Angeles in December included a pep talk from former Laker Kobe Bryant.
     • Good to see Nelson Agholor put his first two seasons behind him and emerge as a reliable target for Eagles QBs.