Somehow this story is still going. It seems as if Missanelli can not leave me alone at this point, and quite frankly, it is getting a bit disturbing. With each passing e-mail, I think this thing is over, only to be surprised by another ignorant, egotistic, and disgusting rant from Mr. Missanelli that shows more and more desperation. In each one, as you guys have seen, he touts his 25 years in “the business”. Certainly after that many years, you’d know how to deal with critics, right? Especially when those critics haven proven that you are incorrect. With all of the incorrect information and false “inside info” that Missanelli crams into his articles on Philly.com, one has to wonder if he isn’t in the wrong field of writing; Writing fictional novels would seem to be Mikey Miss’ forte. Here’s the next round with the king of Philly radio:

The best spot in South Philly for Hoagies and Italian Specialties! Right next to Chickie's and Pete's

Missanelli tried to get crafty on me, when he put at the bottom of his e-mail in maniacal capital letters, THIS EMAIL SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR PUBLICATION!!!!

I spoke to a couple of lawyers to make sure we would’t get into any trouble for posting his e-mail but just to be on the safe side, we’ll respect Mikey’s wishes. We’ll give you the paraphrased version of his latest e-mail. (more…)

Have you ever given any thought to how you pick the players or coaches that become your favorites? My Father says “if they wear our colors they’re my favorite”. I’ve thought about this for some time, but two events took place this past week that forced me to dig in to the books and do some research on the subject. Those two things were the reevaluation of Ryan Howard’s achilles tendon that seemed to bring out the “haters”. There are a lot of doubters out there about Ryan. The second one was the trade of Jeff Carter from Columbus to LA. Let’s start with these and we’ll go from there.

Recently we did a poll on phillypressbox.com and on our Facebook page at Philly Pressbox and not one person selected Ryan Howard as their favorite Phillie. We also did a separate poll of who were your 5 favorite Phillies of all time and only one person mentioned Ryan. Honestly, he’s not my favorite either but he’s a really good player. I did some comparisons to the greatest home run hitter and greatest player in Phillies history to see how they match up. Howard is 31 years old, so that was the bench mark to compare Howard’s stats to Schmidt’s when he was 31. Schmidt played in 1336 games and Howard in 1027 games. Schmidt had 4581 at bats and Howard 3794. Schmidt hit 314 HR’s, Howard 286. That’s 28 less homers in 309 less games and 787 less at bats. Schmidt led the league in Home Runs 5 times and Howard twice. Schmidt had 1216 hits and Howard has 1043 hits. Schmitty’s batting average was .265 and Ryan’s is .275. Now for the big stat against Ryan Howard – Strikeouts!!! Howard has struck out 1207 times and has led the league once while Schmidt struck out 1148 times and led the league 3 times. Obviously in the field there’s no one like Mike Schmidt. This isn’t meant to compare Ryan Howard to Mike Schmidt but to compare Ryan Howard to greatness. His numbers match up pretty well against the Greatest Player in Phillies history. Besides that, have you ever heard a bad word off the field about Howard? He’s a genuine nice guy!!!

That brings us to Carter. Why is it that people don’t like Carter? I keep hearing that he and Mike Richards liked the night life of Philly too much. Really? They were in their 20’s, single, millionaires that are out having a good time. Do you think players from other teams sit in the house at night? More importantly why do we care what they do outside their uniform unless it’s David Akers and many others trying to raise money for charities or their foundations? Do you really care about the 76ers player that had 8 children with 3 different women and 2 of the children outside his marriage while he was married to his wife? Who cares, it’s his business so why do we care about Carter? In Carter’s Flyers career he scored 181 goals and had 162 assists scoring 46 goals in one season and topping 30 in two others. Yet, many people were happy to see him traded by the Flyers and seemed it was funny that he was traded to LA to play again with Richards. Why don’t we like Jeff Carter?

Moving along to a few others that I find interesting. We love Dick Vermeil but we hate Andy Reid. Vermeil is still on billboards in town after leading the Eagles to the Super Bowl and losing, ummm 32 years ago. Vermeil coached the Eagles for 6 ½ seasons and had a record of 54-47. The Eagles finished first in the NFC East 1 time and 2^nd – 3 times under Vermeil. Everybody seems to want a shot at Reid, although I’m not one of them. Reid has been with the Eagles for 13 seasons. His record is 126-81-1. The Eagles have been to one Super Bowl and lost. They have won 6 NFC East titles and have finished 2^nd – 4 other times. Why don’t we like Andy Reid?

Andre Iguodala is next on the list. At the start of the season everybody said this guy had to go. Here we are at mid-season and he’s selected for his first all star game. Iggy is the best player on the team but we have no love for him. He’s a hard worker on both ends of the court and is a fantastic defensive player. He’s in his 7^th season with the 76ers and it’s surely not his fault there hasn’t been anyone to play around him. He’s averaged 79 games a year up to this year, they only play 82, and he’s averaing15.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg and 4.8 apg over his career. These aren’t superstar numbers but solid none the less. Why don’t fans like Iggy?

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