PBR: FOOKIN’ PUNTERS!

BY PATRICK BERKERY Down in the Big Easy, where the Eagles’ unexpected playoff push came to a screeching halt Saturday night, there’s a colloquialism called lagniappe. It means ?a little something extra.? And what Jeff Garcia, Brian Dawkins, Brian Westbrook, Marty Mornhinweg et al gave us after Donovan went down was a totally unforeseen little something extra. Well done, boys. Well done. That said, the way it ended stings. Badly. Lagniappe, schmaniappe, I say. The defense might?ve been sucking wind late in the fourth quarter, but Garcia was still cocked and loaded (insert rumors of Garcia being homosexual-related punch line […]

PBR: Playoff Foreplay, How Much Do YOU Need?

BY PATRICK BERKERY Love these Nerf-ish Eagles profiles the local news roll outs during the playoffs. Dunno know about you, but nothing gets me ready for game day more than a reporter who knows nothing about football hanging with player X and his trophy wife at some atrocity of a Toll Brothers home in south Jersey, while the rugrats zip around in toy Hummers in the background. Are you ready for some playoff football? This “On the Sidelines” report from Fox 29’s Michelle Williams is a little different. Watch as she “ooohs” and “aaahs” at long snapper/magician Jon Dorenbos’s card […]

PBR: Burrell Trade To Red Sox In The Offing? Shhhh…

BY PATRICK BERKERY Name-dropping: it isn’t just for sycophant promo-sexuals anymore. (I’m not naming names, but if you’re feeling a little hot in your complimentary My Morning Jacket fleece pullover, as your Shins advance plays in the background and you’re meeting Irv Fucknut from Suck My Dick records for dinner at the Tin Angel tonight before some emerging singer-songwriter’s 7:30 set, then, yeah, I’m looking right at you.) So humor me, and my little brush with baseball genius. I participated in the annual Hot Stove Cool Music benefit concerts in Boston last weekend. Lots of baseball dignitaries like ESPN’s Peter […]

PBR:Blogging Mama McNabb? Jeff Garcia as S.I. Cover Boy? Armchair Actuaries Crunching Salary Caps With Ant’ny Gargano On WIP? WHAT IN THE NAME OF BUBBY BRISTER IS GOING ON HERE?

BY PATRICK BERKERY About six weeks ago, I’m on tour with the Pernice Brothers. I’m in the lobby of a hotel outside Eugene, Ore., watching some AFC game on a rainy Sunday with Kevin, our merch guy. We’re discussing the rapidly approaching twilight of Donovan McNabb’s career, guesstimating that if he doesn’t bring home a ring this year or next, he’s the Jim Kelly of the ’00s — just with a higher Q rating. Then they cut to footage of McNabb being helped off the field in Tennessee with a grimace on his face that says “See you in 8-to-12 […]

PBR: The ANSWER Needs A New Question

PATRICK BERKERY REPORTS: Guess Billy King passed on Stephen A. Smith’s suggestion that the Sixers and Allen Iverson kiss and makeup. Again. (Seriously, does Screamin’ A. answer to anyone at the Inky’s sports desk?? What’s he working on for Sunday’s big Jeff Garcia-T.O. grudge match? 1,000 hard-hitting words on how T.O. is just misunderstood? But I digress?) The concept of the Franchise Player seems to work on paper but not so much in practice, at least not in this town (see Moses, Barkley, Schilling, Rolen). The first time A.I. and Larry Brown couldn’t co-exist, ’round about 2000, the best the […]

PBR: Phils Re-Sign 43-Year Old Moyer To Two Year Extension, Just To See If A Major League Pitcher Can Live That Long; Bullpen To Become No-Fly Zone

Not sure how I feel about this Jamie Moyer extension. Thought it was a stroke of understated brilliance on G.M. Pat Gillick‘s part to pick up the crafty 43-year-old southpaw for the Phils’ unanticipated stretch drive. Moyer did exactly what I — and Gillick, I’m assuming — expected: soft toss his way once around a league mostly unfamiliar with him and his throwback style of American League “backwards” pitching (i.e. — working off your off-speed stuff rather than your fastball)…

PBR: Bolt-Throwing Gods of Hockey Angry, Smite Hitchcock; Whistling Past Smoking Hole In The Ice, Bobby Clarke Quits To Spend More Time With Fam

So the Flyers tried the old stealth firing, under cover of darkness and the Sabbath: Lower the boom on a Sunday morning just hours before a Birds game for minimum fallout. New Flyers Head Coach (former Phantoms coach John Stevens) and general manager (assistant G.M. Paul Holmgren) just magically appear in Voorhees on Monday. Not so fast Ed Snider and Peter Luukko. You’re living in the New Media age. You should know Comcast SportsNet is going to halt the five-hour loop of SportsRise, get Michael Barkann, Neil Hartman and Al Morganti (guess the Erotic Caf? was closed) out of bed […]

PBR: Does Dr. J Got The Benjamins To Buy The Sixers? And Why Stephen A. Smith Makes Us Want To Saw Our Cocks Off

The Daily News‘ Phil Jasner has some Deep Throat dish on Dr. J putting together a consortium to buy the Sixers from Comcast-Spectacor. I haven’t been this stoked about a celebrity assembling a group to purchase a local team since former Gong Show host and C.I.A. operative Chuck Barris (with silent partners Jamie Farr, Jaye P. Morgan and the Unknown Comic) tried to purchase the Phillies from the Carpenter family in the ’80s. Hey, we’re basically riding out the A.I. era at this point and stockpiling midlevel draft picks. This definitely qualifies as big news for the Sixers…Stephen A. Smith. […]

PBR: The Lonesome Horny Death Of PRISM

Big ups to the 700 Level (Even if they didn’t know Joe Morgan played for the Phillies. Hello? The Wheeze Kids?) for posting video of PRISM’s fond farewell. This poignant goodbye from baseball/college basketball analyst Larry Rosen (who I’m certain is still calling hoops somewhere) followed the rarest of occasions — a Phillies victory in 1997. Sadly, I think the channel faded to black about halfway through Larry’s spiel. Anyway, for you youngins and transplants out there, PRISM (Philadelphia Regional In-Home Sports and Movies) was a local cable channel catering to males from the late ’70s through 1997. They broadcasted […]

PBR: Reggie Brown Is NOT Rick James, Bitch!

The biggest source of suck for regional sports networks like the ever-metastasizing Comcast SportsNet franchise is that after the games end, there’s a lot of airtime to fill. There’s only so much pre- and post-game analysis the audience can metabolize before they get the runs. Ditto the newspaper-sponsored round tables where goateed talking heads play devil’s advocate and rehash yesterday’s analysis. What you’re left with is LOTS of paid programming, the occasional CFL grudge match between Hamilton and Calgary and “original” programming like the trainwreck I forced myself to watch last night: CSN’s Monday Night Live. The premise: the likeable, […]

PBR: The Lonesome Death Of The Lonesome Organist

PBR is our regular sports column, wherein our man in the Jersey ‘Burbs calls Philly sports and sports-media as he sees ’em. His name is Patrick Berkery and he plays drums for the Pernice Brothers and, get this, he actually gives a shit about sports. Weird, huh? Born & raised on a steady diet of Birds, Phils, Flyers and boiled potatoes. Phillies season ticket holder since 1978. Longs for the days of Jim Barniak & Spectrum Wrestling on Prism. Thinks all sportwriters dress funny and should stay off TV. Except Phil Sheridan. His feelings on the Philadelphia Eagles are not […]

The Greatest Modest Mouse Story Ever Told

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally published on March 30, 2015. BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR BUZZFEED: Most people don’t know it, but there are actually five, not four, time zones in the United States: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, and Isaac time — as in Isaac Brock, singer, guitarist, chief songwriter, and all-around mastermind of the very popular underground major-label rock band Modest Mouse. The Isaac time zone is usually situated within the city limits of Portland, Oregon, where he resides, but point of fact it’s located wherever he’s standing at the moment. Isaac time is kind of like bullet time in […]