Sarge goin in headfirst

Turn up the volume and ignore the wonderful, JV camera phone quality (you wanna buy me an iPhone?). Listen to the end when Sarge comes back on camera…

…Am I wrong or did Sarge just call Wheels Muff? First ‘Rock Around the Cock’ and now this. Phillies baseball is definitely trending towards NC-17. Just please leave Mrs. Phanatic out of this.

He's been there

I can just imagine the scenario now…

Paul Holmgren waking up the morning after a long weekend ice-fishing trout and drinking moonshine in the Canadian wilderness with the boys, finding himself on the floor of his cabin, looking at his outgoing call list, seeing 27 calls with Ray Emery’s agent–and some mispelled text messages–popping two aspirin, calling the league to verify the fact that yes, you did just bring back that Ray Emery from Russia to be the “answer” to an almost 15-year old problem that has haunted this franchise, gathering his affairs and saying “holy shit I need someone in front of the net if I want to keep my job.

While I can’t speak for Homer’s future job security, Ray Emery’s job is now 6′6″, 220lb of ass-kicking defenseman easier. After taking time to think about it, it is true we paid a kings ransom to get him and YES, we did give up Luca Sbisa who looks like he could be special. I also hear the moans about him being unsigned beyond this season, but regardless of these circumstances getting Pronger is a HUGE addition for this team. It is truly is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to add a legitimate surefire first ballot Hall of Famer with plenty of juice in his legs. Think about all the positive effects…

• Pronger himself is an absolute BEAST. Like not only crosscheck-you-in-the-back but eat your first-born child kind of beast. He plays with a constant mean streak, runs the power play and has a wicked hahd slappah. He’ll play 30 minutes against Crosby and Malkin and then ride the bike in the locker room afterwards watching video of him slashing their knees. There’s a Chuck Norris reference in there somewhere, but I’ll stop short of seeing it through.
• He makes every single other defenseman on this team take a DEEP breath. No disrespect to Kimmo Timonen–a fantastic all around defenseman in his own right–but Pronger immediately assumes top dog role and makes everyone’s life easier. Timonen can do more, Coburn can do more, and I bet Matt Carle becomes a more impactful player this season with decreased responsibilities on the defensive end. Sidenote, I wonder where Jiri Dopita is. Anyways, perhaps most importantly, getting Pronger relegates Randy Jones to the short bus  and 3rd line minutes. Great hockey hair, mediocre hockey player.
• This team was SORELY missing a leader in the locker room last year. Even though I didn’t see him having this much effect on the scoresheet, Billy Guerin would have been a superb voice and a proven winner in the locker room. He kind of reminds me of the guy from the Just for Men commercial where the daughters give their divorced father a pep talk and a carton of the company’s headline product. Then the character goes out and has a hot cougar laughing over braised lamb shank and merlot. Kind of like Guerin going from Long Island spending Friday night in with the girls to Guerin pulling chicks with Maxime Talbot and Pascal Dupuis (Cindy isn’t allowed out past 11 at Mario’s house). Hell, Guerin’s girls were even in the crowd for every home game on TV with signs for their daddy! What Pronger brings on and off the ice every night in terms of leadership and intensity will rub off on everyone and imagine this…it could make Mike Richards an even more focused and well-rounded captain, if not player. Scary

Sure, it stinks to lose Sbisa, but this is a move that they had to make.

Other Saturday afternoon sporting notes…

Can Jayson Werth pretend everyone else is a Blue Jay pitcher? Do you think his sheer domination on Rogers Centre (goofy Canadians forgetting how to spell!) turf would have translated to the Vet concrete? I say yes.

What if that team meeting last night serves as the galvanizing wakeup call to this team and they kick it into gear. J-Roll starts tomorrow, hits a leadoff bomb and Moyer throws 8 scoreless before disappearing into a cornfield in Iowa? We won the World Series, a Phils fan can hope.

I really kind of wish Jrue Holiday was pronounced as it looks, if for no other reason than to hear old white men across the tri-state region struggle to fiure out how to say it.