Finally

It's been more than a year since I've posted anything on this blog. Sometimes life gets in the way of unpaid scribblings written for the sake of your own amusement and maybe a few of your friends. I felt like I just had to write something today though. I feel vindicated. I feel almost at peace.

Fourteen years ago I was a sophomore in college when the scrappy, scruffy '93 Phils won the National League and went to the World Series only to have their hearts broken by that guy in Toronto. You know the one. I won't say his name. I remember the utter euphoria I felt when they beat the Braves. I remember the intensity. But that was only for a week. I didn't know I would have to wait 14 years to see it again. Essentially, during my adulthood, I have never seen playoff baseball. That all ended yesterday, and not even the thumping of our Eagles a few hours later could ruin it.

I have Mondays off. I have been on this computer for 4 hours now. I have read every article. I have watched every highlight available on this medium. I have watched the celebration over and over. I watched Brett Myers heave his glove into the air like a child. I watched Chris Coste get cut off by a streaking Pat Burrell to hug Myers on the mound. He hasn't run that fast since the Reagan administration. I watched this team celebrate as if they had won it all and I thought briefly, "is this a little too much?" I quickly answered myself. No. In fact, no amount of celebration could be enough for what happened in September.

I won't even start on the Mets. I'll touch base on them when I share a letter I wrote later in this blog. Their collapse was historical. They were the first team to blow a 7 game lead with 17 or less to play, taking the 1,000 lb. gorilla off the back of, ironically enough, the 1964 Phillies as the biggest choke of all-time. But lets get something straight, the Phils of '07 went 13-4 in that stretch to get this done. In a season that saw Jon Lieber, Freddy Garcia, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Shane Victorino, Brett Myers, Ryan Madson, Tom Gordon, Michael Bourn and others all take painful trips to the DL, this team somehow found the fortitude to not give up.

For years, as slow starts have left them mere games from the postseason, the Phils preached that we play 162, but they had forgotten about the first 20. They did it again this year. But this year, as they felt the playoffs creeping closer, it was as if they refused to do it to us again. They refused to do it to themselves again. They willed themselves to this title. We willed to it. I have never been to a sporting event like I attended Thursday night when they dispatched of John Smoltz and the old evil empire from the south as the Mets continued to be beaten into submission by the Washington Nationals. There are really no words to describe it. Palpable? Intense? Somehow they just don't seem to do the job. I can't even imagine the scene yesterday. I had chills just watching it from a barstool.

No one could have foreseen the emotional rollercoaster this month would be for this team. As the sea of towel-waving, crazed fans whipped their square, white cloths in a frenzy pieces of cotton splayed off and made the entire stadium looking as if it were immersed in an early dusting of snow. It was hard to see through. It was hard to breathe around. It reminded me of this season. No one could have seen it, and it left you breathless.

I'll be there on Wednesday for Game One. It will be my first postseason sporting event in Philadelphia. Most of my friends are surprised at that but I grew up in Roslyn. We didn't get a lot of corporate tickets in my neighborhood growing up, and we sure as hell couldn't afford them.

When I'm at the game, besides taking in every minute of what I'm watching and truly enjoying it, I'll be thinking of Kevin Kernan, a New York Post columnist who wrote on August 26 that the NL East was over, and that it wasn't very much of a race. He started his article like this: MEMO to Jimmy Rollins: The best team won.

He goes on to talk about the great disparity of talent between the two teams. I will be thinking of him fondly from my Game One seats. And I'll be thinking about the e-mail I sent him that hopefully by then he'll receive because his e-mail box is full with kind words from Phils fans that are concerned for his well being. But just in case, I'll print the letter here so I can share with you all what I shared with him. Enjoy the playoffs Phils fans. Win or lose, it's already been one hell of a ride.

Dear Kevin,

I'd like to take a minute to thank you for the article you wrote on August 26 announcing to the already ignorant Met fans that they had no worries till October. I'd like to thank you because apparently your heartless group of chest-thumping, secret hand shake sharing, profiling punks in blue and white read the piece and took it to heart. In fact, they must have taped up copies and put them in each one of the players lockers so they couldn't help but know that they didn't have to show up the last month of the season. That it was over. That they could rest.

See Kev, the thing about sports, and I'm sure you won't understand because you've probably never put a uniform on that wasn't sponsored by Joe's Garage, is that there is something more than talent on paper at work when men conspire to play out a long season as a team. The reason the Mets aren't going to the Post Season is because their attitude matches exactly the condescending, self-lauding temperment set forth in your piece. It's an attitude that reeks of New York about as much as most of New York reeks.

"It's not over till it's over." Ring a bell, Kev? Or have you been too busy coming up with your theories on "talent disparity" to remember that? And speaking of your unfounded final 2nd grade reading level statement, lets look at the talent disparity of the Mets and Phils.

Starting pitching there is no argument, although our #1 is better than anyone you have, and our #2 and #3 pitched were better down the stretch than anyone you have, but we'll just give you that.

Our first baseman. Better.
Our second baseman. Better.
Our leftfielder. More productive.
Our rightfield platoon. (You could throw a circus clown out there and it would be better than Milledge. Anyone have an over/under on when he's out of baseball selling heroine on a street corner?)
Our catcher. Better. Why? Well, yours throws like an amputee, the only thing that runs fast on him is his mouth, and over the last month, his definition of clutch had something to do with a CDL license.
Our bullpen. Can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth. Better. Romero, Gordon and Myers have been lights out. Your gaggle of ineptitude out there couldn't find the lightswitch with a map.
And our shortstop. You remember him don't you. You had a MEMO for him at the beginning of your article. Let me refresh: TO JIMMY ROLLINS: The best team won.

He's better as well. He'll be better to the tune of an MVP, because that's what players do. They back up their talk. They don't whine everyday like your shortstop does. They don't go 2 weeks without a stolen base down the stretch. They don't hit .130 in September. He's a joke. Our guy's better.

So there's your disparity. Feed it to the wife beater wearing, Iroc-driving, fake gold chain adorning, pants around your ass fan base that thinks they have a clue in New York.

As for you, Jimmy Rollins handed me a MEMO to pass along. He said "don't be rough on him, Pete. Afterall, he does write for the NY Post." It read. To Kevin Kiernan: I know.

Sincerely,

Pete Lieber

Abreu is Not Even Close to the Problem

If anyone out there blames Bobby Abreu for the rampant incompetence of the Philadelphia Phillies organization and its players they ought to be looked at psychologically. Argue me on that in the comment section, please, so I can prove your complete and utter lunacy.

For eight years, Abreu has done nothing but put himself in the Top 10 in Phillies history in just about every offensive category in the book. That's a long history, kids. Given time to play out his career here, he'll be the top name on most of them. But those are just stats, and in a town so starved for a winner it has people nestling to the teet of Arena Football, horses, and roller derby, no one gives a cheesesteak about stats. They see Abreu and they see a guy whose sliding technique is subpar, so when he goes into second and shortens up his slide (which costs him the bag from time to time), he is called lazy. They see a guy who won a Gold Glove last year and they blame him for it. Let's get something straight, he didn't pay to have himself named the Gold Glove rightfielder. They voted. He won. It's a popularity contest, and after the Home Run Derby, he was popular. End of story.

Many people will bring up his meager numbers with runners in scoring position in the 8th and 9th inning in games. And those numbers are putrid, but how many of those at bats come when they already have a lead, or when they are down by 6 runs. I know the stats for "meaningful" ABs probably won't be much better, but come up with something that means something before you use it as an argument.

The fact is on the whole, Abreu is hitting .340 with runners in scoring position (RISP) and his OBI, which stands for Other Batters In, is 19.6%, which is 9th in baseball. That stat means that 19.6% of the time there are people on base when Abreu bats, they have found themselves a seat on the pine after crossing home plate after that at bat. He has seen 1,815 pitches, second to only Kevin Youkilous of the Red Sox. That is invaluable to a team that strikes out as much as the Phillies. That is invaluable to a team that does not hit well against good pitching. Working the count is something everyone on this team should take a lesson in. Perhaps if other Phillies learned how to work a count, they too would have a .438 on-base percentage. That's Abreu's by the way -- 4th in baseball.

Another complaint about the Phillies you often hear is that we haven't seen a career .300 hitter since Richie Ashburn. Ummmm, Bobby's career average is .302, comparable to Don Mattingly, whose stats are going to look like Mario Mendoza's next to Abreu's by the time Bobby's said and done. And Mattingly never led anyone anywhere either, but in New York, he's the second coming of Christ.

Bobby's lackadaisical play around the wall has raised the ire of a town that says, "If you are going to suck, then you better get bloody doing it, God damn it, because I pay good money to come down here and watch this crap so you better give me everything you have." Well, that is all he has. It is not in his nature, as a Latino player, to give up the body for the baseball. So, get over it you neanderthals. I want someone who is going to break a leg for you as much as the next guy. But honestly, if that's your reason for wanting him out of town, you should give up your tickets, stop going to games. In fact, stop watching all together. You're clueless. Of course you want to see the heart and hustle of an Aaron Rowand, sacrificing bones and noses at every turn. But people have different make-ups. He never whines about the heat he takes. He never complains about being here after hearing it from the ignoramous Phillies blowhards in right field. He comes and plays his game every day. And every year, his production is among the best in baseball. He is solid in the community. He has never beaten his wife because he's single. He has done NOTHING but get turned into the whipping boy for a franchise that can't get its head out of its own ass long enough to do things right and realize what's wrong with this team. Hey, Mike Schmidt, sound familiar?

If they can get Philip Hughes, and he MUST be a part of the deal, then you think about moving Bobby because it frees salary up to get a top notch starter in the off-season and you get that prospect, which they need. Plus, you have to start the reconstruction somewhere. Otherwise, you leave Bobby right where he is, being as consistent as he has been for 8 years. Stop listening to Howard Eskin. The man has never picked up a bat or a ball in his life. He gathers info and reads trends. He's a Vegas linesmaker at best. He knows nothing about sports.

They should be looking to trade Pat Burrell and his 80 strikeouts to 74 hits, even if it's for a bag of baseballs. The team just has to take on his full salary, because that's the money that was misspent. With Randy Wolf's 9 million, and Burrell's 11, and Mike Lieberthal's 7.5, and David Bell's 4.5, and maybe even Corey Lidle's money, they should be able to go out and load up on starting pitching. If you know ANYTHING about baseball, you know that pitching wins, and the Phillies haven't had any since Lefty retired.

At that point, with a rotation that features Free Agent, Myers, Free Agent, Lieber, Hamels (with Madson back where he belongs in the pen and Gio Gonzalez waiting in the wings), I would be quite happy with Victorino starting in left and leading off, and I could care less who they get to play 3rd, but they might be able to get Shea Hillenbrand for Lidle right now. I won't even care who catches because we'll have a core lineup that is just as good with a starting rotation we can count on. Without Burrell, Lieby and Bell, and say they get Hillenbrand, here's a potential lineup for next season, and I have no problem with it if we have a solid starting rotation:

Victorino LF
Utley 2B
Abreu RF
Howard 1B
Hillenbrand 3B
Rollins SS
Rowand CF
Coste C (why not, he's earned his shot, I'd rather spend on pitching than overpay for Benji Molina)
Pitcher

That is a lineup with much smaller holes than this current lineup. The point is pitching. Abreu bashers are just whiners who don't know enough about baseball to complain about the real reasons this team doesn't win. Stop complaining for the sake of complaining, or three years from now, when the Mike Timlins, Bud Smiths and Placido Polancos of the world are either wallowing in the minors or playing for other teams, and Bobby is tearing it up somewhere else, you'll find yourself wondering why we ever got rid of him in the first place. Remember, he doesn't WANT to leave.

Is It Any Wonder?

Every year at this time, teams from both leagues line up to load up on trading deadline talent before July 31. It's that perennial sign that says: "We think we're in it. We think we can win this damn thing." Most times, teams are smoking more crack than Whitney Houston on a bender thinking they are a contender. But there are a few teams from year to year that actually are, and most years, especially of late, those clubs come out of the American League.

Lets talk about what the word "contender" means. In the American League, a contender is 15 or 20 games over .500 at the break. A contender has three starting pitchers that anyone outside the home city have ever heard of. A contender puts 35,000 asses in the seats every night and has five-tool players and closers and set up men who are old enough to drink.

In the National League, on the other hand, a "contender," apparently, is anyone who is still able to field a team after the All-Star Break. A contender is anyone fourth place or above in their division. A contender is anyone that at any point in the season, has won more than one game in a row. In the National League, the Phillies, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Brewers, Braves and Marlins are contenders. None of these teams is remotedly playing .500 ball, by the way, except the Rockies, and lets face it, I have a better chance of scaling the face of the Grand Canyon than they do of actually contending for a World Series Championship.

So, is it any wonder that the National League is the red-headed stepchild to the American League right now? If you are a free agent in the off-season that will garner any value, would you not want to go play with the big boys? Only the Mets are going to pay you in the NL. The Phillies might, but only if mediocrity placates your personality from head to toe.

So, is it any wonder that any real talent that might find itself available at the deadline ends up in the American League? In the AL, 10 teams are toast already, so they aren't truly afraid to deal inside the league. But in the NL, with everyone thinking they are still alive, they don't want to give up real talent to anyone that might be fighting for that all-important wild card.

For instance, the two names most mentioned as the heat turns up this summer are the Phils Bobby Abreu and the Nats Alphonso Sorianio. If the Phils decide to bow out and deal their on-base machine for prospects, there is not a shot in hell he ends up anywhere in the National League. He'll be involved in the big rivalry up north, or he'll end up in Anaheim. Same with Soriano, who may have an outside shot at ending up a Met, but more realistically will head back to his home in the AL. So, say they are both dealt. What just happened? The National League welcomes more young, "talented" but unproven prospects to water down the baseball further, while the AL adds two proven, All-Star caliber studs.

And we wonder why the AL dominates the NL? At this point it's nothing but a pattern, and there's seems to be a lot of cloth.

Bruschetta vs. Croissants

Please, for one second don't think that I could really care less who wins the long, drawn out World Cup, which will mercifully come to an end when Italy takes on France in the Finals Sunday night in Berlin. Don't get me wrong, I rooted internally for the Americans and tipped my Miller Lite to a few people in the bar when they tied Italy, but all in all, it's not our sport. It's the rest of the world's, and I'm happy for them for being so in love with it. But France? F'n France? I'd rather Iraq win this thing.

Here's my take on soccer. I don't like it because of the way most kids start playing it in this country. It reeks of overprotectiveness and fear. It vomits the word yuppie. It's the soccer mom scenario in full bloom, where young children are forced out onto fields to run around like electric football players for 3 hours watching a ball go back and forth like a pinball inside a circle of what looks more like midget rugby players than would-be soccer stars. Most of these kids are forced to play by their parents, who drive a Beamer and a minivan and won't let their kids climb the lowest branches of a tree because they might fall down one foot.

I hated those kids when I was young. I still hate them now, and the thing is, it's not their fault. I coach 8-10 year olds in football, and many of them play both sports. Five years ago, during my first season coaching and in our first playoff game, we had a kid named Brian who missed about 3 practices a week due to soccer because his mother didn't really want him playing football and she obviously was more of a man than her husband. And that's fine. The kid had speed too, for a nine-year old, he could really motor. We're down 6 on our own 40 with one last chance so we decided to go to the air, a rarity at that level of football unless you have that special kid. Brian was a wing, and he slipped out into a flag pattern untouched, wide open. Our QB rolled left and actually set his feet, followed through, and gunned a strike down field to the futbol-er waiting about 20 yards away.

He dropped it. Game over.

Now, here is what I will never forget as long as I live. And while I preached afterward that we win as a team and lose as a team, I wanted to piss myself in laughter when this moment happened. The quarterback, having his season shattered, walks off the field and without a hint of sadness or surprise in his visage, says to me, "What do you expect? He's a soccer player."

That will always live in my mind about how kids grow up playing that sport in this country. Until you get to a certain level, the sport only preaches "activity" and friendship and fun. Sure, those are great, and they should be a huge part of every organized sport. But what about team work? What about commitment? What about the discipline? Those are what I learned in sports. Those are what European and South American soccer players learn, because it's their bread and butter. They have nothing else. If your kid isn't making it in soccer, he's probably not going to fulfill daddy's dreams. Daddy won't have anyone to live vicariously through.

It's just not our sport. That's all. And lets get something straight now. These men playing in the World Cup are some of the world's most amazing athletes. Their stamina and endurance are dumbfounding. Their passion is unwavering. In a country as large as ours, you're going to find a bunch of people to throw out there and not embarrass themselves, just like China does in basketball, or South Africa might in baseball. But it doesn't mean we're a soccer nation.

So, here we are, with Italy and France, and all this hullabaloo over one match, where men will give their all running around a field as big as Rhode Island for an hour and a half+ for it more than likely coming down to a set of one-on-one battles where one guy shoots at a net bigger than Shaquille O'Neal's garage from 8 feet away, with only about a 25% chance of hitting it. Wow. That's exciting.

But for the record, go Italy. You have better food. You have better mustaches. You provide better immigrants with funnier stereotypes. You provide organized crime, which gives us movies like the Godfather, and Donnie Brasco. You have towns where the cabbies drive boats, and your country is shaped like something, unlike France, which is just shaped like Arizona but tilted. For all that, and the thought of the words French and dominance being linked in any sentence wanting to make me puke shards of my own pelvis -- "Italia! Italia!"

Muck N Myers

Everyday, you can pick up a newspaper and read about the utter and complete stupidity of your fellow man. It's as reliable as time. It will never fail. It is ever-present in society. People make mistakes. It's one of the inevitabilities of fallibility, but the true sign of a man is when you can own up to a mistake, admit remorse, and face the music like you bought tickets to see it played.

Brett Myers allegedly raised a fist to his wife, Kim, on Boyleston St. in Boston last Friday in the early morning. At this point, you have to say allegedly, but according to all reports you might as well say that the Phillies allegedly suck right now, or that Barry Bonds allegedly took illegal performance enhancing drugs, or that OJ allegedly killed his wife. Alleged is just a pretenser here. He did it. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. The question is why.

Myers, the volatile righthander who has been Philly's only semblance of decent starting pitching this season, has always been a bit of a head case. His composure on the mound doesn't fool you into thinking that he would be any sort of a pacifist off of it, but what brings a man who grew up an amateur boxer to raise a hand to the woman he supposedly loves? What could have happened? What could she have said in the middle of a crowded street that deserved a bitch slap or a knuckle sandwich (we don't have proof of which of those delightfully appetizing choices were administered that night)? Did she admit to some extra-curricular activity? Or perhaps, was she leaving him? Did she tell him his cutter couldn't cut through mashed potatoes? That his curveball is usually more well hung than he is?

The fact is that there is nothing she could have said that would have pushed me to that point short of her telling me she gave our 3-year old daughter to the recently released pedofile down the street for the weekend. I'm betting that wasn't the case. But as bad as the incident itself was, the reaction of the Philadelphia Phillies as an organization was disgraceful.

I have been a Phillies die hard since the day I was born. Somehow, probably because of my gluttony for punishment, I will remain one until the day I die. But I root for a uniform, and currently I don't have an ounce of respect for anyone inside that locker room or front office. For the players, it's the way they are playing. For the front office, it's because their greed and cowardice became evident in this circumstance, because a win was more important than what was right. Of course, in true Phillie form, they didn't even get the win.

Myers buried himself further with his coarse, remorseless, punk-ass comments to the media after the incident, shrugging it off with nothing but the notion that his lawyer told him to do so. Pat Gillick was cold, pointless and frankly, childishly selfish in his non-comments about how the manager would be making the decisions on whether to let Brett pitch. That is NOT the manager's decision. It should have been Dave Montgomery's, the President of the Phils, who remained as cloak and dagger as the worthless, spineless, money-grubbing, old money jackasses who own this team. If it didn't come from Monty, it should have come from Gillick. I feel for manager Charlie Manual, who is put in the position of playing the role of dad because he has to live with Myers the rest of the season and needs him to be productive, needs his head on straight when he takes the ball. I think Manual made a bad decision, but it never should have been his to make.

Brett Myers should never have taken the mound Saturday to face his hero, Curt Schilling, a family man who gets a bad rap for his selfishness but who no man would ever accuse of being a bad man, a bad husband, a bad father. Myers, that day, did not deserve to be in the same stadium. He did deserve the rude greeting the Boston and Philly faithful in Fenway dulled out. He did deserve the heartbreaking loss his team endured when David Ortiz did his thing in the 10th. He deserves everything else he gets too.

He should have been sent home. It's that simple. He should have been patted on the head by the Phillies and told, "get to your wife, make this thing right, face that music like you paid to hear it, take care of your daughter, reflect on the problem that caused this and take steps immediately to rid it from your life."

None of that happened. Once again, the Phillies failed. Trial or no trial pending. Sometimes you just have to take something for what you know it is. Sometimes the word "alleged" rings out like a funny joke. But then again, it was the Phillies. They aren't the losingest team in sports history for nothing.

On One Night, There Was Baseball

At my 10-year college reunion at the University of Scranton this weekend, a few of my sports junkie friends admonished me for the collapse of this blog back at the beginning of March. I made the typical excuses most would-be writers would make, and by would-be writer I mean, "I would be a writer if someone paid me enough to live on to do so." I said work responsibilities have kept me away from the computer screen. I whined about how the blog I wrote for before this paid me a few bucks a post and that added up to decent extra cash every month. This one unfortunately does not. I moped about not wanting to spend more time on a computer after 10-hour days, especially during the summer.

Then yesterday I received an e-mail from Monster and MLB.com inviting me to enter this random drawing for a free trip for two to the All-Star game in Pittsburgh and a chance to blog it on MLB.com. You get field passes and your choice of All-Star to interview. Plus, they chuck you two grand to throw around. Now, I probably have a better chance of mlb.com reading this and picking me up as a full-time writer, but I figured what the hell, because if I fixed the blog and threw an ad up for the contest, they were going to send me a new hat (see banner to the right). So, for the sake of new hats, and for the fact that I figured out what was making the site look weird, I am back.

It doesn't hurt that right about now my Phillies are teetering on driving me to do drugs (I already drink enough) and the New York Yankees, the pantheon of sports evil and eminence, are in town for a rare appearance at Citizen's Bank Park this week. It doesn't hurt that for the first time in about three weeks, I sat down in the yard with the grill fired up and watched a well played baseball game. The well played baseball game was the part that hadn't happened in a while.

It's no secret to Phils fans that this team is an anomaly. That's a strange sentence. It would make sense that if they were an anomaly there would be a secret behind that, but no, year after year, we look at this crew of supposed talent and wonder why they can't get over the hump. Well, I have your answer. It's starting to leak from the Bank like water used to leak from the rafters of the old Vet. Here it is, in grandiose form. Ready? They are not good enough. Plain and simple. And no amount of numbers from this supposed juggernaut of a lineup is ever going to change that. They aren't good enough from 1 through 8, and they are sensationally subpar on the mound. So, what we are left with is nights like last night when these prickly little players who don the red pinstripes summon up enough testicular fortitude to play like men. Makes you ask yourself why they can't do it every night, doesn't it?

Perhaps it's got something to do with the competition. Do the Yankees bring out the best in people? Does an aging Randy Johnson help fire up the furnace? Does Derek Jeter inspire Abraham Nunez? Does A-Rod put a spark in Pat Burrell? Last night, baseball was played the way it should be played at the Bank. Brett Myers and Randy Johnson battled how pros do, popping spots when they absolutely need to on a hazy and humid sauna-like night in South Philly. Hitters came through in clutch spots on tough pitches, and leather flashed like Mike Mamula in an Allentown bar.

Was it the crowd? Did 45,000 ignite a fire under a team who's nucleus has been together for 5 years now, talking about playing to their potential? There's been crowds before.

Was it the prospect of impressing the Boss and Joe Torre? Are there free agent years on the horizon for some players who may want to head north up the turnpike?

I'm not sure what makes a man bring it at one level one day and another the next. I know I have days at work that I "write it in." Most everyone does. It takes the extraordinary man not to. There aren't many extraordinary men on the Phillies roster. And Philly fans know the few that flirt with extraordinary. They are there every night. Their names are Utley and Rowand.

With that in mind, we can only hope that for a few nights a summer our boys hit the diamond, body and mind, and give us a few moments in the yard with our feet up and the grill firing, where even in our town, good baseball is played, and for at least one night, the losingest team in sports history lived up to 26 World Championships.

I'm back but probably not daily...I may kick out two, maybe three blogs a week. Thanks for your patience.

Curtis Sumpter -- Deal or No Deal?

Curtis Sumpter had a choice to make -- one month versus the possibility of a lifetime of security. Is it worth a gamble? This week, following the mercifully ending Olympics, NBC is putting on its gameshow, Deal or No Deal, every night. On the show, a contestant steps up and picks one briefcase out of 28. In that briefcase is a dollar amount that can range from 1 penny to a million dollars. The contestant is asked to start eliminating the other cases in intervals by choosing one of the scantily clad ratings boosters who hold all the cases on stage. There are several huge amounts below a million, and several small amounts above a penny, and after picking a certain amount of cases and eliminating amounts that aren't in the contestant's case, a banker calls and offers a buyout to try and stop the contestant from hitting the million.

Last night, a lady who brought her whole church choir with her, was down to 3 amounts -- $1, $5, and $300,000. She had a 1/3 chance that $300,000 was in her case. The banker offered her an $80,000 buyout. The choir, and her family, i.e., support system, told her to roll the dice and not take the deal, which meant she would have to choose one more case. She listened to them and promptly picked the case that had $300,000 in it, leaving her case to have only $1 or $5. The banker's offer went off the table and she took home 5 measely dollars.

I use that story as an analogy. The Villanova Wilcats are ranked 4th in the nation and will most likely find themselves a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament. They play a punchy, enthusiastic, hair-on-fire style of hoops that will win the hearts of many sideline college hoops fans once its time for the national stage to take over. They have accomplished all this without, perhaps, their best, or certainly most well-rounded, player.

In last year's 2nd round tournament game against Florida (a game Nova would win before moving on to the Sweet 16 to get hosed by eventual national champion North Carolina), Curtis Sumpter's knee buckled and he fell hard to the floor, tearing his ACL. Coming into the season, it was thought that with a healthy Sumpter, Villanova's chances of winning its first national championship since the miracle of 1985 were real. But in October, Sumpter went down again, and again the ACL gave way.

Twice inside 8 months.

Sumpter immediately went to work on rehabbing the knee with the thought that if he pushed it, he could get back in time to help his senior class, a tauted group including oft-injured Jason Fraser and superstars Allen Ray and Randy Foye, win the title they were close to the year before.

As the season has gone on, Nova has proven resilient without Sumpter, running up a 22-3 record, with losses only to No. 2 UConn, No. 7 Texas, and No. 18 West Virginia. So as we head down the stretch toward the Big East tournament, the 6'7" forward had a decision to make -- play with fire and play this season for a month, possibly reinjuring an already tenuous knee, or take a medical redshirt, eschew leaving with your class, and come back next year with starters Mike Nardi, Kyle Lowry and Will Sheridan for another crack at the prize, and perhaps more importantly, raising your stock for those watching at the next level.

Sumpter is an excellent post presence and creates match up problems with the way he can create off the dribble. He averaged 15.3 points last season, shot 43% from beyond the arc (showing his perimeter presence), rebounded and was widely considered Villanova's best defensive player. All those attributes spell N-B-A, so you would think his decision to come back next year would be easy. You would think he would want to be a showcase so that the money is guaranteed in the future.

But this kid has heart, and he wants to be a part of what is already a special season at Nova. It eats him alive to watch Ray and Foye cutting through defenses. They had been in so many battles together before. So there was the question, deal or no deal? Play or buy another year and a safer chance and guaranteeing your future.

Sumpter didn't need the choir, but the lady on the game show sure could have used him. He took the deal. He'll sit on the bench in a shirt and a tie and if Villanova should happen to go cut through the big dance and cut down the nets he can take solace in the fact that he helped build this team into what it is. And next year, he'll have his shot.