THAT’S TURRRRIBLE: What is it with NBA players and gambling? Sir Charles ran into some gambling problems this week when it was reported that he owed $400,000 to the Wynn in Vegas for some unpaid gambling debts. The Wynn — what, you don’t call him that, too? — sued him for the money and Chuck ended up paying the $400,000 but still owes another $40,000 “processing fee” (read: “juice”) to the District Attorney. According to Charles, he’s not going to gamble for at least a year or two. We’ll see how that goes. Charles is really just lucky that it’s not the old days in Vegas when someone named Vito or Tony (AHEM) would come calling for that $400,000. Now, it’s all handled by the D.A and the civil courts. How boring. It is interesting that the D.A. takes a 10% vig on the transaction, though. Shit, I guess it’s not all that different now after all. But seriously, if he keeps gambling at this pace, and there’s every indication that he will despite what he says, it won’t be long before we see Chuck on TV hawking everything under the sun. I’m sure TNT isn’t paying Sir Charles enough to cover his enormous gambling losses. Which really is just turrrrrrrible.

DELCO’S DISGRACE: In more NBA/Gambling news, Delco’s own Tim Donaghy aka The Crooked Ref is going down and trying to take the rest of the NBA with him. Donaghy employed the ever-popular “everyone else does it too!” defense. The NBA, though, has done a really good job of making this a non-story. It should be one of the biggest scandals to hit sports in the modern era aside from maybe the steroids issue in baseball, and it’s been reduced to a side-note. Despite professional and college sports leagues’ refusal to even acknowledge the existence of sports gambling, the fact remains that as long as gambling is as huge an industry as it is, there will be corruption in sports. Tim Donaghy isn’t the first, and he sure as hell won’t be the last to allow himself to be corrupted. He may, however, be the first guy to do it in a “NOT IN MY TOWN, SCUMBAG” t-shirt.

“See, the quotation marks mean that we don’t really mean that the person is a scumbag! We’re just keeeeeeding!”

ARE YOU SURE HE CAN’T PITCH EVERY NIGHT?: In brighter news, Cole Hamels continues his dominance with another superior performance last night. The Kid pitched 7 shut-out innings bringing his total to 16 scoreless innings, and man, is he fun to watch. The Phils managed to notch a win despite the fact that they only managed to score 1 run in the game, which came in the top of the 9th inning on a pinch hit RBI single from Dobbs followed by another save by Brad Lidge. The silence of the offense is a little troubling, but this lineup will be fine. What’s more troubling is the continued ineptitude of Brett Myers who is coming off of his 2nd consecutive horrible outing. With any luck, Myers can put together a decent game or two and the Phillies will be able to unload him to a team desperate for starting pitching. It’s time to face it, Brett Myers is a bust and it’s time to move on, Opening Day starter or not.

Once, I was loved. But not here, not now. Now I’m just the second “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” joke on Philebrity in a single day. Sigh. Don’t tase me, bro.

THE TIME IS YOURS: Everyone’s favorite obese mormon did an interview this week for Comcast Sportsnet where in typical Reid fashion, he gave us nothing new. When asked about the team’s lack of a premier wide-receiver Reid mentioned that the Patriots went out and got new receivers and were unable to “capture the crown.” Andy, you’re not serious, are you? You’re going to compare the Eagles with the Patriots, and use the Patriots’ inability to “capture the crown” as evidence that you don’t need a receiver? That’s even more delusional than I thought you were, and I already thought you were pretty fucking delusional… (that sweaters pic has gotta be around here somewhere, shit, it’s not). Someone should mention to Andy that the Patriots’ won all of their regular season games last year, and have won 3 out of the last 5 Superbowls. The Eagles on the other hand are coming off of an 8-8 season in which their offense sputtered and limped through the season. Of course, that’s just me being a typical negative Philly fan.

Our story is about chicken fingers, loss and imaginary comparison points between us and one of the winningest teams in modern football history.

Tony Carpenter’s “The Sportin’ Life” now appears on Philebrity each Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm.