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Articles by 'By Frank Fitzpatrick
The mysterious death of another Eagles Hall of Famer in 1947| Frank's Place
As with some insoluble sports arguments, there are no easy answers in the 1947 accident that killed Eagles Hall of Famer Bill Hewitt. No other vehicles were involved when his car ran off Route 309 near Sellersville in Bucks County and slammed into a concrete culvert. There were no indications he’d been speeding or drinking. And the roadway, while dampened by a light January mist, was hardly slippery.
Drinks with Darren Daulton, car rides with Lenny Dykstra: one beat writer's memories of the 1993 Phillies
Frank Fitzpatrick covered the 1993 Phillies for the Inquirer. He looks back on that memorable team in this 25th anniversary, remembering their chip-on-the-shoulder intensity and screwball antics while also reflecting on ruthlessness of time and the transience of popularity. Read the full story here. Here, Fitzpatrick shares his memories of that unforgettable year. 1. Interviewing Lenny Dykstra for a spring-training feature, I found myself in his brand-new, 12-cylinder Mercedes convertible.
A look back at '93 Phillies offers sobering lesson in ruthlessness of time
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The 1993 Phillies’ listening tastes leaned toward hard-rock Whitesnake so it’s doubtful many were familiar with a classic Broadway musical whose plot, perhaps better than more-logical rationales, explains the wildly implausible summer when they delighted a city that recognized itself in them. In Damn Yankees, Joe Boyd, a long-suffering Washington Senators fan, makes a deal with the devil, surrendering his soul to guarantee a pennant for the perennial American League doormats.
By Frank Fitzpatrick Verified, Yong Kim, Cliff Schiappa, Alejandro A. Alvarez Verified, 'By Frank Fitzpatrick
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inquirer.com
When and how the Phillies once played nine innings in 51 minutes
Not much is absolute about that Sunday afternoon in New York. No one knows if the Phillies and Giants conspired to set a baseball record that nearly a century later still exists. No one is sure if the batters displayed unusual impatience, if the players showed extra hustle in exiting and entering the field, if the pitchers worked even faster than normal. In fact, all that’s really certain about the Giants’ 6-1 Polo Grounds victory over the Phillies on Sept.
Muhammad Ali's secluded Pa. camp and the fight to save it, led by John Madden's son
ORWIGSBURG, Pa. – Inside the log gymnasium that was this rustic training camp’s centerpiece, in the small room where Muhammad Ali got rubdowns on an old yellow couch, dozens of messages, etched into pine walls like hieroglyphics, tell the story of the legendary boxer’s tenure at this remote Schuylkill County hideaway.
The undertaker who brought Jim Konstanty to life | Frank's Place
Andy Skinner must have felt strangely helpless when, on June 11, 1976, the body of Jim Konstanty arrived at his Worcester, N.Y., funeral home. In the past, this small-town undertaker had always been there for his bespectacled friend. Now there was no advice to be offered, no lesson to be learned, nothing to be done but ready his corpse for a Sunday afternoon funeral.
Ashes of an industry: a Pennsylvania tradition is dying, one baseball bat at a time
AKELEY, Pa. – Alongside the roadways and power-line clearings that weave through the deep Allegheny Mountain forests here, fallen and defoliated trees lie in gruesome heaps like Civil War casualties in a Matthew Brady photograph. This hardscrabble region, having earlier experienced the departures of its oil and gas refineries, its railroad yards, its steel and iron mills, must once again deal with loss.
Temple's Drew Nolan, the Owl without an off-switch | Frank's Place
Drew Nolan is 70 now and retired, but his intensity hasn’t extinguished. He still speaks the way he once played basketball — relentlessly, furiously, breathlessly, often unaware of where’s he’s headed. There was no one else like Nolan in the Big Five of the 1960s, or in all the decades before or since. Nearly 50 years after his inimitable Temple career ended, he remains, for me, among the most enduring and enigmatic characters in Philadelphia’s basketball history.
How a baseball painting launched a culture war | Frank's Place
I can’t remember what drew me there. Maybe it was the promise of warmth. Maybe I was dragged unwillingly. Most likely I was trying to impress someone with the ounce of wisdom I’d acquired as a college freshman that crazy autumn. Whatever the reason, during Christmas break 1967, I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition on Ben Shahn. Shahn was still alive and much of his work dealt with progressive causes — civil rights, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, organized labor.
The 'contest' that won the 76ers their name | Frank's Place
In August 1963, when I was a close-minded 13-year-old and America was smothered by conformity, the new name of Philadelphia’s new NBA team seemed both revolutionary and ridiculous. What were they thinking? Pro teams bore the names of animals or historical figures, not numbers. The two exceptions – the NFL’s 49ers and baseball’s Colt .45s – at least referenced familiarly used terms. Everyone knew the 49ers were California gold-rushers and Colt .45s six-shooters.
Taking a swing at virtual reality: how Villanova baseball is using tech to improve at the plate
Heads down, hoods up, hands buried deeply in pockets, Villanova students hustled through an icy wind that lashed their busy campus. Though it was a sunny mid-April morning, it clearly was not baseball weather. But inside Falvey Memorial Library, in a hushed, confined, first-floor corner that, while heated, wasn’t much larger than a utility closet, a couple of Villanova ballplayers were taking batting practice, 2018 style. Batting practice is a misnomer. There were no bats or balls.
Fran Dunphy, Ray Didinger and Inquirer readers on what Bill Lyon's story means to them
Bill Lyon established such a bond with his readers that retirement and illness can’t sever it. The former Inquirer sports columnist’s latest piece on his ongoing battle with Alzheiemer’s disease and my accompanying account of how he composed it drew enormous reader reaction. Here are a few of their emailed responses: “I just had to express my compliments and well wishes to you for your fantastic article in last Sunday’s paper regarding our old friend, Bill Lyon.
'This is not the NCAA as usual:' big changes are coming in college basketball
WASHINGTON — With the sport enmeshed in a widespread FBI investigation into corruption and its governing body disparaged as toothless, an NCAA official pledged Monday that this summer his organization will adopt reforms to “profoundly alter the college basketball landscape.” “We can’t change the culture overnight … but accountability will be increased,” Don Remy, the NCAA’s chief legal officer, told a meeting here of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a group that emphasizes...
Bill Lyon rages against the darkness | Frank Fitzpatrick
The eyes that so keenly observed a thousand sporting events were shut tightly as Bill Lyon rocked in his recliner and tried to snatch stars from the gathering darkness. In his long and notable career as an Inquirer columnist, Lyon had a gift for finding the angels in his subjects. His eye was as powerful as his voice was sweet. And while Alzheimer’s disease has eroded those gifts, it hasn’t eliminated them or muted a powerful desire to write.
As Sixers and Celtics face off in playoffs, an old rivalry comes to life in a new NBA
Recollections of what once likely was sport’s greatest rivalry seem dim now, black-and-white images engulfed by a haze nearly as thick as Red Auerbach’s cigar smoke. Long ago, those scenes from 76ers-Celtics playoff dramas were near the heart of Philly sports: A delirious Convention Hall crowd chanting “Boston is dead!” Boston Garden fans encouraging the 76ers to “Beat L.A.!” Auerbach’s arrogant cigar ritual. Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell.
97-year-old returns to Franklin Field as a Penn Relays runner
In 1960, after a malfunction with the experimental microphone he was wielding for NBC at the NFL championship game, George Scott got to relax in Franklin Field’s press box and watch the Eagles win a title. On Saturday, 58 years later, he’ll be back at Franklin Field for another major sporting event, the 124th Penn Relays. But this time his job won’t be nearly so easy. This time Scott, who turns 98 in October, will be running.
For Marc Zumoff, the 76ers' ups and downs don't matter
The former nerd from Northeast Philadelphia, gym-fit at 62 and NBA chic, walked into a King of Prussia coffee shop in a sports jacket, stylish sneakers, and tight-legged jeans, his face adorned with metrosexual glasses and a hipster’s stubble. A few patrons recognized Marc Zumoff. When he ordered a decaf coffee in that clear and emphatic voice that has been the official soundtrack to 76ers basketball since 1994, others did, too.
The Philly sports fan who became a WWII hero | Frank's Place
The cassock and collar he wore most of his life didn’t exclude Msgr. Francis W. Kelly from the proud breed known as Philadelphia sports fans. Raised near 38th and Aspen in West Philly’s old Corktown neighborhood, the garrulous, twinkly-eyed, and opinionated priest was passionate about the Phillies and Eagles and West Catholic football before and after his 1937 ordination.
HBO's film on Joe Paterno is a tragedy, not a documentary
“While there are no villains, there are no heroes either. And until you make the final discovery that there are only human beings … you are liable to miss something.” — 1920s’ sportswriter Paul Gallico The octogenarian in a hospital gown, limping lost and befuddled down a hospital corridor at the start of HBO’s “Paterno,” couldn’t have known his life and reputation were about to change forever.
A 1968 Villanova-Kansas meeting was Wildcats' launch pad
Villanova’s long, meandering voyage from a college basketball program anchored in the Philadelphia area to one that now sails in the national headwaters was aided by savvy coaching hires, by consistent recruiting triumphs, good timing, and financial largesse. It wasn’t an overnight journey.
Ethel Lyon, 74, columnist's wife and muse
On those few occasions when he referenced her in an Inquirer column, Bill Lyon liked to compare his feisty, diminutive wife to a football player. But in their 53-year marriage, Ethel Lyon was more accurately his muse, his emotional foundation and more recently his caregiver. “The one who’s in charge of me, the one doing the heavy lifting in this partnership barely measures 5-foot-1 and hardly ever breaks 90 pounds, but, friend, she is a middle linebacker. Lace and barbed wire.
Sports are an ally in the war against Alzheimer's for Pa. couple
A flat-screen TV glowed like a hearth fire in the darkened family room where Ron and Joy Pott huddled cozily on a sofa watching a Kentucky-Alabama college basketball game. Occasionally, their peace was interrupted by the announcer’s shrieking. “Dick Vitale can just drive you crazy,” Joy Pott said, reaching for the remote.
The Arena: A sports time capsule for Philadelphia | Frank's Place
Just before the clattering train dipped and disappeared into the dark tunnel near 46th Street, the Market Street El passed the most noteworthy stretch of the trip from 69th Street Terminal to Center City. Sometimes on fall afternoons, if you peered through the grimy windows, you’d see West Catholic’s football team, city champions in 1962 and 1965, practicing behind that school. Then, outside Channel 6’s studio, you might spot the line of American Bandstand’s dancing, teenage stars.
Bill Tilden and the fateful day that launched a legend | Frank's Place
From his towering vantage point, a few thousand feet up in the blue holiday sky, the Curtiss J-4 biplane’s pilot spotted the West Side Tennis Club’s classic Tudor clubhouse and began his descent. This assignment was a cakewalk for Navy Lt. James Murray Grier, a Philadelphian who had grown up on North 11th Street and become a decorated World War I pilot in France’s famed Lafayette Escadrille. Grier’s lone passenger that Labor Day afternoon, Sept. 6, 1920, was Army Sgt. Joseph P. Saxe.
Cael Sanderson's wrestlers have a grip on Penn State fans
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — When No. 1-ranked Penn State lured an all-time NCAA-record crowd to the Bryce Jordan Center last month for a dual meet with Iowa, it was obvious that the college sport had absorbed some of professional wrestling’s knack for extravagant entertainment.
Local bobsledder Jamie Greubel-Poser picked the Eagles in April (with video proof)
In the eyes of Philadelphians anyway, if Jamie Greubel-Poser captures another Olympic bobsled medal this week in Pyeongchang, it would be only the second most impressive feat she’s managed in the last 10 months. Back in April, a few weeks after the Eagles signed Nick Foles as a backup QB and long before the 2017 NFL season, the Newtown Olympian was asked by NBC to predict the participants in Super Bowl LII. “Eagles and the Patriots,” Greubel-Poser says in a moment preserved on video.
At 28, Olympian Adam Rippon pursues an old dream - Philly
Usually, the journeys and dreams don’t endure as long as Adam Rippon’s. Typically, when professional figure-skaters near 30, most abandon their Olympic hopes and either retire or retreat to the ice-show circuit.
As we celebrate this new Eagles championship, an old one fades away - Philly
When I was a Temple senior, during one of those countless years when no Philadelphia sports team was parade-worthy, I had an English professor who was both an egghead and an Eagles fan. It seemed so incongruous, no less now than in 1972, that this committed academic, one who wore flowing scarves, smoked a pipe, wrote poetry, railed against the Vietnam War, and marched for peace, could also care so passionately about Ben Hawkins.
For Eagles' defense, timing was everything | Frank Fitzpatrick
MINNEAPOLIS – All night the Eagles defense had been stampeded by the Patriots offensive herd, or, to be more accurate, by the lone GOAT that is New England’s quarterback. But up by five points with just over two minutes to play in a spectacular Super Bowl LII, and with no good option but to stop Tom Brady for a first time in the game, an Eagles defense that had all but disappeared conjured the miracle this franchise has waited decades for.
The Eagles' Beau Allen's name carries A lot of weight in Minnetonka - Philly
MINNETONKA, Minn. – Beau Allen is a kind of prairie John Kruk — a guileless, unpretentious, whimsical, big-bellied, Suburban-driving professional athlete who happens to play in Philadelphia. Though he’s only 26, Allen is already a legend here in this suburb 12 miles southwest of Minneapolis where he grew – up, out, and in every other direction. In part, that’s because he was a four-year football force at Minnetonka High.
Road trip: Milwaukee, where the Eagles' Brandon Brooks got tough - Philly
MILWAUKEE – Like Brandon Brooks, its most famous alumnus, Riverside University High School is massive, sturdy, and built to withstand and protect. The 103-year-old, four-story brick bastion, home to 1,600 college-bound students from all across this city, occupies a rise along the Milwaukee River, a mile east of Lake Michigan.
Road trip: Eagles' Brent Celek caught football fever early in Cincinnati - Philly
CINCINNATI – The self-authored comments beneath the senior yearbook photos for LaSalle High’s Class of 2003 were mostly what you’d expect from 18-year-old boys — brash, boastful, ambitious, aspirational. “Things didn’t fall the way I wanted,” he noted glumly, an apparent reference to his 4-7 football team, “but I still had fun.” In Celek’s case, fun was relative.
Road trip: Eagles Jason Kelce played everything from hockey to the sax - Philly
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio – If Jason Kelce is looking for ways to spend the extra money that, win or lose, he’ll earn in Sunday’s Super Bowl LII, the hockey team at his old high school has a suggestion: “The kids want him to buy them another Foosball table,” Eddie Babcox, Cleveland Heights High’s longtime hockey coach, said Tuesday morning during a conversation in his equipment cluttered office adjacent to Cleveland Heights Community Center rink.
Eagle Stefen Wisniewski's football roots run deep in Pittsburgh
PITTSBURGH – For all its football tradition, for all the Dan Marino memorabilia, golden championship trophies and black-and-white photos of historic teams that festoon its weight-room walls, Pittsburgh Central Catholic doesn’t have a stadium of its own. The practice field is crammed into a tiny, green canyon beneath towering Carnegie-Mellon University buildings that encroach on this 91-year-old boys school’s Oakland campus. Its weight room is in the basement of an antiquated gymnasium.
The Great Eagles Airlift to Super Bowl XV | Frank's Place
It was midnight. It was New Orleans. And nearly 4,000 dispirited Eagles fans, crowded into a corner of New Orleans International Airport, were eager to get home. You do the math. Somehow, though, that combustible mix never ignited. Within six hours of the Eagles’ loss in Super Bowl XV on Jan.
Eagles' Patrick Robinson's pick-six changed course and the game
Fewer than eight minutes had been played Sunday, but inside packed Lincoln Financial Field, where a week of wild anticipation had yielded a crazed atmosphere, the decibel level was beginning to slip like a postgame reveler on a South Philly light pole. The Vikings had muffled some of the raucous enthusiasm with a near resistance-free touchdown on their first possession.
Norm Van Brocklin: The ghost at the NFC title game | Frank's Place
Norm Van Brocklin, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin columnist Sandy Grady once wrote, “was the pure hard metal that stays with you.” The rough-edged quarterback who guided the Eagles to their last NFL title in 1960 was a born leader with a big heart and a hard-earned wisdom. But those qualities often were obscured by profanity, impatience, and a congenital orneriness. He disliked overly analytical coaches, careless blockers and receivers, and more than a few sportswriters.
The best Vikings team left three ex-Eagles with worst feeling
In the instant after Morton Andersen’s overtime field goal defeated his Minnesota Vikings in the NFC championship game, the normally stoic Randall Cunningham fell to his knees. His shoulders sagged as, like a religious supplicant, he dipped his head to the Metrodome turf. “I’m tired,” Cunningham said in a disappointed hush later on that Sunday, Jan. 17, 1999. “I’m drained.
Eagles' corner Jalen Mills came up big on last play, when Julio Jones came up short
A great, sustained burst of noise shook the divot-pocked turf beneath Jalen Mills’ feet as the play began that not only would decide Saturday’s NFC divisional playoff but might forever define the second-year Eagles cornerback’s career. The Eagles led, 15-10, with barely a minute left. The Falcons faced a fourth-and-goal at Philadelphia’s 2.
It's been 13 years since the Falcons visited the Eagles in the playoffs. A lot has changed
Thirteen years ago, in the same month, in the same fan-clogged South Philadelphia stadium, the Eagles and Falcons met in another playoff game, that one for the NFC Championship. Much has changed since the Eagles’ 27-10 victory on Jan. 23, 2005 — new coaches, new quarterbacks, a Super Bowl loss for each franchise, and rosters that, except for Atlanta backup QB Matt Schaub, have been completely remodeled.
Eagles' 1960 NFL title win included a fan brawl that history has forgotten | Frank's Place
The seemingly endless contemplations on the nature of Philadelphia’s sports fans bring to mind that cloying holiday song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The same tired litany of offenses is repeated ad nauseam — “Four fans a-brawling … Three drunks in Vet jail … Two batteries hurled … And a snowball in Santa’s left ear.” As evidenced by the many references during the Eagles’ recent Christmas Day telecast to the infamous Santa-shelling of 1968, the compulsion to enumerate and reiterate...
Eagles' 1960 NFL title win included a fan brawl that history has forgotten | Frank's Place
The seemingly endless contemplations on the nature of Philadelphia’s sports fans bring to mind that cloying holiday song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The same tired litany of offenses is repeated ad nauseam — “Four fans a-brawling … Three drunks in Vet jail … Two batteries hurled … And a snowball in Santa’s left ear.” As evidenced by the many references during the Eagles’ recent Christmas Day telecast to the infamous Santa-shelling of 1968, the compulsion to enumerate and reiterate...
D'Andre Swift takes fast lane from St. Joe's Prep to NCAA championship game
D’Andre Swift was born to run. The Georgia freshman’s surname implies that. His high school coach believes that. And his brief career in the Bulldogs’ star-stuffed backfield has done nothing but confirm that. “God got up one morning and decided to make a great running back,” Gabe Infante, who coached Swift at St. Joseph’s Prep, said Thursday. “And then he gave him this great name, too.
Carson Wentz's surgeon, James Bradley, is an innovator well-known for work with athletes
While details of Carson Wentz’s knee operation and its aftermath remain a mystery, shrouded by HIPPA restrictions as well as by the NFL’s obsession for secrecy, his surgeon’s identity makes it likely no cutting-edge technique has been ignored. Dr. James Bradley, a former Penn State football co-captain who repaired the Eagles quarterback’s torn ACL earlier this month in Pittsburgh, has long been an advocate of innovative strategies when treating NFL stars.
Sixers again a Christmas presence on NBA's second season opener
If Tom Carelli had second thoughts about putting the long-benched 76ers in the leadoff spot of this year’s NBA’s Christmas Day TV lineup, a recent visit to the Wells Fargo Center swatted them away. Carelli, the league’s senior vice president of broadcasting, and his 12-year son were part of the emotionally drained crowd that watched the Sixers fall to Oklahoma City in Dec. 15’s triple-overtime thriller. “I think I’m finally relaxed,” Carelli said five days later.
Bill Lyon and his corner woman in the fight against Al
Sometimes when there’s a pause in her tedious daily ritual, when someone else is tending to her husband’s many needs, when she has a moment to reflect on this strange and occasionally terrifying place where she’s landed after 53 years of marriage, Ethel Lyon shuts the door in one of Apartment D-203’s two small bedrooms and cries.
Army-Navy: Philadelphia's college football spectacle always special
It’s an annual pre-Christmas miracle, one that even in an overcrowded sports calendar, even in a city obsessed with its professional athletes, even in a nation where the military’s footprint has been greatly diminished continues to delight. During the 86 occasions over 118 years when the Army-Navy Game has been played in Philadelphia, its significance as a football contest has fluctuated up and — for much of the last half-century – down.
Why Pittsburgh, not Philadelphia, has been Pennsylvania's pro sports capital over last 50 years
PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh and Philadelphia share a common first letter, a commonwealth and little else. Philly’s got more people, more land, more attitude. Statistics suggest it’s more expensive and more stressful to live here. We’ve got more history, more theaters and restaurants and 1.6 million more TV-viewing households. But in the one comparison that matters most, at least to all the sports-crazed residents at either end of Pennsylvania, the Steel City holds a sizable edge.
The Tiny Dancer who made football history | Frank's Place
Every time I saw him witness one, I watched as his hands unconsciously strangled the chair’s arm rests, his head tilted threateningly toward the TV, his face turned a Phillies red. “That guy ought to be put in front of a firing squad,” he’d say. It wasn’t, I suspect, an uncommon response among World War II- era men. For many in that emotionally suppressed generation, a pat on the back was an over-the-top gesture of affection.
Reading is on the rebound, thanks to a basketball star
READING – There’s a ubiquitous poster of Lonnie Walker in this weary city’s elementary and middle schools, an image of the ex-Reading High star soaring for a dunk, his elbow cocked, his mouth open, his hair standing on end like an exclamation point. Located at chest level is an inset, a letter Walker wrote last spring to the children of his oft-maligned hometown in the wake of Reading High’s first state boys’ basketball championship.
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