

The Sixers and Comcast Spectacor are dueling in public and behind closed doors over the team’s $1.55 billion proposal for a facility downtown.
By Jeff Gammage and Sean Collins Walsh Staff WritersThe 76ers recently trumpeted a
The team did not provide the analysis behind the figures.
Within hours, the X (formerly Twitter) account of the Wells Fargo Center — the Sixers’ home court — shared an image of the team’s tax-windfall news release, freshly stamped with a single word in bright red letters: Myth The Sixers soon leveled their own denunciation, with lead developer David Adelman accusing Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Wells Fargo Center, of “lurking in the shadows, hiding behind others, while it lobbies decision-makers and twists arms to try to stop the Sixers from building our own privately funded arena.”
For months, the controversy over the Sixers’ plans for a dazzling, $1.55 billion arena stood as a
David-and-Goliath battle between a wealthy NBA team and a Chinatown neighborhood that has long fought for its survival against outside development. Now it’s expanding into a clash between two of Philadelphia’s corporate giants and the uber-rich personalities who run them.
“I never got lobbied more by two sides on anything,” said Councilmember Mark Squilla, who will play a pivotal role in the outcome because his City Council district includes the site of the proposed arena. “My meetings have tripled since this was announced.”
Owned by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the Sixers are a disgruntled tenant at the Wells Fargo Center, the South Philadelphia → SEE ARENA ON A6
The Wells Fargo Center disputed on social media the Sixers’ estimates of tax revenue that their arena plan would bring to the state, city, and Philadelphia school system. Steven M. Falk/ Staff Photographer
World leaders and pop culture figures sent tributes, focusing on the former president’s four decades of global humanitarian work.
By Bill Barrow Associated PressATLANTA — Jimmy Carter has always been a man of discipline and habit. But the former president broke routine Sunday, putting off his practice of quietly watching church services online to instead celebrate his 99th birthday with his wife, Rosalynn, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in Plains.
The gathering took place in the same one-story structure where the Carters lived before he was first elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962. As tributes poured in from around the world, it was an opportunity for Carter’s family to honor his personal legacy.
“The remarkable piece to me and I think to my family is that while my grandparents have accomplished so much, they have really remained the same sort of South Georgia couple that lives in a 600-person village where they were born,” said grandson Jason Carter, who chairs the board at The Carter Center, which his grandparents founded in 1982 after leaving the White House a year earlier. Despite being global figures, the younger Carter said his grandparents have always “made it easy for us, as a family, to be as normal as we can be.”
At The Carter Center in Atlanta, meanwhile, 99 new American citizens, who came from 45 countries, took the oath of allegiance as part of a naturalization ceremony timed for the former president’s birthday.
“This is so impressive, and I’m so happy for it to be here,” said Tania Martinez after the ceremony. A 53-year-old nurse in Roswell, Martinez was born in Cuba and came to the U.S. from Ghana 12 years ago.
“Now, I will be free forever,” she said, tears welling. → SEE CARTER ON A6
The Democrat is known as a dealmaker. She’s urging people to work with
her now or give up a right to complain later.By Sean Collins Walsh Staff Writer
It sounds at first like a laudable if unexceptional plan, something many mayors have promised to do. Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker wants to create advisory councils of industry heavyweights, faith leaders, and policy stakeholders to help guide her administration if she wins the general election.
But there’s an underlying message in Parker’s recruitment of stakeholders across the city: Get on board now — or forfeit your right to complain later.
“I need a structure and an organized vehicle that has anyone who has a nickel in the quarter in that industry at the table, so no one is left out,” Parker said in an interview last week at her campaign headquarters in Stenton. “You may not like the ultimate outcome of the decision, but I will never give anyone the opportunity to say, ‘I have a nickel in the quarter, and this administration didn’t even bother to hear me.’”
The plan is emblematic of how Parker operated as a legislator in Harrisburg and on City Council,
→ SEE PARKER ON A4
The Florida Republican’s vow follows passage of a stopgap measure to avert a shutdown. “Let’s have that fight,” the House speaker replied.
By Marianna Sotomayor, Leigh Ann Caldwell, and Mariana Alfaro Washington PostWASHINGTON — The decision was always going to be his.
With a Democratic-led Senate ready to fund the government in a bipartisan fashion and a Democratic president in the White House, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) would ultimately have to make the determinative choice about whether to avert a government shutdown.
Having exhausted every option to fund the government with just conservative votes, McCarthy sided with Republicans who suggested he skirt a procedural hurdle that obstructionists have previously used against the conference and propose a bill that would appease Democrats enough to keep the government running.
That proposal became law. But it may come with a price: his job.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) said Sunday that he is determined to try to oust McCarthy from his leadership position after McCarthy passed a stopgap measure to fund the government with Democratic support.
The Florida Republican told CNN’s State of the Union that he plans to introduce a measure to remove McCarthy sometime this week, marking a dramatic escalation of the long-simmering tensions between the men. Once he does so, the House will have 48 hours to vote on the matter.
“I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” Gaetz said.
Hard-right obstructionists in the House GOP have made clear for weeks that they would try to oust McCarthy if he relied on Democrats to pass any funding legislation. Under the move Gaetz is planning, called a motion to vacate, a single person can force the House to consider removing the speaker. Such a motion has never succeeded before.
→ SEE HOUSE ON A4
Democratic candidate for mayor Cherelle Parker sat down with The Inquirer for an interview last week at her campaign office. During the discussion, she addressed last week’s episodes of looting throughout the city. To see a video of her remarks, go to Inquirer. com/news/video. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Philadelphia has been trying to rebuild its nightlife since COVID-19 shut it down. In 2022, the city appointed Raheem Manning, cochair of City Council’s Arts and Culture Task Force, to be director of nighttime economy, a role that came with a broad mission to attract and retain businesses operating at night. Is it working?
The former president is aiming to solidify support in counties that he flipped from Democrats in 2016.By Thomas Beaumont Associated Press
OTTUMWA, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump was in southeast Iowa Sunday in the middle of a fall campaign push aimed at locking in supporters with large organizing events.
As he has with his other recent travels to the leadoff caucus state, Trump was campaigning in an area that formerly supported Democrats but has embraced him, as the influence trade unions once held has shrunk and lost voters to Republicans.
Trump was headlining an afternoon event in Ottumwa, where 2,500 packed the inside of an event hall at the Bridge View Center in Ottumwa. The small city is a hub in eastern Iowa and the seat of Wapello County, one of 31 counties Trump carried in 2016 that Democrat Barack Obama had won four years earlier.
It was Trump’s second trip in two weeks to eastern Iowa, where he was drawing large crowds, as his campaign has sought to step up their press to urge voters to commit to support him in the Jan. 15 caucuses, where more than a half-dozen other Republicans are vying to rise as a threat to his popularity within the party.
“With your support on Monday, Jan. 15, we’re going to win the caucuses in a historic landslide,” Trump told the packed event hall in Ottumwa Sunday.
Trump is expected back to the Waterloo and Cedar Rapids areas next week.
decades. His administration’s renegotiation of the U.S. trade pact with Canada and Mexico remains popular.
Rick Anderson and his wife, Nancy, who were filing into the hall, are the kind of voters whom Trump’s campaign would like to persuade to caucus for the candidate on Jan. 15. They used to vote Democratic but switched in 2016 to support Trump. They have not attended Iowa’s Republican precinct caucuses in the past.
Rick Anderson, a retired union millwright who co-owns a small business with his wife, is among the many longtime union members who kept Wapello County and others in Iowa’s once-robust, eastern manufacturing corridor reliably Democratic-performing until Trump.
“We like what he says. He says ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ and that’s got my heart. Because that’s what’s wrong with the country is energy. Solve that problem and you solve so many other problems,” Anderson said. “Democrats have lost touch with people like us.”
As Trump maintains a strong lead in Iowa, his Republican rivals are scrambling for backing, hoping a strong showing can help them consolidate the non-Trump support.
Trump volunteers at the site held clipboards stacked with pledge cards and asked attendees whether they would commit to support Trump at the caucuses.
Trump arrived in Iowa after a two-day trip to California, where he picked up 6 million of his 74 million votes in 2020 while losing the state by 30 percentage points to Democrat Joe Biden.
his awards sit on the kitchen counter next to a Virgin Mary statue and a framed prayer. We have more details, including the asking price.
Pennsylvania’s greatest demolition derby driver sat alone on the roof of an apocalyptic-looking Lincoln, taking long drags from a cigarette. The midway lights of the Great Stoneboro Fair began to pop against the purple sunset, and the wheels were turning in his head. Demolition derby is a lot like chess, Pete Hansen said, except sometimes you’re on fire.
Curt Schilling, one of the franchise’s best pitchers, somehow still has a plaque on the Phillies’ Wall of Fame at Citizens Bank Park. He has one in Fenway Park. too. They should be removed, says columnist Marcus Hayes, who describes Schilling as a “transphobic, Nazi-supporting religious bigot” and adds, among other things: “Take his advice: ‘Pull a trigger.’”
Trump, the first Republican to capture the county since the Eisenhower administration, campaigned the week before in northeast Iowa. There, he drew about 1,400 to rural Jackson County along the Mississippi River and almost 2,000 to Dubuque County to the north. Like Wapello, Dubuque County had been a Democratic stronghold for decades before 2016.
Though aides said they were not specifically targeting counties that Trump flipped in 2016, they noted that he has had success in the eastern part of Iowa where manufacturing has declined sharply in the past two
In a fiery speech that delighted Republicans dejected after decades of Democratic control, Trump escalated his long-standing tough-on-crime message with calls for violent retribution for against criminals. People caught robbing stores should be shot, Trump said to applause. He raised money during his trip to Orange County, once a bastion of conservatism in Southern California that has become increasingly competitive.
While Trump’s would-be Republican challengers sparred in the second primary debate earlier in the week, Trump was in another key blue-collar county in the general election battleground of Michigan. Trump spoke during Wednesday night’s debate in Macomb County, Michigan, north of Detroit at a nonunion manufacturing plant, where he blasted Biden’s push for electric cars amid an autoworkers’ strike. Trump carried Macomb County twice, after Obama did in 2008 and 2012.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes on suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq on Sunday following a suicide attack on a government building in the Turkish capital, Turkey’s defense ministry announced.
Some 20 targets of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were “destroyed” in the latest aerial operation, including caves, shelters, and depots, the ministry said, adding that a large number of PKK operatives were “neutralized” in the strikes.
Earlier on Sunday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near an entrance of the Interior Ministry, wounding two police officers. A second assailant was killed in a shootout with police.
The PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, according to a news agency close to the rebel group. Turkey’s Interior Ministry also identified one of the assailants as a member of the outlawed group. It said efforts were still underway to identify the second attacker.
The attack happened hours before Turkey’s Parliament reopened after its threemonth summer recess with an address by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The two assailants arrived at the scene inside a light commercial vehicle, which they seized from a veterinarian in the central province of Kayseri, according to the Interior Ministry. The pro-government daily Sabah reported that they shot the man in the head and threw his body into a ditch by the side of the road. They then drove the vehicle to Ankara, roughly 200 miles away.
“Our heroic police officers, through their intuition, resisted the terrorists as soon as they got out of the vehicle,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters. “One of them blew himself up, while the other one was shot in the head before he had a chance to blow himself up.”
“Our fight against terrorism, their collaborators, the [drug] dealers, gangs and organized crime organizations will continue with determination,” he said.
Police found plastic explosives, hand grenades, and a rocket launcher at the scene, a ministry statement said.
Erdogan gave his speech in Parliament as planned and called the attack “the last stand of terrorism.”
“The scoundrels who targeted the peace and security of the citizens could not achieve their goals and they never will,” he said.
The president reiterated his government’s aim to create a 20-mile safe zone along Turkey’s border with Syria to secure its southern border from attacks.
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House
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“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz told CNN. “He lied to Biden, he lied to House conservatives. He had appropriators marking to a different number altogether.”
McCarthy, Gaetz said, broke a promise made to hard-right conservatives during the speakership fight that the chamber would move to pass individual spending bills rather than bundling them all together. Gaetz also said McCarthy promised the conference 72 hours to read the bill, and that the budget would return to pre-COVID spending levels.
McCarthy and Republicans have passed four appropriation bills thus far and plan to pass the remaining eight this month. While McCarthy did not give his conference 72 hours to review and vote on the stopgap bill to keep the government funded, his leadership team has followed that rule on a majority of bills passed this year.
“There is almost no promise he hasn’t violated,” Gaetz told ABC News’ This Week.
On Sunday morning, McCarthy was defiant when asked about Gaetz’s potential effort to remove him from his seat.
“I’ll survive. This is personal with Matt,” he told CBS News’ Face the Nation. “If he’s upset because he tried to push us in a shutdown, and I made sure government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight.” Despite McCarthy’s confidence; however, in interviews over the past week, a handful of Republicans indicated an openness to Gaetz’s move.
On Saturday night, both the House and Senate passed a “continuing resolution” that keeps the government funded through Nov. 17 and includes disaster relief funds, an extension of a federal flood-insurance program, and
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and how she would likely govern as mayor if she defeats Republican David Oh in the Nov. 7 general election, as she’s heavily favored to do given the city’s overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.
Parker, 51, is known as a dealmaker. But instead of forcing her will on others during negotiations, her style is to force everyone to the table, whether they like it or not, and to stay at the table until the deal is done.
That approach has led to some of her most notable accomplishments, as well as some head-scratching moments. It’s also opened her up to a narrative — fueled by her second-to-none credentials as a Philadelphia political insider — that her vision doesn’t go far enough in challenging the status quo. After all, plans tend to get watered down once everyone has a say.
Parker’s insistence on hearing from numerous stakeholders also reflects a core aspect of her personality. She is a meticulous planner, often to the frustration of her own staff, and she abhors surprises.
“I need structure,” she said. “I have watched leaders who prefer and thrive in chaos and confusion. Some people do well with that. My mind doesn’t work that way.”
Kyle Darby, a lobbyist who worked as a policy adviser on Parker’s primary campaign, said “there’s no detail that’s too small for her.”
“She’s not someone that feels comfortable when she’s in the dark about things,” he said. “Some leaders like plausible deniability or some leaders don’t care for some of the details. She is not that.”
In one of her first extensive interviews since winning the Democratic nomination in May, Parker said her insistence on structure and preparation has everything to do with her background. She is on track to become Philadelphia’s first female mayor, and she overcame a series of tragedies in her childhood, including being raised by a single mother who died when she was 11.
“I am Black, I am a woman who comes from humble beginnings, and I don’t have the luxury of giving a knee-jerk reaction that will be accepted coming from someone else,” she said. “My homework always has to be done.”
reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, but did not include additional aid for Ukraine.
The bipartisan votes came only after McCarthy tried repeatedly to craft legislation that would attract enough House Republicans to pass the bill without Democrats by slashing spending. He fell short despite giving in to many of the demands of his most hard-line conservative members.
Gaetz was one of six Republicans who never supported McCarthy in his fight to take the speaker’s gavel in January, at the beginning of the new congressional term. Those six members eventually voted “present” in the 15th round of voting, lowering the threshold needed for McCarthy’s victory.
But those Republicans and others on the far right have successfully blockaded efforts by the majority of House Republicans who have tried to govern under the constitutional constraints of having to pass bills with a Democratic-majority Senate and Democratic president.
On Sunday, some of those farright Republicans appeared to welcome Gaetz’s approach. Rep. Byron Donalds (R., Fla.), a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News that it was clear McCarthy is in “trouble.” Asked how he would vote on a motion to vacate, Donalds said, “I got to really think about that.”
“There are a lot of trust issues in my chamber right now,” he said.
A majority of the GOP conference still staunchly supports McCarthy and would vote to keep him as their speaker. Rep. Jason T. Smith (R., Mo.) told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that Gaetz would need more than 200 Democrats to join him to remove McCarthy “because more than 200 Republicans are 100 percent behind Speaker McCarthy.”
With Republicans holding such a narrow majority in the House, if more than five hard-liners vote in favor of deposing McCarthy, Republicans will need Democrats to help overcome that margin. But their help, if it is even given, would come at a significant price.
Knowing the role they play in this scenario, House Democrats are beginning to discuss how they would handle a potential challenge
‘A high-energy person’
Philadelphia mayors are often remembered for their strengths and weaknesses. And for decades, perceptions about the primary failure of the outgoing mayor have aligned with a defining strength of his successor. Ed Rendell was a cheerleader for the city in one of its darkest hours, but he was biased toward Center City and big business. John Street then focused on neighborhoods, but his administration suffered corruption scandals. Michael Nutter was a reformer, but he couldn’t get along with Council. Jim Kenney pushed major initiatives through Council, but he appeared to run out of gas when crisis struck and the city needed an energetic leader. Energy would not be a problem in a Parker administration.
“I’m naturally a high-energy person. I literally was a cheerleader,” Parker said. “I was the athlete, I ran track, and I was a cheerleader.”
Parker speaks with a booming voice, and says she would “not apologize” for so many things — her upbringing, her tough-on-crime policies, her thoughts on the parking tax — that it has become a joke among political insiders.
And she doesn’t want to be compared to Philadelphia’s first 99 mayors. “There is some added value that I can take from each of them,” she said. “But because no one like me has ever gotten an opportunity to get as close to doing this — if the people decided to choose me — no one should expect me to act like and or be like, walk, talk, govern like any of them.”
Parker keeps a tight inner circle. Since winning the primary, she has been making decisions in consultation with two key staffers: Sinceré Harris, who left a job at the White House to manage the campaign; and senior adviser Aren Platt, a political consultant with experience in state politics who was involved in the earliest conversations about Parker’s campaign. Parker, a former Council staffer and a ward leader, has an enormous network of political relationships. She rewards those who have stayed loyal to her, and like many politicians, she has a reputation
to McCarthy’s speakership, as their participation — or lack thereof — will determine whether he remains as speaker of the House.
Multiple people familiar with the private conversations have said that no plan is final and that McCarthy’s own last-minute scramble to force consideration of a clean short-term spending bill that averted a government shutdown angered many Democrats.
Gaetz said he expects Democrats to protect McCarthy.
“If at this time next week, Kevin McCarthy is still speaker of the House, it will be because the Democrats bailed them out and he can be their speaker, not mine,” Gaetz said on This Week.
Some moderate Democrats signaled that they might help McCarthy because they distrust Gaetz more.
“Every time we all work together, he loses his mind,” Rep. Greg Landsman (D., Ohio) said in a statement. “He doesn’t want the center left and center right to work together because he has to be the center of attention. When we do, he creates chaos to grab attention back. Matt Gaetz has no interest in governing. This is all about TV appearances for him.”
However, some Democrats welcomed the idea of helping Gaetz oust McCarthy. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), one of the prominent progressives in the House, said she would “absolutely” vote to end his speakership.
“I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak speaker,” she told CNN on Sunday. “He clearly has lost control of his caucus … It’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans from themselves.”
Some Republicans expect several Democrats to vote present out of goodwill, after McCarthy changed his weeks-long posture of passing only conservative bills through his ranks and introduced the short-term funding bill that passed Saturday.
Biden to Congress: ‘Stop playing games’
The president urged lawmakers to negotiate an aid package for Ukraine as soon as possible.
“We cannot under any circumstances allow American for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said in remarks from the Roosevelt Room after Congress averted a government shutdown by passing a short-term funding package late Saturday that dropped assistance for Ukraine in the battle against Russia.
“We have time, not much time, and there’s an overwhelming sense of urgency,” he said, noting that the funding bill lasts only until mid-November. Biden urged Congress to negotiate an aid package as soon as possible.
“The vast majority of both parties — Democrats and Republicans, Senate and House — support helping Ukraine and the brutal aggression that is being thrust upon them by Russia,” Biden said. “Stop playing games, get this done.’’
But many lawmakers acknowledge that winning approval for Ukraine assistance in Congress is growing more difficult as the war grinds on. Republican resistance to the aid has been gaining momentum.
While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y), has begun a process to potentially consider legislation providing additional Ukraine aid, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) faces a more difficult task in keeping the commitment he made over the objections of nearly half of his GOP
Cherelle Parker, Democratic candidate for mayor, at her campaign office last week. The former state legislator, Council member, and ward leader has an enormous network of political relationships. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
for remembering those who don’t. Lately, Parker seems to be going out of her way to be magnanimous. She appeared at an event last week with Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, the only veteran Council member who did not endorse her primary run. And she’s spoken favorably about the 76ers’ plan to build a Center City arena, despite the team apparently funding a “dark money” group that backed Jeff Brown in the primary.
“A narrative that has been promoted that I’ve heard from people is that Cherelle Parker is vengeful, and she holds grudges,” she said. “And nothing could be further from the truth. We can’t afford to hold a grudge about something that occurred in the primary election. We have to think bigger, quite frankly, stand taller.”
As a legislator, Parker rose to leadership positions and thrived behind the scenes.
In 2014, when she was chair of the Philadelphia delegation to the state House, the city was struggling to recover from the recession and needed a cash infusion for schools. Parker played a key role in legislation that authorized the city to create a new cigarette tax for that purpose, no simple task in a GOP-controlled legislature.
Parker knew that Republicans would use any hint of division among Philly leaders as an excuse
majority. He told CBS’s Face on the Nation that he supported “being able to make sure Ukraine has the weapons that they need,” but that his priority was security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I firmly support the border first,” he said. “So we’ve got to find a way that we can do this together.”
By omitting additional Ukraine aid from the measure to keep the government running, McCarthy closed the door on a Senate package that would have funneled $6 billion to Ukraine, roughly one-third of what has been requested by the White House. Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved the stopgap measure, with members of both parties abandoning the increased aid in favor of avoiding a costly government shutdown.
Now Biden is working to reassure U.S. allies that more money will be there for Ukraine.
“Look at me,” he said turning his face to the cameras at the White House. “We’re going to get it done. I can’t believe those who voted for supporting Ukraine — overwhelming majority in the House and Senate, Democrat and Republican — will for pure political reasons let more people die needlessly in Ukraine.”
Foreign allies, though, were concerned. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Sunday from Kyiv that he believed it wouldn’t be the last word, but he noted the EU’s continued substantial financial support for Ukraine and a new proposal on the table.
The latest actions in Congress signal a gradual shift in the unwavering support that the United States has so far pledged Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and it is one of the clearest examples yet of the Republican Party’s movement toward a more isolationist stance. The exclusion of the money for Ukraine came little more than a week after lawmakers met in the Capitol with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He sought to assure them that his military was winning the war, but stressed that additional assistance would be crucial.
supports more progressive candidates than Parker, a centrist, but it had worked with her for years.
In this year’s primary, she won their endorsement, a major coup that boosted her and likely deprived candidates running to her left of needed resources.
Transparency concerns
Parker admits that her insistence on preparation can have downsides, including making her appear inaccessible.
As a candidate and a Council member, Parker was far from the least accessible of her peers, and she almost always responded to media inquiries. But she almost never responded quickly.
not to pass the legislation. At the time, City Council President Darrell Clarke and then-Mayor Nutter were barely on speaking terms. Parker cajoled them into signing a joint letter to state lawmakers, who approved of the new tax, and the schools opened on time in September. “She’s a convener. Everybody knows that. She’s been in this business for a long time,” Darby said. But Parker’s insistence on forging a compromise with all sides is also visible in her defeats.
Parker in 2021 pushed for a cut to the city parking tax. She was hoping to strike a bargain between wealthy parking lot owners who would benefit from the cut and Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents lot attendants. The deal: Council wouldlower the tax from 25% to 17% if the lot operators improved pay for their workers.
For Parker, it would have been a win-win. But progressives opposed cutting taxes, urbanists didn’t want to encourage car-friendly infrastructure, and many of her Council colleagues saw it as an unnecessary distraction during high-stakes budget talks. Parker abandoned the bill when she couldn’t get all lot operators on board, but it’s not clear that it could have passed.
It was a bad day for Parker, but it helped to cement her relationship with Local 32BJ. The union often
“You don’t know how many times I fought with my team when [reporters] called and they want to call back in two minutes,” she said. “No, I’m not calling back right now. I asked for some information — can you please go and get the information I asked? Let me read it. And then I will give you what my response is.”
Parker’s commitment to accessibility is already being questioned.
Last month, a campaign staffer accidentally forwarded to a journalist an internal discussion about how to handle media inquiries that included demeaning comments about smaller and diverse news outlets.
Parker apologized for her staff’s actions and has said the episode doesn’t reflect who she would be as mayor. Others have doubts, given her lack of public appearances over the summer and her team’s reluctance to agree to debates with Oh. As she looks toward January, Parker is asking Philadelphians to judge her not by how she handles the media, but by how she changes the city.
“I want you to be able to say, ‘Well, you know what, I see something different in my community or my neighborhood,’” she said. “Not because Cherelle gave a speech, not because something she said, but because people can tangibly touch it, see it, taste it and feel it.”
swalsh@inquirer.com
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Celebrating the longest-lived U.S. president this way was inconceivable not long ago. The Carters announced in February that their patriarch was forgoing further medical treatments and entering home hospice care after a series of hospitalizations. Yet Carter, who overcame cancer diagnosed at age 90 and learned to walk after having his hip replaced at age 94, defied all odds again.
“If Jimmy Carter were a tree, he’d be an towering, old Southern oak,” said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic national chairperson and presidential campaign manager who got her start on Carter’s campaigns. “He’s as good as they come and tough as they come.”
Jill Stuckey, a longtime Plains resident who visits the former first couple regularly, cautioned to “never underestimate Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.”
His latest resilience has allowed Carter a rare privilege even for presidents: He’s been able to enjoy months of accolades typically reserved for when a former White House resident dies. The latest round includes a flood of messages from world leaders and pop culture figures donning “Jimmy Carter 99” hats, with many of them focusing on Carter’s four decades of global humanitarian work after leaving the Oval Office.
Katie Couric, the first woman to anchor a U.S. television network’s evening news broadcast, praised Carter in a social media video for his “relentless effort every day to make the world a better place.”
She pointed to Carter’s work to eradicate Guinea worm disease and river blindness, while advocating for peace and democracy in scores of countries. She noted he has written 32 books and worked for
arena owned by Comcast Spectacor, which also owns the Flyers.
The local sports arm of global telecommunications giant Comcast, led by Philadelphia billionaire Brian L. Roberts, sorely wants the Sixers to stay. It’s trying to avoid the loss of its major tenant and avoid having to fight a competitor for bookings of concerts and shows.
It doesn’t believe that Philadelphia needs a second major arena and wants the Sixers to instead be part of a huge, four-team transformation of the Sports Complex.
Comcast Spectacor is frustrated by the team’s harsh — it says false — criticisms of the Wells Fargo Center, now completing a $400 million top-to-bottom renovation. And it insists that a project that would impact Center City for decades must be scrutinized.
The Sixers, meanwhile, think it’s unfair that a landlord would try to stop a tenant from leaving at the end of its lease. They say that, like any company, they deserve the right to run their own business in their own building, to gain control over everything from scheduling to T-shirt sales.
Owning an arena would dramatically increase the value of a team already worth more than $3 billion.
And the Sixers insist that a Center City arena would move Philadelphia forward while generating foot traffic and spending on a desolate stretch of Market Street East.
Council is expected to decide whether to approve the project in the coming months, and lawmakers such as Squilla are caught between powerful coalitions.
Colossal Comcast is frequently a target of the progressive movement, but now its local division finds itself aligned with activists on the left, a group of urban design experts, and the ardent defenders of Chinatown’s rights as a neighborhood. The 76ers, meanwhile, benefit from support from building trades unions that want thousands of construction jobs, as well as from some members of the Black clergy and the business community.
As Council members reconvened for their fall session last month, Comcast Spectacor distributed a two-page document headlined “Myths and Realities: The Truth
About the Wells Fargo Center.”
It sought to refute assertions from Adelman that the Sixers have been treated poorly, rejecting his criticism of the center’s services, sight lines, and game scheduling.
The confrontation between Philadelphia institutions is becoming more pointed and public by the day. It’s also become a bonanza for City Hall lobbyists and public-affairs consultants, as both Comcast Spectacor and the Sixers build armies of hired pros.
Visitors pass a portrait of President Jimmy Carter during a celebration of his 99th birthday at The Carter Center in Atlanta on Saturday. Ben Gray / AP
decades with Habitat for Humanity building houses for low-income people.
“Oh, yeah, and you were governor of Georgia. And did I mention president of the United States?” she joked. “When are you going to stop slacking off?”
Bill Clinton, the 42nd president and first Democratic president after Carter’s landslide defeat, showed no signs of the chilly relationship the two fellow Southerners once had.
“Jimmy! Happy birthday,” Clinton said in his video message. “You only get to be 99 once. It’s been a long, good ride, and we thank you for your service and your friendship and the enduring embodiment of the American dream.”
Musician Peter Gabriel led concertgoers at Madison Square Garden in a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” as did the Indigo Girls at
a recent concert.
In Atlanta, the Carter Library & Museum and adjacent Carter Center held a weekend of events, including the citizenship ceremony. The museum offered 99-cent admission Saturday. The commemoration there was able to continue Sunday only because Congress came to an agreement to avoid a partial government shutdown at the start of the federal fiscal year, which coincides with Carter’s birthday.
Jason Carter said his grandfather has found it “gratifying” to see reassessments of his presidency. Carter’s term often has been broad-brushed as a failure because of inflation, global fuel shortages, and the holding of American hostages in Iran, a confluence that led to Republican Ronald Reagan’s 1980 romp.
Yet Carter’s focus on diplomacy,
Both sides — all sides — await the findings of arena studies being conducted by the city and its public-private economic development agency Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. City officials earlier said that three analyses, funded by the Sixers, would examine economics, community impact, and design. Two reports are expected by the end of the year.
The two men at the center of the dispute say they’re friends. And now those friends disagree, with potentially billions of dollars at stake.
Comcast Spectacor is led by Daniel Hilferty, the staid, grayhaired former CEO of Independence Blue Cross and a driver behind some of Philadelphia’s most important civic efforts.
The Sixers’ push is guided by the younger Adelman, the long-haired billionaire developer and team part-owner, widely known as the CEO of student-housing empire Campus Apartments, one of the nation’s largest providers of on- and off-campus housing.
Hilferty was hired to run Comcast Spectacor in February, given the key responsibility of fixing the struggling Flyers and moving quickly to name a new president of the Wells Fargo Center, a new Flyers president, and a new team general manager.
He became more publicly involved in opposing the arena over the summer, bristling at digs that Adelman leveled against the Wells Fargo Center in the media.
Those jabs have not ceased.
Recently, Adelman dug in over a dispute about a potential Philadelphia concert by the Eagles, the venerable rock group that’s now mounting its “Long Goodbye” tour. He shared a Pollstar story with comments from famed Los Angeles concert promoter Irving Azoff, who said he was unable to secure a Wells Fargo Center booking.
“We tried multiple times on the Eagles, and they can’t clear the day,” he said.
The Wells Fargo Center social-media account then turned its focus on Adelman.
“This ‘story’ is simply not true, and Mr. Adelman knows it,” it posted on Twitter, adding that in eight years, the center had turned away a total of two concerts.
Adelman responded two weeks ago, sharing a letter from Azoff to Hilferty in which the promoter chastised Comcast Spectacor, backed Adelman’s statements as being “completely accurate,” and threatened to no longer work with the Wells Fargo Center.
“I wouldn’t have come out of the gate saying an industry icon like
his emphasis on the environment before the climate crisis was widely acknowledged and his focus on efficient government — his presidency added a relative pittance to the national debt — have garnered second looks from historians.
Indeed, Carter’s longevity offers a frame to illuminate both how much the world has changed over his lifetime while still recognizing that certain political and societal challenges endure.
The Carter Center’s disease-eradication work occurs mostly in developing countries. But Jimmy and Roslaynn Carter were first exposed to river blindness growing up surrounded by the crushing poverty of the rural Deep South during the Great Depression.
The Center’s global democracy advocacy has reached countries that were still part of various European empires when Carter was born in 1924 or were under heavy American influence in the decades after World War II. Yet in recent years, Carter has declared his own country to be more of an “oligarchy” than a well-functioning democracy. And the Center has since become involved in monitoring and tracking U.S. elections. Carter has lived long enough finally to have a genuine friend in the Oval Office again. President Joe Biden was a young Delaware politician in 1976 and became the first U.S. senator to endorse Carter’s campaign against better-known Washington figures. Now, as Biden seeks reelection in 2024, he faces the headwinds of inflation that Republicans openly compare to Carter’s economy. Biden had a wooden birthday cake display placed on the White House front law to honor Carter. The year Carter was born, Congress passed sweeping
Irving Azoff has no idea what he’s talking about,” Adelman tweeted, adding that “the biggest ‘myth’ being debunked is that Comcast actually controls Philadelphia like some think it does.”
Sean Coit, a Comcast Spectacor spokesperson, said the company would continue pushing back on Adelman’s claims as city lawmakers prepare to take up the arena issue.
“The Sixers — and Mr. Adelman, in particular — have apparently made a strategic decision to spread distortions and even outright falsehoods about the Wells Fargo Center, to try to force their project through City Council,” Coit said. “We’re not going to allow that to go unchecked.”
The dispute around booking the Eagles speaks to a central point of the debate: Does Philadelphia need a second arena?
The Wells Fargo Center now hosts nearly every big concert and show, operating about 220 days a year and saying that it accommodates 98% of all requests by booking agents.
The Sixers say their arena would have about 150 events a year, or about 110 beyond the team’s 41 home games. They say there exists a big untapped market of artists who have been unable to play Philadelphia — which Comcast Spectacor disputes.
The arena footprint would reach from Market Street to Filbert Street and 10th and 11th Streets, with the north end of the project abutting Chinatown.
The 76ers have promised not to seek city taxpayer support for the arena but have not ruled out accepting state or federal aid, such as grants or tax breaks.
immigration restrictions, sharply curtailing Ellis Island as a portal to the nation. Now, the naturalization ceremony to mark Carter’s 99th birthday comes as Washington continues a decades-long fight over immigration policy. Republicans, especially, have moved well to the right of Reagan, who in 1986 signed a sweeping amnesty policy for millions of immigrants who were in the country illegally or had no sure legal path to citizenship.
Carter also was born into Jim Crow segregation, at a time when the Ku Klux Klan marched openly on state capitols and in Washington. As governor and president, Carter set new marks for appointing Black Americans to top government posts. At 99, Carter’s Sunday online church circuit includes watching Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, preach at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Yet, at the same time, some white state lawmakers in Carter’s native region are defying the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to curtail Black voters’ strength at the ballot box.
Jason Carter said understanding his grandfather’s impact means resisting the urge to assess whether he solved every problem he confronted or won every election. Instead, he said, the takeaway is to recognize a sweeping impact rooted in respecting other people on an individual level and trying to help them.
Emily Sparvero, who taught sports marketing at Temple University and now at the University of Texas at Austin, said that if a team’s ownership is truly willing to pay for a new venue from its own pockets — the Sixers say they are — taxpayers may have little to lose. But that doesn’t mean the Sixers’ projections for filling their arena’s calendar with high-profile acts would come true, she said.
“There is the potential to attract events,” she said, “but when you already have multipurpose events facilities, it is likely you are just moving the events from one facility to another.”
Public, private feuding
The showdown between the two companies simmered all summer, with the Sixers frustrated that their landlord has been welcomed into the debate over the team’s future home. Usually when a lease expires, a renter is free to move. Adelman was unhappy to see Comcast Spectacor representatives at a June gathering of the Washington Square West Civic Association in which the team was scheduled to make its pitch.
“Not sure what their standing is related to this,” Adelman told the neighborhood group.
The next month, according to emails obtained by The Inquirer, Adelman’s frustration grew as he tried to schedule a meeting to promote the arena to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. The chamber repeatedly delayed the date — and invited Hilferty to speak.
“At this point,” Adelman wrote this month to the chamber’s leaders, “I would prefer you just be
honest with me and tell me that the chamber has no intention of allowing us to present.”
The chamber now has scheduled separate appearances by Adelman and Hilferty.
To the Sixers, the episode showed that Comcast Spectacor, a division of Philadelphia’s most important company, was playing tough behind closed doors.
The chamber has long borne a reputation for being influenced by Comcast, although it has sought to combat that perception amid leadership changes in recent years.
Chamber president and CEO Chellie Cameron said the scheduling issues reflected the business group’s desire to provide its members with as much information as possible, not an effort to hamper the Sixers.
She said the team was told, “We’d love to have you present, but we’ve heard that there is potential development at the stadium district, and we feel like there should be different perspectives to this that would also be valuable.”
Cameron said the chamber has not decided whether it will take a position on the arena after hearing from both sides.
Hilferty’s pique with his biggest tenant has been rising for months, as the Sixers criticized their home court as old and outdated.
The Sixers brushed aside his offer of a 50⁄50 partnership, with which the team could own half the Wells Fargo Center and reap half the revenue. The Sixers intend to open the new arena when their lease expires in 2031.
Comcast Spectacor still hopes that will change.
“We hope to work with them to build something truly great in South Philadelphia,” Coit said, “without displacing neighborhoods and disrupting the Market East community for years to come.”
The team said in its news release that a study by its consultant, MuniCap Inc., showed that the project would generate $472 million in new, net state tax revenues. That, in addition to $1 billion for the city and the schools.
The Sixers declined requests to share its consultant’s reports.
Asked whether the team’s tax figures were accurate, PIDC referred to the pending studies, saying that “is what the economic-analysis study will review and so we won’t know until that is completed.”
Staff writer Jake Blumgart contributed to this article.
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Cole, a deaf pit bull from South Jersey, is an ambassador for acceptance. He has been named 2023 ASPCA Dog of the Year.
By Rita Giordano Staff WriterChris Hannah had no idea he was meeting a superhero that day in April 2017 — just a white pit bull puppy with dangly ears and huge paws that no one wanted.
The South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter website said the little stray, born deaf, was “special needs”. That made the public school music teacher want to meet the puppy even more. Then when the
shelter staff brought the dog in, he jumped straight in Hannah’s arms and looked him right in his eyes. That pretty much sealed the deal. Hannah named his new pal Cole.
Then things began happening Hannah never would have imagined - including big time acclaim.
But we’re getting ahead of the story.
From the start, Cole was one smart pup. He picked up hand signals quick enough. But soon, dog and owner were mastering a whole new way to communicate: American Sign Language. With the help Hannah’s nephew Kevin Guinan, also born deaf, Cole nailed that, too.
Meanwhile at Dr. William Mennies Elementary in Vineland, the kids’ curiosity about their music teacher’s new puppy quickly turned into conversations about big questions like: What does it mean to be “special needs”? To be disabled?
What does it mean to be accepting?
And because pit bulls like Cole are often prejudged because of their breed, he became a way for kids to talk about tough topics like bias and discrimination.
Just how special Cole was came out when he started meeting the Vineland students. He had a way with kids, especially the ones with differences of their own. His gentleness drew them out of themselves.
It was like the saying kids at one Swedesboro school had printed on their t-shirts the day he came to visit them: “Cole the Deaf Dog hears with his heart.”
Cole and Hannah started getting requests to do assemblies at lots of other schools. Decked out in a cape and superdog gear, Cole’s mission was to spread the message: “A disability isn’t an inability. It’s a superpower.”
Before long, Cole, who became a certified therapy dog, also started
volunteering with veterans and hospice patients. And now Cole is about to become even more well-known.
Cole the Deaf Dog has been named 2023 ASPCA Dog of the Year. He and the recipients of the ASPCA’s other Humane Awards will be honored at an awards luncheon in New York City on October 12.
“Following a nationwide search for animal heroes, the ASPCA was moved by Cole the Deaf Dog’s inspiring story, encouraging thousands of people from all walks of life to view their disability as a superpower,” said a statement by the ASPCA. “The Dog of the Year has been a longstanding award for the ASPCA, and Cole perfectly represents the values of service and heroism used to make a large impact on everyone he meets.”
Cole’s owner is thrilled about his → SEE COLE ON B5
Spectators join parade marchers from different Polish American dance groups for a traditional celebratory folk dance at the finale of the 90th annual Pulaski Day Parade, on the Parkway. The event Sunday was a celebration of the history, culture, and traditions of the Polish American community. The parade is named in honor of Gen. Casimir Pulaski, considered the “Father of the American Cavalry.” He was born in Poland in 1745 and came to join the Americans to fight for independence. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc. said it was disappointed that orchestra players rejected its latest offer.
By Juliana Feliciano Reyes Staff WriterThe Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc. said it was “disappointed” that its musicians had rejected its latest contract proposal Saturday night.
“This proposal is generous, reflective of their world-class status, and addresses the issues they have deemed most important,” POKC spokesperson Ashley Berke said in a statement Sunday. “It places them amongst the highest-paid orchestra musicians in the country, in one of the most affordable big cities in the US, and is compatible with the Orchestra’s financial realities and responsibilities as a non-profit organization.”
The Philadelphia Musicians’ Union Local 77 voted 81-8 against the proposal. It was the second time the union had shot down a proposal during this round of bargaining.
Union officials say that the proposed wage increases are not enough to account for inflation and are not on par with peer orchestras. They intend to again ask that a federal mediator reconvene negotiations.
“We remain hopeful for a positive start to the season that includes a strong and fair contract that puts our wages on par with our peers
→ SEE ORCHESTRA ON B2
pitchers
It’s going to feel more like June in South Philly next week. The conditions could be a score for hitters, too.
By Anthony R. Wood Staff WriterIt may be shy of “hittin’ season” conditions, but the weather for the wild-card series at Citizens Bank Park should be a grand slam, with June-like temperatures, light winds, unblemished skies, and a 100% chance of about 43,000 bodies per
game generating considerable heat and noise.
“There’s basically no chance of rain,” said Alex Staarmann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. In fact the agency was listing a 0% chance for Games 1 and 2, Tuesday and Wednesday, rising to all of 3% for the “if-necessary” Game 3 Thursday. Highs all three days are
For the pitchers
Alan
→ CONTINUED FROM B1
difference in the flight of the ball. Paul Dorian, a meteorologist and lifelong Phillies fan, sees winds as the most important factor in the home run forecasts that he posts daily, which assesses how well the ball would be carrying on a given day. (For $5 a month, premium customers can get 48-hour outlooks.)
With rain-repelling high pressure over the region, said the weather service’s Staarmann, the winds will be light, but they will work against the hitters since they’ll be mostly from the north, blowing in from centerfield.
Dorian’s outlooks use a 1-to-10 scale, with 10 being the most favorable for homers, and 1, the least. He said the forecasts can be useful for the over-under bettors (he isn’t one), since the scale has “a strong correlation” with runs scored per game. High-homer games usually are higher scoring.
The wind forecasts this week would argue for the lower end of the scale, but his wild-card outlooks this week are likely to wind up in the middle ranges.
For the hitters
While Dorian considers barometric pressure and moisture levels in the air, his second most important variable after the wind is temperature.
Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois professor emeritus, has calculated that every degree Fahrenheit on average means about a 4-inch difference in the flight of the ball.
And although the warmth won’t measure up to the level of heat evoked by former Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel’s concept of ”hittin’ season,” afternoon and evening temperatures around the 80s aren’t exactly a cold wave.
Last year, the high on Oct. 4, 54, set a record for the date for the lowest daily maximum temperature.
That would be about a 25-degree difference compared with this year. Using Nathan’s calculations, that’s a factor of more than 8 feet.
Wild cards and stitches
Ultimately, says Nathan, the “drag coefficient,” or air resistance, and how the ball interacts with the molecules in the atmosphere is a key to how far a ball is going to travel.
Dorian uses drag estimates in his forecasts.
The molecules impede the progress of the ball significantly:
Nathan and an associate estimated that a ball traveling 400 feet in the air would sail about 700 feet in a vacuum.
In the study that he led of baseball’s 2015-17 home run surge,
Nathan and his team found that it was driven by subtle changes in drag coefficients that couldn’t be readily explained. He discounted
conspiracy theories, including a popular one that the balls were juiced because fans love homers.
The home run numbers returned to earth in 2021 and 2022. In terms of launch angle and velocities, “the balls were hit more optimally,” he said, but for some reason, the drag increased.
His own hypothesis is that it all had to do with unscripted changes in how the balls were stitched. They are sewn by hand, and imperceptible differences are all but inevitable.
They affected, and still affect, the drag, he reasoned. He’s also convinced this is nothing new.
“There are things in the manufacturing of the baseball that simply can’t be controlled all that
well,” he said last week. “My guess is it’s always been that way. We’re noticing it now because we have all this information at our fingertips.”
Drag coefficients, winds, barometric pressure, and the waning moon notwithstanding, the biggest factors will be the pitchers and catchers. On Saturday, Sept. 23, the winds were howling in from right to left field, it was chilly enough for a fire, but Bryce Harper somehow managed to hit a 450-foot home to right center. “That was through the teeth of the wind,” said Dorian. “That was quite amazing.”
twood@inquirer.com
t @woodt15
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and at pace with the rate of inflation, so we can continue to produce the finest sound and remain the best orchestra in the world,” David Fay, double bassist and chair of the orchestra’s members’ committee, said in a statement Sunday.
POKC said its offer “represents an additional investment of $11.9 million in the musicians during the three years of the agreement.”
The offer, the result of months of negotiations, brings average compensation to $212,000 in two years’ time, orchestra management said, adding that it increases wages by 13.5% over three years.
The $212,000 figure is an “artificial inflation” of compensation, union spokesperson Melissa McCleery said Sunday, as it factors in rates that principals negotiate for themselves on top of base salary. In year two, the minimum salary proposed would be $167,000, according to the offer document, shared with The Inquirer.
The next orchestra performance is Tuesday in Verizon Hall with Audra McDonald. There has been no official announcement from the union that musicians would not perform that day.
Musicians performed at the orchestra’ opening night gala last Thursday despite the ongoing labor dispute.
The very next day, the union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that orchestra management has been negotiating in bad faith. POKC called the complaint “meritless.”
The current contract expired Sept. 10; the union voted in August to authorize a strike in the event of a contract stalemate.
jreyes@inquirer.com
Drawn daily unless otherwise noted. Those drawn after 8 p.m. are too late to make our print deadline.
EAGLES 34, COMMANDERS 31 (OVERTIME)
A 54-yard field goal in overtime kept the Birds undefeated after an uneven effort against Washington.
By EJ Smith Staff WriterThe jubilation of what seemed like an A.J. Brown game-winning touchdown gave way to the nervous silence of a last-second, game-tying Jahan Dotson touchdown catch.
It took an extra few minutes, but the Eagles beat the Washington Commanders, 34-31, on a walk-off field goal from Jake Elliott from 54 yards out in overtime. The win moved the Eagles to 4-0 on the season and kept them atop the NFC East.
The Eagles were 90 seconds away from a regulation win, but Washington quarterback Sam Howell led
the Commanders 64 yards down the field for a 10-yard touchdown pass to Dotson as time expired and forced overtime. The defense made up for it in extra time, stopping a Commanders drive to open the period after the visitors won the coin toss. Jalen Hurts and Co. responded with a 10-play, 34-yard drive to give Elliott
My whole career has kind of been a roller-coaster in terms of being in different and unique, unprecedented moments.
Jalen Hurts
a chance to win the game, and the kicker obliged. “Jake showed up big time,” Hurts said. “I hate sending him on the field, but he showed up and made the game-winning field goal for the team. Those moments like that — I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a game where a guy’s kicked a game-winner and I’ve had to witness that in my career.”
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni added, “We won in a different way than we’ve had to win so far this year. I think that builds character, I think that builds a tighter team, I think that builds trust. ... It is good when you’re able to win different ways, that tells you a lot about the character of your football team. I think we showed that today.”
Here’s our instant analysis off the game:
A.J.’s Big Day
A week after relenting to the “No Fun League,” Brown stood his
ground in some pink cleats. The star wide receiver finished with an eye-popping nine catches, 175 yards, and two touchdowns all while sporting some brightly colored cleats less than a week after the NFL insisted he change out of highlighter-green shoes on Monday Night Football. After the game, Brown said the cleats he wore this week had the NFL’s blessing. Brown, who wears distinctive cleats so his daughter can spot on him on the field, went into the game without a touchdown but made up for lost time Sunday. His first score came on a stutter-and-go route from the slot, toasting Washington cornerback Emmanuel Forbes and managing an impressive run after the catch for the 59-yard scamper. After the game, Brown said Washington gave Forbes the unenviable task of following him around the field in one-on-one coverage and the Eagles capitalized.
“Shoutout to my teammates for
→ SEE EAGLES ON C6
By Mike Sielski Staff ColumnistThe press box at Lincoln Financial Field early
NEW YORK — Do the Phillies have a first-round playoff opponent? Go Fish.
The Phillies will face a familiar foe — the rival Miami Marlins — in the best-of-three wild-card round, a matchup that became increasingly likely over the last few days but wasn’t sealed until after Sunday’s regular-season finales. The series will begin at 8:08 p.m. Tuesday, with all games being played at Citizens Bank Park.
“Nothing’s going to be easy,” Kyle Schwarber said after the Phillies thumped the Mets, 9-1, to secure their first 90-win season since they won 102 games in 2011. “Miami’s a good team. We’ve got to do what we do.”
Although the Marlins and Arizona Diamondbacks clinched wildcard spots Saturday, they entered the last day of the season tied with 84 wins and jockeying for seeding. Both teams lost — Miami, 3-1, at Pittsburgh; Arizona, 8-1, at home against Houston — but the Marlins could point their plane toward Philadelphia by virtue of a tiebreaker.
The Phillies will be heavily favored, but it’s doubtful they will take the Marlins lightly. They lost the season series, 7-6, despite outscoring the Marlins by a 64-55 margin. The Marlins took two of three games in Philadelphia on April 10-12 and Sept. 8-10.
“They’re a good club,” manager Rob Thomson said. “They match up well with us. They can beat you in a lot of different ways. They’ve got pitching. We’ve got a lot of prep to do.”
But Miami’s roster is decidedly weaker than even a month ago.
Neither ace Sandy Alcantara nor 20-year-old phenom Eury Pérez → SEE PHILLIES ON C4
Bowl. The expectations change everything. Yeah, we know the Eagles are really good. So why are they struggling so much to be really good?
And they are struggling to be → SEE
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NHL PRESEASON Boston at Flyers, 7 p.m. (NBCSP, WPEN-FM, 97.5) Ottawa at Pittsburgh, 6 p.m. (NHLN)
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The best collection of players at Marco Simone had flags from their eight countries draped around their shoulders as they took turns clutching and thrusting the gold Ryder Cup, the very trophy that turns them into one nation, one team, with one purpose.
The celebration was familiar on European soil, this time in Guidonia Montecelio, Italy, and so was the winner of the Ryder Cup.
Team Europe, embarrassed two years at Whistling Straits when it suffered its worst loss to the Americans, got their payback Sunday, along with that 17-inch trophy.
“Not many people gave us a chance, I don’t think, especially two years ago,” European captain Luke Donald said. “Well, we proved them wrong.”
Europe now has seven straight wins at home dating to 1993.
This one wasn’t even particularly close, from the opening session Friday, which Europe swept for the first time in history, to the Sunday singles that led to a 16 1⁄2-11 1⁄2 victory.
Rory McIlroy, in tears two years ago after his shabby performance, was among Europe’s top players who quickly doused any American dreams of a rally. He beat Sam Burns to go 4-1 for the week, the first time he was Europe’s top scorer in his seventh appearance.
“I was so disappointed after Whistling Straits — we all were,” McIlroy said. “And we wanted to come here to Rome and redeem ourselves.”
Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, and Tyrrell Hatton also picked up key points early in the singles lineup, leaving Europe needing only a halfpoint to reach the winning total.
Tommy Fleetwood delivered the clincher, hitting a signature shot on the signature hole at Marco Simone — a drive to 25 feet on the reachable 16th against Rickie Fowler Fowler, now with a 1-8-5 road record in the Ryder Cup, hit into the water and wound up conceding the birdie to Fleetwood, who raised both arms to the loudest cheer of the week.
“I really didn’t want to come down to one of us at the back,” said Fleetwood, in the 11th spot in the lineup. “Just so happened to play a part — it was a bit bigger than I thought I was going to have when we saw the draw. But just so proud of being part of this team.”
“I think the European team played some phenomenal golf. I think it really is quite that simple,” U.S. captain Zach Johnson said, his voice choking to the point that it was hard for him to complete a sentence. “Team USA will be better for it. We’ll figure it out.”
Max Homa was a rare bright spot for the U.S. team, going 3-1-1 in his Ryder Cup debut.
Unbeaten Penn State remained ranked sixth in the Associated Press college football poll, fresh off a 41-13 rout of Northwestern.
The Nittany Lions (5-0, 3-0 Big Ten) will take a week off before their last nonconference game of the season when Massachusetts visits
Beaver Stadium on Oct. 14 at 3:30 p.m. On Oct. 21, Penn State will visit Ohio State for the Lions’ toughest test yet this fall.
Georgia’s hold on No. 1 loosened as the Bulldogs received a season-low 35 first-place votes out of possible 62 while extending their streak atop the rankings to 16 straight weeks.
The Bulldogs needed a late touchdown to escape with a win at Auburn on Saturday and that sent many in the media panel looking for a new No. 1 team. Georgia had 55 first-place votes and 1,562 points last week but was down to 1,501 points in this week’s AP Top 25.
No. 2 Michigan got 12 first-place votes and 1,436 points but nearly was passed by No. 3 Texas, which received 10 first-place votes and 1,426 points. Both the Wolverines and Longhorns won big on Saturday.
* Indiana Hoosiers coach Tom Allen fired offensive coordinator Walt Bell less than 24 hours after yet another dismal offensive performance in Saturday’s 44-17 loss at unbeaten Maryland. Allen said Rod Carey, the program’s quality control coach since 2022, will take over play-calling duties.
Ryan Blaney beat Kevin Harvick to the Talladega Superspeedway finish line by 0.012 seconds to advance into the round of eight of NASCAR’s playoffs and keep Harvick winless in his final season before retirement.
Blaney used a crossover move from the outside lane to the inside to nudge ahead of Harvick with two laps remaining at Talladega, Ala. Blaney in his Ford for Team Penske and Harvick in a Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing finished essentially in a drag race with both drivers refusing to lift as a crash broke out behind them.
Blaney joined William Byron as the two drivers locked into the round of eight. The field of 12 will be pared next Sunday to eight following the race on The Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Simone Biles led a dominant performance by the U.S. women at the world gymnastics championships in Antwerp, Belgium, posting an allaround total of 58.865 to lead qualifying through two subdivisions.
The 26-year-old, who is a fivetime all-around world champion and seven-time Olympic medalist, registered the best scores on floor exercise, vault, and balance beam, and the second-best score behind teammate Shilese Jones on uneven bars through the first portion of qualifying.
The American team of Biles, Jones, Skye Blakely Leanne Wong , and Joscelyn Roberson combined for a total of 171.395, which figures to be the best by a considerable margin by the end of qualifying. Italy was second at 162.230 through two of the 10 subdivisions.
The U.S. will be heavily favored to win the team title on Wednesday. The all-around finals are Friday, with event finals scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
Zack Wheeler thinks about it — a lot. He talks about it often. And he used it as fuel whenever the season felt too long and the days monotonous. But rewatch it? No, he won’t do that. “Nah,” the Phillies ace said, smiling. “What’s done is done.”
Sure, but not really. Because as long as he pitches, and probably well after he’s finished, Wheeler will remember Game 6 of the 2022 World Series, that Saturday night in Houston sticking like a Post-it note on his gilded right arm as a reminder of what was and what could’ve been.
And now, 11 months later, Wheeler finally has a chance to set it right. After a regular season that merited Cy Young Award consideration, he will start Tuesday against the upstart Miami Marlins in the opener of a best-of-three wild-card series, the first step toward what Phillies players and team officials believe will be the third World Series triumph in their 141-year history.
It’s the only outcome that would make Wheeler forget, even a little bit.
”That’s what you grow up playing baseball for, to pitch in the playoffs,” he said. “Getting that first game is special. It means a lot to me. We’ll be ready to go.”
Wheeler, 33, has been ready for, oh, about 331 days — and he was definitely counting.
After being lifted from Game 6 with one out and two on in the sixth inning and a 1-0 lead and watching José Alvarado allow a three-run homer to the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez, Wheeler went home to Georgia. He rested his arm and adhered to Phillies head athletic trainer Paul Buchheit’s plan to keep him healthy after working an extra month and pitching 35⅔ high-stress innings in the postseason. It worked. Wheeler made 32 starts and posted a 3.61 ERA in 192 innings. He had 212 strikeouts, 39 walks, and led all pitchers in the Fangraphs version of wins above replacement (6.0).
The Phillies have come to expect such excellence. They signed Wheeler to a five-year, $118 million contract in the 2019-20 offseason, and since then, he has a 3.06 ERA in 101 starts. Over the last four seasons, he leads all pitchers in WAR (19.6) and ranks fourth in innings
(629⅓) and eighth in strikeouts (675).
Good luck finding a better freeagent signing in Phillies history. ”He’s my favorite guy in the league to watch pitch,” Aaron Nola said. “He’s really the first guy I ever played with that threw 98, 99 a lot, but he commanded that. And he knows how to pitch. You see a lot of guys that throw that hard and just throw. He knows how to move the ball around.” But nobody, not even Wheeler, knew what to expect last October. He missed 31 days, or roughly five starts, down the stretch last season with inflammation in his forearm. He threw 58, 62, and 77 pitches in his last three regular-season starts.
Layered on top of that, neither Wheeler nor Nola had pitched in the postseason before. Wheeler heard about the heightened intensity. He even witnessed it in 2015, when the Mets reached the World Series while he was injured, but didn’t experience it firsthand. Wheeler dazzled for 6⅓ scoreless innings in Game 1 of the wildcard round in St. Louis. He gave up one hit in seven scoreless innings to begin the NL Championship Series in San Diego and started the pennant-clinching Game 5 against the Padres at home.
But he gave up five runs in five innings in Game 2 of the World Series and dealt with what the Phillies vaguely characterized as arm fatigue. By the time Game 6 came around, the Phillies gave Wheeler six days’ rest and hoped for the best.
”Yeah, we didn’t really know,” pitching coach Caleb Cotham recalled. “I know he’s a competitor. I know he’s going to leave it all out there. I thought definitely anything was possible. And it didn’t surprise me, honestly.” Wheeler had “lightning bolts coming out of his hands,” as catcher J.T. Realmuto described it later. He threw 70 pitches, the last a 96 mph sinker that Jeremy Peña grounded up the middle for a hit. Wheeler said he was “caught off guard”
when manager Rob Thomson took him out.
Thomson and Wheeler didn’t litigate the decision in the offseason. Neither deemed it necessary. Wheeler brings it up every so often with Cotham, mostly to needle him. ”I’ll give Caleb some crap sometimes,” Wheeler said. “I know it probably wasn’t even his call.”
Said Cotham: “I’ve turned the page. It was really tough to turn the page. You try to make good decisions to win the game. I’ve told him from the start, it’s never a comment on the starter. It’s always a comment on also loving the relievers. That one didn’t work out. It still stinks, you know? A guy that’s pitching as well as he was and that happened.”
Maybe there are lessons to learn. Not so much about lengthening the postseason rope for ace pitchers, because modern managers almost reflexively turn to the bullpen earlier than normal when the stakes are highest.
But in plowing through the postseason for the first time in a decadelong major-league career and posting a 2.78 ERA in six starts, Wheeler maintains that he learned what it takes to be effective in October.
”Everything matters,” he said.
“Every out counts. Growing up watching it, you think you know. But going through it, you come to learn that every out, every pitch literally matters. Baseball’s a great sport when it gets to October. That’s when you’ve got to turn it on.”
Eleven months passed in a flash, said Wheeler, propelled forward by the memory of an abrupt end to a 70-pitch gem in the game of his life.
Now, he gets a chance at a rewrite.
”I felt like I could’ve gone 100 pitches that night,” he said. “It still feels a little fresh. But we’re making a new path this year, and hopefully can just do a little better.”
slauber@inquirer.com
t ScottLauber
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One has to wonder whether the 76ers’ NBA championship window has closed.
With reigning MVP Joel Embiid and rising star Tyrese Maxey, the Sixers are supposed to be one of the league’s elite teams. One would expect the duo to answer questions about the team’s level of excitement during media day on Monday.
Instead, the Sixers are set to be bombarded with questions about James Harden’s uncertain future with the team.
They’ll probably give mostly positive responses whether Harden, who wants out, reports Monday or not. The Sixers were not sure whether Harden attends media day or this week’s training camp at Colorado State. The players will tell you they experienced this two seasons ago when Ben Simmons missed media day and held out at the start of training camp.
They may voice their admiration for Harden and say this is part of the business. The Sixers still expect to compete against the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics for Eastern Conference supremacy.
One problem: The Bucks added future Hall of Famer Damian Lillard from the Portland Trail Blazers. On Sunday, the Celtics added Jrue Holiday, a two-time All-Star and fivetime All-Defensive selection, in a trade with the Blazers. The Sixers’ most notable offseason happening involved Harden calling team president of basketball operations Daryl Morey “a liar.” Doubling down, there was a “Daryl Morey is a liar” sign at Harden’s party last week.
So the Sixers head into the season with dysfunction while the Bucks and Celtics have revamped rosters. And one has to wonder how the inability to upgrade the roster will impact Embiid’s desire to remain a Sixer.
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will pitch in the playoffs because of injuries. Second baseman Luis Arraez, the National League batting champ, hasn’t started since Sept. 23 because of a sprained left ankle that worsened when he slipped on the dugout steps when the lights at Marlins Park were dimmed during a pitching change. Through it all, the Marlins won five of their last seven games — and 10 out of 16 — to overtake the swooning Cubs in a four-team wildcard pileup behind the Phillies. They clinched a playoff spot with a victory in the penultimate game of the season.
And as banged up as they are, they could still present a matchup challenge for the Phillies because of their collection of left-handed pitchers — two starters and four relievers.
Here, then, are a couple of questions heading into the series:
Getting it right vs. left(ies)
For Brandon Marsh, a matchup with the lefty-heavy Marlins likely means a seat on the bench for the first two games. Marsh entered play Sunday batting .221/.315/.358 against lefties. He hasn’t started against a lefty since Aug. 30. It doesn’t bode well for him that the Marlins have Jesús Luzardo (3.63 ERA) and Braxton Garrett (3.66) lined up to start Games 1 and 2, respectively, and a lefty-loaded bullpen with Tanner Scott, Steven Okert, Andrew Nardi, and A.J. Puk.
“I think, in time, he’s going to be consistent against left-handed pitching,” Thomson said. “Lately, he hasn’t seen the ball very well against them.”
But Marsh did take Mets reliever Anthony Kay deep in the ninth inning Sunday, his first homer against a left-hander since April 23.
Too little, too late?
“It makes you think, for sure,” Thomson said. “I’ll get with the staff and see where we’re at with lineups and rosters [Monday].”
If not Marsh, who would play left field?
The Phillies called up righty-hitting utilityman Weston Wilson over
The eighth-year veteran is in the first season of a four-year, $213.2 million contract extension. Asked in July at a promotional appearance with businessman Maverick Carter what we can expect from him, Embiid responded, “I just want to win a championship … whether it’s Philly or anywhere else.” He and the Sixers tried to downplay those comments. But after the Celtics landed Holiday on Sunday, Embiid tweeted, “This off-season was fun ...”
That drew more than 1,738 replies in the first hour. One person said, “Request a trade.” Another comment read, “It’s been real brother” followed by “see you later” and crying emojis.
The Sixers acquired Harden in February 2022 from the Brooklyn Nets to form an All-NBA tandem with Embiid. The hope was that he would help catapult the team into an NBA Finals appearance. Now, two postseason appearances later, the team still has a second-round ceiling. Added to that, Harden is upset
because Morey didn’t trade him to the Los Angeles Clippers this summer. The problem is the Sixers want an All-Star player or assets that will enable them to acquire one in return. At age 34, a $35.6 million salary, and perhaps an unrealistic self-evaluation, Harden doesn’t have a lot of trade value.
In addition, the Sixers were relatively silent in free agency.
Their most notable offseason moves were matching the Utah Jazz’s three-year, $23.5 million offer to restricted free agent Paul Reed and signing Kelly Oubre Jr. to a $2.8 million one-year veteran minimum deal.
Sixers coach Nick Nurse is excited about Reed’s versatility. He was Embiid’s backup last season. He’ll also see some time at power forward.
Meanwhile, Oubre is coming off a career-high 20.3 points last season with the Charlotte Hornets. However, the reserve small forward didn’t garner a lot of free-agency attention, leading to his recently settling for a below-value deal with
the weekend and played him in left field for a few innings Sunday in New York. Wilson had a 31-homer, 32-steal season — and a 1.025 OPS against lefties — in triple A. But Thomson hinted that he might opt for Cristian Pache’s defense in left field, even though the righty-swinging Pache was 4-for-35 with 15 strikeouts since coming back from the injured list in early September.
“If you end up playing Miami and you get those left-handed starters — those starters are pretty good, too — you want to eliminate giving up runs as much as you can,” Thomson said. “So, [Pache] becomes maybe a factor. I haven’t talked to the rest of the staff, but that’s something that I’m thinking about.”
Check back Tuesday.
Arraez didn’t play Sunday and has gotten only one at-bat in the last nine days. But he did take grounders over the weekend, and Marlins manager Skip Schumaker sounded a positive note. “He looked a lot better,” Schumaker told reporters Saturday. “The ground-ball work and the range, and the double-play plantand-throw, the first step to get to attack the play, he checked a lot of boxes.”
The Marlins improved their offense around Arraez with deadline trades for Jake Burger and Josh Bell, a notorious Phillies tormentor.
Entering play Sunday, they were slugging .423 and averaging 4.3 runs per game since the beginning of August, compared to .399 and 4.1 runs per game before that.
Does familiarity matter?
In some ways, the Phillies’ season turned Aug. 2 in Miami.
They lost, 9-8 in 10 innings, after Trea Turner booted a routine ground ball. Turner punished himself with a late-night hitting session that went public, and when the teams returned home two nights later, the struggling star shortstop got standing ovations that sparked his two-month torrid streak.
But something else happened in that game. The Marlins scored twice against Craig Kimbrel and appeared to uncover a tell that enabled them to steal his signs when they got a runner to second base. Kimbrel even intentionally balked to move a runner to third.
Kimbrel appears to have fixed the problem. But the point is, there won’t be any secrets between the division rivals, which may level the playing field if the talent is skewed toward the Phillies.
“It doesn’t need to look pretty, it doesn’t need to look sexy,” Schwarber said. “We’ve just got to find a way to win a game at the end of the day.”
Two, actually. It starts Tuesday. slauber@inquirer.com
t ScottLauber
the Sixers. But the Bucks are Celtics made blockbuster moves. Milwaukee was the overwhelming favorite to win an NBA title Wednesday. That’s when Milwaukee agreed to acquire Lillard from the Trail Blazers in a three-team deal that included the Phoenix Suns. In Lillard, the Bucks get a bona-fide closer to pair with two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and three-time All-Star Kris Middleton. At that time, the Blazers received Holiday from Milwaukee and Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara from the Suns. Those players were packaged with the Bucks’ 2029 first-round pick along with draft swap rights in 2028 and 2030. The Suns received Grayson Allen from the Bucks and Jusuf Nurkić, Nassir Little, and Keon Johnson from Portland. However, Portland made it known that they would trade Holiday to another team in exchange for young players and draft picks. The Sixers were among the teams
trying to make a deal for the twotime All-Star who began his career in Philadelphia.
But the Celtics acquired him in exchange for Robert Williams, Malcolm Brogdon, the 2024 Golden State Warriors first-round pick, and Boston’s 2029 unprotected first-rounder.
With Holiday, the Celtics might have overtaken the Bucks as the favorites to win the NBA title.
Not only is Holiday a solid defensive matchup against Lillard; he fits well with Boston’s core players in All-NBA wings Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. He’s viewed as a better fit than Marcus Smart, who Boston dealt to the Memphis Grizzlies in this summer’s three-team trade. That trade enabled the Celtics to land Kristaps Porziņģis from the Washington Wizards.
Boston is expected to sign Holiday to a long-term deal next summer. And the Bucks acquired Lillard, in part, to make sure Antetokounmpo remains with the franchise long-term. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the Sixers roster.
Embiid, P.J. Tucker, Paul Reed, Jaden Springer, and Filip Petrusev are the only Sixers with standard NBA contracts that go beyond this season. The Sixers intend to have enough cap space available next summer to sign Maxey and an A-list free agent to lucrative contracts.
But there’s no guarantee they’ll get an A-list free agent. Nor is there a guarantee that Embiid, 29, would want to stick around, especially if this season is a struggle. Sure, the Sixers are banking on having a bright future. They’ve been banking on the future for some time.
The problem is Embiid’s in his prime, now.
Yet, the two-time scoring champion sees the Celtics and Bucks making major moves while he’s dealing with his second disgruntled co-star in three seasons. And unless things drastically change this season, the Sixers will, once again, have a second-round ceiling.
That leads to the belief that their championship window has closed ... unless Morey can make a major move.
kpompey@inquirer.com
t PompeyOnSixers
Associated Press
Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson and the hard-hitting Atlanta Braves have earned a couple days of rest and relaxation after Major League Baseball’s long 162-game regular season. So have Jose Altuve, Justin Verlander and the defending World Series champion Houston Astros — who won the AL West on the season’s final day — along with the Los Angeles Dodgers and feel-good story Baltimore Orioles.
As for the other eight teams that qualified for Major League Baseball’s 12-team October showcase?
The action comes in a hurry. MLB’s postseason bracket is set, with the American League and National League wild-card matchups beginning Tuesday. It’s the second year for the new October format, which includes an opening round, best-of-three series with all of the games at the higher seed’s ballpark. In the AL, the No. 6 seed Toronto Blue Jays will face the No. 3 Minnesota Twins and the No. 5 Texas Rangers travel to the No. 4 Tampa Bay Rays. The NL features the No. 6 Arizona Diamondbacks against the No. 3 Milwaukee Brewers and the No. 5 Miami Marlins at the No. 4 Phillies. The Braves, Astros, Dodgers and Orioles will get about a week off before the division series begin.
Mets fire Showalter
For the fifth time in six years, the New York Mets are in the market for a new manager. Buck Showalter was fired Sunday after a disappointing season in which baseball’s highest-spending team tumbled from contention by midsummer. The Mets finished 74-87. On Monday, New York is expected to announce the hiring of David Stearns as president of baseball operations above general manager Billy Eppler.
Tim Wakefield, the knuckleballing workhorse of the Red Sox pitching staff who bounced back after giving up a season-ending home run to the Yankees in the 2003 playoffs to help Boston win its curse-busting World Series title the following year, has died.
He was 57.
The Red Sox announced his death in a statement Sunday that detailed not only his baseball statistics but a career full of charitable endeavors. Wakefield had brain cancer, according to ex-teammate Curt Schilling, who outed the illness on a podcast last week — drawing an outpouring of support for Wakefield.
The Red Sox confirmed an illness at the time but did not elaborate, saying Wakefield had requested privacy.
Season leaders
Miami’s Luis Arraez joined DJ LeMahieu as the only players with undisputed batting titles in both leagues, winning the National League crown Sunday as Yandy Díaz sat out Tampa Bay’s season finale and overtook Corey Seager for the American League championship. Arraez won the NL title at .354, a year after earning the AL crown at .316 for Minnesota. LeMahieu won with Colorado in 2016 and the New York Yankees in 2020.
Atlanta’s Matt Olson slugged his way to the major league home run title with 54 as well as the RBI title with 139.
San Diego’s Blake Snell led the big leagues with a 2.25 ERA to win the NL title after pacing the AL at 1.89 for Tampa Bay in 2018. Yankees ace Gerrit Cole won his second AL ERA title at 2.63 after winning for Houston at 2.50 in 2019.
Atlanta’s Spencer Strider was the only 20-game winner at 20-5, while Toronto’s Chris Bassitt and Tampa Bay’s Zach Eflin tied for the AL lead with 17 wins each.
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