Comcast killed the newspaper star

***UPDATED AT 9 P.M.***

Several days ago, I flipped on WIP. They were in the middle of a segment with a local baseball expert discussing the then-impending Roy Halladay trade.

The expert sounded like the Inquirer's Jim Salisbury. Angelo Cataldi even called him Jim. But then when he was wrapping up the interview, Angelo gave the expert a plug and reminded people that his work could be found at Comcast SportsNet.

I meant to look up who the Phillies reporter "Jim" from Comcast SportsNet was, but I forgot. Coincidentally, Christine came home that night and asked, "Did you know Jim Salisbury went to Comcast?"

Now I do.

What's going on?

Comcast's New England SportsNet already has former Providence Journal Red Sox writers Sean McAdam and Art Martone working for them.

Todd Zolecki jumped to MLB.com, Gordon Edes went to ESPN.com, and Dan Shaughnessy is focused more on SI.com. How long will there be newspaper reporters left covering our teams?

As someone whose semi-successful newspaper career was taken from him a year ago this month, I should applaud these guys for leaving on their own terms, but I'm sad about this. It's just another sign of the newspaper's demise.

I just have to remember to check Comcast's pages for SoxandPhils news.

***UPDATE***I forgot to check tonight, and Salisbury has a scoop that the Phillies might have a secretive deal with reliever Danys Baez.

Happy Thanksgiving

I know we should be expressing gratitude for family and friends, health, jobs, our successful baseball teams, etc.

But I have a gripe today.

I'm sure Christine will disagree, but I don't mind ceding Thanksgiving to football. It's a perfect mix of cold weather, food and vegging out. But why can't they put any decent games on?

Let's look at today's matchups (bear with me, we'll get to a baseball point):

We open with the slaughter of the 0-11 Lions against the 10-1 Titans. The only thing to root for in this one is such a bad game that the NFL finally decides to ditch the tradition that says the Lions have to host a Thanksgiving game.

Next up is the rebounding Cowboys (7-4) against another turkey, the 2-9 Seahawks. I won't mind if I have to miss this one for dinner.

Finally, perhaps the day's most compelling game, the 7-4 Cardinals look to clinch their first division title since before I was born against the 5-5-1 Philadelphia Eagles. OK, this game isn't good either, but it could be must-watch simply to see where the Eagles soap opera devolves to next.

It could get ugly in the stands today. All week, talk radio has been filled with callers saying they will still go to the game, but will wear Phillies garb. One guy said he's going with a bag over his head with "129 days until Opening Day" written on it. If I predicted such sentiment a year ago, I would have been laughed off the Internet.

OK, back to baseball. With such a crappy football lineup, you would think Comcast would have capitalized and moved up its Miracle on Broad Street series. Don't get me wrong, it's a great idea to replay key games - we'll be watching Matt Stairs homer as we wait for Santa on Christmas Eve - but they could have added so many more games to this promotion. How could they leave out Game 3 of the World Series? Who wouldn't watch that over Titans-Lions today?

Anyhoo, enjoy your turkey, and if you're watching football today because there's nothing else on (except the dog show Christine will watch at noon), go with the Titans, Cowboys and Eagles (just a gut feeling that they'll pull it out).

Farewell Johnny Marz

John Marzano, an honorary SoxandPhil, died this weekend.

I'll always remember him from his 1985 Topps Olympic Team card. I wanted to scan it in, but that is still tucked away in my parents' attic. He played 169 games for the Red Sox from 1987 to 1992, never getting a real chance to live up to his potential.

He gets honorary SoxandPhil status because he was a Philadelphia native, played a year in the minors for the Phils, and worked in recent years for WIP and Phillies post-games for Comcast. Christine and I enjoyed listening to his analysis - a compliment we rarely give to a broadcaster. I was hoping his gig with Major League Baseball would be short-lived and he would come back to local outlets.

Unfortunately, that won't happen.

Game notes: The Phillies officially stink against the Mets. It's up to Adam Eaton to avoid the sweep tonight. Since it's a night game, we won't provide wrap-up until Monday night. The Red Sox continue to roll against the Rangers. David Ortiz had another hit.

Hang 'em high: Evil Yankee Kyle Farnsworth got only three games for endangering the life of Manny Ramirez. No bother:

"He don't deserve that. He was just protecting his players," Ramirez said. "You know we hit A-Rod the game before."

Though Ramirez responded by getting out of the way he admitted, "To be honest with you, I never saw the pitch."

Broadcast blues

At the end of 2006, Greg decided that we needed an HD TV. We were still on old-school cable and dial-up(!) Internet, but we held out until Verizon FIOS was available. Greg wanted to see whether Comcast or Verizon had the better offer; I didn't care as long as Comcast SportsNet was offered so we would still get Phillies games.

We didn't get a good idea last season of what the local broadcast in HD would be like. Services were installed Friday, Sept. 28, so we saw that thrilling victory, but then Saturday's debacle was on Fox - as if an Adam Eaton start isn't bad enough, it had to be combined with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Sunday's game was live and in person.

This year, there is something we hadn't considered: CN8 isn't available on Verizon. There are only four CN8 games, all to be played by April 16, but one is tonight, only one day after a business-persons special. They're killing me. Next week: two day games and two CN8 games. That means I'll get to see only one Mets game. The Wednesday night CN8 game is also supposed to be on ESPN2. My fingers are crossed that we'll get the broadcast, but it will probably be blacked out.

And as for the HD, I'll keep it. It really is amazing how much better the game looks.

Strange times: Every year when the Phillies are in Cincinnati, something odd seems to happen. Todd Zolecki has the highlights here.

Conspiracy theory: This tidbit has Greg speculating whether Charlie Manuel is trying to make sure that Eaton pulls a hamstring:

There's no telling what would have happened if Adam Eaton had rounded third with the chance to score a valuable insurance run and faced a home-plate collision with a catcher. But the righthander, who is scheduled to start against Cincinnati Saturday, didn't have much time to think about it when Charlie Manuel told him to get ready to pinch-run for leftfielder Pat Burrell in the seventh inning. At the time, the Phillies were leading, 7-6, and had men on second and third with no outs. Not wanting to burn a possible pinch-hitter to run for Burrell, Manuel sent Eaton scrambling into the home clubhouse. The veteran starter threw on his cleats, laced them up, and made it back in time to take second.

"I was hoping we'd hit a home run," Eaton said.

If Cholly is thinking like that, then he is more brilliant than anyone has ever given him credit for.

[Nah, he probably just still can't manage.]

Red Sox fans: Don't worry, I'll let Greg do some writing again this weekend.