Jesus, Sexual Assault and the Phillies: Tuesday Mash-Up

Anytime the ESPY’s are around the corner, it is a sure sign that the sports world has hit one of its most dull points of the year. But in Philadelphia, it was another roller coaster week of emotions for fans. The Sixers flew from Salt Lake City to Vegas for more NBA Summer League action while the Eagles wide receivers were busy flying to none other than Fargo, North Dakota. Speaking of flights, the Phillies continued their downward spiral right into the All-Star Break. Here are some of the recent highlights in the week that was:

Eagles:

On Sunday afternoon, Carson Wentz posted a four-part Instagram post starting by stating his excitement for the upcoming season to start but quickly turning to sharing his recent Bible studies, specifically the Book of John and the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. The moral of the story ended up being that this woman was the first to realize that Jesus was the Messiah and Jesus had come for the broken to erase their sin and shame. While this may seem like a harmless Sunday social media preach session, anytime an athlete uses their platform to speak on religion or politics they ruffle a few feathers. Most Eagles fans are aware of Went’z religious views and had no problem with the Instagram posts but there are always a few outliers. I, for one, despite not being a religious person am ecstatic Wentz is a choir boy instead of a quarterback involved in autographed memorabilia scandals or getting his ass beat down at a scummy Panama City Beach Spring Break party.

Wentz also announced today that he’s launching the his “AO1” Foundation which is dope and you can learn about it here:

Sixers:

Markelle Fultz looked like he had a Dwayne Wade style array of moves through three games in NBA Summer League action before suffering an ankle sprain that caused me heart palpitations I still haven’t recovered from. With Fultz out, other members of the Sixers summer squad have been given their chance to shine. Unfortunately for the Sixers PR staff, that means a guy like Brandon Austin and all the baggage that comes with him are being brought to light. Austin dropped 15.5ppg in Utah, including playing some hero ball down the stretch against the Jazz and not passing to the #1 overall pick. Despite his solid play, Austin has just about the worst kind of checkered past possible. It’s always innocent until proven guilty but if you get kicked out of one Division 1 school for sexual assault allegations then transfer to another D1 school, get hit with sexual assault allegations again, and cause that school to settle for $800k out of court, you should probably figure out what ‘NO’ means.

Phillies:

The All-Star break has arrived and watching 9 innings of this team is guaranteed to make your eyes bleed. I’m one more Odubel Herrera base running mistake away from checking into a psychiatric hospital. If this team reaches 60 wins it will be a bigger miracle than the 1980 Olympic win over the Soviets. Fortunately for fans and their sanity, this team will be respectable very soon. After bringing up Nick Williams, he hit his first home run on Sunday to finish the first half of the season on a high note. For the Iron Pigs, the entire first half of the season was a high note, being capped with Scott Kingery and Rhys Hoskins playing in the MLB Futures Game. Kingery making it to the big time this season is a stretch but there are some others we will get our first taste of so I guess it’s time to Trust The Prospects?

They don’t have to create the ’08 team right away but it would honestly just be nice to have players respectable enough to get us back in the NL East standings…

And if we have some guys that can hit one of the Powerade sign in the right field stands that would be just swell too.

 

 

By Aidan Powers | July 11, 2017