Ryan Howard

Well, today's the day. Phillies slugger Ryan Howard and the team head to arbitration. The two sides are $3 million apart. Smart money would have said split the difference and move on to working on a real deal -- a long-term pact to keep the slugger happy and in Philly. We wonder if this gets settled before the arbitration hearing actually concludes. Should the Phillies give him the money? Yes indeed. It's been a long time since the team had a core of players we fans actually wanted to go see play. Your vote?

The weather

"Everyone complains about the weather but no one does anything about it..." so says Mark Twain. I may not be able to change the weather but I can change my residence. If it were up to me, I'd be in New Mexico or Arizona -- heat and all. In the past 24 hours or so, I had a gas grill nearly come crashing through the doors to my deck, trash cans all over the neighborhood and random basketballs, soccer balls and other sports equipment scattered all over the lawn and street. All due to the wind. One of our staff had a tree strike her garage damaging the garage and her car. Remind me again what's so great about winter?

Hextall

The line of the night from Ron Hextall Wednesday night as he was honored by the Flyers? That he and Philly were tailor made for each other. Hextall was inducted into the Flyers Hall of Fame in a pretty decent ceremony that had the place rocking. Why not? There were all sorts of vintage video of Hextall making incredible saves, scoring a goal or two himself and of course, beating the stuffing out of other players. Naturally, that got the biggest rounds of applause. Like it or not, fighting is part of hockey. And most times it's a result of someone sticking up for another member of the squad. Hextall had no problem doing that and for that, I admire him. After all, he WAS a goalie and there aren't many of them who like to mix it up. He was a true teammate. I'm not sure if any of you got to attend but I did, I was lucky and I will always remember Number 27.