Lyons

The scandal for the Rev. Henry Lyons began when he was victimized by a crime. The crime was arson - small fires set inside the $700,000 Florida house he had bought with a woman who worked for him. The deed for the waterfront Tierra Verde property lists Lyons as unmarried. The arson suspect is Lyons' wife. The couple lives in nearby St. Petersburg, where Lyons is pastor of the 1,500-member Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church. Since the July 6 fires, Lyons, also the president of the National Baptist Convention USA, which claims 8.5 million members in 33,000 churches, has been engulfed in a conflagration much more intense than the ones his wife is accused of setting.

The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, the embattled head of the nation's largest Baptist organization, is coming to Philadelphia next week to address a newly formed interdenominational ministerial organization here. Philadelphia has been a hotbed of anti-Lyons sentiment among Baptists since allegations of adultery, fraud and theft surfaced against the Florida minister, who heads the eight-million-member National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. Lyons will be the featured guest at a Service of Recognition at Mount Olivet Tabernacle Baptist Church, 42nd and Wallace streets, April 4. The occasion is the installation of members of the Independent Ministers Conference of Pennsylvania and Vicinity.

Nicky Silver, the Wynnewood-born-and bred playwright whose edgy plays sometimes have seemingly nice or clueless people turning awful, had his Broadway debut Monday night with a solid, edgy play in which someone basically nice or clueless turns awful. In the case of "The Lyons," it's the son of a four-person nuclear family who becomes ballistic in a desperate search for the human connection that is the play's solid theme. But I'm making "The Lyons" sound far too serious; it's an outrageously funny comedy — at times, uncomfortably funny because Silver exploits a man's late-stage cancer for laughs.

Next week's annual conference of the National Baptist Convention could turn into a Lyons den. After hearing six weeks of revelations of alleged misconduct, a group of opposition ministers said this week that it will turn up the heat on the convention president, the Rev. Henry J. Lyons. The leader of 8.5 million African-American Baptists already has been accused of cheating on his wife and purchasing a $700,000 seaside home with his mistress. The opposition group, led by preachers in Nashville, Tenn.

The Rev. Henry J. Lyons is coming to town - and Mount Olivet Tabernacle Baptist Church is in an uproar. Deacons of the West Philadelphia congregation yesterday told the Daily News they will mount a peaceful curb-side demonstration Saturday afternoon when the indicted Florida minister is scheduled to preach at their church. They said other churches also will be invited to the protest prayer-fest outside the church at 42nd and Wallace streets. The 2 p.m. service will officially induct officers and members of the 3-month-old, interdenominational Independent Ministers Conference of Pennsylvania and Vicinity.

The local pastor who seeks the presidency that the Rev. Henry Lyons resigned in disgrace says cleaning up the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. is a long-haul job. "My campaign wasn't against Lyons, it was for refocusing and the redirection of the convention, and that still needs to be done," said the Rev. William Shaw, of White Rock Baptist Church, in West Philadelphia. Shaw finished third when Lyons won office in 1994 and last year launched his new campaign. Also in the race is Philadelphia native and '94 runner-up, the Rev. Franklyn Richardson of White Plains, N.Y., and two Southern preachers.

Unwilling to forgive him his alleged trespasses and saying his appearance there would amount to trespass, members of a West Philadelphia Baptist congregation yesterday used a church van to bar the indicted head of a Baptist denomination. The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., had to borrow another denomination's pulpit, from which he proclaimed his innocence and belief that he'll be vindicated when he has his day in court. Without elaboration, Mr. Lyons, who has been indicted on charges of embezzling church funds amid allegations of adultery, fraud and theft, said: "For my misguided judgment and errors I did make, I ask your forgiveness.

A group of African-American Baptist ministers - including many of Philadelphia's heavyweights - want the Rev. Henry Lyons, the scandal-wracked head of their national group, to "step aside" while charges against him are investigated. The statement from the Rev. James S. Allen on behalf of about 60 ministers who met at North Philadelphia's Triumph Baptist Church yesterday was a careful one. He said while the ministers "recognize a cloud that hovers over" Lyons, they won't demand his resignation until he can answer the allegations.

The Rev. William J. Shaw has spent almost every weekday this summer traveling wherever African-American Baptists gather - especially those who might elect him head of the troubled National Baptist Convention USA Inc. But this Sunday, after five days in Chicago, Detroit and upstate Michigan, he'll be back in the pulpit of White Rock Baptist Church, 53rd and Chestnut streets in West Philadelphia, as he is every Sunday. Shaw, 65, has an awesome resume - he's been executive director of the Opportunities Industrialization Center, president of local and state Baptist conferences and the city's Metropolitan Christian Council, an ecumenical roundtable.

A South Jersey soldier died in Afghanistan this week, the Department of Defense said Friday. Sgt. John A. Lyons, 26, of Seaside Park, Ocean County, died Wednesday in Ghazni province from wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire. Lyons joined the military in February 2009 as a combat engineer. He had been assigned to the Eighth Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade, in Fort Hood, Texas, since June 2009. Lyons, who received numerous awards and decorations, deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in December.

BILL FLEISCHMAN might have put it best: "Bobby Lyons was a genuine Philly sports guy. " Like many Philadelphia sportswriters, past and present, Bill Fleischman, longtime Daily News sports correspondent and auto-racing reporter, knew and respected Bobby Lyons as a consummate professional, yet one who never called much attention to himself. He was a sports reporter for the Associated Press and the old Evening Bulletin, author of several highly regarded books on different aspects of sports, former sports-information officer for La Salle University, head of its news bureau and operator of his own public-relations company.

Sportswriter Bob Lyons was so organized, so diligent, that he wrote his own obituary and left it for his family to disperse to the media. Mr. Lyons, 73, an understated, dignified man who wrote several books connected to the Philadelphia sports scene, died Wednesday of heart disease. One of Mr. Lyon's five children, Rick, said his father left an obituary "not because he wanted to write it, but because he wanted it accurate. He started his career writing obituaries for the Bulletin, and he ended it writing an obituary.

Fade in . . . Nightfall at sea. On the bridge of the USS Iggles stands a large rumpled man who favors black shorts even when it's colder than a well- digger's posterior. He cups a hand to ear, leans in against the wind, and anchors himself in that splay-legged stance of an immovable offensive lineman. Cap'n Andy. A man - we'll call him Jeff - scrambles up awkwardly to the bridge, barking a shin, cursing softly. Jeff: "What are you doing?" Cap'n Andy: "Listening. " Jeff: "Well, duh. " Cap'n Andy: "For whispers.

His face popped up on the screen and you were struck with this thought: Cap'n Andy is wearing his years. Out on the range, they would say he looks like he's been rode hard and put up wet. So whatever became of that apple-cheeked, roan-maned, walrus-mustached, naive NFL wannabe? Fourteen years, that's what. Fourteen years of family turmoil and unspeakable tragedy to endure with grace and courage. Fourteen years of palace intrigue and ruthless purging in the darkened hallways of Fortress NovaCare.

The camera caught him coming in low and aiming high, like a rolling ball of butcher knives, a middle linebacker steaming along on the base paths, his uniform pigsty filthy with a warrior's colors, telling you he's down and dirty, his face contorted with the effort, seeking out a collision, and you are struck with this thought: The prudent man steps aside. Mike Trout, coming through. Here is how he is introduced in the antiseptic world of cyberspace: Michael (Mike) Nelson Trout.

The spiral is perfect, the ball launched by a buggy-whip arm, and it arcs in majestic slow motion across a cobalt sky. Two are in lockstep pursuit of it, receiver and defender, each calculating where their thunderous intersection will be reached, and you see them rising and grasping as one, and it is all so real that you swear that you are, well, there. Right there! And Steve Sabol would smile a smile of modesty and satisfaction and lean back and thank you. On behalf of NFL Films and its gazillion Emmys, we thank you. To quote the song: Nobody does it better.

And comes now the bagpiper, with that music so mournful, so achingly familiar, so haunting in its melancholy beauty. Has any lyricist ever penned its equal? But come ye back when summer's in the meadow, Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow, Yes, I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow . . . - Danny Boy   Comes now Rory Boy, freckled of face, curly of hair, determined of jaw, purposeful of stride, eyes set on the far horizon at a goal only he can see. He is, as they say, The Next Big Thing, at once precocious and poised.

And so there they were, nose-to-nose, chin-to-chin, veins popping, eyes bulging, F-bombs detonating, hot at it - Tom Brady, the Wonder Boy, and . . . and . . . help me out here, who is that other guy in Brady's grille, anyway? Bill O'Brien. Who? This was Dec. 11, as the New England Patriots were beating the Washington Redskins, and, much to the camera's delight there was a snarling sideline dustup between Brady and . . . and . . . Bill O'Brien - that Bill O'Brien, then the Patriots' offensive coordinator, who the next time the camera lingers on him will be as the new head football coach of Pennsylvania State University, which is kind of a big deal, seeing as how there hasn't been a new one for 46 years.

He had become, they say, a member of the Brotherhood of the Iron, those intrepid and devoted pumpers of weights in dogged search of the sculpted physique and, always, always, more tonnage to hoist. You wonder if Garrett Reid was searching for more than that. Searching for salvation, perhaps. Searching for release from the cruel hold the demons had on him. He was, by all accounts, a tortured soul, yet he managed to rise, again and again. His courage and fierce spirit were galvanizing, and celebrated in tribute by his father, who had the most wrenching duty that can be thrust upon a parent.

There is an unspoken covenant between the professional baseball team of Philadelphia and the raving lunatic loyalists who support it with what can only be described as impassioned, unconditional tough love. And that covenant is this: As long as you are trying, really, really, really trying to build a winner, we will support you. We will put up with those $20 beers (not yet but inevitable, along with the $30 parking, etc. etc. etc.). And we will continue to snap up those bobbleheads and those Hunter Pence tees (instant memorabilia)