Press Box

CLEARWATER, Fla. - It was 10:03 a.m. Wednesday when I carefully pushed through the glass doors that lead to the bullpen and infield diamond that sits below the main entrance to Bright House Field. A light rain fell as I turned right, walked about 30 yards, and headed toward the Carpenter Complex Fields, where I have watched men stretch, throw, hit, run, and play baseball since Mike Schmidt's final spring training as a player in 1989. I didn't know I was being watched. As I passed the closed weight room and neared the steps that lead up to Frenchy's Tiki Bar in left field at the Phillies' spring-training home, I could hear men talking on two-way radios.

THERE IS NO statue cast in Charlie Abel's image, but the man whose bronzed likeness sits on the Spectrum steps knows who is the arena's true soul. Julius Erving said so himself. "If anybody here should be looked up to, it's you," he told Charlie Abel. "You're always here, doing your job. " "Press Box" Abel - so named because, as the press-box guard, that's how he answered the phone there; no comma, no pause - will be among the Sixers' esteemed guests at tonight's farewell to the Wachovia Spectrum.

James van Riemsdyk bit the bullet for two games in the Stanley Cup finals. Last night, van Riemsdyk spit out that bullet and returned to the lineup for Game 4, retaking his spot as the youngest player in the series. Flyers coach Peter Laviolette swapped van Riemsdyk with Dan Carcillo, the player who replaced him for Game 2. Van Riemsdyk, 21, was forced to watch Games 2 and 3 from the press box - the first games he had ever missed as a healthy scratch. "It was tough," van Riemsdyk said.

The Eagles quelled an unexpected stir at Veterans Stadium yesterday. Football operations director Tom Modrak made a quick reassuring phone call to Andy Reid and made an impromptu appearance at the head coach's press conference, all of which made for an interesting day after the Eagles dropped to 0-3 with Sunday's 26-0 loss at Buffalo. Modrak rebutted a Trenton Times report that depicted Modrak's and pro personnel director Mike McCartney's reactions in the press box at various plays.

Terry Murray is back in the coaching fraternity - with the Flyers. In a surprising move yesterday, general manager Bob Clarke added the former Flyers head coach to Ken Hitchcock's staff as an assistant coach. Murray will work primarily in the press box for the remainder of the season. His assignment will be spotting opponents' line matchups against the Flyers and the opposition's tendencies during games. The hiring was "strictly Hitch's idea," Clarke said yesterday. Murray, 52, will act as "an eye in the sky," Hitchcock said, feeding the staff two or three nuggets of information per period and preparing a postgame report.

For a guy whose health supposedly will keep him from coaching the Flyers again this spring, Roger Neilson looked fairly vigorous, pedaling his bicycle out of the parking lot at the practice facility in Voorhees, N.J., without addressing reporters. Neilson, wearing shorts and a warmup jacket, took off a little after 11 a.m., about an hour after he arrived to meet with team president and general manager Bob Clarke. Clarke told Neilson interim coach Craig Ramsay would remain in charge of the team for the remainder of the playoffs.

Five years had passed since Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier, and Sam Lacy found himself stuck outside a stadium gate. As a reporter for the Washington Tribune, Chicago Defender and Baltimore Afro American, Lacy had traveled to places like Montreal, Toledo, Ohio, even Cuba, to chronicle Robinson's ascent to the majors and his early trials there. He had been placed in the same hotels, banned in the same restaurants, jeered by many of the same racists. He had attended and reported on the World Series of 1947, '48, '49, '51, as Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Monte Irvin and other former Negro League players established themselves as major leaguers in Robinson's wake.

Up or down? That's what Chichester football coach Ted Woolery must decide when his Eagles host Academy Park on Friday night. In Chichester's 7-3 loss to Chester on Oct. 13, Woolery decided to go up. The veteran coach spent the game on top of the press box, calling down plays over his headset to receivers coach Don Morgan. That marked the first time Woolery had not been on the sideline, which is the usual position for head coaches. At other schools, an assistant coach or two stay high in the stands or in the press box and communicate with the head coach.

Beaver Stadium's tiny coach's booth, normally crowded with the three Penn State assistants who occupy it during games, is going to have to accommodate one more person tomorrow. Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno said he will watch the Michigan State game from that lofty vantage point. He'll be joined by offensive coaches Galen Hall, Dick Anderson and Jay Paterno, his son. "I'm going to be there," Joe Paterno said last night as he took fans' questions on his weekly radio show for the first time since suffering a broken leg and torn knee ligaments on Nov. 4. "I'm going to be in the press box watching.

Bradley Martin and his Simon Gratz football teammates have not had much to get excited about this season. The young and mistake-prone Bulldogs are winless through five games. Tomorrow morning at 11, that changes. The Gratz players will be more energized than usual because they will compete in the first game to be played at the Philadelphia School District's third supersite, the Bulldogs' fancy new home. The state-of-the-art facility is situated at Germantown and Hunting Park Avenues in North Philadelphia, just a few blocks from Gratz.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - It was 10:03 a.m. Wednesday when I carefully pushed through the glass doors that lead to the bullpen and infield diamond that sits below the main entrance to Bright House Field. A light rain fell as I turned right, walked about 30 yards, and headed toward the Carpenter Complex Fields, where I have watched men stretch, throw, hit, run, and play baseball since Mike Schmidt's final spring training as a player in 1989. I didn't know I was being watched. As I passed the closed weight room and neared the steps that lead up to Frenchy's Tiki Bar in left field at the Phillies' spring-training home, I could hear men talking on two-way radios.

Claude Giroux stood there, his arms folded, gently stroking his ginger playoff beard and trying to come up with an answer. The assembled press corps was eager for Giroux's take on why the recently dubbed "best player in the world" dropped off from a type of first-round series that would satisfy most players for an entire playoff run to just one point in three games against the New Jersey Devils. Giroux, 24, shrugged off the questions. "We were one goal away from us leading 2-1," Giroux said.

MIAMI - The sellout crowd in the Miami Marlins' new ballpark cheered the introduction of their starters, who were accompanied by women dressed as Latin showgirls. There was another roar for Muhammad Ali, who delivered the first pitch. Then Kyle Lohse and the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals went to work, and the place grew quiet. Lohse held Miami hitless until the seventh inning and pitched into the eighth to help the Cardinals win the first game in Marlins Park, 4-1, Wednesday night.

WITH A PLATE of food perhaps simmering to the side and a press box overflowing with pro scouts from a bevy of teams, the Flyers' brass put its first foot forward last night toward improving the team before the Feb. 27 trade deadline. Without giving up a key piece of their lineup, the Flyers bolstered their defensive corps by adding Dallas blue liner Nicklas Grossman in exchange for a second-round pick in 2012 and a third-rounder in 2013. Neither one of the picks is the Flyers', though both are shaping up to be better than their current selections in those rounds, based on standings.

A PERSON familiar with the NHL's plan said the Detroit Red Wings will play the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2013 Winter Classic. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity yesterday because the league isn't expected to announce the matchup until today. Earlier yesterday, the University of Michigan Board of Regents authorized the athletic department to seek a contract with the NHL that would allow the league to hold next year's showcase at Michigan Stadium. The recommendation also said the Winter Classic would be scheduled for Jan. 1, 2013, with an alternate date of Jan. 2. Buffalo, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have all hosted the Winter Classic, but a game at Michigan Stadium could draw the league's largest crowd.

There were the three of them, and they outlasted most marriages. For a quarter of a century, they gave voice to the professional baseball team of Philadelphia. Somewhere along the line, especially if the Fightin's owned a piece of your heart, you lived and died to their dulcet tones. They were a broadcasters' version of a slickly turned double play: Whitey to Harry to Andy. There was Whitey, of course, viewing the world askance, drawing on that ever-present pipe, his humor as dry as his beloved Kansas plains as he watched the balls and strikes from his press box roost and reflected on the sad state of umpiring in general.

WITH PENGUINS captain Sidney Crosby watching from the press box, Washington's Jason Chimera scored off a turnover in the first period and Tomas Vokoun made 30 saves, giving the host Capitals a 1-0 victory last night. It was Pittsburgh's sixth consecutive loss and first shutout of the season. The Penguins have scored only six goals in the skid. The Capitals have won seven of eight at home. Pittsburgh is on its longest losing skid since a 10-game drought in 2006. Crosby was wearing a jacket and tie while stationed in the press box. Still sidelined by concussion symptoms, he hasn't played since Dec. 5, and only now is ready to resume skating.

Mike McQueary, identified as the Penn State graduate assistant who allegedly witnessed sexual abuse of a minor by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky in 2002, is known as the target of head coach Joe Paterno's rants during football games. The red-haired McQueary, who played quarterback with the Nittany Lions, is in his 12th season as a Penn State assistant and his eighth as wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator. McQueary is responsible for relaying plays to the quarterback from offensive coordinator Galen Hall and quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno in the press box. Before Joe Paterno started watching games from the press box because of lingering pain from a preseason injury, he would get information from the coaches in the press box through McQueary.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno has been looking forward all season to coaching an entire game from the sideline as he slowly recovers from injuries to his shoulder and his pelvis. They are the result of a collision with wide receiver Devon Smith early in preseason practice. However, following a near accident during Saturday's game against Iowa, Paterno could be returning to the press box for the foreseeable future if not for the rest of the season. As he had in the previous two games, Paterno coached against Iowa from the sideline in the first half then headed to the coaches' booth in the press box for the second half.

IS PENN STATE COACH Joe Paterno running interference for his son, quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, concerning the quarterback controversy that seemingly has spiraled out of control? When the Nittany Lions take the field against Iowa tomorrow afternoon in Beaver Stadium, the likelihood is that sophomore Rob Bolden will get his sixth consecutive start, with redshirt junior Matt McGloin again coming off the bench. The near-equal division of playing time is a necessary evil, said JoePa, who has never been a proponent of a two-quarterback rotation, because the competition between Bolden and McGloin remains too close to call.