Forget Carlos Ruiz’s walk-off home run in extra innings. The heroics of his blast got the Phillies a win in game #26 of the 2010 season to draw even with the Cardinals in the 2nd of a 4-game set. The important thing that came out of last night’s game was the performance of Cole Hamels.

Since leading the Phillies to World Series glory in 2008, Cole Hamels has been shaky. He’s gone 13-15 since they won it all, compiling an ERA of 4.58. Seldom during that stretch have we seen glimpses of what made Hamels the World Series MVP that year. But last night’s outing against one of the better offenses in the N.L. showed that Hamels still has his stuff. Before being rattled in the 9th inning by a second consecutive day’s installment of a fan running onto the field Hamels was lights out, allowing no runs. Determined to show that this town is as stubborn as it is stupid, the fan’s decision to make himself the centerpiece of the game clearly rattled Hamels who promptly gave up 2 doubles and the chance at a win.

With Hamels coming off the field, the Philadelphia fans showed they do have at least some glimmer of decency. The gave Hamels, a guy who has taken over Donovan McNabb’s role in this town as the player you love to hate, a standing ovation, and rightfully so. Hamels’ closing line was 8 hits and 1 run over 8 innings, with 8 Ks and one walk on 116 pitches. He went toe-to-toe with Adam Wainwright the whole way, showing that when he’s on he’s right up there with the National League’s best. The best thing to come out of the game last night was Hamels’ confidence-boosting performance and even though he didn’t get the win, he reminded us of what he’s capable of. And also what this team will need if they’re going to win a 3rd consecutive pennant.

This is a good week for Philadelphia sports because it’s sure to usher in some familiar stupidity. Trending topics right now are the following:

NFL: Typical to the way the NFL has put a strangle-hold on your sports consumption, this week contains yet more all-world hype that has nothing to do with an actual game. The NFL schedule comes out tonight at 7:30 and the NFL draft is Thursday at 7:30. Texas safety, Earl Thomas, is rumored to be high on the Eagles’ wish list. If they choose a safety, the right choice would be USC behemoth, Taylor Mays. But like Todd McShay and Mel Kiper (who are also not employed by NFL teams for the purpose of drafting players), what do I know? And from the “maybe this guy is a complete jackass after all” file, Donovan McNabb has stated his desire to be reunited with Terrell Owens. Huh?

MLB: John Gonzalez has yet again bitten our style. In today’s Inquirer, Gonzo points out how now that McNabb’s gone, Cole Hamels is becoming the new punching bag in Philly. It’s a pretty good point, but like Burger King’s new Sausage Egg Muffin for $1, it’s not very original. And then there’s Kyle Kendrick, who’s slated to go tonight against the Braves. Kendrick is a bad start or two away from playing on the other side of the Delaware River. With a 17.47 ERA in 5.2 innings this year, Kendrick’s going to have to be good tonight if he wants to avoid being traded to Japan for the hot dog eater.

NBA: Playoff excitement.

NHL: The Flyers look to put a choke-hold on the Devils tonight at the Wachovia Center. A Flyers win tonight will put them in a commanding 3-1 position in the series. Keys to tonight’s game: Scott Hartnell not spending most of it in the penalty box and the Flyers’ ability to keep Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise in check. Kovalchuk only has one goal in the series but he has registered 4 assists. Parise has 1 goal and 2 assists. These guys are the Devils’ big guns and if they account for 2 or more goals in this game, the Flyers will most likely find themselves knotted at 2-2.

Philly has its collective leopard-print panties in a knot over two huge developments this week. The first is the almost-universal glee surrounding Donovan McNabb’s departure and the awesome prospect of a 2010 that will be a huge success if the Eagles win 8 games. And the second, of course, is the eternal rebirth of everything holy that attends the opening of god’s very own paradise-on-earth: the baseball season. But for fans of Philly sports that are played indoors, there’s also a very tight and very intriguing development on South Broad St. this week.

I’m speaking, of course, of the Flyers’ playoff run. The team has 3 games remaining including one tonight at the Air Canada Centre against a Toronto Maple Leafs team that has gone 10-5-3 since the Olympic break. The orange and black will finish the season (as they did in poor form last year) with a home-and-home against the Rangers. If the Rangers win tonight in Buffalo they will be (at worst) two point behind Philly for the final playoff spot (if they win tonight and the Flyers lose, they’ll be tied).

Scott Burnside and Pierre LeBrun have a nice conversation going about the Flyers performance of late, their injury woes and their prospects for getting in. Burnside doesn’t like the Flyers’ chances much (to have any playoff impact if they do get in) and he frames that with his wish that when he asked Flyers’ GM, Paul Holmgren, about the team’s chances that Holmgren had simply said “we’re done like dinner.” I’m not sure that’s necessarily the case for their overall chances of making the playoffs but we’ll know a lot more about that once tonight’s Flyers-Leafs and Sabres-Rangers games are over.

Like Donovan McNabb, Jason Campbell has played multiple seasons in the NFC East with an organization and a city that doesn’t want him. While McNabb supporters in Philly and the national media have made a point of saying that Donovan has been mistreated and underappreciated, the way Jason Campbell was made aware of his demotion to 2nd string makes the Eagles’ handling of McNabb look like the red carpet treatment.

Campbell found out about the trade not from the Redskins front office or coach, Mike Shanahan, but via Washington Examiner reporter, John Keim. The conversation went like this:

Keim: Did you hear about what happened?

Campbell: What?

K: The Redskins traded for Donovan

C: Umm…I didn’t know that, man

K: I’m sorry I had to be the one who told you. I can’t believe they didn’t tell you.

C: No, that’s the first I heard of it…I’d better go call my agent.

Wow. In an era where civil conversation has been reduced to twitter feeds and facebook status updates, a polite dismissal is almost too much to ask for. But this is simply wrong. Campbell surely learned during his years in D.C. that he was never their first choice, but Sunday’s drive-by dumping had to really hammer it home.

Well it’s finally come to pass. Donovan McNabb is no longer an Eagle. Fans, the Eagles higher-ups and the media have won the final battle in what has been a war waged against the quarterback for years. For reasons that are impolite and not always openly discussed, huge portions of Eagles Nation have always had it in for McNabb and no amount of statistical success or games won were enough to satisfy the blood lust surrounding #5. The pressure to win a Super Bowl was placed squarely and solely on McNabb’s shoulders and in the end his Hall of Fame resume and unworldly ability to weather the 10-year storm weren’t enough to keep him in Philadelphia.

But regardless of which side of the debate your opinion falls on, one thing is clear: this trade is done and the Eagles and their fans have gotten what they want and it seems (on-field potential aside) that all sides are better off. McNabb is better off because the organization showed pity on him by not trading him to a cellar team like the Raiders or the Bills. The Redskins are not a Super Bowl contender at this point but they have an excellent defense, a Hall of Fame coach and now a future Canton, Ohio resident at quarterback. McNabb will have the opportunity to spend the last few years of his career on a team that is most definitely on the right track.

Fans and the media believe the Eagles are better off too. On this first day of the “be careful what you wish for” era, there’s a sense that a new leaf has been turned and a largely blind hope that the team finally has what it’s always needed: a good quarterback. Despite the fact 99% of the public has absolutely no idea what Kevin Kolb is at this point (myself included), the fan base and talking heads had arrived at a point where the unknown became preferable to more time with McNabb at the helm.

When Eagles fans went to bed last night, they dozed-off dreaming of names like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Visions of a relatively-high draft pick taking the reins and willing a Lombardi Trophy into the glass case at the NovaCare complex danced through their minds. On a day when the greatest sport on earth opens its season, hopes are high; hopes that are based on little other than a desire to get rid of the old. But that anti-McNabb spirit finally won the day and the Eagles have moved in a new direction.

It would be silly and ridiculous to try and predict what’ll happen next. This team has enormous question marks on defense and an offensive line that needs some help. The skill positions on offense are showing promise but in the end the same thing will happen as has been happening for the past few years: eyes will be focused uniquely on the man under center.

So we go forward, sure that there won’t be a revolt in mid-October when the Eagles are 2-4. The hopeful patience that proponents of this move swear they’ll show while Kolb grows up will be tested when this team doesn’t make the playoffs in 2010. And where will the patience be if (as is quite possible), the Redskins finish with a better record than the Eagles this year? We don’t know the answers to these questions but we should at least be honest about one thing: this team is in a major transition phase, a term that we call “rebuilding” when this phase happens in football. So we won’t have McNabb around anymore but if this gamble doesn’t pay off, we’ll have the one thing Philadelphia fans love more than anything else: something to complain about.

Some website called arrowheadpride.com is reporting on an Adam Schefter story that says that the Eagles and Raiders have all the pieces in place concerning a trade involving Donovan McNabb. The story relates an AP report that the Eagles would be looking for a pick in the top-42 of next year’s draft in exchange for McNabb (the Raiders have the 39th-overall pick in the draft). The story also nebulously mentions that several NFL analysts believe that McNabb is “likely” headed to the Raiders.

Insofar as a player is worth more than what a given market will offer for him, McNabb has to be more valuable to a team than the 39th overall pick, but NFL teams are in love with draft picks because they’re the seedling that keeps fans’ hopes alive, regardless of the actual improvement-through-drafting track record of NFL teams’ brain trusts.

Because of the ESPN and NFL media-created gorilla that is the incredibly over-hyped entity known as the NFL draft, picks are viewed as containing the same value as ground-floor Microsoft stock options. In reality, the draft isn’t much more than a way for the NFL to create additional m(b)illions in offseason revenue. After all, the NFL is a sport where no more than 20 games are played in a season. Therefore off-field doings in football are equally-important to the actual games. In order for the NFL to maintain its G8-sized economy, you all have to subscribe to things like the Draft, the Combine, training camps and fantasy football.

Speaking of money, the Eagles’ rush to get rid of McNabb may have as much to do with the May 5 deadline of paying him the $6.2 million roster bonus as it does with their desire to turn over a new leaf in the form of Kevin Kolb. It’s always amazing to me that the NFL is, by far, the sport that honors loyalty the least. Ironic, of course, because the NFL makes more money than any other sport in this country and yet teams are willing to bankrupt the on-field integrity and competitiveness of their squads in order to devalue the contracts they’ve signed with their players. As we know, the Eagles are at the cutting edge of this trend, which may explain why they have so much of your money and so little of your satisfaction in return.

For all his flaws, Donovan McNabb has been the quarterback of the best 10-year run in modern Eagles history. The talk that’s been heating up over the past few days of him being traded is exciting to most Eagles fans mainly because they are under the mistaken impression that with a change comes the inevitable: a Super Bowl victory. But nothing could be further from the truth. As far as the quarterback position is concerned, the Eagles are nearer to their first Lombardi trophy in the next 3 seasons with McNabb than they would be with any feasible replacement.

And for the first time in my life, I agree with something Stephen A. Smith has written. In today’s Inquirer, Smith argues that the way in which McNabb has been treated over the years has been disgraceful. Fans, of course, have had a long-standing beef with McNabb for reasons that aren’t exactly clear other than the one shining statistic that doesn’t show up on the back of his football card.

Donovan McNabb is a lot of things, not all of which are perfect. But the symptom Eagles fan suffer from is the knee-jerk hatred of him and an infantile belief that turning over a new leaf will somehow equate to Super Bowl glory. And that way of thinking leaves a lot to be desired.

Because it’s so difficult to convince Eagles fans that NFL success is a little more complicated than a Mel Gibson movie, I’ll throw some easily-recognizable names out there for Eagles fans to consider when conspiring against McNabb:  Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Drew Bledsoe, Mark Brunell, Boomer Esiason, John Elway, Terry Bradshaw, Ken Anderson, Jim Kelly and Steve McNair. These are the quarterbacks who show-up in 10-year career similarity scores to McNabb on profootballreference.com. Take that for what you will, but at least try and use those names as perspective before you decide its time to throw McNabb under the bus.

If the the Eagles’ decision to pay Michael Vick a roster bonus of $1.5 million is any indication, it looks like they’re on their way to keeping all three of their quarterbacks. According to espn.com the Birds will make this payment as part of the $5.25 million Vick’s 2010 contract calls for. Andy Reid punctuated the decision by saying “I haven’t changed my decision, and I don’t think they have (the front office) either. They agreed, and mentioned some of the same things I’ve said–that Donovan’s our quarterback.”

Because this story is about Michael Vick’s contract, we’re not completely sure how this signals that “Donovan’s our quarterback.” But perhaps Reid sees his triumvirate of QBs as inexorably linked to each other. Certainly Vick’s value to the team is in a situational role, so he may have been expendable if Reid planned to move the other portion of his package, McNabb, during the off season.

The other side of the coin is that a small roster bonus payment to Vick means that the Eagles don’t have to spend too much to keep all of their trade options open. With nothing on the horizon (at least publicly), the Eagles’ options in trading one or more of their quarterbacks means that they have more flexibility if the right situation presents itself. Or it could simply mean another year with Donovan at the helm, Kolb and Vick playing supporting roles and fans in this town elevating Tylenol stock every Monday morning.

If you’re a reasonable person, you’ve probably had enough of the daily circus surrounding the Eagles quarterback position. Once upon a time, you were tired of the Brett Favre retirement marathon and this situation reminds you of that. Well, the bad news for you is that this city’s psycho-sexual obsession with Donovan McNabb and the QB spot is alive and well and throbbing on this February Friday.

Garry Cobb is reporting that the Eagles have made a contract offer to Kolb with the stated intention that he would be the starting quarterback “within a year or so.” According to Cobb, this offer was made “more than a year ago” which makes us wonder (if true) whether this portends an imminent McNabb departure.

Thankfully, Howard Eskin is reporting that this rumor is completely false. That’s good news for Eagles nation if for no other reason than the implication that this drama will continue to captivate the attention of the Delaware Valley. Frankly, I’m hoping they cancel the upcoming baseball season so we can have a few more months of this with no interruptions.

Trying to find a tie-in between Brooklyn Decker and Philadelphia sports is like trying to find WMDs in Iraq. There doesn’t seem to be any real connection other than the desire to create one for self-serving purposes. So ok, here goes: Decker is married to Andy Roddick, who is only slightly less well-known as an epic big-game choker than Donovan McNabb.

In any event, she is gracing this year’s SI Swimsuit cover and since that magazine seems to report on sports, we have a fiduciary responsibility to report on it. I’m still not sure what the word “fiduciary” means, much in the same way I didn’t know what it meant when a former boss fired me, saying I had become “too much like a fiduciary.”

Since we’re on the subject of boobs, it should be noted that the Sixers are playing tonight at home against the Timberwolves. Don’t look now but the Sixers have won 4 in a row and should get a 5th tonight (theoretically) because the T-Wolves are 4-21 on the road. This game is going to be about as captivating as reading a 1000-page biography of Punxsutawney Phil. But since the St. Louis-St. Joe’s game is the only other local action tonight, the NBA might actually be watched this evening.