Spike Eskin: The Philadelphia Sports Spies Walk Among Us
By Spike Eskin
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Sometimes a television show can be so good, it changes your worldview. The Americans has changed my worldview.
The Americans is a new show on the FX network, that is set in the 1980's, and about Russian spies living in the United States. The spies, who are trained to look, speak, and act like people who were born and raised in America, look like people you see every day. The nice couple that lives on a street in the suburbs, with two kids, who bring brownies to the new folks that move into the neighborhood. The little old lady, sitting by herself in the coffee shop, enjoying a muffin. It could be anyone.
So now my life is full of possible spies. Admittedly however, my worldview is pretty limited in the first place. It consists of family, friends, people I pass on the street, and Philadelphia athletes.
Since you don't know any of my friends or family (and the one member in my family you do know is way too ridiculous to be a spy), I decided to let you know some of the sports figures in our fair city who I think are most likely to be spies.
Nnamdi Asomugha
This one really couldn't be more obvious. First of all, he's not even good at football, and when he was good, he played on a team none of us ever saw. He's very intelligent, and there's always been something a little bit off about him. The nail in the coffin was the discovery of his solo-lunches in his car at the Novacare complex. Clearly he needs some secrecy to phone in his latest discoveries.
Kwame Brown
Please explain to me any reason that Kwame Brown is in the NBA, if it's not to collect information. Go ahead, I'll wait. It's certainly not to play basketball. Brown is a spy, and has been for years. He's a basketball player with small hands who has no discernible basketball skill. What better place to do it than the city that independence was born, with uber-patriot and uber-soft teammate Spencer Hawes. The biggest problem Brown has is that his bosses have so much electronic communication to wade through, as Doug Collins' thousands of middle-of-the-night text messages are clogging the feed.
Charlie Manuel
A great spy can make it sound like he's from the United States. An even greater spy can make himself sound like Charlie Manuel. Manuel's done a brilliant job of convincing his through his way of speaking, and his questionable decision making, that there's absolutely no way he could be spy material. While he's misusing relievers, he's stealing nuclear secrets. We never knew.
Ilya Bryzgalov
I know what you're thinking. Why would the Russians use a spy who is very clearly Russian, and can't manage to keep himself out of the headlines? Well that's easy, he's not a Russian spy. Ilya Bryzgalov is a United States double agent. I haven't quite figured out what information he could be collecting, but I'm sure it's something.
