Morning Bytes | '50s idol-maker can make 76ers a hit

You tired of those photos, too?

You know, the ones in which Ed Snider sits at a news conference podium alongside some poor sap of a coach or general manager whose mission is to resurrect the 76ers, a task that on the list of Philadelphia's mission-impossibles ranks higher than electing a Republican mayor.

The Sixers' latest sacrificial lamb is Eddie "No Shot" Stefanski, a nice man despite his Bonner roots and one whose successor figures to be sitting alongside Snider sometime around 2010.

Wonder if Snider and Company ever thought about giving the job to Bob Marcucci.

Marcucci, for those of you too young to have had your auditory canals damaged by his crooning creations, was a local record producer who became an idol-maker in the late 1950s.

He took several young men from South Philadelphia with little or no discernible talent and transformed them into stars.

Does that sound like the perfect resume for a 76ers GM or what?

Marcucci was so good that he made teen idols out of Frankie Avalon and Fabian, who in terms of talent were the show-business equivalents of Shaler Halimon and Leo Rautins.

Marcucci could also scout.

He found Fabian on a rowhouse stoop. The teenager had a singing voice that made you pine for Roseanne Barr's. And as an actor, the only way he was going to take home a Tony was if a South Philly pal joined him for dinner.

But what Marcucci saw in young Fabian Forte was a pompadour, good looks and a cool first name. By 1959, 16-year-old Fabian was a superstar.

Marcucci is 77 now. But maybe he's got a little star-making magic left.

If so, perhaps he could make Samuel Dalembert an NBA all-star by getting him some beaded cornrows, a record contract, and a catchy one-word name like "Lembert."

Shavlik Randolph's got the name, if not the game.

Kyle Korver has possibilities, too. He already has a bad haircut and dreamy eyes.

Think of what Marcucci could do with Willie Green the Scoring Machine.

And if he failed on this latest South Philly star-making gig, he could ask Snider to, in the words of Fabian's big hit, "Turn Me Loose" and schedule another news conference.

Baseball's suicide.

Johan Santana might end up in Boston.

Dan Haren might end up in New York.

The Marlins might end up with a double-A roster.

If baseball's myopic owners hadn't emasculated the commissioner's job when they installed their own toady in Bud Selig, perhaps we'd have someone willing and able to act in the best interests of the game.

Instead, the gap between the haves and have-nots in baseball, as in the rest of America, grows increasingly wider.

Say what?

So I'm watching the news ticker on some cable channel when I read that Curt Schilling might run for U.S. senator against John Kerry in Massachusetts.

Just what we need in Washington, another camera-hogging millionaire who throws curveballs.

NASCAR note of the week.

ESPN.com's Marty Smith on retiring driver Ricky Rudd: "He's a racer to the core. . . . Old school. No frills. Tougher 'n woodpecker lips."

Can't understand why people make fun of NASCAR, can you?

O'Malley? Oh, really?

I respect the Hall of Fame's revamped veterans committee. The three baseball writers on it are among the best in the business.

But I disagree with the notion that Walter O'Malley deserves to be inducted because he had the foresight to move the Dodgers to Los Angeles.

Postwar L.A. was a boomtown with 2.5 million residents when the Dodgers relocated there in 1957.

Whether O'Malley kept his Dodgers in Brooklyn or not, sooner or later - and probably sooner - baseball was going to stick a team in L.A., as it did with the expansion Angels in 1961.

O'Malley's move was pragmatic, not visionary.