The Eagles' Magnificent Seven

Observations, insinuations, ruminations and unbridled opinions. . .

THE FREE AGENTS came riding in to save the town's tattered football image from all points but east. In film lore, such a group of dedicated warriors were called "The Seven Samurai" by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. They saved the town from marauding bandits, upholding the sacred code of the Samurai warrior and receiving nothing but the honor of the thing for their bloody efforts.

Hollywood knew a great story and director John Sturgis turned "The Seven Samurai" into "The Magnificent Seven," gunslinging border drifters, some on the run, all broke, who came to the defense of Mexican farmers whose village was beset by banditos who raped, pillaged and plundered at will. The good guys won, some were killed and none got a peso for their vigilant stand. Some of the Seven actually thought there would be a payday.

Maybe this Magnificent Seven came for Andy Reid. Or perhaps the sudden, magnetic attraction of Michael Vick was a catalyst.

Cast Nnandi Asomugha as Kambei if you opt for the classic Kurosawa version. But if you opt for the Sturgis knockoff, the top member of the 2011 free-agent class would be Chris (Yul Brynner). Asomugha fits either role. Although Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was acquired in a trade for quarterback Kevin Kolb, he works perfectly in either version. A wannabe Samurai named Kikuchyo tags along and winds up being both hero and survivor. A like character in "The Magnificent Seven" is Chico, first drifter to answer Chris' recruiting pitch, but who is a blustering, make-believe, gunfighter. He, too, comes up big and survives.

The other five who streamed to Lehigh to help reverse a decade of coming up small in serial playoff games, including that lonely Super Bowl, are, of course: backup quarterback Vince Young, defensive end Jason Babin, defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins, guard Evan Mathis and running back Ronnie Brown.

It is some seven . . . Most came for less than they could have scored elsewhere during a post-lockout stampede for jobs that lacked only John Wayne trying to turn a herd of longhorns into the corral. They came to play for a young team bristling with offensive talent.

And to save a football town in need of saving, in need of getting back on that Gold Standard Jeff Lurie abandoned yesterday.

The Williamsport Crosscutters came maybe 6 feet from becoming victims of one the worst disasters in professional baseball history. The thought of a bus loaded with 52 unseat-belted players, coaches and support personnel plunging down a steep embankment and pitch-poling into traffic on the Staten Island Expressway invites one word: carnage. There would have been deaths, career-threatening injuries. The Cutters lucked out. The lost driver, who allegedly made an illegal U-turn and waffled an SUV, was not going fast enough to do more than buckle the guard rail to the point that only the front third of the bus was in space.

However, a can of worms has been opened for minor league baseball. It's time for the national association to take a hard look at bus travel. Most teams own their own bus. Few are equipped with seat belts. Many have makeshift sleeping setups where players can catch some sleep during the long rides. The Lakewood BlueClaws finished an eight-game road trip last night to Charleston, W.Va., and Salisbury, Md. It is 516 miles from Lakewood to Charleston, about 8 hours. Then, 465 more miles to Salisbury. Then, after last night's game, a short hop back to Lakewood of a mere 195 miles for a trip total of 1,176 miles. This is a scenario repeated daily throughout six levels involving 16 leagues (plus the Mexican and Dominican and Venezuelan summer leagues)

Time to suck it up and make seat belts as mandatory on minor league buses as they are for air travel.

The NFL labor dispute ended without the loss of as much as an exhibition game (unless you count the Hall of Fame game) - just some mini-camps the players soon-to-be-abused bodies could well do without. Meanwhile, the NBA faces a bitter and perhaps season-disrupting labor showdown with its bejeweled rank and file. An e-mailer named Jay Kennedy offers this succinct and astute comparison:

"I lost interest in the NBA in 2001. But I do love me a good negotiation stare-down. The thing that strikes me as the main difference between the NBA and the NFL is the NFL owners had all the negotiating leverage as to whether the players could play or not play. Mike Vick was either going to play in the NFL or play - nowhere. The CFL's salaries don't come close to the NFL. On the other hand, in Europe, you have basketball teams shelling out six-figure salaries to Mike Nardi. A team will pay NBA stars 4 or 5 million a year. Sure, it'll be a paycut but it would be real money. David Stern cut off both of his negotiating legs when he sought to take the NBA global. It worked and now the players have another market . . . "

And now, Jay, those Eurocentric and emerging Asian markets the NBA created by Jordanizing the sport seem to have more traction than the Look-At-Me League has in the birthplace of the sport.

Most of you got Yogi Berra and Don Larsen throwing out first balls prior to David Cone's perfect game, a baseball equivalent of the late Ed McMahon knocking on your front door.

This week: On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong climbed down a ladder from the Apollo 11 lunar module and set foot on the moon. What significant baseball event took place on the same day?