For Flyers, nothing left but the crying

SIGHTS, sounds and observations from the Flyers-Devils series:

*It was interesting to watch Danny Briere give out pointers to Zac Rinaldo during the morning practice on Tuesday. It was as if Briere was saying, "when Volchenkov gets along the half boards, you smear him."

*Briere, who is just about always accessible before and after games, was too distraught to speak after Game 5 and asked if he could skip the postgame media availability.

*It's time to retire Kate Smith from the pregame National Anthem ceremonies. She was a certifiable good luck charm for the Flyers — 4 DECADES AGO. It's time the grand old lady steps aside and yields the stage exclusively to Lauren Hart.

*Line of the series was delivered by an unidentified usher at Newark's Prudential Center following Game 3. "I had a good night," the burly female attendant said. "I broke up five fights and didn't break a nail."

*It is just the Flyers luck that Mike Richards and Jeff Carter have a very good chance of hoisting the Stanley Cup in about 4 weeks.

*Jaromir Jagr summed up the series...

"To be honest, they were very strong. They were strong on the boards," said the 40-year-old unrestricted free agent. "I don't think they lost any battles on the boards. I hate to say that and I hate that feeling, but they were very strong on the boards. It surprised me."

*... better than Claude Giroux:

"I think we were thinking we were going to walk over to New Jersey and they'll fall a little bit," Giroux said. "I guess we've got to learn from it. They are a good hockey team. They are well balanced and they played a pretty good series."

FOUR STARS

It's impossible not to feel good for Josh Hamilton, who hit four homers in Texas' win over Baltimore on Tuesday night. He became the 16th player to go deep four times in a game. The three Phillies on that list are Mike Schmidt (1976), Chuck Klein (1936) and Ed Delahanty (1896). Delahanty's homers, according to the Sporting News, were all inside-the-park jobs and hit before a crowd of 1,100 at Chicago's West Side Grounds.

Records are spotty, but Baseball-Reference.com lists two of the homers as ISTP and all four surrendered by Chicago pitcher Adonis Terry.