This just in, Patti LaBelle can still bring down the house...

The talk of the sports world this morning came from an otherwise meaningless game between the currently hapless San Francisco 49ers and the distinctly mediocre Seattle Seahawks.

According to the Sacramento Bee, the new head coach Mike Singletary spoke a lot today about Vernon Davis. And he spoke a lot of about cancers in the locker room and how they can damage a team. But he was careful to separate the two. "Vernon is not a problem," Singletary said. "Vernon is not a problem guy. Vernon forgets sometimes that the team is more important. ... You have to be able to separate the two. He is not a guy who's a distraction on the team."

Which is not to suggest that Singletary isn't still steamed over Davis' performance yesterday. To recap: Davis was hit with a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty when he flicked the underside of Brian Russell's facemask. Singletary said he saw the whole thing and thought Davis was "kidding when he did it." What seemed to upset Singletary more was Davis' reaction. He tried to talk to Davis as he came off the sideline and Davis was defensive. When he looked behind him a few seconds later, Davis was being demonstrative on the bench.

Singletary said he had a conversation just last week with Davis in which he urged the talented tight end to be a leader on the team. His actions on the sideline were entirely opposed to what the new coach was looking for. "It just hit me the wrong way," Singletary said. He said he hadn't yet spoken with Davis and didn't mention any disciplinary action. He said he was not the type of coach who plays psychological games with players and would not give Davis the silent treatment. "It's not that he's out of my good graces," Singletary said. "Not at all. I don't have a doghouse." Which leads one to believe that Davis won't be subject to any disciplinary action ...

If anyone can get his team ready to play, Mike Singletary will do it after the players hear what he said. And I do mean, as in listen here! Dan Patrick said on his radio show this morning that Singletary sounded like Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction" (remember the Ezekiel speech?) after the 49ers lost to the Seattle Seahawks, 34-13, adding "I don't think Singletary was trying to sound tough. I think he simply is tough."

Said Singletary: "... It will change and it will change ... because they want to be champions. ... Our formula is this: We go out and hit people in the mouth, No. 1. No. 2, we are not a charity. We cannot give them the game. That's No. 2. And No. 3 is we execute, from the very start of the game to the very end of the game. That did not happen ..."

There's an old James Brown song,"Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Nothin" -- and I think, after yesterday's rant, we can safely say that ditty does NOT describe the new 49ers head coach.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, the ax fell this afternoon for UW coach Ty Willingham. Molly Yanity of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports Willingham and athletic director Scott Woodward made the announcement at a news conference Monday.

Willingham has been under fire for being unable to turn around the Washington program.

Woodward has said he did not want to change coaches during the middle of the season. But he said Monday's announcement ends speculation of what is going to happen with Willingham and lets the team focus on the final five games.

 The World Series could come to an end in Philadelphia tonight, but that isn't even the talk of the town and it's not the Eagles,either. As Ed Moran of the Philadelphia Daily News explains...maybe it's because the World Series is in town, but so far there hasn't been the familiar outcry about the "typical" Philadelphia fans that usually erupts after one of those all too-"typical" Philadelphia sports scenes that become legend and get listed right under "throw snowballs at Santa Claus." In this case it was a flaming smoke bomb thrown onto the ice after a contested goal in overtime in Saturday's 3-2 Flyers win over New Jersey in the Wachovia Center. But can the noise be far behind?

It was an outrageous and dangerous act that covered the ice surface with smoke, chased the Devils' coaching staff from the bench and left the city with another fan-based black eye.  

"We were not happy," Comcast-Spectacor president Peter Luukko said yesterday. "That was as good a hockey game as can be played and it didn't need that. After all the talk last year about how tough our fans are to play in front of, we went to Washington in the playoffs and someone throws a beer bottle that hits Jeff Carter and in Montreal someone threw a beer into the penalty box that hit Mike Richards and nothing like that happened here. We were angry last night."  

So angry, in fact, that the Flyers are conducting an investigation; there is video from security cameras showing two suspects running from the building.

The description being released is of two males about 6 feet tall. One is described as an African-American wearing a white Flyers jersey and a white male also wearing a Flyers jersey, with his face painted.

"We are working diligently to catch the culprit and hope to prosecute the person," Luukko said. "If we find that the person is a season ticketholder, we will permanently cancel their tickets."

As for the National League champion Phillies, the grizzled veteran columnist Bill Conlon opines...Joe Blanton wasn't supposed to be pitching last night. Not according to the army of bloggers, e-mailers and fantasy-team managers who trampled each other deserting Jamie Moyer's corner. Many exhorted me to demand that Pat Gillick, Charlie Manuel, Rich Dubee and all the Phillies' powers-that-be make sure that Moyer was denied his World Series turn in the wake of a brief and ineffective outing in Game 3 of the NLCS in Dodger Stadium.

Give the ball to Joe Blanton in Game 3, for God sakes. Don't send that old man out there again. Please.

Nor was Pat Burrell supposed to be playing left with his ponderous gait. The Bat had to be the DH against the Tampa Bay Rays' Game 1 starter Scott Kazmir. Against the Rays' righties, Ryan Howard had to wear the DH mantle with Greg Dobbs playing first base.

And remember the success Manuel had with the flip-flop of Jayson Werth to No. 6 and Shane Victorino to No. 2 in Game 2 of the Division Series wipeout of CC Sabathia and the Brewers? Shane set the Money Pit ablaze with an epic grand slam. Well, time for the old fliperoo once again, right, Chuck, with the engine room flooded and the Phillies taking more strikes than an Akron bowling alley and abandoning more guys in scoring position than a payday raid on a mining town brothel.

And while you're at it, Cholly, let's stick Burrell in between Utley and Howard to split that inviting left-left arrangement Rays manager Joe Maddon seemed to exploit by using rookie lefthander David Price for an extended Game 2 save. Yep, Manuel said, he had given that some thought when he looked out there and the gifted No. 1 pick in the 2007 draft was going through his lineup a second time.

Just don't expect to see your Honorary Managers Diplomas in the mail anytime soon. You all flunked Double Switch 101, Lineup Chemistry 202 and Hunch-Playing 303.

Jamie Moyer hauled his 45-year-old bones from the cocoon of a 90-minute rain delay and made the latest-ending World Series game in history one of the most memorable. He was amazing, mesmerizing, magicianly, baffling and masterful. The Phillies won an amazingly tense, flawed and quintessentially entertaining Game 3 with a ninth inning that called for a redefining of the word "bizarre."

Joe Blanton pitched on his Game 4 night and authored personal and World Series history. Haystack Joe is reputedly a "contact pitcher." In a 10-2 destruction of the Rays that moved the Phillies into the wind shadow of their second World Series title, Blanton fired seven strikeouts in six-plus electric innings.

But that's not all . . . With two outs in the fifth, Joe put a righthanded version of the Matt Stairs buggywhip stroke on an Edwin Jackson heater and sent a screaming tracer into the leftfield seats. Blanton dragged some impressive records with him running out the first World Series homer by a pitcher since Kenny Holtzman hit one for Oakland in 1974.

Oh, yeah . . . Charlie has played Burrell in left and Howard at first throughout. And when Werth smoked a double and then two-run homer last night, he was batting No. 2 because that's the way Charlie Manuel had it set up, in the thinking he has done since this incredible postseason began. And, once more, Utley and Howard hit back-to-back and the Big Man inside-outed a three-run homer to left and a monster shot, two-run exclamation point, to right off lefthander Trever Miller in the eighth.

A Cleveland writer asked Manuel before the Phillies went 10-3 in the postseason if he is a different manager than he was when leading an Indians team loaded with All-Stars. And has he improved as a manager?

"The same old Charlie," he said. "I'm the same manager I was when I managed in Triple A or Double A, or A ball. I'm the same manager. Just when you win you're better [laughter], and that comes from having better players."

 Now, don`cha hate it when you have to explain your jokes?  It's never funny afterwards, and yet this column is jam-packed on an everyday basis with allusions and pop culture references. Therefore, I was trying to make a funny when I suggested last Friday that Marlo Thomas would have made a better VP pick than Sarah Palin.

The column was called, I Don't Want THAT Girl. Again from wikipedia...That Girl is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It starred Marlo Thomas as the title character, Ann Marie, an aspiring (but only sporadically employed) actress, who had moved from her hometown of Brewster, New York to make it big in New York City. Ann had to take a number of offbeat "temp" jobs to support herself in between her various auditions and bit parts, though she nonetheless was able to afford a spacious Manhattan apartment as well as an extensive wardrobe of mod fashions.

So, I was imagining the next SNL skit for Tina Fey and thought of a parody of the show's beginning, where some talent scout would see her in a crowd and explain, "I want that girl!"

Still, I'd argue that Marlo Thomas would STILL be a better candidate than Palin as evidenced by her exhaustive charity work. One more time from the wiki-folks...

Thomas is the recipient of four Emmy Awards,a Golden Globe Award,a Grammy Award,and the George Foster Peabody Award. She has been married to talk show host Phil Donahue since 1980. She has no children, but is stepmother to Donahue's five children from his previous marriage. The couple lives in New York City and Connecticut, but Thomas travels to Los Angeles for work or to receive donations to her charity, Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital. Producer David Geffen contributed US$1 million by simply writing Thomas a cheque when she was on location in L.A. filming Friends some years ago.

Lastly, I think we can all agree that Patti LaBelle still has some pipes. She sang a stirring,stunning version of the National Anthem before Game 4 of the World Series Sunday night.

Still, many wags were having deep problems with the soul singer's stylings, including Aaron Barnhart of the Kansas City Star.

It's one thing to interpret the National Anthem by injecting new beats and notes -- it's a pregame tradition that has rewarded such superstars as Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye and Whitney Houston with career highlights. But LaBelle took it to the next level with editorial enhancements to the words written by Francis Scott Key.

"Did she just say 'the skylights' last gleaming'?" I said to Mrs. TV Barn as I reached for the remote. Yes, upon further review, it turns out she did sing that very lyric. And "the perilous flight." And "from the clouds we watched" (WTD?). All lyrics, no doubt, that were meant to be overlooked in the course of her soaring unaccompanied vocals, which were, I will admit, impressive.

And after all, everyone can relate to a gleaming skylight and taking a perilous flight and looking down from the clouds, so you can't say Ms. LaBelle didn't make the lyrics more relevant to our modern sensibilities.

But something tells me she didn't do it on purpose.

I admit, she took great liberties and an awful long time, but I'd gladly take that over hackneyed versions of "God Bless The USA" and "God Bless America" at my ballgames any day.

I mean, can't we simply enjoy our freedoms, start the games and leave the big guy out of it? This land is my land too, you know.