Daily Archives: June 17, 2017

Since the 1960s, black leaders have placed a heavy emphasis on gaining political power, and Barack Obamas presidency represented the apex of those efforts. The assumption rarely challenged is that black political clout must come before black social and economic advancement. But as JASON L. RILEY argues in this excerpt from his new book, False Black Power (Templeton Press), political success has not been a major factor in the rise of racial and ethnic groups from poverty to prosperity.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was followed by large increases in black elected officials. In the Deep South, black officeholders grew from 100 in 1964 to 4,300 in 1978. By the early 1980s, major US cities with large black populations, such as Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia, had elected black mayors. Between 1970 and 2010, the number of black elected officials nationwide increased from fewer than 1,500 to more than 10,000.

Yet the socioeconomic progress that was supposed to follow in the wake of these political gains never materialized. During an era of growing black political influence, blacks as a group progressed at a slower rate than whites, and the black poor actually lost ground.

In a 1991 book, social scientist Gary Orfield and his co-author, journalist Carole Ashkinaze, assessed the progress of blacks in the 1970s and 80s following the sharp increase in black officeholders. The thinking, then and now, was that the problems of the cities were basically the result of the racism of white officials and that many could be solved by black mayors, school superintendents, policemen and teachers who were displacing white ones. The expectation, they added, was that black political and education leaders would be able to make large moves toward racial equity simply by devising policies and practices reflecting their understanding of the background and needs of black people.

But the integration of these institutions proved to be insufficient. Many blacks have reached positions of local power, such as mayor, county commission chairman or superintendent of schools, positions undreamed of 30 years ago, they wrote. Their findings, however, showed that these achievements do not necessarily produce success for blacks as a whole. The empirical evidence, they said, indicates that there may be little relationship between the success of local black leaders and the opportunities of typical black families.

When Michael Brown was shot dead after assaulting a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, a large fuss was made over the racial composition of the police department and city leaders, which supposedly explained the subsequent civil unrest.

A Justice Department report responding to the incident noted that although the citys population was 67 percent black, just four of its 54 police officers fit that description.

While a diverse police department does not guarantee a constitutional one, it is nonetheless critically important for law-enforcement agencies, and the Ferguson Police Department in particular, to strive for broad diversity among officers and civilian staff, said Justice.

But if racial diversity among law enforcement and city officials is so critically important, what explains the rioting in Baltimore the following year after a black suspect there died in police custody?

At the time, 63 percent of Baltimores residents and 40 percent of its police officers were black. The Baltimore police commissioner also was black, along with the mayor and a majority of the city council.

Contentious relations between the police and ghetto communities are driven mainly by high crime rates in those areas, something that the political left doesnt like to acknowledge. The sharp rise in violent crime in our inner cities coincides with the increase of black leaders in many of those very same cities, which makes it hard to argue that racist or indifferent authorities are to blame.

What can be said of Baltimore is also true of Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans and Washington, where black mayors and police chiefs and city councilmen and school superintendents have held sway for decades.

In her 1995 book, Facing Up to the American Dream, political scientist Jennifer Hochschild examined data from the late-1950s to the early-1990s an era that covers not only growing black political clout but also the implementation of the War on Poverty and two full decades of affirmative-action policies in hiring and college admissions.

Hochschild reported that between 1959 and 1992, poverty fell from 55 percent to 33 percent for blacks and from 18 percent to 12 percent for whites, which means that the ratio of black to white poverty has remained at 3 hardly a victory in the war on racially disproportionate poverty.

The absolute numbers, she added, tell the same story: there are now about 4 million fewer poor whites than 30 years ago, but 686,000 more poor blacks.

Germans, Jews, Italians and Asians saw economic gains precede political gains in America.

Moreover, low-income blacks lost ground to low-income whites over the same period. Between 1967 and 1992, incomes for the poorest fifth of blacks declined at more than double the rate of comparable whites.

This history should have served to temper expectations for the first black president. Without taking away anything from Barack Obamas historic accomplishment, or the countrys widespread sense of pride in the racial progress that his election symbolized, the reality is that there was little reason to believe that a black president was the answer to racial inequities or the problems of the black poor.

The proliferation of black politicians in recent decades which now includes a twice-elected black president has done little to narrow racial gaps in employment, income, homeownership, academic achievement and other areas.

Most groups in America and elsewhere who have risen economically have done so with little or no political influence, and groups that have enjoyed early political success have tended to rise more slowly.

Group cohesion, expressed in political pressure and bloc voting, is often regarded as axiomatically the most effective method of promoting group progress, explains the economist Thomas Sowell.

But historically, the relationship between political success and economic success has been more nearly inverse than direct. Germans, Jews, Italians and Asians are among those who saw economic gains precede political gains in America.

Similarly, the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, the English in Argentina and Jews in Britain, among many other examples, all prospered economically while mostly shunning politics.

A counterexample is the Irish, whose rise from poverty was especially slow even though Irish-run political organizations in places like Boston and Philadelphia dominated local government. The Irish had more political success than any other ethnic group historically, according to Sowell. Yet the Irish were the slowest rising of all European immigrants to America. The wealth and power of a relatively few Irish political bosses had little impact on the progress of masses of Irish Americans.

Even if a group has the ability to wield political influence, they dont always choose to do so.

German immigrants to the US in colonial times were not lacking in numbers. In Pennsylvania they were one-third of the population, a situation that was not lost on non-Germans. Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shorty become so numerous as to Germanize us instead of us Anglifying them? wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751.

Nevertheless, Germans, many of whom arrived as indentured servants and focused initially on paying off the cost of their voyage, had other priorities and were well known for avoiding politics. Germans began entering politics only after they had already risen economically.

Viewed against this history, many blacks were expecting Obamas presidency to deliver more prosperity than political clout tends to deliver for a group in the US or anywhere else.

The black experience in America is of course different from the Irish experience, which in turn is different from the Chinese or German or Jewish experience. Indeed, we cant even generalize about all blacks in the US, since the experience of black natives is different from the experience of black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. But that doesnt mean group cultural traits that show patterns of success or failure should be ignored.

Even if we cant make perfect apples-to-apples comparisons, it doesnt mean we cant make any comparisons or draw any conclusions. Many different racial and ethnic minority groups have experienced various degrees of hardship in the US and in other countries all over the world. How those groups have dealt with those circumstances is something to study closely and draw lessons from going forward even if the only lesson is to manage expectations.

One of the clear lessons from this history is that human capital has proven to be far more important than political capital in getting ahead. And that reality helps to explain why blacks fared the way they did not only in the Obama era but also in the preceding decades.

Obamas election was the end product of a civil-rights strategy that prioritized political power to advance blacks, and eight years later we once again learned the limitations of that strategy.

Reprinted with permission from False Black Power by Jason L. Riley (Templeton Press), 2017.

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Why Obama's presidency didn't lead to black progress - New York Post

With tens of thousands of children lingering in foster care across the United States, awaiting adoption, Illinois schoolteachers Kevin Neubert and Jim Gorey did their bit. What began with their offer to briefly care for a newborn foster child evolved within a few years into the adoption of that little boy and all four of his older siblings who also were in foster care.

The story of their two-dad, five-kid family exemplifies the potential for same-sex couples to help ease the perennial shortfall of adoptive homes for foster children. Yet even as more gays and lesbians adopt, some politicians seek to protect faith-based adoption agencies that object to placing children in such families.

Sweeping new measures in Texas and South Dakota allow state-funded agencies to refuse to place children with unmarried or gay prospective parents because of religious objections. A newly introduced bill in Congress would extend such provisions nationwide.

For those who support gay adoption, its a good news/bad news story. Gays and lesbians have ever-expanding opportunities to adopt, and a strong likelihood of finding community support if they do so. Yet bias against prospective gay adoptive parents remains pervasive, whether its overt or subtle, and experts in the field say many thousands of gays and lesbians are dissuaded from adopting for fear of encountering such bias.

Some of these agencies are quite clear that they dont work with certain sorts of people, said Currey Cook of the LGBT-rights group Lambda Legal.

Some would-be gay adopters seek out other agencies, Cook said. But some people think, Im not going to risk being stigmatized and turned away, so Im not going to step up at all.'

Theres no official, up-to-date count of gay and lesbian adoptive parents, but the number is on the rise.

Same-sex couples are nearly three times as likely to adopt as heterosexual couples, says Gary Gates, a specialist in LGBT demography. His latest analysis of Census Bureau data indicates that in 2015, the year same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, 44,000 adopted children were being raised by 28,000 same-sex couples. That number of children was double his estimate from 2013.

For gays and lesbians able to afford the $20,000 to $40,000 cost of a typical private adoption, the odds are good.

If you have financial means, you can find providers who are welcoming and inclusive and help you through that process, said Ellen Kahn, who oversees youth and family programs for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT-rights group.

She says problems often arise when gays and lesbians seek the less costly option of adopting out of foster care, given that many placements are handled by faith-based agencies under contract with child-welfare departments.

Kevin Neubert and Jim Gorey avoided such problems when they pursued adoption out of foster care after calculating that a private adoption might be too costly.

Following night classes to qualify as foster parents, they agreed in December 2011 to provide a temporary home for a newborn baby. A stay intended to last only a few days was extended into several months, and Neubert and Gorey learned that the baby had four older siblings in foster care.

Initially, the two men considered adopting three of the children, and eventually decided to adopt all five, a process finalized in June 2014. The youngest, Derek, is 5; the eldest, Luke, is 12. There are two other brothers, 10 and 7, and a middle sister aged 9.

Neubert and Gorey, who married in 2010 and live in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, said the family has enjoyed strong community support, though shopping trips could be a spectacle. We didnt know if people were looking at us because were two guys with kids, or because we had so many kids in tow, said Gorey.

The path to adoption was bumpier for Dr. Christopher Harris, though by some measures he was an ideal candidate when he first pursued that goal 17 years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a pediatrician and faculty member at Vanderbilt University, but also was single and openly gay.

For more than a year, he worked with a church-affiliated adoption agency, taking parenting classes, submitting to home visits. Yet his application never progressed, and he finally deduced it was because he was gay. He reached a similar dead end with a second agency, which took fees from him and only later said it wouldnt place children with single men.

It was frustrating for me to get passed over, Harris said. As a pediatrician, I look at the science and see there are no data that children raised by gay and lesbian parents dont do well.

He persisted, finally finding an agency that connected him with a woman open to having her soon-to-be-born child adopted by a gay man. The baby, Maria, was born in November 2002, and soon adopted by Harris. Father and daughter now live in Los Angeles; Maria recently completed her first year of high school.

More than 100,000 U.S. foster children are waiting to be adopted, and child welfare officials struggle to find enough qualified adoptive families. Some jurisdictions recruit gays and lesbians to adopt, but agencies that shun gay clients operate in most states.

Catholic Charities, which does child-welfare work nationwide, says it seeks to ensure that the children it places in adoptive homes enjoy the advantage of having a mother and a father who are married.

In some jurisdictions, authorities have said Catholic Charities must serve same-sex couples. Rather than comply, Catholic Charities shut down adoption services in Massachusetts, Illinois, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Bethany Christian Services, which provides adoption and foster-care services in more than 30 states, says its religious principles preclude serving same-sex couples directly, but it routinely refers them to LGBT-supportive agencies.

When we meet with them, were very respectful, said Bethanys president, Bill Blacquiere. We want them to have all the rights any citizen has, including the right to be adoptive or foster parents.

___

Follow David Crary on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CraryAP

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For advocates of gay adoption, progress but also obstacles - Seattle Times

Odubel Herrera led off the inning each of the first three times he came to the plate for the Phillies on Friday. The first time he struck out swinging at a breaking ball in the dirt.

But the next two times, he provided a blueprint of how he can become the leadoff hitter the Phillies need. The center fielder finished 2 for 4 with a triple, a single and two of the teams four runs.

After each of his teammates had gone down in order through the first three innings, Herrera led off again in the fourth. The bat stayed on his shoulder as Arizona Diamondbacks lefthander Patrick Corbin pulled ahead 0-2.

This time, Herrera watched the fastball high and away and the slider in the dirt. He fouled off another breaking ball and then pushed the count full.

Finally, he stroked a 3-2 slider to the opposite field for a leadoff triple and later scored on a groundout to second base.

Thats always what I look for. I try to get something going, Herrera said through interpreter Diego Ettedgui. If its an extra-base hit, thats even better. But what I really want to do is get on base.

He did so again in the sixth. By then, the Phillies had tied the game, and Herrera was facing Corbin for a third time. He saw mostly fastballs until another 3-2 slider down in the zone. This time, he smacked a grounder off Corbins mitt and beat out an infield single.

On the bases, Herrera slid into second on a fly ball to the warning track and moved to third, where nobody was covering, on a ground ball there. He scored on Maikel Francos double.

Im actually working on the little things because I know I have to get better on running the bases and stuff like that, Herrera said, crediting help from first-base coach Mickey Morandini and third-base coach Juan Samuel. Thats the idea, to go the extra mile to make something happen.

By the end of that inning, Herrera had seen 17 of Corbins 84 pitches, and the Phillies chased the Diamondbacks starter. Herrera has struggled in the leadoff role, hitting .212 with a .501 OPS in that spot. He said it does not matter to him where he hits. But asked if being trusted with that position gives him confidence, he said, Claro of course.

Herrera came up one more time Friday. With two men on in the seventh, he struck out on three pitches a slider, a fastball and that pesky slider in the dirt again and the Phillies lost, 5-4. Herrera, like the team, is inconsistent. But he showed some progress on Friday.

He needs to keep that discipline, and hes going to have the kind of season that he had when we were in Atlanta, where he was really hitting the ball well, manager Pete Mackanin said. Hell get back there.

Pat Neshek continues to thrive in any role for Phillies Jun 16 - 8:03 PM

Phillies' Aaron Altherr showing progress from last year Jun 16 - 7:44 PM

Diamondbacks rally to beat Phillies, 5-4 Jun 16 - 11:37 PM

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Published: June 16, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: June 16, 2017 11:55 PM EDT

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Herrera is a work in progress as Phillies leadoff hitter - Philly.com

Conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter criticized President Trump in a series of tweets Friday over what she said is the lack of progress on the border wall.

Coulter used Trumps Friday speech in Miami rolling back Obama rules opening up the U.S. economic relationship with Cuba to criticize the president for not being focused on the United States.

I thought with Trump wed finally have a president helping OUR country. So far: Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy, China, N Kor. Today: Cuba, she tweeted.

At least Cubas in our hemisphere, she Tweeted. How long can it be before he gets to America?

At least Cuba's in our hemisphere. How long can it be before Trump gets to America? https://t.co/vTf5osrr15

An early supporter of Trump in the 2016 presidential race, Coulter compared her loyalty to Trump to the way the people of North Korea worship their Dear Leader blind loyalty.

In another Tweet on Friday, Coulter said Anyone in a Southwestern state who strolls to the border & drops a brick will have done more to build the wall than [Trump].

Anyone in a Southwestern state who strolls to the border & drops a brick will have done more to build the wall than @realDonaldTrump.

Today's BORDER WALL CONSTRUCTION UPDATE: Miles completed yesterday--Zero; Miles completed since Inauguration--Zero. NEXT UPDATE TOMORROW.

Coulter cited Trumps calls for the construction of a border wall and immigration restrictions as a major bastion of her support for then Republican nominee Trump.

Despite her early and ardent support for Trump in the 2016 campaign, Coulter has at times signaled her frustrations with his presidency.

In May, Coulter told the Daily Caller that Im not very happy with what has happened so far.

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Coulter bashes Trump on border wall progress - The Hill

Employees with Kokosing pour a layer of asphalt onto South Ewing Street Monday, June 12, 2017, in Lancaster.(Photo: Matthew Berry/Eagle-Gazette)Buy Photo

LANCASTER - When you ask a candidate running for council or a resident what problems needto be addressed inthe city, street repairs are usually the second item listed behind the drug epidemic.

While it's still touted as an issue, the problem was addressed when voters narrowly passed a 3-mill, 10-year levy in May 2013. The levy, which generates about $2.1 million each year in property taxes to fix city streets and alleys that have fallen into disrepair, some languishing for decades with no previous funding source to repair them.

The levy passed by only 88 votes, resulting in more than 12 miles of local roads and about 30 miles of alleys being paved since 2014, which is the year the first paving projects kicked off. Despite the road work, city offices still field calls from upset residents that go something like "Why wasn't my street done," or "What are my tax dollars paying for anyway?"

The Eagle-Gazette interviewed city officials, including City Engineer Mitch Noland and Assistant Engineer Curtis Shonk about how streets are chosen, what's been accomplished, where the paving program is headed and the hangups that come with planning improvements for the city's 200 miles of road.

Selecting roads for repaving is a complicated process.

The goal is to pave highly trafficked local streets in the worst condition first. When those areasare highlighted, the engineer's office determines if the roads are eligible for federal or state funding. If they are, the city will hold off until grant dollars are obtained.

"A lot of people truly don't understand why we're waiting on Pierce or East Fair," said Interim Service-Safety Director Paul Martin. "We divert almost all of our funding to do streets that we can't get ODOT funding from." (Pierce Avenue will be resurfaced next year.)

A truck drives past patches to the road surface Friday on Edgewood Avenue in Lancaster. Edgewood which underwent extensive utility work last year is one of the streets slated to be paved this year using funds from the city's paving program.(Photo: Matthew Berry/Eagle-Gazette)

Once viable streets are identified, the engineer's office coordinates with other city departments, such as gas and water, to determine what their projects are that could tear up a freshly paved street if they proceeded with the project. Often coordinating with other departments is the most challenging piece of the puzzle.

"(Other city departments) have got their own maps and you put them on top of each other, and the roads don't line up," Shonk said.

A survey was completed to determine pavement condition ratings for all streets in 2014. The city is in the process of updating the map now that some work has been completed and other roads havedeteriorated further. The results will help determine what projects will be identified in the future.

Funding is also a major hurdle when it comes to selecting projects. A street that may be the same size as another with the same outward wear and tear may be harder to fix.

"Streets aren't created equal," Noland said, explaining the cost to repair depends on the material that is below the asphalt and the process used when it was first built.

Noland used Kanawha Drive as an example. The road is a few inches of pavement on top of dirt. There is no base, which significantly adds to the cost and the type of equipment required to repair it.

Lancaster Engineer Mitch Noland holds part of a core sample taken from Harrison Avenue between Sixth Avenue and Main Street. The Lancaster Department of Transportation takes core samples of streets for the engineer's office to help determine how streets are repaved.(Photo: Matthew Berry/Eagle-Gazette)

Even sections of streets aren't created equal. One part may have a good base, requiring the simple mill and fill process and the next section may have a brick base or none at all. Edgewood Avenue is an example of this. The city takes core samples of the street every 200 to 300 feet to discover any issues that may lie beneath, but surprises are expected. Surprises are almost always expensive, and all of it impacts the street levy budget.

In addition to streets, the Lancaster Department of Transportation is paving 11 alleys in the citythis summer from Mulberry Street to the area just north of Fair Avenue, and Columbus Street to Sheridan Drive. Similar to street repairs, alleys sat for years with no maintenance.

The last time there was a program to repave alleys was the sometime in the 1990s, but it was discontinued. Potholes were fixed when people complained, but there was no equipment or funding to do anything more until the levy was passed.

For comparison, it costs between $16 and $20 a square yard to mill and fill a street and about $4.95 per square yard to fix analley.

This is the third year the alleys have been paved, and LDOT Superintendent Greg Hintz said it's possible they will complete all city alleys by the end of next year, which is a year earlier than their goal.

A driver heads down an alley Friday between Park Street and Edgewood Avenue in Lancaster. The city is working on a paving program that will include repairs in some alleys.(Photo: Jess Grimm/Eagle-Gazette )

By the end of 2016, the city collected $6.53 million in tax dollars through the levy. Similar to the complicated nature of how streets are selected, the breakdown of budget funds cannot be easily summed up to say it all pays for asphalt.

Here's the breakdown, showing how each dollarwas spent from 2014 to 2016:

There is a remaining $200,000 set aside for emergencies and about $95,000 that was not spent at the end of 2016.

As promised during the levy campaign, the funds do not pay for personnel. At first, city officials thought additional personnel would need to be hired to administer the program, but no additional employees were hired, and the levy does not fund any salaries.

The simple answer is no.

"We won't be getting to all of the streets in 10 years," Martin said.

He foresees the city requesting a renewal levy not only to continue resurfacing streets but to maintain ones that were done when the paving program first started.

Still, Martin said the program is successful and a far cry from the previous paving program or lack thereof because the work is top quality and planned in a way that's "getting the most bang for our buck."

"It's only year four (of the levy)," he said. "I have a lot more streets in mind, and we need to keep plugging away. We're not done, and we're on a path to keep it up."

sremoquill@lancastereaglegazette.com

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Examining Lancaster's street levy process, progress - Lancaster Eagle Gazette

Phillies outfielder Aaron Altherr is approaching the number of at-bats he totaled all of last season, and the difference has been significant.

Altherr began last season on the 60-day disabled list after suffering a torn tendon in his left wrist while diving for a ball in spring training. He underwent surgery on March 9 and didnt make his regular season debut until July 28.

Altherr, 26, hit .197 in 198 at-bats last season. Entering Fridays game against the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks, he was hitting .281 with team highs in both home runs (11) and RBIs (36) in 192 at-bats. He was eighth among National League outfielders with an .897 OPS.

I have been more relaxed at the plate, Altherr said before Fridays game.

He said working with first-year hitting coach Matt Stairs has been a major benefit.

I have a new approach to my swing, said Altherr, who made his Major League debut three years ago Friday, on June 16, 2014, by going 0 for 1 in a pinch-hitting situation against Atlanta.

Its a swing that he has cut down.

It is shorter now, which produces better results, Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. If he continues staying short to the ball, going right to the ball like he has been doing, he is going to be fine, and I think he will have a heck of a year.

The fact that he has been healthy is the biggest key. The other was that Altherr, with his new swing, saw immediate success in spring training, when he hit .303 with four home runs and 11 RBIs and a .986 OPS in 66 at-bats.

Doing well in spring training helped with my confidence going into the regular season, Altherr said. I am glad I have been able to get such great help from Stairs.

Velasquez update

Righthander Vince Velasquez, who was placed on the disabled list on May 31 with a right flexor strain, is progressing at a moderate pace.

We are not going to rush him, Mackanin said. We want to make sure he is 100 percent.

According to Mackanin, Velasquez threw from 90 feet on Friday and is scheduled for 120 feet on Sunday and a bullpen session on Thursday.

Pitching tidbits

The Phillies wont be dismayed when they miss seeing Arizona righthander Zack Greinke, who is 7-1 with a 2.89 ERA over his last 10 starts. ,.. Against the Phillies, Greinke has a career record of 7-1 with a 2.54 ERA in 10 games, including nine starts. Jerad Eickhoff (0-7, 5.09 ERA) will pitch for the Phillies on Saturday, with Ben Lively (1-1, 3.00) going on Sunday. Arizona will pitch righthander Zack Godley (2-1, 2.44) on Saturday and all-star candidate lefthander Robbie Ray (7-3 2.62) on Sunday. Eickhoffs last win came on Sept. 21, an 8-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

Published: June 16, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: June 16, 2017 7:44 PM EDT

We recently asked you to support our journalism. The response, in a word, is heartening. You have encouraged us in our mission to provide quality news and watchdog journalism. Some of you have even followed through with subscriptions, which is especially gratifying. Our role as an independent, fact-based news organization has never been clearer. And our promise to you is that we will always strive to provide indispensable journalism to our community. Subscriptions are available for home delivery of the print edition and for a digital replica viewable on your mobile device or computer. Subscriptions start as low as 25 per day. We're thankful for your support in every way.

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Phillies' Aaron Altherr showing progress from last year - Philly.com - Philly.com