The Abington School District has placed Abington Senior High School Principal Alice Swift on administrative leave amid an investigation into social media posts.
“I am writing to inform you that, effective Feb. 12, 2026, Dr. Alice Swift has been placed on administrative leave,” Superintendent Jeffrey Fecher wrote in a message to parents Thursday. “The district received allegations of inappropriate social media posts and is investigating the matter.”
It was not immediately clear what Swift had posted on social media that led to the district’s action. Attempts to reach Swift for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
Fecher declined to comment further Friday, calling the issue a personnel matter. He said support was in place at the high school to ensure stability for students.
Swift, a 1983 Abington graduate and former teacher and administrator in Maryland schools, became principal of Abington Senior High School in 2024.
Fecher said the district “will share additional updates regarding Dr. Swift’s return as more information becomes available.”
The daughter of a Northeast Philadelphia man who prosecutors say ran a human-trafficking ring for years that trapped vulnerable women, supplied them with drugs, then forced them to have sex with men across the region pleaded guilty Friday to helping manage the finances of the criminal organization.
Natoria Jones, 30, pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution after prosecutors with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office said she helped her father, Terrance Jones, manage the payments of his sex-trafficking scheme for at least three weeks in 2023.
In exchange for Jones’ plea, Senior Deputy Attorney General Zachary Wynkoop withdrew felony charges of conspiracy, participating in a corrupt organization, and promoting unlawful activities.
Wynkoop asked Common Pleas Court Judge Zachary Shaffer to defer Jones’ sentencing until after the June trial of her father, Terrance Jones — the alleged ringleader of the criminal enterprise — and three of his associates.
The plea marks the latest development in the sweeping indictment brought by the attorney general’s office in 2024 in which officials charged Terrance Jones, 54, and several of his associates with operating a human-trafficking ring across the region for more than a decade.
For 12 years, Terrance Jones, of Lawndale, marketed what he called “GFE” or “the Girlfriend Experience” online and recruited women in their 20s — many battling addiction and struggling to find stable housing or income, authorities said.
When women contacted the operation, prosecutors said, Terrance Jones would impersonate a woman, raising the pitch of his voice and introducing himself as “Julie” or “Julia” to build trust. He promised to send a driver to pick them up for “dates” where they could earn more than $250 and obtain drugs, officials said. He used the women to lure other victims who were addicted to drugs into the scheme, telling one confidant that he “could ‘wash em up’ and make money with them,” according to the affidavit of probable cause for Jones’ arrest.
“He made these women feel worthless. He controlled them, manipulated them, and, in a way, programmed them to feel like this was their only option,” then-Attorney General Michelle Henry said in announcing the charges.
Prosecutors and Pennsylvania State Police began investigating in 2021 after a woman who they said had been trafficked by Terrance Jones reported the abuse.
After meeting with the woman, officials conducted wiretaps, acted as undercover sex workers and buyers, and tracked down his clients, the affidavit said. Across the three-year investigation, officials said they found that the operation crossed through the Philadelphia suburbs and into New Jersey, and that over just 10 days in 2023, Terrance Jones arranged 78 “dates” — and pocketed most of the funds.
He was charged with trafficking individuals, involuntary servitude, running a corrupt organization, conspiracy, and related crimes. He remains in custody, held on $2 million bail.
Three of Terrance Jones’ business partners — Thomas Reilly, Joseph Franklin, and Raheem Smith — are charged with running a corrupt organization, conspiracy, and related crimes, and are scheduled to go to trial with him in June.
Another associate, James Rudolph, a driver who officials said transported women to their “dates,” pleaded guilty to conspiracy to promote a house of prostitution last year. He’s scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
In a rare move, prosecutors as part of the indictment also criminally charged 16 men who paid Terrance Jones for sex with the women. While the charges against some of the men have been dismissed, at least nine have pleaded guilty to promoting or patronizing prostitution and are scheduled to be sentenced next month.
Among Terrance Jones’ business partners, was also his daughter, Natoria, who handled some of the financials and payments between the women and customers. Her attorney Jonathan D. Consadene declined to comment Friday.
Senior Deputy Attorney General Erik Olsen said several factors influenced the plea agreement.
“There’s some mitigation as to how she got pulled into this,” Olsen said, adding that more details would emerge at trial in June.
We knew that Roger Goodell was serious about pushing the NFL internationally, but we didn’t know he was this serious.
The NFL is considering beginning the 2026 season on a Wednesday night, bucking a two-decade trend of holding the annual NFL Kickoff game on a Thursday night.
After winning the Super Bowl, the Seattle Seahawks would traditionally host the kickoff game Thursday. But the NFL has also announced that its first game in Melbourne, Australia — featuring the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams — will take place in Week 1, and sources confirm the report from Puck’s John Ourand that the NFL is considering having it be the first game of the season.
The league could also decide to hold the traditional Seahawks-hosted kickoff game Wednesday and the Australia game Thursday. Either way, we’re looking at the 2026 season beginning on a Wednesday night for just the second time in nearly eight decades.
The last time the NFL kicked the season off on a Wednesday was 2012, when the league shifted its schedule to avoid going up against President Barack Obama’s speech during the final night of the Democratic National Convention. Prior to that, the NFL hadn’t opened the season on a Wednesday since 1948.
So why doesn’t the NFL just schedule its new Australian game on Friday, as they’ve done the past two years with their Brazil games? Because under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, the NFL is prohibited from scheduling games on Friday nights from mid-September to mid-December to protect high school and college sports.
With some help from the calendar, the NFL was able to squeeze in a Week 1 Friday night game the past two seasons. This year they league isn’t so lucky, with kickoff Thursday falling on Sept. 10.
Whether it happens Wednesday or Thursday, the Seattle Seahawks will begin to defend their Super Bowl championship title at home to start the season, likely against the Chicago Bears.
Two big question marks remain: The first is where will the Australia game air? The NFL is negotiating broadcast rights with streaming companies, and the favorite has to be YouTube, which streamed last year’s Kansas City Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers matchup from Brazil.
There’s also Netflix, which is entering the final year of streaming NFL Christmas day games and looks for big events to stream on its platform. The league’s first-ever game in Australia airing in primetime in the U.S. would certainly quality.
But Peacock could also be a possibility. NBC’s subscription streaming service had the rights to the NFL’s first Brazilian game, and last year it had the rights to a Week 17 Saturday night game between the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Ravens.
Another unanswered question is when the game will air in the United States. Airing the game in prime time on the East Coast means dealing with a 16-hour time difference. An 8 p.m. kickoff time in Philadelphia on a Wednesday would mean the game was starting at noon Thursday in Melbourne.
Eagles likely to play in an international game?
The Eagles played in São Paulo, Brazil in Week 1 of the 2024 season.
The expansion into Australia is one of a record nine NFL games being held outside the United States this season.
Here’s a quick recap of what we know:
Melbourne, Australia: 49ers at Rams
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: TBA at Dallas Cowboys
Paris, France: TBA at New Orleans Saints
Munich, Germany: TBA at TBA
Mexico City, Mexico: TBA at 49ers
Madrid, Spain: TBA at TBA
London, England (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium): TBA at TBA
London, England (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium): TBA at TBA
The Eagles have a ninth home game in 2026 thanks to the NFL’s 17-week season, and season-ticket holders have been notified that all will be played at the Linc. But the Birds remain in the mix to play an international game as an away team.
First, there’s Rio de Janeiro, where the Eagles could face the Cowboys. The Birds have marketing rights in Brazil and played there two seasons ago, but the NFL generally avoids scheduling divisional matchups in international games (though it’s already bucking that trend with 49ers-Rams in Australia, plus the Chiefs have played the Chargers, an AFC West foe, twice on foreign soil).
Still, this year’s Brazil game will take place on a Sunday afternoon — during daylight saving time, there is a one-hour difference between the East Coast and Rio de Janeiro. While the NFL likely won’t want to move such a marquee matchup into an international venue, Eagles-Cowboys at 4:25 p.m. on a Sunday does feel right.
Mexico City is also in play, because the Eagles face the 49ers on the road next season. So is London, because the Birds are scheduled to play a road game against the Jacksonville Jaguars and the home teams in the two remaining games have yet to be announced. But it doesn’t seem likely the NFL would want to waste the ratings potential of the Eagles on a game with a 9:30 a.m. Philly kickoff.
The NFL also hasn’t announced which teams will host games at Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, and Bernabéu in Madrid, Spain.
Quick hits
Two puppies go at it during Puppy Bowl XXII Sunday.
The Super Bowl averaged 124.9 million viewers Sunday, down from last year but still good enough for the second-highest audience in the game’s history. But we should be talking about this year’s Puppy Bowl, which featured three Pennsylvania pups and drew 15.3 million viewers on Animal Planet and across Warner Bros. Discovery properties earlier in the day, the show’s biggest audience since 2018.
Just a point of annoyance: Yeah, Nick Castellanos confirmed the beer-in-the-dugout story. But the real credit goes to @MattGelb, who had it & went to Castellanos & his agent for comment. Only then did Castellanos put it out there. Good reporting forced his hand.#Phillies
Kudos to the Baltimore Banner, the successful digital news start up down in Charm City, which announced plans to expand its sports coverage to Washington after the Washington Post eliminated its entire sports desk. Banner editor in chief Audrey Cooper said the outlet plans to start by hiring beat reporters to cover the Washington Nationals and Washington Commanders, calling it “part of our unwavering commitment to serve Maryland with honest, independent journalism.”
Sports podcaster Josh Shapiro, who also happens to be the governor of Pennsylvania, got former Sixers general manager Billy King discussing a wild, four-team trade that nearly sent Allen Iverson to the Detroit Pistons ahead of the 2000-01 season. Of course, Iverson went on to be named NBA MVP that season and led that iconic Sixers team to the NBA Finals. They haven’t been back since.
I asked Billy King to give us a glimpse into the front office during one of the defining moments for the @sixers franchise — when Allen Iverson almost left Philadelphia. Check out the full conversation on my YouTube: https://t.co/8OT8LIicgKpic.twitter.com/O6w4T8esBU
Tower Health had an operating loss of $16 million in the first six month of fiscal 2026, according to its report to bondholders Friday. In the same period a year ago, the Berks County nonprofit’s loss was $16.1 million.
Here are some details:
Revenue: Revenue from patient care rose less than 1% to $889.3 million, while total revenue climbed 4.3% to $1.03 billion, thanks to a 34% increase in other revenue.
Cash reserves: Tower reported $244 million in cash reserves on Dec. 31. That translates into enough money to keep operating for 44 days without any new revenue. Both of those figures were at their highest levels since 2022.
The quarterly low was in March 2024, when Tower reported $153 million in cash. That amounted to 30 days of cash on hand. Financially strong systems often have 200 days in reserve.
As such, Philly is also a pretzel town, Jim Mueller says. While he was growing up in Northeast Philadelphia in the late 1990s, soft-pretzel bakeries dotted neighborhoods across the city. He and his family bought pretzels from the now-closed Ben Franklin Pretzels on Kensington Avenue near Ontario as well as Federal Pretzel Baking Co. at Seventh and Federal.
Jim Mueller with pretzels at Pretzel Day Pretzels.
Five years ago, Mueller was working as a UX designer and was craving a fix. “It kind of hit me that there were no pretzels to be gotten that weren’t straight from the [Philly] Pretzel Factory,” Mueller said of the ubiquitous Bensalem-based franchise. “I wanted to make them the way I remembered them tasting: buttery, rich, and flavorful.”
Mueller began studying recipes, and he and his wife, Annie, started a side project called Pretzel Day Pretzels. They began doing pop-ups and deliveries.
Jim Mueller pulls pretzels with long hots and provolone from the oven at Pretzel Day Pretzels.
On Saturday, Pretzel Day Pretzels went the brick-and-mortar route at Fifth and Dickinson Streets in South Philadelphia, opening at the former Milk & Sugar space with a simple setup: takeout only and morning-to-early-afternoon hours.
Mueller rolls and bakes standard-issue soft pretzels, but his specialties are stuffed pretzels and German varieties that you don’t really see around here, particularly Swabian pretzels.
Jim Mueller stuffs pretzels with long hots and provolone at Pretzel Day Pretzels.Pretzels are tossed with cinnamon sugar at Pretzel Day Pretzels.
“It’s a little different from a Bavarian,” Mueller said. “Bavarians are what most people are familiar with — thick all around. Swabians have a big belly and skinny arms, and the arms get a little crunch to them. You can split the belly and stuff them. You can do more with them than a regular pretzel, and it opens up a lot of possibilities to experiment.”
Stuffing is where Pretzel Day Pretzels leans hardest into variety. The most popular option is the long hot-provolone pretzel, with other offerings including chili pretzels, pizza pretzels, bialys, cinnamon-sugar pretzels, and, on some days, pretzel dogs and Bavarian cheese logs. The lineup will shift slightly week to week, Mueller said, “but we’ll always have the core stuff.”
Merch on display at Pretzel Day Pretzels.
Saturday’s opening was low-key, with small giveaways such as heart-shaped pretzels and tote bags. The shop will offer coloring pages for kids that can be redeemed for a free pretzel.
“I just want it to be a pretzel shop for everyone,” Mueller said. “I don’t want it to feel high-end or bougie — just a neighborhood pretzel shop.”
As he sees it, Pretzel Day is meant to feel less like a concept and more like a missing piece put back into place.
“You always hear that Philadelphia’s a pretzel town,” he said. “But then you think — where are all the pretzel shops? I never thought I’d open one when I started doing this, but here we are.”
Pretzel Day Pretzels, 1501 S. Fifth St., instagram.com/pretzeldaypretzels. Hours: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday.
Pretzels from the oven at Pretzel Day Pretzels on Feb. 12, 2026.
The Flyers are bringing Scranton to Philadelphia, with the NHL’s first theme night celebrating The Office.
On March 14 against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Flyers will pay tribute to one of NBC’s most iconic TV shows to celebrate the network’s 100th anniversary.
The night will include clips from the show on the videoboard, specialty food and beverage offerings, Gritty tie-ins, and (probably) a giveaway or special ticket package of some kind to be announced at a later time.
The Flyers will be hosting a special “The Office” theme night to celebrate the hit NBC show.
“The Philadelphia Flyers are honored to partner with Peacock to celebrate The Office, an iconic piece of NBC’s legacy 100 years in the making,” said Flyers chief revenue and business officer Todd Glickman in a statement. “It’s happening! Everybody stay calm!”
While The Office has been off the air since May 2013, when it ended its nine-season run, it remains popular. NBC launched a spinoff called The Paper, which premiered on Peacock in the fall and stars Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Nuñez, who reprises his role of Oscar Martinez from the original series. The Paper, which follows a small Midwestern newspaper, is expected to return for a second season in the fall.
Other forthcoming theme nights include Fourth Wing Night, PGA Championship Night, and Margaritaville Night. The Flyers will also host Philadelphia’s last remaining Dollar Dog Night on March 24.
The Franklin Institute has welcomed its newest exhibit with the world premiere of “Universal Theme Parks: The Exhibition.”
The 18,000-square-foot exhibit — which opened Saturday — takes visitors behind the scenes of the country’s billion-dollar theme-park industry through an expansive collection of costumes, immersive photo opportunities, and park props.
The exhibit has eight galleries, 20 interactive components, and 100 theme park-related artifacts ranging from actor show props to model roller coasters.
Young Lachlan McMahon poses for a photo at the Franklin Institute’s newest exhibit, “Universal Theme Parks: The Exhibition,” on Thursday.
At an early showcase Thursday, those behind the exhibit touted it as a “first-of-its-kind look” that would “[immerse] guests in the creative process that brings Universal’s most iconic experiences to life.”
“At the institute, I think we are really a leader in bringing exhibitions that educate, but they do it while entertaining,” said Larry Dubinski, president and CEO of the Franklin Institute.
“We wanted to create an exhibit in which we could teach some interesting things about engineering, design, jobs that are in a booming business, like theme parks, and [inspire] that curiosity and creativity.”
Kyra Zamborsky (left) and Jade Beasley at the Franklin Institute’s new exhibit that pays homage to Universal’s theme parks, in Philadelphia, on Feb. 12, 2026.
Among the goals of the exhibit was to package science and technology learning in an accessible way.
“History and science and technology — these things need to be wrapped in a layer of immersion that gets today’s kids excited,” said Dan Picard, owner and chief creative officer of creative design firm MDSX. “Because they don’t want to walk through a place that’s boring. … If you do not have a vibe, you’re not going to sell tickets, you’re not going to connect with kids, and you’re not going to have a shot to create that spark that makes them curious about these topics.”
Created in partnership between the Franklin Institute and Comcast NBCUniversal, the exhibit opens with a video featuring legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg that uses archival footage to take visitors through the history of Universal’s theme parks.
From there, visitors will find a collection of galleries showcasing all aspects of the theme-park universe. There is a station on the science of roller-coasters, including models of real-life coasters, as well as costumes worn by park workers.
Among the most popular stops on Thursday was a station that allowed users to program the movements of an animatronic figure from DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon. (The exhibit features other Universal attractions, including Jaws, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and Jurassic World.)
Sprinkled throughout the exhibit are video interviews with those who make Universal’s theme parks tick — from costume designers to storyboard artists and creative directors.
“There’s so many opportunities for interactivity and creative storytelling,” said Abby Bysshe, chief experience and strategy officer at the Franklin Institute, of the draw to creating a theme park-related exhibit. “It was about kind of curating all these parts and pieces, and talking with their team members and finding ways to really highlight what makes Universal theme parks so special.”
At the new exhibit at the Franklin Institute that pays homage to Universal’s theme parks, in Philadelphia on Feb. 12, 2026.
“At the end of the day, our mission is to inspire and educate,” said Dubinski. “And here, people are going to be inspired, they’ll be educated — and they’ll have a great time as they go through.”
“Universal Theme Parks: The Exhibition,” runs through Sept. 7, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Daytime tickets range from $41 for children to $47 for adults and include admission to the Franklin Institute.
Evening tickets, available from Thursday through Saturday, are $25 and limited to the Universal exhibit. Tickets at fi.edu, (215) 448-1200.
In over three decades years of coaching basketball at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, Jim Donofrio had to convince one player to take a day off.
That’s Mani Sajid, now a 6-foot-4 senior shooting guard.
His resumé can attest to it. He has led the Colonials to an 19-5 record and the top seed in the District 1 Class 6A tournament. Plymouth Whitemarsh will host the winner of Friday’s game between Downingtown West and Central Bucks East on Tuesday.
Sajid also became Plymouth Whitemarsh’s all-time leading scorer, finishing with 1,686 points in the regular season, and is committed to play at Towson, where he will enroll early.
Donofrio said the coaches there will be lucky if they can get Sajid out of the gym.
“His natural work ethic is as high as any kid I’ve coached in 35 years,” Donofrio said. “His work ethic and drive is at that special level.”
Congratulations to @Manibuckets5 on becoming the all time leading scorer in PW Boys Basketball history tonight! 1649 and counting
Sajid recognizes that becoming the program’s all-time scoring leader is a great achievement, but he also wants to experience postseason success. The Colonials reached the district final last season, where they fell to Conestoga in overtime.
“I did have a chance for the scoring record, but that wasn’t my main goal,” Sajid said. “That just came as we played. [We are] just trying to win everything. Districts and state titles are our main goal as a team and the main goal for me.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh’s postseason did not start off as anticipated. The Colonials were upset, 45-43, by rival Upper Dublin in the semifinals of the Suburban One League tournament. But the Colonials were still the top-seeded team in the District 1 Class 6A bracket when it was revealed last Sunday.
The right ingredients
Chuck Moore Jr., an assistant with Plymouth Whitemarsh, has known Sajid since he was a middle schooler. Moore was a 1,500-point scorer at Plymouth Whitemarsh and graduated with Sajid’s father, Ayyaz, in 1997.
Moore, who runs an AAU program with his younger brother, Penn assistant Ronald Moore, would see Sajid’s father at tournaments and showcases. Every time the old classmates met, Ayyaz would try to convince Moore to train his son. Moore finally agreed the third time Ayyaz asked and arranged a session with Sajid at the Plymouth Whitemarsh gym.
“Right away, you could see the skill set,” Moore said. “He was already a long, lanky kid with long arms.”
He developed quickly in a year. By the time Sajid finished his eighth grade season and was entering high school, Moore knew his spot on PW’s scoring leaderboard was in jeopardy.
“I said, ‘Yeah, he’s going to be the all-time leading scorer one day,’” Moore said. “I could see it in him at that early age.”
Mani Sajid helped Plymouth Whitemarsh earn the No. 1 seed in the District 1 6A playoffs.
Donofrio confirmed that his assistant called Sajid’s ascent to the top.
“Chuck Moore, he predicted it when [Sajid] was a freshman,” Donofrio said. “He goes, ‘That’s the all-time leading scorer.’ I remember him saying it. Mani had the right stuff. He had the right ingredients.”
No time off
Those ingredients — a long, lanky frame and a natural shooting ability — do not guarantee success. They need to be combined with a solid work ethic. Sajid’s coaches say that the senior has that in abundance.
When Donofrio told Sajid to take a day off during the offseason, he ignored his coach’s order.
“I had to call his dad up a couple of summers ago and say, ‘He has to take a day off,” Donofrio said. “I said, ‘Please, take Sunday.’ It was in the summertime. And then I find out, not only did he not take Sunday off, he worked out twice that day.”
Sajid likes being in the gym as much as possible, which should benefit him as he transitions to Towson.
“It’s hard to get me out of the gym, man,” Sajid said. “I’m a guy that likes to go seven days a week, especially in the offseason. There really are no off days.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh assistant coach Chuck Moore Jr., said “right away” Mani Sajid had a strong skill set.
After last season’s run to the district final, Donofrio challenged Sajid to share the ball with his teammates more effectively.
“You’re going to score 26 points the hard way or the easy way,” Donofrio said. “If you get rid of the ball, you’re still scoring 26 points, only we’re going to win a lot more.”
It took Sajid some time to accept that piece of coaching, but once he did, he began to develop his skills as a passer.
“I think I just grew up more as a player, grew up more as a person,” Sajid said. “Just being able to trust those guys. I know that they always have my back, and I always have their backs. I trust them a lot.”
Transition to Towson
After emerging as a contributing piece for the Colonials as a sophomore, Sajid started to draw some attention from colleges. He fielded offers from Albany, St. Joseph’s, Temple, La Salle, East Carolina, Bryant, Penn State, and Towson before committing in July to play for the Tigers.
Sajid said he chose Towson for its coaching staff.
“They’ve just been really consistent,” he said. “They’ve been a great coaching staff. They hit me up often and always check up on me, and that’s what I like.”
Sajid, a three-star recruit, is the highest-ranked player of three signees in the Tigers’ class of 2026. Towson’s 2026 class also includes Neumann Goretti guard Stephon Ashley-Wright, the younger brother of BYU guard Robert Wright III.
Sajid hopes to see minutes early at Towson, which competes in the Coastal Athletic Association.
“That is my goal, to step on there freshman year and play,” Sajid said. “But I’ve got to work for that spot.”
Donofrio believes the most crucial part of Sajid’s college development is adding weight. He weighs about 170 pounds and will need to put on muscle to keep up with college players, especially on defense.
“He’s going to have to want to get more physical,” Donofrio said. “That’s his next challenge for this summer, into the fall. And he loves the weight room now, and he loves strength training and agility, conditioning. Hopefully he still loves Franzone’s pizza, because he should eat a lot of that to get about 8 to 10 more pounds on him.”
Mani Sajid looks to earn a district and state crown for Plymouth Whitemarsh.
His coach isn’t worried, though. Donofrio said Sajid could be a major talent at the next level.
“It would not surprise me at all if, by the end of his first college season, a lot of coaches are punching themselves in the head,” Donofrio said. “I’ve coached a lot of talented guys, and, trust me, the ceiling on him has got a ways to go.”
In the 1980s, baseball scout John Young noticed a declining share of Black or Latino draft prospects in his hometown of Los Angeles. With funding from Major League Baseball, he started a youth program dubbed “Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities” (RBI) to address the disparity in 1989.
RBI has since spread across the country, including Philadelphia, as baseball’s preeminent youth outreach program. The Phillies say their RBI program serves more than 6,000 children in the city and the surrounding region by providing organized baseball and softball leagues, free equipment, and game tickets to youth participants.
But contrary to RBI’s founding mission, Philadelphia’s program mostly serves the city’s predominantly white, middle-class neighborhoods in the Northeast.
“The programs we have in North Philadelphia are programs that save at-risk kids,” said Dave Fisher, who runs Tioga United Baseball. “The programs that they have in the Northeast are programs to evaluate and elevate the talent of their kids.”
Neither the Phillies nor Major League Baseball returned requests for comment.
The distribution of RBI teams reflects Philadelphia’s unequal youth sports landscape, confirmed by a recent city-funded study that found neighborhoods with more white residents had more fields, amenities in better shape, and more youth sports programs compared to other areas. In Northeast Philadelphia, there is simply more baseball: The Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Baseball league reflects a similar disparity of Northeast teams as the Phillies’ RBI leagues.
Several North Philadelphia coaches are part of Phillies RBI and say they have benefited from the league’s free equipment and clinics. But they say the program is a better fit for well-established teams that already have foundational needs met. Teams working against the tide of economic inequality, lower parental involvement, and children not being exposed to baseball early cannot recruit enough to play in the RBI league.
“You’ll find more parents who are financially able and culturally able to give baseball to their children at such a younger age of 6, 7, or 8,” said Fisher, who participates in RBI. “Kids at that age are groomed through baseball to be able to have batting coaches, pitching coaches, hitting coaches, fielding coaches.”
Phillies RBI offers noncompetitive leagues that introduce children ages 5 to 12 to baseball and softball as well as competitive leagues for children 13 and older. The program’s website says teams “must be located in an area that serves children who are unable to afford to play in an organized baseball league without assistance.”
David Lisby, who coaches the North Philly Camelots in Strawberry Mansion, was part of Phillies RBI but withdrew after six years because of a lack of players on his team. This past season, he was able to recruit only 15 children from three age brackets to make a single team.
Children ages 7 to 12 played in the inaugural season of the Catto Youth Baseball League, an offshoot of Phillies RBI.
“With the Phillies RBI program, I wasn’t seeing them coming down to really get the kids involved,” Lisby said.
Amos Huron, the executive director of the Anderson Monarchs in South Philadelphia — which does not participate in Phillies RBI — said the RBI program is more focused on areas where baseball is already played rather than introducing the sport to new players.
“There’s such wide swaths of the city where kids are never getting exposed to the game, and there’s only one entity in the city that has the baseball credibility and financial capacity to create a system that spreads across the city, and I think it’s a shame that they are not doing that,” he said.
Running a community baseball or softball program in Philadelphia is a grind. Coaches — many of whom are volunteers — maintain their own fields, recruit players, and take care of all the logistics in running a nonprofit on top of their on-field duties.
They say the Phillies could help with that.
“I did a lot of stuff on my own, a lot of stuff. Field stuff, cutting trees down,” said Tyrone Young, who founded and leads the Heritage Baseball League in North Philadelphia. “Anybody that didn’t have the drive that I have will probably get frustrated and give up if they didn’t have more support. More support can help.”
Young, who endorses the Phillies RBI program, also said it could sponsor more events and clinics to teach children baseball in North Philadelphia.
Phillies RBI offers noncompetitive leagues that introduce children ages 5 to 12 to baseball and softball as well as competitive leagues for those 13 and older.
Josh Throckmorton, a coach with Give and Go Athletics in Brewerytown and director of program development with the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative, said coaches at smaller programs could benefit from off-field support, such as help with securing insurance and background checks.
“I think administrative support would be huge,” he said. “I think providing some training to help coaches for these really small programs market their programs and manage registration, I think that could be huge.”
This year, a small group of teams in North and West Philadelphia, organized by Germantown’s Urban Youth Kings and Queens and supported by the Phillies, formed a separate RBI group aimed at children ages 7 to 12. The subleague benefited programs like Throckmorton’s, which withdrew from the larger RBI league after finding its first-time players mismatched against other teams, he said.
The four teams in the league played eight games in the spring and some of the teams continued practicing into the summer. This spring, league organizers are seeking to double the number of teams and serve an additional 100 or more children between the ages of 6 and 9.
“We’ve already gotten outreach from families asking us when baseball season is going to start again,” Throckmorton said. “It did exactly what we were hoping for.”
Playing Fields, Not Killing Fields is an Inquirer collaboration with Temple’s Claire Smith Center for Sports Media and the Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting, to produce a series examining the current state of Philadelphia’s youth recreation infrastructure and programs. The project will explore the challenges and solutions to sports serving as a viable response to gun violence and an engine to revitalize city neighborhoods.
When we first meet Bok High graduate Ozzie Phillips — one of three protagonists in Sadeqa Johnson’s latest novel, Keeper of Lost Children — a block party on South Philadelphia’s Ringgold Street is just winding down. In between the last dollops of creamy potato salad and sips of clear corn liquor, Ozzie’s friends and family wish the young serviceman a bon voyage.
He spends the last few weeks with his girlfriend, Rita, picnicking at the Lakes in FDR Park and walking through Center City department stores like Wanamaker’s and Strawbridge’s. One night the couple go to Ridge Avenue’s Pearl Theater to see Pearl Bailey perform.
The next morning, Ozzie’s Uncle Millard picks him up in a Vagabond-blue Oldsmobile and the two cruise down Broad Street, Count Basie tunes playing on WHAT AM. Uncle Millard circles City Hall, depositing Ozzie at Reading Terminal Station, where he hops on a train to Trenton’s Fort Dix Army Base before embarking on a steam boat to Germany.
It’s Ozzie’s time in Germany that fuels the plot of the sentimental historical novel.
“It’s such a joy for me to write the Philly scenes,” Johnson said, during a recent video chat. The book publicist turned New York Times best-selling author was born in South Philadelphia, grew up in North, and graduated from George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science. Today, the married mom of three writes from her home in Virginia, right outside Richmond.
“I left Philly when I went to Marymount Manhattan College in New York,” Johnson said. “But where you grow up is always in your DNA. Philly is in my soul. When I sit down and paint pictures of historical moments in Philadelphia, I get to go home.”
Cover art for Sadeqa Johnson’s 2026 novel, “Keeper of Lost Children” One of the main characters, Ozzie Ozbourne grew up in 1940s South Philadelphia.
Johnson has six books out in the world. She self-published her first,Love in a Carry-On Bag, in 2012.
Her books center young Black women in old-school and modern times trying to do the best with what they got. But in most of her works — especially the captivating historical fiction novels through which she’s made a name for herself on BookTok, podcasts, and traditional bestseller lists — her heroines face overwhelming odds.
Take theYellow Wife’s Pheby Delores Brown. Set in antebellum Virginia, Brown’s story is based on the harrowing real-life experience of enslaved woman Mary Lumpkin, who is forced into a relationship with her enslaver for whom she bears five children.
“I have this propensity to tell the story of young women 15, 16, 17, who are in a situation that feels insurmountable,” said Johnson, who, until 2023, taught creative writing in Drexel University’s master’s of fine arts program. “And I really love developing those stories that show how those young women get to the other side.”
The House of Eve, a 2023 New York Times bestseller and a Reese Witherspoon Book Club of the Month pick centers 1950s North Philadelphia teen Ruby Pearsall who falls in love with a Jewish boy whose family runs a corner store. In the book, Ruby must choose between a free ride to Cheyney University and motherhood.
“I love the research,” Johnson said. “I love learning interesting things about this city that I was brought up in.”
In Keeper — released this month by 37 INK, a division of Simon & Schuster — Ethel Gathers, a journalist and wife of an Army officer, also stationed in post World War II Germany, is the central character. There, she chances upon a group of multiracial children who she learns are the offspring of Black servicemen and German women.
Gathers, whose story is based on the life of journalist Mabel Grammer, adopts eight of the “Brown Babies” and starts an adoption agency, ultimately placing hundreds of the children with Black families in the United States. In the book, Grammer visits Philadelphia from her Washington home and books a room at the Divine Lorraine, the country’s first fully racially integrated hotel.
“I stumbled upon Ms. Grammer while researching The House of Eve,” Johnson said.“And in that moment, I knew I wanted to tell that story.”
Johnson breathes life into her fictional characters through extensive research, adding vivid details that take the readers back in time and thrust them into the rich tapestry of her story. Fans will often find connections to characters from previous books where they least expect it.
Ozzie’s military time and South Philly swag is based on Johnson’s great-uncle, 94-year-old Edgar Murray, who, like Ozzie, grew up in South Philly and spent the latter part of the 1940s in Germany. (For the record, Johnson said, her uncle didn’t suffer with alcoholism like Ozzie does in the book.)
It was Murray who suggested Ozzie live on Ringgold Street and take his date to the Pearl Theater.
“I like the factual things she puts in there,” said Murray, who lives with family in Denver, Colo. “It makes it more interesting.”
Philadelphia readers with an eye for history will enjoy seeing the city unfold through Ozzie’s eyes after his 1952 return.
He leafs through The Philadelphia Inquirer, reading detailed accounts of white veterans securing “large mortgages and moving out to lofty suburbs” on the GI bill that he too applied for. He works a job at the Navy Yard, gets married at Tasker Baptist Church, and experiences a miracle at West Philly’s Mercy-Douglass Hospital.
Tanner family members gather on the front steps of the Tanner House, at 2908 W. Diamond St. in Philadelphia, in this photo taken circa 1920. They are: Bottom row (l-r) Aaron A. Mossell Jr., and his wife, Jeanette Gaines Mossell; Middle row (l-r): Sadie T. M. Alexander, her mother, Mary L. Tanner Mossell, and Sadie’s sister, Elizabeth Mossell Anderson. Top row: Page Anderson, Elizabeth Anderson’s husband.
Halfway through Keepers, Ozzie attends a party thrown by elite Civil Rights husband-and-wife-team Raymond Pace Alexander and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander at their swanky home at 17th and Jefferson.
Attorneys John Francis Williams and Lewis Tanner Moore Sr., cofounder of the Pyramid Club and whose son, art collector Lewis Tanner Moore Jr. died in 2024 — shoot the breeze about an NAACP fundraiser and Buddy Powell, a 1940s jazz musician who was so severely beaten by the Philadelphia railroad police that he ended up in an asylum.
“In The House of Eve, I got to dig around in my mom’s memory for Ruby,” Johnson said. “This time around I got to dig around in my dad and Uncle Edgar’s head to get South Philly down. Let’s see what happens in the next book.”
Sadeqa Johnson will give an author’s talk at the Philadelphia Ethical Society, 1906 Rittenhouse Square, Friday, Feb. 13, 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 and include a copy of “Keeper of Lost Children”
