If you ever have the chance to visit a press box in a Major League stadium, take the invitation under advisement. These places are how I always imagined old west saloons to be in that they are filled with misfits, outlaws and the dregs of society. Essentially, the kids you knew in high school that you were fairly certain would eventually move on to a solid career as a name on the authorities watch list hang out in big-league press boxes.
The press box in a ballpark in any city across the country is where these people gather nowadays. Once, Manifest Destiny sent all those people west to escape one bad deed or another, but a century-and-a-half later, they watch professional sporting events.
If there were a piano player plinking out those jaunty, bouncy saloon notes, all we'd need is someone to serve whiskey instead of Hi-C and then the ballpark in South Philly would instantly be transformed into an episode of Deadwood."
I've never actually ever seen an episode of Deadwood, but I hear things.
Anyway, in the press box, the outlaws and the rejects get together and talk about the state of things. No, it ain't exactly a sewing circle, but if anyone wants to hear the story behind the story, a press box is a good place to go.
And if you go, just make sure you're updated on your shots and your papers are in order. I also suggest taking a small shiv that can be stowed up a sleeve or behind a belt. When you step into a press box, you never know when it's about to go down...
Needless to say I made it out of press row at CBP following Monday afternoon's debacle against the Washington Nationals relatively unscathed. I say relatively because I woke up this morning with a head cold that made me feel as if a dump truck at backed over my temples. A baseball bat to the noggin would have been preferable to the feeling I had all morning until a Technicolor nose-blowing session, a couple of Sudafeds and some Italian Roast from the Starbucks.
They didn't have Yukon.
The fact is that along with its general surliness, the press box is the breeding ground for many airborne infections and diseases. Again, if you go, make sure you're updated on the vaccinations.
Anyway, based on a few of my conversations with a handful of creeps at the ballpark yesterday I was able to discern that most folks in the know don't think much of the 2008 Phillies. Sure, they are a playoff-contending team and very well could capture the NL East for a second straight season. But in order for that to happen the team's hitters are going to have bash the ball at a rate more prolific than Genghis Khan.
Simply put, the pitching just isn't there.
Initially I felt bad about predicting a third-place finish in the NL East for the Phillies. I was worried that I made such a pronouncement out of some sort of spite or anger that is rooted in my DNA as a born-and-bred Northeasterner. Worse, I felt that by suggesting that the Phillies were only as good as the offense would allow them to be that I would be exposed as an even bigger fraud than what is already obvious. What happens if the Phillies' pitching measures up with the rest of the staffs in the division? Surely no one likes to be shown that they don't know what they are talking about.
Then again that, as they say, is part of baseball. Players rise up and shove it in someone's cakehole every day. One day a guy is up, the next day, yadda, yadda, yadda...
But when Tom Gordon slinked off the mound after that five-run ninth as if he had just been caught feeding rat poison to the neighbor's overly yappy dog, it all became clear. A few of my more astute colleagues and I were correct - it's all about the pitching.
And that means the Phillies, as they are currently constructed, are going to have to bash their way to another playoff appearance.
Meanwhile, it was noted by more than a few folks in the writing press that if people truly believe that the Mets' acquisition of Johan Santana is relatively insignificant, then the proper course of action would be to remove the television from their homes so they could never, ever watch the game again. Because it's obvious they don't get it.
Santana is another one of those truths that some people just don't want to accept.