Don't expect Jamie Moyer to give up so easily

We all remember how it was when Mike Schmidt announced his retirement from playing baseball. Better yet, when Schmidty told everyone he was done that day in San Diego in 1989, there was no mistaking the intent. Sure, the blubbering, the emotion and the cracking voice were dead giveaways that he meant business. Oh, but there were better indicators than just the crying and carrying on.

Think about it… who wakes up in the morning and puts on a late-‘80s styled suit straight from a Tom Cruise movie, and then arranges his hair in a supremely coiffed feathered ‘do if they didn’t mean business. If I remember correctly, the theme from Miami Vice played Schmidt out of the room when the presser was over.

However, neither the walk-off song nor the fat lady has begun to sprinkle out those first notes for Jamie Moyer’s exit. No way. Baseball’s most elderly statesman isn’t going to give up the ghost of his career without a fight. That wouldn’t be his style.

So noting that Moyer reportedly suffered an injury last weekend while pitching in his third winter league game in the Dominican Republic last weekend with his 48^th birthday next Friday, it’s reasonable to think that the old man is done. Add in the fact that Moyer jetted off to California to visit with renowned orthopedist Dr. Lewis Yocum because of an injured elbow that reportedly swelled up to the size of a golf ball, and maybe this is how it finally all goes down.

Then again, that’s way too easy.

While the results of an MRI on his elbow are still unknown, those simply writing off the cagey, 24-year veteran lefty should think for a second. Hell, the easy thing to do would be to retire and that was something Moyer has had plenty of chances to contemplate. Considering that he’s been flat-out released three times, allowed to take free agency three more times, and then sent back to minors three more times on top of that. Even his father-in-law, former basketball coach Digger Phelps, told him to retire and go back to school. In other words, Moyer has had his chances to take the easy way out—there has been no shortage of easy exits.

In fact, there was the time he sat in his hotel room in Anaheim waiting to go to the ballpark to pitch in a meaningless game for the Mariners in mid-August, that Moyer says he and his wife had a 90-minute conversation over the phone about whether or not it was time to pack it in. The idea of playing another season with a mediocre team with no shot to realistically compete for a World Series was just too much for him to bear.

Enough was enough, he thought, until he was offered an interesting proposition…

“A couple of days later they came to me and said, ‘Hey, want to be traded?’” Moyer recounted earlier this year.

Five days after that phone conversation with his wife, Moyer was pitching for a Phillies team that was preparing to make the greatest post-season run in their history. Better yet, he was the pitcher who got the most wins during the past four years.

Still, Moyer has never been through the things he’s been faced with over the past 12 months. Last November he had three different surgeries to repair a torn groin and abdominal issues and even ended up in the hospital last Thanksgiving to clean up an infected blood clot. But even that wasn’t enough to keep him from reporting to spring training on time.

Then shortly after the All-Star Break, Moyer hurt his elbow in the first inning of a game in St. Louis, where the diagnosis was a sprained ulnar collateral ligament and a strained flexor pronator tendon. Typically the course of action for that type of injury is Tommy John surgery. However, because Moyer and John had careers that overlapped by four years, such an invasive surgery would have ended it all.

Instead, Yocum prescribed rest and Moyer followed it to the letter before he was given the go-ahead to begin throwing again. During the NLCS it wasn’t uncommon to see the old lefty in the bullpen throwing pitch after pitch in attempt to rebuild his strength and to prepare for the winter league season.

So to think that Moyer would give up so easily after heading to the Dominican Republic to pitch against up-and-comers and players looking to get more at-bats or innings says something about the man. Better yet, it’s about time people accept the fact that Moyer isn’t pitching for stats, money or fame. Sure, he has an ego like anyone else and chances are that if Moyer was digging ditches for a living and could retire whenever he wanted and remain independently wealthy, he’d do it. But Moyer loves the game. He loves pitching and he loves to compete. Still defiant and engaged in a fight with those who are resigned to accept outcomes and convention wisdom, it’s clear that Moyer’s goal was to keep pitching until it was no longer physically possible. He wasn’t slowing down and he wasn’t taking shortcuts, either.

He never lost it.

But he’s not blind, either. He’s not wishing for a perfect, lucky outcome in order to take one more spin around to celebrate some type of victory. Why should he? Moyer has faced his every day in baseball with a cold, hard shot of reality and that defiance. He’s celebrated the mundane and taken joy in the unbelievable fortune that comes to those who are lucky enough to throw a baseball for a living.

He wasn’t granted any shortcut when the Cubs, Rangers and Cardinals placed him on waivers, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to accept one now.

“Because once it’s over it’s over whether I just plain retire or if it’s due to an injury,” Moyer said after his injury in St. Louis. “I’ve always said that when that last day comes, I’m done.”

The truth is that for the better part of the past four decades, Moyer has played baseball, so why stop now?

“Some players get injured and others just lose the desire,” Moyer told me during a conversation in Washington two years ago. “Then some, for one reason or other, are told to quit because they reach a certain age or time spent in the game. Some just accept it without asking why.”

Moyer never accepted it. That’s why he won’t accept it this time unless Dr. Yocum tells him otherwise. No tears, no speeches, no nothing. Just baseball.

Pat Burrell is no Gil Hodges

This is the lull. Free agency doesn’t officially begin until Sunday, and the World Series was too painful for many to watch after the Phillies went belly up against the Giants in the NLCS. Of course it didn’t help that the Giants had a pretty easy time with the Rangers, either.

Still, there isn’t much that will be memorable about the 2010 World Series. The pitching duels between Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum didn’t exactly pan out, and the Rangers’ offense that tore apart the Yankees, didn't show up.

Actually, the Giants’ offense didn’t exactly conjure memories of Willie Mays or Willie McCovey or even Will Clark. Edgar Renteria was the MVP because he hit two home runs and got seven hits against a team that had one run in its last three losses.

Hitting-wise the World Series was disappointing, though not an all-time worst. That’s excluding former Phillie Pat Burrell, who not only set a record for the most strikeouts in a five-game series (in four game, no less), but also appeared to be defying physics, geometry and basic biology by failing to put the bat on the ball.

How bad was Burrell?

Let’s take a look…

***

As the 1952 World Series bounced back and forth for a week during a tense, ping-ponging of leads and ties, people in the borough of Brooklyn went to church to light candles and pray for Gil Hodges. Watch any of those saccharine-sweet documentaries about the so-called “Golden Age” of baseball when the Dodgers still played in Brooklyn and the Giants were still in the Polo Grounds in Harlem and invariably there will be a segment about Gil Hodges and the ’52 World Series.

Hodges went 0-for-21 with six strikeouts and five walks during the seven game series against the Yankees, which very well could be the most famous slump of all time. In fact, Hodges’ epic oh-fer is one of those flashpoints in time for a lot of baseball fans. Shoot, even Charlie Manuel has spoken about Hodges not being able to get a hit against the Yankees in the World Series, a moment from his youth he recounted in pre-game chats with the scribes. Manuel was eight during the 1952 World Series and said it was unbelievable to imagine a hitter like Hodges struggling like he did.

Would Gil Hodges ever get a hit? The Brooklyn fans held up their end, including Father Herbert Redmond of St. Francis in the borough who announced during an unseasonably warm mass, “It's far too hot for a homily. Keep the Commandments and say a prayer for Gil Hodges.”

With Hodges batting sixth for the Dodgers in the Game 7 at Ebbets Field, he was able to tie the game in the fourth inning on a ground out. But with no outs in the sixth inning and the tying run on first base, Hodges grounded into a double play to further dishearten the Dodgers’ spirits. They got two more base runners for the rest of the game as the Yankees won yet another title.

It’s still easy to wonder how Brooklyn’s fortunes would have turned if Hodges had gotten just one hit in the World Series. Considering he led the team with 32 homers, 102 RBIs and 107 walks, the Dodgers’ success or failure was tied to Hodges’ ability to drive the ball. Strangely, in ’52, Hodges hit 15 fair balls in seven games and not a one of them dropped onto the grass for a hit.

Funny game.

But was Hodges worse than the 0-for-13 with 11 strikeouts Pat Burrell posted for the Giants in five games of the 2010 World Series? Think about that for a second… Burrell went to the plate 15 times, he walked twice, popped out twice and was benched once. So in four games he flailed hopelessly at pitches, rarely putting the onus on the defense to make a play.

He swung and he missed. And then he did it all over again.

Now the extremists in the religion of advanced metrics will tell you that a strikeout is just one out, no different than any other. They will also explain that instead of bouncing into a double play during the sixth inning of Game 7 of the 1952 World Series, Gil Hodges would have been better off striking out. And you know what? Technically they are correct.

But do you remember the feeling of what it was like to strikeout in little league in front of family and friends or in a legion game where your smart-ass friends were sitting a few rows up in the bleachers making wise cracks at every swing and miss? You do? Well, guess what… it’s the same thing for a lot of major leaguers. The feeling of crippling failure that a strikeout leaves one with never goes away, according to some of the guys who have done it in the big leagues. In fact, some guys don’t even want to talk about the strikeouts. When the subject was brought up to Ryan Howard after he set the single-season record for whiffs, the normally affable slugger clammed up and brushed off the significance of the strikeout.

“It’s just one out,” he said dejectedly.

It is just one out, but it’s also the greatest indication of failure in sports. It even looks nasty in the scorebook with that vulgar-looking “K” slotted next to a hitter’s name. For Burrell, his ledger was riddled with them, closing out his time with the Giants with seven of those ugly Ks in his last two games.

So in going 0-for-13 with just two fair balls against the Rangers, did Pat Burrell have the worst World Series ever? Hell, is Burrell the worst World Series player to win two titles? With the Phillies in ’08 and the Giants this October, Burrell is 1-for-27 with 16 whiffs. He has fewer hits in the Fall Classic than Cliff Lee and the same amount as pitchers Joe Blanton, Cole Hamels and utility man Eric Bruntlett—in far fewer at-bats, too.

Yet his 1-for-27 has come to two rings. That’s two more than Ted Williams and Ernie Banks and one more than Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, George Brett and Mike Schmidt.

Nevertheless, it’s a tough to determine if Burrell’s performance is the worst because the Giants won the series in five games. They won it despite Burrell’s strikeout with two on and one out in the seventh inning of a tied Game 5. Burrell whiffed on a 3-2 pitch from Cliff Lee with first base open in what had been the biggest at-bat of the game to that point…

Three pitches later Edgar Renteria hit a home run to deliver the title to San Francisco for the very first time.

Indeed, Burrell, unlike others, was left off the hook. Maybe that was because the Jesuits at his alma mater Bellarmine Prep in nearby San Jose, Calif. lit some candles for him?

Evan Longoria was not so lucky. In 2008 he went 1-for-20 with nine strikeouts in a series where the Phillies won three of the five games by one run. Like Burrell and Hodges, Longoria was a middle-of-the-order hitter for the Rays who’s only hit of the series drove home a run in Game 5.

The one we remember all too well in these parts came during the 1983 World Series where Mike Schmidt dug in against the Orioles 20 times and got one hit in five games. Schmidt, of course, was the MVP of the 1980 World Series, but three years later he whiffed six times and came to bat 10 times with runners on base and four times with runners in scoring position, yet got just one chance to run the bases.

When Schmidt did barely loop one over the infield and onto the turf at The Vet, base runners moved, a rally started and a run actually crossed the plate. It’s funny how that happens.

Weirdly, Schmidt batted .467 with a homer and three extra-base hits in the NLCS before managing to eke out one bloop single in the World Series. That’s kind of reminiscent of the postseason experienced by Placido Polanco in 2006.

In leading the Tigers back to the World Series, Polanco batted .471 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, including .529 during the ALCS to take home MVP honors, only to hang up an 0-for-17 in five games against the Cardinals.

Odder yet, Polanco whiffed just once during the ’06 World Series. The same goes for Scott Rolen in ’04 when he went 0-for-15 with just one whiff against the Red Sox. Rolen very well could have been the MVP of the NLCS on the strength of a seventh-inning homer off Roger Clemens to give the Cardinals the lead they never relinquished. In fact, Rolen belted two other homers in the Cardinals’ Game 2 victory and had six RBIs in the series, which was dwarfed by four homers and a 14-for-28 showing from Albert Pujols.

Of course Rolen whiffed nine times in that series, too, yet still managed to get some big hits.

Not in the World Series, though. Better yet, both Polanco and Rolen put the ball in play to make something happen, but walked away with nothing. Kind of like Hodges.

Funny game.

The next big thing

DENVER — Hang around baseball long enough and you will learn some lessons, most of them the hard way. It’s guaranteed if you’re smart enough to keep your eyes and ears open. It doesn’t matter how smart a guy thinks he is, how many good sources he has or how many games he has seen in person, there is always something.

So the best lesson I’ve learned about baseball that has been incorporated into my regular, civilian life is a hard one. There is very little wiggle room in this lesson and it is deliberate and foolproof if applied correctly.

Believe nothing. Unless you can confirm something or saw it occur in front of your own two eyes/ears, don’t believe it. In fact, even then it’s a pretty good idea to go out and get a secondary source. For instance, if you believe Albert Pujols is the best hitter you have ever seen, it’s a really good idea to get some back up. Try to find someone who has seen a lot of different hitters from all kinds of backgrounds and ask for their opinion.

Regarding Pujols, I asked Mike Schmidt and Charlie Manuel if he was, indeed, the greatest hitter I had ever seen. Schmidt went so far as to demonstrate Pujols’ batting stance right there in the clubhouse at Veterans Stadium where he described the genius of the Cardinals’ slugger.

“Watch what he does,” Schmidt said, squatting down low with his hands held high, choking up on an imaginary bat. “He always goes in there like he was two strikes on him.”

The thinking, according to Schmidt, is that Pujols is always weary, always thinking and always protective of his strike zone. Pujols wasn’t going to give in to a pitcher’s pitch or chase garbage. The theory is to kill a pitch over the plate and if a guy is good enough to throw one of those fancy breaking pitches on the edge of the plate, just tip your cap and walk quietly back to the dugout.

After that Schmidt went back to trashing Pat Burrell and his lack of hitting acumen.

Big Chuck didn’t demonstrate Pujols’ stance or make any over-analyzed hitting theories. Instead, Charlie made me think and dig between the lines. He does that a lot, actually. A big one with Charlie is, “Watch the game.” That means don’t believe the hype.

“He’s up there,” Charlie said. “He can be whatever you want him to be.”

What does this long-winded preamble have to do with uber-prospect Dom Brown? Well, everything actually. The truth is Brown’s long-awaited ascent to the Majors has sent lots of smart folks struggling to control their emotions. Long, rangy, smart, powerful and fast, Brown comes billed as the ultimate post-steroid era ballplayer. What do you need? Well, guess what? Brown has that trait in his repertoire. He was drafted in the 20^th round out of high school as a left-handed pitcher because most teams thought he was headed for the University of Miami to play wide receiver. Since then he’s never thrown a pitch in a game and the only catches he makes are in right field.

What those teams didn’t know was that Brown was a baseball player who grew up idolizing Ken Griffey Jr., which is perfect. Brown, a lefty in the field and at the plate, could be a stronger, faster version of Griffey. If Griffey was the ultimate player for the pre-steroid era, Brown is his successor.

Oh yes, he’s that good.

That’s the hype machine talking, of course. Griffey, ideally, should be a unanimous Hall-of-Fame pick five years from now. Of course there were a lot of players that should have been unanimous selections in the past—Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Tony Gwynn, etc.—spring to mind, but the BBWAA votes on these things… what are you gonna do?

The question no one has pondered is if the hype and the expectations are fair to Brown. There is a lot of pressure put on the 22-year-old kid to live up to a standard set by others. Yes, it’s the way it goes in this over-populated media landscape of ours, but that doesn’t make it right. Too often we are so quick to anoint everything the greatest hero or flop of all time. There’s never just good or mediocre anymore—it has to be extreme.

We saw this happen to Burrell when he was summoned from Scranton during the 2000 season and we could not understand why the Phillies took so long to call up Marlon Byrd in 2002 because we were told he was going to be the next great center fielder. Eventually Byrd became an All-Star, but it took three teams and six years after he left the Phillies to get there.

Then there were the untouchables, Gavin Floyd and Cole Hamels. When the Phillies were hanging around the cusp of a playoff berth in 2003 and 2004 as the trade deadline loomed, Floyd and Hamels were the first players every team asked for only to be told to beat it or were given a counteroffer that included Ryan Howard.

It was the Pirates, not the Phillies, which backed out of the Oliver Perez-for-Ryan Howard deal at the last minute. Coincidentally, Floyd was included in the trade that sent Howard’s roadblock, Jim Thome, to Chicago in order to clear a path for Howard.

As Charlie would say, “Funny game.”

Here’s what I know… having seen Burrell, Byrd, Chase Utley, Floyd, Hamels, Howard and Brown play in the minor leagues, I’d like to think my eyes and ears haven’t mislead me. I thought Burrell would be better with at least one All-Star berth to his credit. Byrd was marketed wrong and probably needed a little more work on his makeup in order to be a star for the Phillies.

Utley was raw and no one really was sure if he’d ever be able to field an infield position. When it appeared that Scott Rolen wasn’t going to re-sign with the Phils, Utley was promoted from Single-A to Triple-A where he spent the season playing third base. Sure, he hit fairly well, but some are still amazed that Utley didn’t kill someone (or himself) with the way he played third base. But out of all the players listed, he has come the farthest as a player. No one expected him to be the best second baseman in the game. Burrell was supposed to have the career that Utley has put together and Utley was just supposed to be a really good hitter.

Who knew?

Floyd was a talent, but not as good as Hamels and certainly lacked that cockiness and swagger the lefty had even way back when he was pitching for the Reading Phillies.

Howard? Wow, was he smart as a minor leaguer. The aspect to Howard’s game that goes unnoticed is how quickly he can make adjustments and alterations at the plate. There’s a lot more than sheer brute force to what he does up there and the massive amount of strikeouts is a byproduct of something. What has been missed is the intelligence for the game Howard had even as a minor leaguer.

Howard and Hamels were the best of the bunch until Brown came along. In his first game for Reading last summer, Brown hit a home run that will go down as one of those legendary moments they talk about years from now. The problem with this legend, however, is that there isn’t much room to embellish it. C’mon… Brown hit a ball about as far as a human being could smash a baseball at Reading’s ballpark without it sounding cartoonish or like something conjured in a video game.

Even better than the talent, intelligence and everything else, Brown was grounded. People kept spelling his name wrong but he was too polite to correct them. When he answered questions he used the word, “sir,” and he wasn’t being sarcastic. Know what? Pujols did the same thing a decade ago.

For now Brown is perfect. His first plate appearance ended with an RBI double crashed off the wall. Famed documentarian Ken Burns was even on hand to see it, which hardly seems like a coincidence.

But Brown is also the one player general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. would not part with when he was cleaning out the farm system to get Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. Brown is the chosen one even though Amaro went on Daily News Live last week and plainly stated that the kid wasn’t ready for the big show yet. Perhaps that was just Amaro trying to tamp down expectations in order to keep the hype from overwhelming us. A little breather, if you will.

Oh, but we know better. Amaro had no other way of dodging it. Money is always at the fore and guys like Brown (and Howard before him) have the natural flow of their development slowed in order to keep that arbitration and free agency clock from ticking. It stinks because there’s something truly sinister about those motivated by money over merit, but so far we’ve seen guys like Howard and Utley get theirs after toiling away in the minors for no good reason.

Maybe we are jumping the gun on Brown a little bit. Maybe he’ll be more Burrell and Byrd than Howard or Utley? Baseball has a way of separating the champs from the chumps really quickly. You can go to the bank on that.

But I know what my eyes have seen and I know that Brown made it through every level of pro ball with tons of scouts and management types watching his every move with the intent on prying him away from Philadelphia. There’s a reason why Halladay didn’t pitch for the Phillies in 2009 and it was because there was no way Amaro was giving up Brown to get the best righty pitcher in the majors.

Now both Brown and Halladay are teammates with lockers on the same side of the clubhouse. Chances are they’re going to remain so for a while, too. Needless to say, it’s going to be fun following Charlie’s advice…

“Watch the game.”

How can you not?

World Series: Howard's End

NEW YORK—In 1983, Mike Schmidt had one of those playoff series that people remember forever. In four games against the Dodgers in the NLCS, he very well could have been the MVP if ol’ Sarge Matthews hadn’t hit three homers and driven in eight runs in four games.

The fact of the matter is that Schmidt and Lefty Carlton single-handedly won Game 1 with a homer in the first inning of a 1-0 victory. All told, the Hall-of-Fame third baseman went 7-for-15 with five runs, a pair of walks and a .800 slugging percentage.

Statistically speaking, the 1983 NLCS was far and away Schmidt’s best postseason effort.

The thing is no one remembers how good Schmidt was in the 1983 NLCS because he was so awful in the ’83 World Series.

So it’s kind of odd that he followed up the success against the Dodgers with one of the worst showing by a Hall of Famer in World Series history. In fact, take away the 0-for-21 effort by Brooklyn’s Gil Hodges in the seven-game defeat to the Yankees in the 1952 World Series, and Schmidt’s 1983 World Series could go down as the worst by a superstar.

Schmidt went hitless in his first 13 at-bats with five strikeouts in the series against the Orioles. Had it not been for that broken-bat bloop single that just made it past shortstop Cal Ripken’s reach, Schmidt would have gone 0-for-20 in the series.

Not quite as bad as Gil Hodges in 1952, but pretty darned close.

After wearing out the Dodgers to get the Phillies to the World Series, the Orioles had Schmidt’s number. There was the hit against Storm Davis and a bunch of oh-fers against Scott McGregor, Mike Flanagan, Sammy Stewart, Jim Palmer and Tippy Martinez.

Schmidt had no chance.

Kind of like Ryan Howard against the Yankees in the 2009 World Series,

Just like Schmidt, Howard wore out the Dodgers in the NLCS with eight RBIs and four extra-base hits out of the five he got. Moreover, with six walks, Howard reached base in 11 of his 21 plate appearances.

Mix Howard’s NLCS with his performance in the NLDS, and it truly was an epic postseason. With an RBI in the first eight games of the postseason, Howard tied a record set by Lou Gehrig. Then there was the career-defining moment in the clinching Game 4 of the NLDS where trailing by two runs and down to their last out, Howard blasted a game-tying double to the right-field corner.

After the Rockies took the lead in the eighth inning, Howard paced the dugout during the top of the ninth and calmly told his teammates to, “Just get me to the plate, boys.”

That’s pretty darned cool.

But will anyone remember the RBI streak, the production in the NLCS and that clutch at-bat in the ninth inning of the NLDS after the World Series Howard had?

Better yet, how does Howard get people to forget about the World Series?

Needless to say it will be difficult. After all, Howard whiffed a record-breaking 13 times in six games. He managed just four hits and one, stat-padding homer in the final game. Until that homer, Howard had just one RBI. After piling on 14 RBIs in the first eight games, Howard got one in next six games before that meaningless homer.

“Sometimes you’ve got it and sometimes you don’t,” Howard shrugged after the finale.

Actually, the Yankees had Howard’s number largely by scouting the hell out of the Phillies for most of the second-half of the season. So what they saw was that the best way to handle Howard was with a steady diet of left-handers. Howard batted .207 with just six homers against lefties in the regular season so that was the strategy the Yankees used.

Against the Yankees, Howard faced lefties in 18 of his 25 plate appearances. And against righties he didn’t do much better by going 0-for-6. Charlie Manuel calls Howard, “The Big Piece,” and clearly the Yankees saw the Phillies’ lineup similarly.

Schmidt said the one thing that bothers him the most about his career was his 1-for-20 performance in the 1983 World Series. If that’s the case for Howard, he has been as candid about it—of course he doesn’t have the luxury of time and space to properly analyze his showing.

“I feel cool,” Howard said. “The only thing you can do now is go home and relax and come back for spring training.”

For now, that’s it.

The NLCS: Greatest Phillies team ever?

Comparisons between teams of different eras are not only difficult to do logically, but also they are odious. Seriously, the game changes so much from generation to generation that there is no way one can compare, say, the 1977 Phillies to the 2009 Phils. The game does not exist in a vacuum (or whatever). We see it just by looking at the stat sheet.

Needless to say, baseball statistics are essentially meaningless.

Take that with a grain of salt, however. The numbers are the only proof that a lot of people have to understand if a player is performing well. But I don’t need to look up Garry Maddox’s VORP or OPS to know that he was a better center fielder than Shane Victorino. Sure, there are numbers on the page and I suppose they have meaning. But if you ever got the chance to watch Maddox go gap to gap to chase down every single fly ball hit into the air, you just know.

Nevertheless, since the Phillies are on the cusp of going to the World Series for th second season in a row, those old, odious comparisons come up. They kind of have to, right? Well, yeah… after all, there really aren’t very many good seasons in the 126 years of Phillies baseball to compare.

The good years are easily categorized. There were the one-hit wonder years of 1950 and 1993; the stretch where ol’ Grover Cleveland Alexander took the Phils to the series in 1915; and then the Golden Era from 1976 to 1983 where the Phillies went to the playoffs six times in eight seasons.

Then there is now.

Obviously two straight visits to the World Series are unprecedented in team history. Actually, the five-year stint in which Charlie Manuel has guided the team are the best five years in club history. At least that’s what the bottom line says.

In just five years as the manager of the Phillies, Manuel has won 447 games. Only Gene Mauch, Harry Wright and Danny Ozark have won more games in franchise history and those guys were around for a lot longer than five years. Interestingly, Manuel ranks fourth in franchise wins and seventh in games.

That pretty much says it all right there, doesn’t it? Based on the wins and accomplishments, this is the greatest era of Phillies baseball and the 2009 club could very well go down as the best team ever—whether they win the World Series over the Yankees (Angels are done, right?) or not.

Still, I’d take Maddox over Victorino, Steve Carlton over Cole Hamels, Bake McBride over Jayson Werth; Bob Boone over Carlos Ruiz; Greg Luzinski way over Pat Burrell (and Raul Ibanez, too); and, obviously, Mike Schmidt over Pedro Feliz.

But I’d also take Chase Utley’s bat over Manny Trillo’s glove; Jimmy Rollins over Larry Bowa; and Ryan Howard over Pete Rose or Richie Hebner.

Those are the easy choices. Those Golden Era teams had some underrated players like Dick Ruthven and Del Unser, but they would have been much better with a Matt Stairs type.

No, the truth is I’d take the 2009 Phillies over those other teams and it’s not because of the players comparisons or the win totals. It’s because they are a better team.

Yeah, that’s right, these guys are the best team.

Of course I never got to go into the clubhouse to see Larry Bowa’s divisive act, Steve Carlton’s oddness, or Mike Schmidt’s diva-like act. You know, that is if the stories from those days are true…

Nope, give me a team instead of one that had the indignity to run into a pair of dynasties in the making. First the Phillies had to contend with the Cincinnati Reds and The Big Red Machine before those great Dodgers’ clubs emerged. There is no team in the NL East or National League, for that matter, that is as good as the Phillies have been.

The Mets, Dodgers or Cardinals? Nope, no and nah.

More importantly, now that Pat Burrell is gone the Phillies don’t have a true divisive force in the clubhouse. There is no more of that creepy us-against-them battle anymore considering the relief corps did a reality show with the MLB Network.

Think Warren Brusstar and Kevin Saucier would have been asked to do something like “The Pen” if they were playing these days?

No, the these Phillies have nothing as obnoxious or weird as Bowa or Carlton. They are not the 25-guys in 25-cabs team. It’s a real baseball team.

We’ll see what happens when (and if) the Phillies get to the World Series, but in this instance we’ll go with Victorino gang over Maddox’s group.

Schmidty comes through in the clutch

Eventually, even the Hatfields and the McCoys ended their bitter inter-family war spurred by land, geography, unrequited love and moonshine. But unlike with Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin brokering a peace accord between Egypt and Israel, the Hatfield Family and the McCoy clan did not hole up at Camp David for a week in order to iron out their differences. Not even close.

Instead, the famous warring families called up Richard Dawson and played "The Feud." Yep, in 1979 the Hatfield and McCoy families went at it once and for all on the hit TV game show, "The Family Feud." The winners took home a prized pig, which was kept on the set during the show.

I didn't see the episode, but if I were a betting man I'd wager Dawson gave that pig a big smooch and then afterwards played it off in sexual suggestive, yet charming, British manner.

There's nothing charming about the feud between the Phillies and the Mets, though. The fact is the battle for supremacy in the NL East is just plain ol' nasty. These guys just don't like each other. In fact, the hatred the Phillies have for the Mets actually inspires them.

"The other team gives you some inspiration, let's put it that way," shortstop Jimmy Rollins said last week. "You're able to take that and keep yourself motivated."

That's kind of vague. How about some elaboration, Jimmy?

"No, just watch ‘em. If you were a player and you're looking over in that other dugout, you'll feel a certain type of way. Rewind the game. Just watch the game."

Just watch the game. It's that simple. Better yet, it seems as if those Mets and their antics inspired an old Phillie watching the games on TV in Jupiter, Fla. to sit down in front of a computer and type out an e-mail to his old team. But more than just an "attaguy" missive congratulating the club for another fine season, this one was more of a call to arms.

Think Winston Churchill delivering his "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" address before the House of Commons on May 13, 1940.

Or maybe it was more like Franklin Roosevelt's first inauguration address in 1933 when he told Americans that, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Maybe it was like The Dude telling the Big Lebowski that, "This aggression will not stand... man."

So if the Phillies go on to surge past the Mets for a second straight September and into the playoffs, perhaps Mike Schmidt's e-mail will be the watershed moment. In its historical context we'll call it the "Better Than They Are" note or maybe, "Win One for the Schmidter."

No matter what, Schmidt words inspired his beloved Phillies in Friday night's taut, 3-0 classic in which Brett Myers may have turned in his finest performance ever.

Schmidt wrote:

Guys, One pitch, one at-bat, one play, one situation, think "small" and "big" things result. Tough at-bats, stay up the middle with men on base, whatever it takes to keep the line moving. Hot offense. 27 outs on defense. The Mets know you're better than they are. They remember last year. You guys are never out of the game. Welcome the challenge that confronts you this weekend. You guys are the best.

Good luck, Mike Schmidt.

Just like Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," Schmidt's letter was short, sweet and direct. Also like Lincoln's famous speech, Schmidt's words will be remembered forever. Schmidt came through for the team during that last series in Montreal in 1980 and he came through against Kansas City in the World Series later that month. This time, without a bat or glove Schmidt came through again - but with a laptop, an e-mail account and nine simple sentences.

If the Phillies go on to win this thing, it could go down as Schmidt's finest moment as a Phillie.

When told that Schmidt wrote, "The Mets know you're better than they are," Rollins, in his understated way, added to the potential legend with a throwing down of the proverbial gauntlet of his own:

"Well, that part's true," Rollins said.

The Phillies will have two games on Sunday - and just 19 more after that - to prove it again.

Come on down and let's play The Feud!

And the Oscar goes to...

By now most folks have seen Terrell Owens’ post-game “act” in which he cried as if he were running for President of the United States of America following the Cowboys big choke job in their first playoff game. For those that haven’t seen Terrell Owens’ post-game drama, here it is:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMue5XOGX94&rel=1]

For the most part the T.O. video has been posted, talked about and then shrugged off as if it were a another bad episode in the most banal sitcom. Most folks don’t even really think it was funny or even surprising that a professional football player with diva-like tendencies would cry during a post-game press conference following a loss in the playoffs when asked about the poor play of his quarterback, Tony Romo. The reason why it wasn’t a big deal compared to when Hillary Clinton supposedly cried in New Hampshire is because there doesn’t seem to be anything remotely authentic about Owens. Owens is a drama queen so when he pretends to emote, it’s a yawn fest. Conversely, Ms. Clinton has been accused of not having a soul, so when she allegedly cried during the last days of the campaign in New Hampshire it was monumental.

But as far as Owens goes his ex-teammate Jon Runyan said it best during his appearance on Daily News Live: “That wasn’t about Tony [Romo] it was about T.O. It’s always about T.O. …”

After another choke, watching T.O. was more like that crying Britney fan video that made its way through the Internets. It wasn’t funny, sad or interesting – it was just bizarre.

Really, really bizarre.

When Mike Schmidt retired and broke down blubbering and crying midway through his announcement – now that was funny. There he was with his Flock of Seagulls ‘do and up-to-the-second ‘80s style and the most composed player ever to wear the Phillies’ uniform couldn’t get through a sentence without the water works.

Bret Boone bawling after his ouster from Seattle was a good one, too, and Fred Couples falling apart following a tournament victory is spit-take worthy. Likewise, anything with the emoting Jim Mora is hilarious simply because he always tries so hard to remain as sullen and composed as if he were General Douglas MacArthur delivering his farewell address to Congress on April 19, 1951.

But instead of getting, “I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away…” as with General MacArthur, we get “Playoffs!”

As for Dick Vermeil – that’s not even a contest. In fact, let’s just turn it over to the great Jeff Johnson and his old NFL writing for Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern:

The first time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: What a jagoff. What is an adult man doing crying about football?

The second time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: Okay, Vermeil. Calm down. And also, what a jagoff.

The third time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: The problem is with you, Johnson. You're the one who has to loosen up. Vermeil is in touch with his feelings. Vermeil has a ring, you don't. Let Vermeil cry.

The eighth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: Okay, Vermeil. Get on some meds, amigo. Take a deep breath. Let it go.

The fourteenth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: This is getting weird.

The thirty-ninth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I had just gotten done polishing off a bottle of Drambuie with him. We were at a golf tournament outside Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He told me he wasn't sure if he'd ever eaten a better salad than the one we'd had at dinner. "Those farmers," he wailed, "who are they? The romaine was exquisite. What are you looking at? If you can't—if a grown man can't enjoy a leaf of lettuce—"

The eighty-first time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It was back on TV. The folks at UW-River Falls, where the Chiefs spend preseason, hadn't followed through on a team-catering request for Rice Krispies. Vermeil was melting down. "Just how tough is it? I'm sorry. I gotta go public with this," the waterworks were on. "My men love their cereal. And now, I don't know what kinda season we're gonna have."

The three hundred and fifteenth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It was because of a traffic light that he thought was on the verge of burning itself out. I was on a three-speed in Locust Valley, MO, and I saw him pointing and howling from the driver's seat of his Lincoln. "Some family's gonna get killed!" Several cars honked behind him, but he wasn't budging.

The nine hundred forty-first time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I was on a cruise ship. Vermeil was at a press conference. One of his kick-returners kept an adult video late and there was a fine. Vermeil, to that day, was unaware of a phenomenon known as porn. It did not make him happy.

The 33,872nd time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I didn't. It was just an editorial that he wrote for USA Today about the dangers of using magic markers to write kids' names on athletic tape to identify them on football helmets. I assumed he cried the whole time he wrote it. He thought the markers were a bit toxic, that an addiction could develop.

The 198,440th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It was an Arby's. A packet of Horsey sauce dared him to open it. He could not.

The 708,814th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: He said six words and broke down, "Oh, the majesty of a sauna."

The 1,933,336th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I only sensed it. God had begun wiping out whole cities with His own vomit. Vermeil's crying caused it. I was in Murfreesboro, TN. We were covered in slime. God had registered his disgust. Vermeil was somewhere, bawling with joy about microwave technology. He stopped abruptly and ate a corn muffin before it cooled.

The 174,999,044th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: He was dead. Vermeil was a damn ghost and he still would not quit crying. He'd met up with Tony Franklin, the old Eagles place-kicker. "How could you have possibly gone through life so darn short, Tony? It just is not fair."

The 12,000,000,000th time I saw Vermeil cry: I got a lousy T-shirt.

The 38,555,400,093rd time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It wasn't so much Vermeil as the whole world. A book had been written about Vermeil's penchant for tears. It was called The Vermeil Approach. A religion was involved. Millions of people wept. Of course, looking down and seeing this, Vermeil wept.

Why is it that I find the crying of sports figures so funny? That’s simple – because it’s easy to laugh at things that don’t matter. No, I don’t doubt the sincerity of the sadness in dealing with a retirement, a victory or a 2-2 circle change up, it’s just that people without real problems have lousy perspective. At some point we all had to quit playing sports, but did you cry after the last game of the 10th grade JV basketball season? As far as we can tell Mike Schmidt did not cry when announcing his retirement all those years ago because he was sick or injured and forced out of the game. Nor was anyone in his immediate family facing some sort of hardship that required his immediate attention. In fact, there was no real sadness involved at all. All Mike Schmidt cried about was that he was lucky enough to have a great baseball career.

If that’s not funny I don’t know what is.

Mike Schmidt statement on Pat Burrell

As a former Phillies player, I'm honored to be a guest at this camp. As a guest I want to do my best to steer clear, and put to bed any issues that may lead to controversy. With regard to the past article where I commented on Pat Burrell and Adam Dunn, understand the article was about the propensity of power hitters to strike out. As you all know, I'm pretty well versed on that subject being in the top five of all-time, having K'd almost 1,900 times.

I believe a goal of any hitter should be to make contact, especially in crucial at-bats, by understanding how to hit defensively with two strikes, something that me 14 years to learn. My use of the term "mediocre" was in poor taste, and I'm sorry if it offended, but it was not intended to label Pat Burrell or Adam Dunn, or their accomplishments, but to point out that at some point, as a result of reducing strikeouts, their future accomplishments will make their past seem "mediocre."

Since meeting Pat six years ago, I have re-lived my career through him, as we have so many similarities. I root for him every game, and feel that in 2007, given good health and 600 at-bats, Pat will assert himself as one of the top run producers in baseball.

Schmidt to Burrell: Hit the ball

One of the more memorable moments of this job came back in the 2003 season when Mike Schmidt -- the Mike Schmidt -- stood casually by the coaches lockers in the dingy and dark clubhouse in Veterans Stadium and broke down what it took to be a great hitter. During that now-infamous chat with a few writers, Schmidt demonstrated different batting stances, showed off various swings for all situations, and talked theory and philosophy until we were kicked out of the clubhouse.

Needless to say, being on the front row for something like that with one of the great hitters of all-time was kind of cool. Plus, Schmidty wasn’t cranky, combative or moody that day, which made it even nicer. Schmidt, I was warned by a more-seasoned writer, had a reputation for being a “little crazy.”

“One day he’ll tell you the sky is blue and get into why it’s blue for about two hours. The next day he’ll deny the whole thing and tell you the sky is purple,” I was told.

But when I was a kid and an epic letter writer, Schmidt responded to one of my queries with a formally typed letter of his own. I think he sent autographs back, too, though I probably didn’t ask. I was more interested in a response, and in that regard Schmidt was OK in my book.

So when his demonstration that June day turned into a rant against Pat Burrell’s season-long slump, well, we were on to something. This was better than a demonstration about hitting from one of the all-time greats -- this was a story. A good story is better than anything and Schmidt was dropping one straight on to our laps. Now he was more than OK in my book.

It should go without writing that we all wrote about that conversation with Schmidt. I saved mine and reprinted it here. As most remember, we all talked about it pretty extensively. In fact, Schmidt felt compelled to apologize a few days later for his comments to us. When we saw him again in Baltimore for a 20-year reunion and home-run derby of the Orioles-Phillies World Series, he made sure we all knew the topic of Pat Burrell and his hitting was off limits.

That’s until now. After nearly four years (has it really been that long!), Schmidt decided the statute of limitations was up and Burrell was fair game. While he was at it, Schmidty offered up some analysis on Adam Dunn’s (lack of) hitting, too.

According to the great Hay McCoy of the Dayton Daily News, Schmidt, “unprompted,” cited Burrell and Dunn as two players that, “tick me off” because “they strike out so much.”

I wonder if Schmidt showed off his Albert Pujols batting stance the way he did back in ’03?

“I look at Dunn and Burrell and I go, ‘My God, if these guys cut their strikeouts down to 75 or 80, they put the ball in play 85 or 90 more times a year.’ That's at least 15 more home runs a year and at least 35 more RBIs a year.”

And…

“I mean, why would Dunn and Burrell watch what Pujols does and not want to be like him, as good as he is?” Schmidt said. “When their careers are over, they are going to wonder how much they left on the table, how much they left on the field. If only they had choked up with two strikes, spread their stances out. What they are doing now is not great, it is mediocrity.”

Schmidt isn’t wrong – just like he wasn’t wrong during that initial consultation. However, no one, not even Schmidt, can “be like” Pujols. That’s like asking Picasso to “show me how to paint like you.”

Schmidt’s other mistake is believing that Burrell cares as much about being a great hitter as he did.

Schmidt ready to step aside for Howard

WASHINGTON – If one were looking for someone to talk baseball with, it’s definitely hard to top Mike Schmidt. Introspective and opinionated, there isn’t too much regarding the game that Schmidt won’t wax philosophical about. He’ll offer his thoughts on the game during his era, these modern times, the new ballparks, and, of course, the never-ending steroid issue.

There’s a joke amongst the media types that if anyone really wants to know how good the Hall-of-Fame third baseman was all you have to do is ask him.

“I wrote a book about it,” Schmidt joked during a phone call on Tuesday afternoon.

But if one really wants to engage Schmidt and listen to him talk, just ask him about hitting. Schmidt wrote a book about that, too, but that came when baseball’s statistics had a totally different meaning, and when Ryan Howard was two-years old.

The “old statistics,” as Schmidt calls them, are the power numbers. Back when he was playing, Schmidt led the National League in home runs six different times without reaching the 40-homer plateau. In fact, Schmidt hit 40 or more homers in a season just three times during his 18-season career. Compare that to someone like Albert Pujols, who is working in his fourth consecutive 40-homer season in just his sixth season in the league and it’s plain to see what Schmidt means by the old numbers.

“I was seventh (on the all-time home run list) when I retired and now I’m 14th,” he said.

Despite the dwindling status in the record books, Schmidt will always be remembered as one of the classic all-time home run hitters. His distinctive batting stance along with the eight home-run crowns, 548 long balls, and, of course, the three MVP Awards, has more than solidified his legacy.

These days Schmidt is something of a baseball watchdog, chiming in on the big issues of the game. He was an advocate for Pete Rose's reinstatement into the game for a while until it became a little too politically incorrect to be so vociferous regarding the self-proclaimed “Hit King,” and has weighed in on everything from the Hall of Fame’s standards, to the modern game, which includes performance-enhancing drugs.

Now it appears as Schmidt’s 26-season reign atop the Phillies’ single-season home run list is about to become an old number, too. With 32 games remaining in the season, second-year slugging first baseman Ryan Howard needs to hit just one more homer to pass Schmidt’s record of 48 bashed in 1980. Even by throwing in the two homers that Schmidt hit during the World Series that season shouldn’t daunt Howard rewriting of the club’s record books.

Actually, at the rate Howard is going he should have 50 by the weekend and the once-magic number of 60 isn’t out of the realm of possibility either.

Regardless, becoming just another name in the record books doesn’t upset Schmidt despite his opinions in the publishing world and on several television programs, including Bob Costas’ HBO show where Schmidt said if he had played in an era where steroids or performance-enhancing drugs were more prevalent that he just may have dabbled a bit.

“I’m happy for Ryan and content with what I did,” Schmidt said.

“I'm happy for Ryan. I think everyone would agree with me that eventually that record of 48 would be surpassed. It should have been passed a few years ago by Jim Thome (who hit 47 homers in 2003). (Howard) may take it, eventually, so far that nobody will catch it.”

That’s not out of the realm of possibility, either. Currently, Howard is on pace to smash 58 homers, which is more than impressive. But considering that Howard hit 11 homers after Sept. 1 last season – his rookie year, no less – it’s very reasonable to believe that the slugger can duplicate that feat to get to the 60-homer plateau.

In baseball history, only five different men have hit 60 or more home runs in a season, and of that group, only two players – Babe Ruth and Roger Maris – have not been tied to baseball’s ugly steroid scandal.

Steroids and performance-enhancing drugs don’t even enter into the same equation when it comes to Howard. Actually, based on conversations around the cage during his work as a hitting instructor at spring training as well as watching Phillies games on DirecTV at home in Jupiter, Fla., Schmidt says Howard’s success comes from nothing more than ability. In fact, says Schmidt, there isn’t really much of a comparison between the two hitters at the similar points of their careers – Howard is just that much better.

“Howard’s in a see-the-ball-hit-the-ball mode,” Schmidt said. “It will be a lot easier for him when he has a track record against these pitchers. He’s not a pull hitter and he has a lot of great qualities.

“If he has any hole in his swing it’s high and inside or breaking balls away out of the zone and let him get himself out. He’s a different type hitter in that he uses the whole field and that will keep him out of prolonged slumps.”

Howard is just the type of hitter that will not only be talked about for his prodigiously long blasts, but also his unique style that conjures remembrances of a certain Hall-of-Famer.

“He might be the modern-day Willie Stargell,” Schmidt said. “He’s a left-handed hitter with a distinct approach to hitting that I'm sure guys will be imitating for years. Making that extension with the bat just like [Stargell] used to windmill that bat as the pitcher was winding up. Both can hit the ball in the upper deck. Willie used to hit some of the longest balls in the history of the league and they talked about them, just like they're talking about some of Ryan's home runs.”

Schmidt says he was easily fooled by sliders off the plate, but one pitch that did not fool him was the one Stan Bahnsen chucked up there on the next-to-last day of the 1980 season in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. It was that 10th inning blast that sealed that NL East for the Phillies and propelled them into the NLCS and the only World Series title in the franchise’s 123-season history.

“It was a crucial home run,” Schmidt remembered. “It was the last home run of the year and it had a tremendous impact on the history of the Phillies.”

What's left to be seen is whether Howard's final homer of 2006 has an equally as important impact on the history of the Phillies.

Season-long Skid Has Schmidt Feeling Burrell's Pain

In his 18-year major-league career, Mike Schmidt won three MVP awards and one World Series MVP award. He hit 548 home runs to lead the National League eight times. He also drove in 1,595 runs, which led the league in RBIs four times. Only eight players in the history of the game hit more homers than Schmidt, which means that he might know a little something about hitting.

He should. He's certainly the best player the Phillies ever had.

But Mike Schmidt knows a lot about failure too. In 1973, Schmidt's first full season as a big leaguer, he hit just .196 and struck out 136 times in 132 games. In 1975, he whiffed 180 times, which at the time was the third-highest single-season total ever.

Only four players in the history of the game struck out more than Schmidt. In fact, he whiffed no fewer than 103 times in 12 of his first 13 seasons. If there hadn't been a labor stoppage in 1981, it would have been 13 for 13.

So yes, Schmidt knows a lot about failure.

He also knows a lot about what Pat Burrell is going through this season.

"I'm the only guy on the face of the earth right now that can feel his pain. I'm the only guy. Just from my career. I'm the only guy on the face of the earth that could hit the ball into the upper deck, and at the same time have played in a Philadelphia uniform, been booed till I can't stand it anymore, go on the field with anxiety kicking so hard that I can't control my sense of how to hit, and I wanna go out there and swing before [the pitcher] lets it go," said Schmidt, who was in town for the 1980s tribute. "I want to hit a 5-run home run with nobody on base. You lose it. There isn't a guy in here that can feel the pain that he feels right now.

"[Greg Gross] is his hitting coach, but he can't feel his pain. I'm the one that can help him from a psychological standpoint. I can lay on a couch next to him and say, 'Pat, I feel your pain. I've been there.'"

Burrell, as it has been well documented, has labored through a very difficult season. Following Sunday's 0-for-4 in 5-0 victory against the Boston Red Sox at the Vet, Burrell's batting average dipped to .202. In 67 games and 247 at-bats, Burrell has struck out 79 times. That comes to a staggering statistic: Burrell has struck out in 28 percent of his plate appearances. Toss in other variables and the would-be slugger has failed to hit a fair ball in 41 percent of his plate appearances.

Not at-bats, folks. That's plate appearances.

Schmidt, a part-time hitting instructor who last visited the team in Atlanta in April, says he looked over film with Burrell. At the time, Schmidt said Burrell was jumping at the ball a little bit and thinking "home run" too much.

Yet because of Burrell's struggles, manager Larry Bowa has moved the 26-year-old up and down in the lineup and benched him on occasion. Burrell has just one home run and three RBIs this month and just two home runs and four RBIs since May 20. It's gotten to the point, Schmidt elluded, that pitchers are waiting to face him instead of any other hitter in the lineup.

"You've got to want to be a clutch hitter," Schmidt said. "You don't want to be a dangerous hitter. You can be a dangerous hitter your entire career and make a lot of money. I was that guy a lot of times in my career."

Still, there are always glimmers of hope. Typically batting fourth or fifth in the lineup, which is not all that uncommon for a player who signed a six-year, $50 million deal before heading to spring training, Burrell went a promising 5-for-12 with two key doubles in three games against the Braves at the Vet. But against the Red Sox, the big-swinging right-hander went 0-for-8 with two more whiffs to slowly bring back the boo-birds.

So what's wrong with him? How can a player go from a breakout 37-home run, 116-RBI season in which he hit .286 to one where he still has to struggle to keep his average above the Mendoza line? More remarkably, Burrell is floundering despite the fact that he was given more support in the lineup with the addition of Jim Thome.

"His swing is a little too big. He jumps out. He doesn't let himself get deep," Schmidt explained. "He has a tendency to loop and try to pull, and that's an adrenaline thing. You jump out at the ball. A lot of time you see Pat's body will explode toward the pitcher based upon the motion, rather than reading the ball. You add in the anxiety, the booing."

Schmidt knows about the booing. Even when he was winning the MVP awards and smacking 40 homers a season, Schmidt heard the boos and he hated it. However, he did not have the pedigree Burrell had upon joining the Phillies. When Schmidt went through that difficult season in '73, he was still trying to figure out how to become a big leaguer, and because of those travails and the learning process that went along with it, Schmidt became a Hall of Famer.

Burrell, unlike Schmidt, has never struggled. At every level he's played, Burrell has been one of the best. Because of that, this rough '03 campaign has been extra agonizing because Burrell just can't shake the rough patches.

"I surely didn't have the 37-homer season under my belt, or the College MVP or No. 1 draft choice or greatest player in college history on my resume. I went through the minor leagues and couldn't even hit there, and the next thing you know, I was in a major-league uniform," Schmidt said.

"I changed, changed, changed my swing. I asked myself over and over, 'How am I going to be better?' I was always willing to try to do something new. I was always willing to do something. If Nolan Ryan was pitching, I'd go up there with a two-strike approach from the first pitch, shorten my stroke, choke up, and sometimes I'd still hit homers. I'd do that today against Pedro. I truly believe every day offers you a chance to put a different game plan out there, and I don't think the generation now is as cerebral. I truly think it's a lost art today with all the gladiator guys playing."

Although he hasn't seen Burrell play in person since the beginning of the year, Schmidt says it's obvious that Burrell has not made any adjustments. There were times, Schmidt says, when he tore his batting approach down completely and rebuilt it from scratch. Burrell doesn't have to go to that extreme, Schmidt says, but he does have to make some changes. Adjustments are, after all, the crux of the game.

"Right now I don't think he has a lifeline. When I feel that big long uppercut swing and I'm not letting the ball get deep, I know what to do now. He doesn't have that. He needs to adjust. I don't know that Pat understands that adjustments need to be made," Schmidt said. "There are players in the Hall of Fame that made adjustments throughout their career. I look at great players who have changed stances; have changed from standing tall to crouching down; changed from going to the plate to deep in the box; changed from opened stances to closed stances; from up over the knob to choked up. To this point, my perception is Pat hasn't been willing to make any adjustments. He gives me the impression that he feels like it's going to come. Today is going to be the change. He's entitled, as a player, to say that's the way he feels. [But] there will come a time — maybe — where he'll say, 'I can't figure it out. I want to make some changes,' and he goes to [hitting coach] Greg Gross, and they'll do something."

Schmidt is quick to point out that he is not the hitting coach and he doesn't want to step on Gross' toes. When Burrell has a problem, he should go and listen to Gross, who Schmidt says, is an outstanding hitting coach.

"[Gross] is a tremendous hitting coach, and from the psychological side of where he's at right now when he goes out on the field, we're telling him the same thing," Schmidt reasoned. "Greg is with him every day. I'm not. They work every day."

But if Burrell ever wants to talk to someone who was a big slugger with tons of strikeouts and lots of homers, Schmidt is always ready to talk.

But Schmidt is not going to be the one to take the first step. He does not want to overstep his bounds, nor does he want to be presumptuous in thinking that Burrell wants Mike Schmidt to help him. But if Mike Schmidt knew there was a Mike Schmidt there for him, Mike Schmidt would call Mike Schmidt.

Get it?

"I always like to make the analogy of golf. If I was a young golfer and I was struggling with my game, but I was teetering on having the ability to play on the PGA Tour, and Jack Nicklaus and I practiced on the same range every day, I would say, 'Jack, what do I need to do?'" Schmidt explained. "I would take every advantage I could to gain the power of input. Then it would be simple for me to block out that other guy [offering hitting tips] and the other guy if Nicklaus was there."

At the same time, Schmidt says he would watch and take pointers from other players. When Schmidt was playing, he borrowed from Steve Garvey and Roberto Clemente. And though he was a more feared hitter, Schmidt wanted to be like Greg Luzinski, who had the ability to hit a booming homer and loop a bleeder over the infield in a clutch spot.

"I used to say, 'Garvey can do it, why can't I do it? Clemente used to do it, why can't I do it? I have the same amount of ability,'" Schmidt said. "They were doing something different than I was in certain situations. Pat should be looking around and saying, 'What's A-Rod doing?' Why is his stroke so good?' I always was jealous about hitters. But that's me. Whether it's drive or not, I don't know. But I always wanted to be better than I was today. If I had two strikes, I would spread out like Albert Pujols. He's only hitting .380."

Doing something like that would cut down on all of those strikeouts, Schmidt says. And by cutting down on the strikeouts, Schmidt says if Burrell can do that, things will change.

"If you cut his strikeouts in half right now, he puts the ball in play 40 more times and he'd probably have six more home runs, 10 to 15 more hits and that translates into .250 with some production, versus where he is now," Schmidt said. "And that's very easy for us, guys like us, me, the media, fans, to look at and say that's easy to do, but it's not for a guy who all his life has been able to drive the ball, been able to have a big swing and be reasonably successful. You add in the frustration and the fact that he's got a lot of guys around him in the lineup who aren't picking him up for part of the year. So that puts more added pressure on him because he leaves a lot of guys on base and strikes out a lot in key situations."

And if the Phillies weren't struggling so much as a team, Burrell's troubles wouldn't be so magnified.

"You can put Pat Burrell right now in the middle of the Braves' batting order and he would probably go unnoticed," Schmidt surmised. "Everybody would say, 'Wait until he gets hot.'"

So what does Burrell think of all of this?

"Obviously, if a guy is going to spend time with you, especially a guy who is in the Hall of Fame, you're going to listen to him," Burrell told reporters. "Right now, it's been a tough time for me period. I'm just not swinging the bat good, and that's been a fact all year. There's been a lot of people trying to help, and it finally got to the point where I said I gotta figure this out on my own.

"Obviously, I have so much respect for Mike and I have talked to him tons. I don't understand what this is all about. Obviously, this guy has done a lot of things in this game that I'm trying to do."

Still, all hope is not lost. Schmidt says Burrell will turn it around and it will come quickly. However,

"He can be straightened out quickly, but he has to want it," Schmidt said. "He has to be willing to go in another direction."

Once he sets his course, look out.

"When he comes out of what he's going through now, hopefully he puts a hot a month together and gets back on track," Schmidt said. "Obviously, with a start like this, he's not going to be come back and hit 60 or 55 [homers] and drive in 140, and we all think he's that kind of player. But when he gets rolling, he'll cover a lot of ground in two months. When that happens, he'll always remember this period that he went through and he'll have figured out what it was that got him out of it."

Who knows, maybe he'll follow a similar course that another Phillie with a big, looping swing forged 30 years ago.

E-mail John R. Finger