What goes around comes around

NEW YORK — It’s nothing new that the Phillies are thetalk of baseball. Get to the World Series two years in a row and win the NL East three straight years and there’s a tendency for others to do a little gabbing. That’s just the way it goes.

Still, the Phillies could not have imagined that some of the guys on other clubs as well as the national media types would be talking about them the way they have over the past couple of weeks.

As Charlie Manuel says, “Not good…”

It’s bad enough that the team has been shut out twice in a row by the Mets and three times in the last four games, but it’s not worrisome. Teams go through those offensive funks every season and the Phillies are no different. Sure, the hitters “stink right now,” as Ruben Amaro Jr. put it on Wednesday, but stink happens. The 15 runs in the last eight games swoon will be corrected because all that stuff evens out.

But what should folks be worried about with these Phillies? Well, there’s a bunch of things. It’s never good when the manager complains of listlessness and malaise from the team during the slump. The fact that Manuel closed the clubhouse doors for a little chat after the latest loss to the Mets is a pretty good kick in the pants—probably a better reality check than the 13-0 on the scoreboard the past two games.

Eventually, however, the Phillies will hit. There’s no fear in that. Sure, it might start with one of those home run feasts the team is known for where the majority of the scoring comes from a few bombs, but whatever. It’s worked so far. Instead, the fact that other teams and making fun of the Phillies is a big warning sign of where the team is…

They are a big-market club just like the Yankees and Red Sox.

Look no further than the message on a t-shirt seen in the Rockies clubhouse this week with a not-so veiled shot at the Phillies:

“We have: 84 home games, Tasers, Roy Halladay, Your signs.”

[Note: word is the guys behind the shirt are from the popular site, Zoo With Roy. They sent one to Rockies' manager Jim Tracy and outfielder Ryan Spilborghs had one in his locker. See, you never can have enough quality t-shirts.]

Put it this way—they aren’t making up shirts disparaging the Royals or the Pirates. Nope, that only works for the Yankees and Red Sox, which should serve notice to the Phillies that they are one of those teams. Sure, they knew as much already considering it’s tough to go to the World Series two years in a row without going unnoticed. But maybe the Phillies were unaware that other players, teams and fans saw them as arrogant.

C’mon, admit it… if Shane Victorino was on another team you’d look at him the way you saw Matthew Barnaby or Danny Ainge.

Remember when Phillies fans took delight in being the spoiler? Those were trite and sad times that did nothing more than to illustrate how mediocre the team was. Like there was that series at the Vet in 1986 where the Mets came in with a chance to clinch the NL East only to go away with the champagne still on ice. Or there was that Labor Day game where Curt Schilling beat the Yankees with 15 strikeouts. Ultimately they were defiant, fist-in-the-air moments that added up to nothing.

Taking pleasure in slowing the trip of people going somewhere doesn’t change the fact that you are still a loser.

That’s not the Phillies anymore. They are the team going somewhere while a bunch clubs like the Mets are trying to ruin the fun. They’re making up t-shirts and everything.

So what’s the plan? How can the Phillies turn 84 home games, tasers, Roy Halladay and the opposition’s signs into quiet respect and humble goodness instead intense dislike and unrepentant arrogance?

Tough one, huh?

How about this: when another manager tells the media that your team is a bunch of jerks, don’t rub his nose in it and tell him to, “quit crying.” If someone wants to be a jerk there’s no sense matching that behavior. Nobody wants to watch a jerk competition[1].

Another good idea is to not trade former American League Cy Young Award winners. That’s just the height of arrogance, isn’t it? Imagine believing your team is so good that it can send away a pitcher who produced the greatest postseason in team history since Grover Cleveland Alexander for a bunch of prospects. How are the teams that don’t have any Cy Young Award winners going to view that?

And how are they going to react when they get two shutouts in a row against you?

If the Phillies had legit trade bait aside from Domonic Brown, I’d suggest trading to get Cliff Lee or Roy Oswalt and wait for the bats to come alive. I’d also try to remember that what comes around goes around. Nothing lasts forever, folks. Someday the Phillies will be back trying to knock off good teams going somewhere.

Anyway, we’re here at CitiField waiting to see what Charlie has to say a day after his meeting. Be back soon…

---

[1] There are more pithy ways to describe this contest that are more suitable to the popular nomenclature, but we’ll just leave that for Meech or Deitch.

Revisiting Pat Burrell's unique impact in Philly

We’re very into measuring legacies here on this littlesite. Go ahead and dig through the archives and there will be plenty of stories detailing the impact certain athletes had on their time and place. Some guys made a big impact in a short amount of time like Cliff Lee, Terrell Owens or Lenny Dykstra, while others stirred the drink over a longer period like Donovan McNabb or Jimmy Rollins.

The thing about coming to define a ballplayer’s legacy is that it’s totally subjective. For instance, a guy like Simon Gagne is the longest tenured athlete in Philadelphia right now, and might go on to set a whole bunch of franchise records for the Flyers. However, Gagne was rarely the most important player on his team.

Of course an argument could be made about Gagne these days considering the Flyers are 7-1 in games that he played in during the current playoff run.

Still another thing about this exercise is that it defies statistics or any other type of metric. It’s completely one of those “it” things. You know, it’s so tough to define “it,” but you know it when you see, “it.”

So with the end of his days as an everyday player on a major league roster likely looming after the Tampa Bay Rays sent him packing, we are officially entering the beginning of the end for Pat Burrell. The weird thing about the fan favorite here in Philly being sent out by Tampa is how quickly the bottom fell out for Burrell. After he clubbed that long double off the top of the center field fence to set up the World Series-winning run in October of 2008, Burrell has not been very good.

No, he hasn’t been as awful as he was in 2003 when he batted just .209 and manager Larry Bowa wanted to send him back to the minors only to be vetoed  by general manager Ed Wade because they signed the guy to a $50 million deal before the season. However, with the remainder of a $16 million deal still owed for the rest of the year, Burrell has been bad enough that the Rays had to do something.

After all, Burrell still has that big, sweeping swing that leads him to strikeout more often than he puts it into play. Remember that swing? You know, the one that made you throw things at your TV set because you saw it so often every summer so you figured someone must have been in Burrell’s ear telling him not to swing at those low and away pitches that sent his rear to the on-deck circle while his bat flailed like an old lady beating back a prowler with her cane.

Yes, that swing. Apparently the folks in Tampa had less patience for it than we did.

Chances are Burrell will clear waivers and catch on with a team as apart-time DH or right-handed bat off the bench. He’s not so far gone that he’s completely worthless even though he’s hit just two homers, whiffed 28 times in 84 at-bats, and posted a .202 batting average. Just like Charlie Manuel in Philadelphia, Rays’ manager Joe Maddon couldn’t say enough nice things about Burrell even when kicking him to the curb.

“The thing about Pat that I respect so much, this guy worked very, very hard despite a lot of outside criticism,” Maddon told reporters on Saturday. “But I’m always about effort and work, and this guy did that every day. He was the first guy showing up. He was always in the cage, always worked on his defense even though he didn’t play out there. He was very supportive among his teammates. It’s just unfortunate that it did not work out.”

In other words it was business, not personal. It was exactly what Ruben Amaro Jr. said when the Phillies decided to allow Burrell to become a free agent after his key double and role as the Grand Marshal in the World Series parade down Broad St. Quite clearly, it was a great send off and one Burrell never wanted. If the Phillies would have had him back, he would have stayed. And yet despite some kind words from people like Bill James touting his stats, the Phillies kind of knew better.

There were just too many of those swings.

But how will you remember Pat Burrell? Is he a Greg Luzinski type with some big slugging seasons before a very quick demise? Did he have a career worthy of the Phillies’ Wall of Fame?

Or was he the epitome of unfulfilled promise and hype? Was he one of those guys who just had so much talent and raw ability, but no idea how to piece it all together?

How about all of the above?

Burrell, of course, was the No. 1 overall pick out of Miami in 1998 who belted 29 homers in his first full season of pro ball in ’99 and then got the call to the big club in May of 2000. In fact, in his first big league game in Houston, Burrell hit one so hard that if that high wall in left field hadn’t gotten in the way, the ball might have orbited the earth. Oddly enough the pitcher who served up that shot was none other than his soon to be nemesis, Billy Wagner.

Go figure.

Burrell hit 18 homers in 111 games of his first season, 27 in 2001 and then the big year in 2002 with 37 homers, 116 RBIs and a career-high .920 OPS. After that season he had the city in the palm of his hand because of his ability to get huge hits against the Mets, that $50 million deal, and his de facto title as the “Midnight Mayor” of Philadelphia.

And then he just never put it all together. Sure, there was that good 2005 season and a strong 2007, but his inability to hit with runners on base in 2006 might have cost the Phillies a shot at the playoffs. Strangely, 30-homer seasons with solid RBI and slugging numbers seemed rather mundane, probably because we expected so much more.

Isn’t the curse of high expectations always a lose-lose? Strapped with burden, it always seemed as if Burrell should have been better when in reality he wasn’t that bad.

Yet Philadelphia loved the guy. He somehow was excused from the boos that rained on Mike Schmidt during rough times, or hundreds of lesser players. Why was that? How could a No. 1 overall pick struggle to hit .200 and to avoid a trip back to the minors wind up being cheered… in Philadelphia?  Somehow Burrell charmed the fans even when he was snubbing the press. Needless to say, Burrell was in a unique position for an athlete in the city.

Maybe the reason for that was because he was so accessible. There were probably thousands of Phillies fans that ran into him after games at The Irish Pub or out in Olde City, where he likely bought a few rounds for the house. Perhaps Burrell was immune to the catcalls because he lived the fantasy life of a star athlete to the hilt, and didn’t miss work or call in sick. In fact, he and his bulldog Elvis were usually the first pair in the clubhouse every day. Better yet, he was one of the leaders behind the scenes with the Phillies when they finally broke that playoff drought.

He did a lot of things that fans and ballplayers liked, such as calling out guys like Wagner for perceived slights and not airing his laundry in the media. Actually, Burrell called us “rats,” which is fair considering we ripped him for all those slumps and strikeouts. Sure, he was fine to shoot the breeze with or trade in some friendly banter or idle gossip, but to go to talk about himself or some insight on the team or the game… forget it. That’s when the walls went up.

For those looking for the defining quotes on Burrell, look no further than this gem Dallas Green dropped on Jim Salisbury a couple of years ago:

“I’ve been out with him a couple times in Florida. We have a secret (watering) hole every now and then.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. There are tons of guys in the Hall of Fame that were like that.

“It’s neat to have money, it’s neat to have good looks, and it’s neat to have broads all over you. Every place I’ve managed, I’ve talked to kids about the same thing. It’s a hell of a life. But there comes a time in every player’s life when he needs to get his act together.”

No one is saying Burrell doesn’t have his act together—far from it. However, the act often changes for all ballplayers and athletes. Sometimes it has to come crashing down to remember how good it once was.

Yawn! Sizing up Moyer's big night

After Friday night’s game in which he became the oldest man in Major League Baseball history to toss a shutout, Jamie Moyer was rather non-plused about his performance. When asked what he thought about making a somewhat significant piece of baseball history, Moyer acted like he didn’t know what was going on.

It was kind of weird considering someone had to tell Moyer what he did in the approximately 30 minutes it took him to record the final out and then talk to the press. Besides, at this point in his career/life, Moyer has to know that when he accomplishes something exemplary like throw a two-hit shutout, chances are he’s the oldest guy to ever do it.

It’s a curious thing watching someone accept platitudes by downplaying them. Maybe Moyer is just shy or a little embarrassed about how good he was in comparison to the Braves? Maybe he doesn’t like to talk about his age?

“It was cool,” he said, downplaying the result, and seemingly holding back a bored yawn. “Just doing my job.”

Yeah, ho-hum.

After an evening to reflect on what we saw from Moyer on Friday night against a Braves team that has been barraged by a number superlative pitching performances this season, it’s pretty safe to assume that we witnessed a record that won’t be broken any time soon. When Phil Niekro established the record in October of 1985, Moyer, then 22, had wrapped up a season where he climbed from Single-A Winston-Salem to Double-A Pitsfield. Niekro broke the record set by Satchel Paige in 1952 (his second shutout as a 46-year old), which was a decade before Moyer’s birth.

In other words, if anyone breaks Moyer’s record he probably is coming through the low minors or hasn’t even been born yet. Or maybe it’s Tim Wakefield, who at 43 is still floating that knuckleball up there for the Red Sox… that is if Wakefield can get back into the starting rotation four years from now.

Yeah, that’s “cool.”

Nevertheless, since Moyer downplayed the event, maybe we should, too. After all, it was the Braves the wily lefty blanked and they didn’t have All-Star catcher Brian McCann or rookie phenom Jason Heyward in the lineup. Moreover, Troy Glaus led off the second inning with a single on the first pitch and then from there it took Moyer just two more pitches to record the final three outs of the inning.

One hit, three hitters and three pitches…

“Cool.”

This season the Braves have been no-hit by Ubaldo Jimenez, though he allowed six walks to do it, and the day before Moyer’s gem, Washington’s Scott Olsen came five outs away from a no-no against Atlanta. Considering that Olsen often seems to be his own worst enemy on the mound and was sent to the minors at the start of the season, a second no-hitter would have been the greatest indignity.

“I think if that would have happened you probably have to put us all on a suicide watch,” Chipper Jones said.

After last night’s game Jones went on about how Moyer, at “87,” schooled them.

“Jamie carved us up,” Jones said. “The guy is 87-years old and he’s still pitching for a reason. He stays off the barrel. He changes speeds, changes the game plan and keeps you guessing.”

Considering the Braves also posted eight scoreless innings against back-of-the-rotation hurler, Kyle Kendrick, and were already shutout by Roy Halladay, it seems as if everyone is having a good time with the Braves’ hitters. At least the Phillies starters are, combining to go 32 innings against the Braves in four games without allowing a single earned run. What stands out more is that the Braves have more strikeouts (20), than hits (17) against the Phils’ starters this season.

So really, maybe it was the lineup Bobby Cox sent out there on Friday night that had the most to do with Jamie Moyer’s record-setting performance. Considering he was two Troy Glaus singles away from a perfect game, that might have something to do with it.

Werth the money? The fans think so

Congressmen often make the assumption that the folks who write letters to their office typically are ardent voters. Certainly that seems like the proper conclusion to make since if people are moved enough to put their feelings into words, they probably will drag their rears out of the house and go to the polling place.

A similar assumption can be made by taking a look around the ballpark on Friday night. Indeed, it’s one thing to go out and purchase a team shirt with a favorite players’ name on the back, but it really says something about the fan if they spend time creating a sign or poster with some sentiment attached to it.

Think about like this: money comes and goes. Certainly folks waste a bunch of hard-earned cash on trivial things that they will grow tired of or too big for. Of course there’s always a chance that favorite ballplayer could get traded and there you are stuck with a Kenny Lofton shirt.

Hey, it happens.

But if a person wastes time, it will never return and can’t be replaced. That makes one’s time the most valuable commodity. It also means if a person gets out the markers, poster board and glitter gun, they are invested in something significant. What makes it doubly important is that if a person takes on a big project that sends words out for all to see. Moreover, carrying a sign with a message arranged on it means the person is hardly sitting on the fence.

That message… yes, they mean it.

So considering the number of homemade signs imploring the Phillies brass to re-sign right fielder Jayson Werth, an interesting predicament could arise if the off-season arrives without a new contract in place.

How will the fans get out the message if Werth is allowed to test free agency?

It could be an interesting development considering the Phillies are reported to have a limited amount of cash to spend on player payroll and a significant portion of that money already committed to some key members of the team. Plus, with Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels and Ryan Madson available for new contracts after the 2011 season, the Phillies have some decisions to make.

Based on the feelings put onto poster board on Friday night, the decision is pretty easy. Then again, it’s always easy to spend someone else’s money.

We don’t yet know what type deal Werth will be seeking come this winter, but it’s safe to assume it will be a bit more than the $7 million he’s getting this season. Sure, Werth should cool down a bit as the season wears on, but there are very few players in the game producing the way the Phils’ right fielder has.  Heading into Friday’s game, Werth ranked in the top 10 in most every significant offensive category in the league, including the second-best OPS and the most doubles. Moreover, based on the Phillies’ attendance at home and the amount of signs professing love for Werth, it’s difficult to envision a scenario where he is not playing in July’s All-Star Game.

In fact, Ryan Howard says the rest of the lineup is keying off Werth, who slugged his second two-out, three-run homer in as many days on Friday night. Eventually, Howard says, the opposition will have to figure out whether it’s better to go after the cleanup man or Werth.

“In time it will. It’s one of those things where I will probably get some better pitches, but now I’m just trying to get on and ride on Jay-Dub for a little while,” Howard said.

Oh yes, even with a late start to his career, Werth, soon to be 31, is becoming a star. When GM Pat Gillick snapped up Werth for $850,000 after the Dodgers let him go before the 2007 season, who could have guessed the player would be so beloved? Seriously, when the Phillies picked up Werth in December of 2006, the most common reaction was, “Who?”

Certainly Werth would have joined that chorus considering he was nearly out of baseball because of a wrist injury and had bounced around through the Orioles, Blue Jays and Dodgers organizations before Gillick snuck in and grabbed him. His career was over before it started until Geoff Jenkins was injured during the 2008 season and Werth could finally move into an everyday role.

“I don’t see any reason why he can’t keep it up,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “He’s a big strong guy with a lot of talent. I’ve said it before, but I see him getting better.”

But where Werth’s worth (like that?) is most evident is not from the prodigious numbers he’s posted through the first month-plus of the season. Sure, that stuff helps when it comes to contract time and voting on the awards and stuff like that, but Werth is one of those guys who can, in Manuel’s parlance, “be whatever you need.”

It’s not unreasonable to believe that Werth could be a leadoff hitter because of his speed and ability to get on base and milk pitchers, just as it’s not insane to see him batting cleanup. Sure, Manuel uses him for protection in the lineup behind Ryan Howard, and he’s come through with big-time slugging. However, Werth’s versatility is what the Phillies cannot replace.

“He’s playing very good,” Manuel understated.

And they know it.

“He’s just going out there and having good at-bats and he’s not missing,” Howard said. “Basically, he’s there waiting for Chase (Utley) and I to have good at-bats so we can get on for him.”

There is no way to forget Robin Roberts

Robin Roberts was one of those guys your grandfather always talked about. But rather in hushed tones and clinical recitation of the finer points of his Hall-of-Fame baseball career, your grandfather and the other old timers talked about Robin Roberts with excited exuberance.

See, Robbie, who died this morning at his home in Florida of natural causes at age 83, was a horse. He was the guy who started both ends of a doubleheader, or threw until there was no one else to pitch to. If he didn’t finish the first game and take the hill for the night cap, chances are he’d get into the game as a pinch hitter. Robin Roberts was a baseball player. Baseball players play every day.

Oh, but Roberts was a pitcher, too. He had to be. For a guy to rack up 305 complete games in 609 career starts over 19 Major League seasons, yeah, he absolutely had to know something about how to pitch. It was more than simply blowing the ball past a hitter or leaning back on one unhittable pitch in order to rack up all those innings for so many years without breaking down.

“I liked him when I was a kid,” Charlie Manuel said, noting that the high heat that Roberts was known for overshadowed a pretty nice curveball, too.

There was an art to his craft. Sure, there was brawn and strength, but there was guile, too. How else does a pitcher pile on seven straight seasons of 300 innings?

Yeah, imagine that… 300 innings. Do you know when the last time was when a pitcher got 300 innings in a season? Try 1980 when Steve Carlton got 304. Indeed, baseball has traversed through three decades since a pitcher accomplished what Roberts did as a routine part of the job.

There was more to it than that, though.

“The kind of person he was will stand out more than the numbers on the back of a baseball card,” Roy Halladay said, adding that he was overwhelmed to learn that Roberts wanted to meet him and sought him out during spring training.

“Everyone aspires to be that good.”

Halladay has been labeled as the modern-day version of Roberts, only he has only completed as many as nine games in a single season and topped out at 266 innings. However, like Roberts, Halladay rarely played for good teams (until now). The Phillies won the pennant in 1950 and were swept out of the World Series by the Yankees. So when one looks at the career stats there is just that one trip to the postseason. That’s it. Moreover, Roberts’ teams finished as high as third place just twice in 19 seasons. So beyond 1950 and two other seasons, Roberts’ teams were pretty much out of it by September. There really wasn’t all that much to pitch for since the season could easily be charted out on the calendar with no hope for a trip to the World Series.

Actually, after going to the World Series in 1950, the Phillies finished better than fourth place just one time in Roberts’ tenure with the team. Somehow, the great righty figured out how to win at least 20 games in six straight years.

Yet Roberts completed all those games anyway. He won 286 despite pitching almost exclusively for second-division teams.

With that in mind, imagine how your grandfather would talk about Roberts if he had pitched for the Yankees, Dodgers or Cardinals. Think about that for a second... You would probably be told that Roberts was the greatest pitcher of all time, only without all that exuberance. Had Roberts been lucky enough to pitch for a team in the pennant chase every season, you’d hear his name whispered in those tones reserved for Cy Young or Christy Matthewson. He would be seen as otherworldly and his stat sheet would be difficult to look at without breaking into historonics.

He could have gotten 400 wins with the Yankees.

But Roberts was of this world. He wouldn’t have been Robbie had he been the star of New York. You see him in those grainy old photos smiling and striking a pitching pose, hardly broken by all those losing seasons. Better yet, when he career had ended after hanging on for a few extra seasons with Baltimore, Houston and Chicago, Roberts was more than the Phillies greatest Hall-of-Famer and greatest ambassador…

He was the game’s greatest gentleman.

I’d like to think Roberts’ gentlemanly ways are what drew in my grandfather. Sure, those stats are amazing, and the kind of stuff to dig into like an old box in the attic filled with photos never seen before. Roberts was retired long before I was born and, ridiculously, needed 10 years for enshrinement into the Hall of Fame. But when he was in the room, flashing that great smile of his that shined from his eyes as if it were a floodlight filling every corner, you were sucked in.

He didn’t even have to say a word and everyone was charmed by his charisma.

I first met Roberts in 1984 just as I was heading into junior high.

Back in 1984 in the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., I stepped onto an elevator with Roberts and he was kind enough to indulge me and my questions about the Olympics. I had seen where Roberts was a consultant for Team USA and with the L.A. Games quickly approaching, I saw it as my in.

So when I had the chance to shoot the breeze with Roberts again, 24 years after that first meeting, I brought up that ’84 Olympics team again.

They sure did. Mark McGwire, Will Clark, Barry Larkin, B.J. Surhoff and a catcher from Philadelphia named John Marzano took the silver in the first year baseball was re-introduced to the Olympics.
Strangely, the next time I talked to Roberts about Olympic baseball was before the last time the sport was part of the Olympic program.

Good memories. That was the charm about Roberts… he loved the game and he loved talking to people about it. He loved his memories and seemed to be part of a time when stories were passed down from one generation to another. Better yet, he wasn’t so self-absorbed that he looked down on modern players for not playing the way they did back in his day. He also showed no bitterness about the amount of money they make these days, either. He was wise enough to know that the game and times had changed and accepted his era for what it was.

The bottom line was that he loved baseball and life. To create an unforgettable legacy playing a game was a charmed fate for a person, and Roberts knew it.

The last time I saw Roberts was shortly before the 2009 World Series was to begin. Once again the Phillies were playing the Yankees, and Robbie riveted us with stories about closer Jim Konstanty taking the ball as a starter in Game 1.

“The Konstanty thing was a miracle,” Roberts said last October about the league’s top reliever starting in Game 1 of the 1950 World Series. “(Manager) Eddie Sawyer gave him the ball and he went out there like he was doing it his whole life. … That really was a miracle. If he would have won that would have been something they talked about forever, but because he lost people kind of forgot about it.”

No one will ever forget about Robin Roberts, though. Your grandfather was rarely wrong, and when he told you all about Robin Roberts, he was totally correct…

He was as great as they came—off the field more than on it.

Pitching help for the Phillies? Absolute-Lee

Following yet another poor outing from Phillies starter Kyle Kendrick, a rough five innings in a rehab assignment at Double-A Reading from Joe Blanton, and at least another three weeks on the disabled list for lefty J.A. Happ, it must have been difficult for diehard Phillies’ fans to follow the game between Texas and Seattle on Friday night.

Actually, following the inning-by-inning reports from Seattle was enough to muster up pangs of jealousy and maybe even a little resentment. Considering the Phillies trotted out Kendrick on Friday and will go with the aged Jamie Moyer on Sunday night, Cliff Lee’s debut for the Mariners was enough to make one want to beat on their head with a shoe.

Or something like that.

Nevertheless, all the old arguments and sports-talk radio styled knee-jerk reactions reemerged even before Lee exited the game after spinning a three-hitter without allowing a walk or a run in seven innings. Add in the eight strikeouts and it’s an insult-to-injury jawn.

That’s especially the case if Moyer rolls out a clunker on ESPN on Sunday night.

Nevertheless, not even 12 hours after his gem for the Mariners reports out of Seattle indicate Lee will likely be headed to free agency this winter. Given his consistency and the fact that his run during the 2009 postseason was the greatest by a Phillies pitcher since Grover Cleveland Alexander, Lee just might be able to demand the long-term deal he’s reported to be seeking. If John Lackey can get five years and more than $80 million from Boston, what will Cliff Lee get?

That’s going to be a big issue for the Mariners, a team that should be right in the thick of things in the AL West this season. Considering that the Mariners have the core group under contract until 2011, Lee should be the team’s lone long-term priority.

Still, from the looks of things it appears as if the Mariners are taking a wait-and-see approach with Lee. According, to a report from ESPN’s Buster Olney, the Mariners and Lee’s agent Darek Braunecker, are at an impasse.

“We're five months away from free agency,” said Braunecker, “so I think that's the most likely scenario at this point.”

“We've not really had any significant discussions with Seattle. I wouldn't anticipate a deal [with the Mariners].”

Now let’s trot this scenario out there just for fun…

Let’s say the Mariners fall way out of the race in the AL West by the All-Star Break while the Phillies remain scuffling along with some inconsistent performances from the starting staff. Perhaps even Cole Hamels’ inconsistency is enough to make some believe that the Phillies need another pitcher to back up Roy Halladay. Let’s just say all of this unfolds just in time for the July 31 trade deadline…

Do the Phillies again swoop in and make another move for Lee?

Since it’s not my money and I was on record as calling the trade to send Lee to Seattle a mistake, then yes, go get him again. If Pedro wants to sign up, go get him, too. After years of doing all the work in Toronto and carrying the Phillies through the first six starts of the season, Halladay deserves a little more help.

General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. doesn’t discuss internal matters, rumors or even share his thoughts on certain matters, so who knows what’s going on in regard to bolstering the pitching. However, when asked about the team’s pitching after Halladay’s spot, manager Charlie Manuel admitted he was a bit worried.

“I’m concerned about our pitching, really,” Manuel said. “We have to show that we can pitch and we gotta show that we can be consistent doing it. But you have to have confidence in your pitchers. I’ve seen our guys pitch and we have to get Happ and Blanton back, though. And the guys we have I have confidence in them, but they have to do the job.”

No one needed to watch Halladay spin a three-hit shutout over the Mets to know he was a good pitcher. After six starts the righty leads the league in innings with 49 to go with the 5-1 record and 1.47 ERA. But take that out of the mix and the Phils’ starters are 5-5 with a 5.18 ERA while allowing the opposition to hit .283 off of them in 17 starts.

If Lee isn’t an option, maybe Roy Oswalt will be one. Either way, the Phillies need some help.

Phillies pretty uninspiring thus far

No one likes a know it all. That’s especially true for those of us who can act like one of those high-falutin’ smarty pants. That being the case, it’s hard not to act all smart when sizing up the start to the 2010 season by the Phillies.

No, it hasn’t been awful, but then again it hasn’t inspired much in the way of making a guy want to compose lyrical poems or even compound sentences.

Instead, with one month effectively in the books, the Phillies have been one big shrug of the shoulders combined with an audible, “Meh.” Since starting out 7-1 against doormats Washington and Houston, the Phillies are 5-8 against Florida, Atlanta, Arizona and San Francisco. With the first-place—yeah, first place—New York Mets in town for a big weekend series, the undertone of apprehension is palpable.

It’s not for nothing, either. Take away Saturday’s game where Roy Halladay pitches and why would anyone want to write sentences or compose poetry about the Phillies? The truth is when the offense can beat up on some subpar pitching, they are a good team. Otherwise…

Meh.

“We’re not playing good at all and we haven’t been good for quite a while,” Manuel said.

“We squeezed out a game the other day in San Francisco and we stayed with them and battled, then we caught a break and won the game. But it wasn’t a really pretty game, we just haven’t played good. I’m concerned about our pitching.”

Granted, the season hasn’t really hit its stride yet. One month down and 22 games into it, there is still much to learn about the Phillies. That’s certainly the case considering Jimmy Rollins has played in just seven games so far and is still nursing a calf injury. No knock on Rollins’ replacements, but the offense definitely takes on a different look without its leader.

“With Jimmy out you can see the balance leave us and we become a weaker offensive team,” Manuel said. “Rollins means more to us than you’d think. When you sit down and you see everything that he can do and what he contributes to our club, he’s a great player.”

Still, there are a few trends developing with the Phillies that might have Charlie Manuel calling up to general manager Ruben Amaro to ask for some reinforcements. The fact is that if Halladay is taken out of the equation, the Phillies’ pitching has been horrible. To soften that a bit, maybe we can just call it inconsistent.

Certainly Joe Blanton’s and J.A. Happ’s injuries have been a blow and the Phillies didn’t expect to have both Jamie Moyer and Kyle Kendrick in the same rotation. However, take away Halladay and his 4-1 record and 1.80 ERA and the Phils’ starters were 6-4 with a 5.08 ERA with 102 hits in 88 2/3 innings heading into Friday night’s game against the Mets.

Yeah, Halladay has a way of making teams look better than they really are, but even he had to think Cole Hamels would be better than he has been. After all, when Amaro made the deal to send Cliff Lee to Seattle it was as if a challenge had been offered to Hamels.

“Man up!” the trade of Lee declared.

Hamels has two of the seven wins against the Nationals, but is 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA in his last three starts. On the Phils’ staff, only Kendrick has been worse.

Again, it’s early. There are 140 games left to play and it would be a small miracle if the Phillies’ offense does not carry them back into the playoffs for a fourth straight season. But with the roster looking the way it does right now, the Phillies’ playoff chances don’t look so hot. They are going to need some help.

“We have a lot of guys hurt and we have a lot of new guys,” Manuel said. “They have to get used to playing the way we play and they have to get used to what we play for and what we stand for. People come to see us because of who we are and the way we play and when we get away from the things that I think made us, I get very concerned.”

Where will the help come from? Well, Pedro Martinez is an obvious choice, though Pedro by himself hardly seems to be enough.

So why don’t we throw a name out there just to get the chatter going…

Roy Oswalt.

Since the Astros clearly have some sort of a rebuilding thang going on down there, dealing Oswalt can free up a big hunk of cash. Sure, the Phillies want to stay within the parameters of a self-imposed salary cap and picking up Oswalt for the rest of 2010 as well as the $16 million he’s owed for 2011 would mean Amaro would have to allow Jayson Werth to walk or deal away another ace to Seattle.

Nevertheless, until Hamels becomes a sure thing in the rotation, Pedro and Oswalt just might be what it takes to get the Phillies back to the World Series. Maybe then we can get back to composing those jaunty odes about the local nine.

“We can have more life, we can have more get-up-and-go to us,” Manuel offered.

Does Howard's deal put Brown on fast track?

READING, Pa. — The steady rain and foreboding forecastleant itself to some light workouts on Monday, so the Reading Phillies’ right-fielder Domonic Brown knocked off a little early. With a doubleheader on the slate for Tuesday against Harrisburg’s star Stephen Strasburg, a little extra rest was in order.

Besides, Brown suffered a concussion last week when he collided with teammate Tagg Bozied when chasing after a fly ball. With a long season ahead that likely will surpass Brown’s previous career-best for games played, an easy day here and there isn’t a bad thing.

Then again, that’s just the thing — what are the Phillies plans for Brown this season? When asked last week, the team’s latest can’t-miss prospect said he didn’t know what his immediate future held. For now the plan is to suit up for Reading, get his at-bats and wait for further instructions.

It’s not known if those instructions will include a late-season call from the big club, because teams aren’t too keen on getting the service-time clock started on a player sure to command a big paycheck in the future.

After all, as of Monday afternoon the Phillies are paying out a lot more cash to a handful of players for the better part of the next decade. In fact, it might just be because of Ryan Howard’s new five-year, $125 million contract extension that Brown is officially placed on the fast track to South Philly.

See, if Jayson Werth hits the free-agent market this winter looking to cash in, then yes, chances are the Phillies won’t be able to sign him to a contract extension. Sure, the Phillies are making plenty of money with sold out crowds every night at Citizens Bank Park, but to quote Bill Gates as depicted in an episode of The Simpsons, “You don’t get rich by writing checks.”

However, if Werth wants to give the Phillies the ol’ hometown discount, then general manager Ruben Amaro should be ready to listen.

“Naturally we’d like to keep all of those guys, but we’ll go by a case-by-case basis,” Amaro said from San Francisco during the press conference to officially announce Howard’s new deal.

That’s kind of like saying, “Water is wet.” It’s obvious the Phillies will weigh all their options before deciding which players to keep and which ones to let go. Clearly the team had no trouble in letting Brett Myers walk away even though he might not look too bad pitching for the Phillies these days. Along those lines, the Amaro Gang was not averse to shelling out three years to veterans Raul Ibanez (at age 37) or Placido Polanco (age 34).

Plus, after the 2011 season Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels and Ryan Madson can become free agents. Theoretically the Phillies will have enough money to go around re-signing all of those players, but you know what they say about theories.

So with the harebrained theory that the Phillies will be benevolent with that extra dough they are raking in from all those sellouts, it might be wise to look ahead at cheaper alternatives. That’s where Brown comes in.

And by most accounts Brown could have cracked the 25-man roster this spring if the Phillies needed the depth on the bench. The thing there is that Brown is at the stage in his development where he needs to play as much as possible. At 22, Brown has hit .289 in 49 games for Reading, including a .325 mark this season though he has hit just one homer.

Still, Brown has a .386 on-base percentage this season and said he hoped to improve his plate discipline since jumping to Double-A. That’s an interesting notion considering Werth routinely leads the Majors in pitches seen per plate appearance and has a robust .400 on-base percentage this year.

Brown was the one player the Phillies would not part with in any deal even if it meant they would not be able to trade for Roy Halladay. He rewarded the Phillies for sticking with him by batting .417 in 11 games this spring with two homers and a pair of doubles with eight RBIs. Only Howard and Ben Francisco had better numbers in Grapefruit League action.

Here’s the crazy part… Brown was the team’s 20^th-round pick in 2006 and 606 players were taken ahead of him. Yeah, that’s right, Brown, the untouchable, was a 20th round pick in the 2006 draft for the Phillies. The reason he dropped nearly off the charts was because he had a scholarship offer to play wide receiver at the University of Miami (Fla.). Odder yet, Brown was listed as a left-handed pitcher when the Phillies drafted him.

Needless to say Brown hasn’t thrown a pitch since turning pro.

“He’s ridiculous,” said former Phillies starter and Brown’s teammate Scott Mathieson. “He’s one of the best outfielders I’ve ever seen.”

Still, Brown needs some honing. In 49 games at Double-A, Brown has struck out 46 times. He also has been caught stealing 29 times in 102 attempts in his minor league career. In other words, there are a lot of rough edges. Still, the potential and the raw talent that project to a five-tool All-Star is what turns heads at Reading.

“It should be lot of fun to watch him develop,” manager Steve Roadcap said.

That’s what the Phillies want to see happen. Ideally, when Ibanez’s contract runs out, Brown could create a seamless transition. But if the money runs out and Werth moves on, Brown might be needed much sooner.

Catch him in Reading while you can.

Recycling old posts

Since it's Earth Day and I'm driving my 12-year-old car up the New Jersey Turnpike to Newark this afternoon, I thought it would be a good idea to recycle some old stories here.

Today is the sixth anniversary of the death of Pat Tillman, the NFL player who left two multi-million dollar contracts (maybe $10 million worth) because simply playing football wasn't enough. Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, Tillman enlisted to become an Army Ranger where he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was in Afghanistan where Tillman was killed in a horrible mix-up by another U.S. soldier.

Since his death, Jon Krakauer wrote a book about Tillman's life and notables such as Gary Smith in Sports Illustrated described his death, non-traditional views, zeal for life and the cover-up of all of it by the government.

Note: I'm not sure if all the links below remain active since it's been three years since they were first posted, but if there is a little more insight that can come from it, that's good.

So with that here's this:

Remember His Name

March 24, 2007
In a shameless news dump late Friday evening with the aim at burying a story about a cover up, it was revealed that nine officers, including four generals, were responsible for mistakes in the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman and the way it was handled and disclosed. Tillman, as most know, left the Arizona Cardinals and a multi-million dollar contract to enlist in the U.S. Army shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. As an Army Ranger, Tillman served in Iraq where he was part of the invasion in 2003. Later, Tillman was sent to Afghanistan where he was killed by friendly fire in April of 2004. His death became a national controversy after the Pentagon covered up the real circumstances of his death to, as critics allege, out of a desire to protect their image and tamp down Tillman's anti-war views and other ideologies. So since the story was revealed so late on a Friday so that it would be hidden beneath the avalanche of coverage over Britney's bald head and the very latest up-to-date information regarding Anna Nicole Smith, we'll post a bunch of links to stories on Tillman, including his brother Kevin's essay written last November.

• An article about the struggle to define Tillman by both sides of the debate
• eight minute video highlighting Tillman's life
• Editorial: Facing Up to the Tragedy of War, New York Times, May 24, 2005
• Pat Tillman Foundation
• Tillman's sports page
• Cover up at the highest levels Huffington Post
• Links, Picture, and Biography
• True hero athlete — Day's theme: Challenge yourself. San Francisco Chronicle -- Gwen Knapp
• An Un-American Death. ESPN -- Mike Fish
• Remember His Name Sports Illustrated -- Gary Smith.
• The mysterious death of Pat Tillman

Remember His Name II

March 28, 2007
The death of Pat Tillman and the cover up and lies they gave is enough to drive one insane. It is such a travesty and miscarriage of justice that insanity is the only way to describe it. Heartbreaking, too. It's insane and heartbreaking. As Gary Smith wrote in Sports Illustrated, “…that's a man who lived a life as pure and died a death as muddy as any man ever to walk this rock…”

The mystery of the cover up of Tillman’s death is trying to figure out what they were afraid of. What was it about Tillman that made them burn his clothing, his diary and then lie to his family and the public? Was it that he couldn’t be labeled, ghettoized or slipped into a neat marketing package? Was it because he was intelligent? Was he a threat? What was it?

Tillman’s mother, Mary, appeared on ESPN radio with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann yesterday where she spoke candidly about the the latest story about what occurred to her son and she is seeking a Congressional hearing. Listen here and here. Meanwhile, here is a Google news search of all of the latest published stories regarding the Tillman case.

The numbers behind the numbers (or something)

So the other day at the Phillies' home opener we were luckyenough to be graced with the presence of Kevin Roberts, the former baseball writer and columnist for the Camden Courier Post before the folks running the paper lost their minds and started cutting jobs. Anyway, Kevin only gets to do some baseball writing on a freelance basis so if you happen to run into a story with his byline on it, savor it. They don't appear as much as they should.

Though he's not hanging around the ballpark the way he used to, the mind of the ol' ball scribe is tough to reprogram. Writing about baseball on a daily basis for a number of years is not unlike being trapped on a deserted island after the plane went down. If surviving the crash and swimming through shark-invested waters to safety isn't harrowing enough, one then has to live closely with the other scribes, TV boobs, ballplayers, and coaches. You know, the dregs of society.

Though two seasons removed from steady baseball writing, Kevin's mind is still sharp. Better yet, because he is outside of the daily bubble, he has a more well rounded perspective. With that in mind, somehow the topic of Placido Polanco and his intangibles arose and Kevin proceeded to make my brain hurt.

If I were specify one player as a favorite on the Phillies, it would be Placido Polanco. It really isn't for any other reason than Polanco plays baseball by utilizing one of Charlie Manuel's great creedos to the hilt…

Know thyself.

If Polanco were a basketball player he would have been like Dennis Johnson. He would have guarded the opposition’s best player, run the point as steady as a clock, and if needed, he could drop 30. You know… all those clichés that go with one of those workhorse ballplayers that media types love to shower with all those images. That's idea of Dennis Johnson we have all these years removed from the end of the career, but the truth was he rarely scored 30 and let any other guard, he got posted up by Magic Johnson. It's the same thing with Polanco, too.

Hell, at this point it’s as if Polanco shows up to the ballpark every day with a hard hat and one of those lunch pails Jethro had in The Beverly Hillbillies.

“Peskiosity” or “scrappitude,” as Kevin called it.

“There is no metric to measure what Polanco does for a team,” I told Kevin. Actually, that might not be an exact quote, but it sounds like something I said before I launched into something about moving runners or whatever else it is guys like me put out there.

“Really?” Kevin probably said. “You’re going the hit-behind-the-runners route? How about the taking-pitches bit, too?”

Kevin is smart so his response was probably witty and pithy. Kind of like the time he punched me for ordering him a 4 a.m. wakeup call even though we were all up hanging out in his hotel room until about 3 a.m. after Game 1 of the ’08 World Series as a sort of baseball scribe version of the Algonquin Roundtable. I didn’t have to shout, “Ow! What was that for!?” when he delivered the hard right to my brachial plexus. I knew what it was for and couldn’t have come up with a better retort if I surveyed everyone in the ballpark. At least Kevin hit me... all John Gonzalez did was write about how he wanted to punch me.

What a pansy!

But during Monday's outing at the opener, the punch was delivered right between the eyes and it came in the guise of statistics. As if that wasn’t enough, Kevin retreated to the press box to compose a well-thought out argument in 20 seconds and e-mailed me. It was kind of like he was showing me just how smart he was.

Or how dumb I am.

So you think Polanco is scrappy and does all those little things that go unnoticed? Guess what? He’s not exactly the most patient hitter at the plate. For instance, Polanco is hitting .484 through the first week of games and has an on-base percentage of .500, but do you know how many of those times on base have come via a walk?

Try one.

In fact, Polanco walks less than Jimmy Rollins. Measured through 162 games, Polanco averages 35 walks for his career. In 2003 he set his career-high in walks when he got 42 of them. Better yet, throughout his career, the league average for on-base percentage is .340.

Polanco’s career on-base percentage? Try .349.

Of course Polanco strikes out approximately as much as he walks, which is where his brilliance lies. That’s where he shows what happens when a hitter does the most basic thing he can do by simply putting the ball in play.

But when Polanco gets up there, don’t blink—he’s not going to be long. Polanco is one of those see-ball, hit-ball dudes averaging 3.53 pitches per plate appearance when the league average is 3.75. For his career that figure is an impatient 3.37, as Kevin pointed out.

His e-mail read:

This why, when people say, “Stats -- pfft. I watch the games,” It means they are bleeping up. If you watch Polanco every day, because he's little and he's cute, you think he's a scrappy little bugger and the synapses in your brain fire away and tell you that scrappy little buggers foul off pitches and work the count. So you assume that Placido Polanco really knows how to work pitchers ... and right there, you bleeped it up.

What did I tell you about Kevin? He’s smart, right? Moreover, there’s probably an entire jag about stats and baseball and that tired, old argument about crusty baseball men not knowing a thing that short pop up here. But you know what… I’m not going to do it.

OK, here it goes:

I don’t consider myself a stats guy because once we move past basic math, my head starts to hurt and a tiny bit of drool starts to form on the corners of my mouth. I appreciate the innovation and the smart way of looking at the game the numbers presents. However, I’m trotting out the crusty cliché about knowing what my eyes tell me. I can see Polanco hit the ball behind the runner and get on base. I can also look at the box score and see no numbers beneath the strikeout column, which means when he got up there it was all action. The action is the best part.

But I don’t know how to prove that it’s good. I just know it is and maybe that’s why I like it so much.

Or something like that.

How bad does the (injury) bug bite?

When the Phillies showed up for spring training two months ago, it was difficult to imagine the team not winning the NL East for a fourth season in a row. With the core group heading into its athletic and physiological prime and the addition of Roy Halladay to the top of the rotation, the over/under on wins was placed at 95 by the swells in Vegas.

The Phillies will hit unlike no other Phillies team ever and they have a horse that has piled up at least 220 innings the past four years.

Truth is, things are so rosy with the Phillies as its hitters have bludgeoned the Nationals and Astros in the first seven games, that no one wants to jinx anything. Come on… why bring up something like the potential for injuries and be a mush? Why do that when the Phillies have used the schedule to their advantage in order to rush out to the best record in baseball?

Injuries are a tricky thing because no one in sports ever knows how the body is going to respond. Your calf injury recovers at a different rate than someone like Jimmy Rollins. See, as a shortstop whose speed and quickness is what helped get him to the big leagues in the first place, the calf muscle is that much more important. That’s the muscle that is the engine for Rollins. A balky calf means Rollins doesn’t go from first to third when Placido Polanco laces one to right field or goes from first to home when Chase Utley bangs one into the gap.

And without Rollins at the top of the batting order the entire dynamic of the offense gets knocked off kilter a bit.

Oh sure, even if it turns out that Rollins has a Grade 2 sprain of his calf like a source told CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury on Monday and has to serve some time on the disabled list, the Phillies still will win the NL East. The same goes for Jayson Werth, who likely will miss a game or two with a sore hip that “grabbed” him during Monday’s victory over lowly Washington.

Thanks to some wise off-season acquisitions, the Phillies have Juan Castro to play short if Rollins goes out for a bit instead of Eric Bruntlett. The Phils also have Ben Francisco, Greg Dobbs or Ross Gload to play the outfield for Werth if he needs a few games off.

Sure, losing those players will sting a bit, but they only mask the real concern that could cause the 2010 season to blow up like one of those trick cigars in the cartoons.

The concern: what if Brad Lidge doesn’t get it back this year?

No, I’m no doctor and chances are I would have flunked out of medical school within a week of attending a single class. However, a late March cortisone shot into his sore right arm mixed with two rehab outings at Single-A in which he has allowed five runs, five hits, a walk and no strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings is attention grabbing.

Yes, Lidge is coming off yet another surgery—his third since joining the Phillies before the 2008 season—and it probably will take a bit for him to get back his strength. But what happens if he doesn’t get it back? Or let’s say he gets it back and turns in another year like he did in ’09 when he saved 31 games, but allowed 51 runs in 58 2/3 innings?

Then what?

Ryan Madson, the Phillies’ acting closer, says there are no worries on his end. In fact, he pointed out after getting his second save of the year on Monday, talk of a thin bullpen is an annual rite of spring around these parts.

If there is ever one thing guys like me like to pick at as if it’s a mealy old scab, it’s the Phils’ bullpen depth. Madson has noticed.

“Every year I've been here, it’s about the bullpen,” he said. “It’s our weakest link. You're going to have something that’s not like the lineup we've got.”

The thing about injuries is they give guys like Madson a chance. When they hear the chatter or the put-on panic about the team’s chances when a key player goes down it only serves to motivate. Besides, Madson says, the bullpen was another one of those areas where a couple of off-season acquisitions just might pan out. Veteran Jose Contreras is making the transition from starter to reliever and just might have the stuff to close out games if needed. Rule 5 guy Dave Herndon has been impressive in limited action.

So far this season the Phils’ relievers have allowed just three runs with 18 strikeouts in 20 1/3 innings. That comes to a 1.33 ERA, which is second-best in the Majors.

“We’ve got plenty of arms out there that have been throwing the ball really well,” Madson said. “It will be nice when they get back, but for now, we've got good arms out there. We’re happy.”

There’s no reason not to be. Not yet, anyway. The Phillies have worked over the lowly Nats and Astros, but that will change soon when they get deeper into the schedule.

That’s when we find out just how costly those aches and pains really are.

Piling on (and then some)

WASHINGTON—Initially I came down here to The District to write about baseball, but that all kind of took a back seat as soon as I exited 295 and drove over the bridge crossing the Anacostia. Since then it’s been pretty much all Donovan all the time.

But that’s over now. We’ll pick it back up next September when the Redskins and Eagles face off. It’s sure to be a mind-numbingly tiresome huge deal even though Donovan says playing against the Eagles won’t be any different than going against the Giants or Cowboys.

Yeah, right.

So baseball… the Phillies opened up the season on Monday at Nationals Park and it went quite well. Roy Halladay pitched well and Placido Polanco hit a grand slam and got six RBIs in the 11-1 victory. The President of the United States also showed up, which no matter how many times you see it is always cool.

All in all it was a pretty good day.

But to be fair, it was the Nationals, a team that has a pretty decent lineup but paper-thin pitching. With 18 games a season against Washington, the Phillies should do quite well in padding their stats.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t so much the number of runs the Phillies scored in Monday’s opener as it was the way they were scored. They came like a bolt of lightning and in all sorts of unique ways. Sure, there were two homers that accounted for six of the runs (Ryan Howard hit a two-run BOMB in the five-run fourth), but before Polanco’s slam put the cherry on top there was plenty of manufacturing out there.

For instance, the Phillies scored runs on a sacrifice fly, and a swinging bunt from Halladay. They drew walks and made the Nats pay for them, got a RBI triple from Jimmy Rollins, and even scored a pair of runs on the old-fashioned single with a man on base.

Sure, the Phillies stranded 11 runners, but a 5-for-14 with runners in scoring position is nothing to scoff at.

“Philly is a tough team to stop once they get the momentum,” said losing pitcher John Lannan of his run-in with the hitters, Monday. “The momentum kept on going, and I couldn't stop it.”

Momentum, as grizzly old baseball guys like to say, is only as good as the next day’s pitcher. For the Phillies that is Cole Hamels on Wednesday night and Kyle Kendrick on Thursday afternoon. Joe Blanton, the regular No. 3 man, is on the DL and 47-year old Jamie Moyer, who spent the off-season having surgery, is the fifth guy.

Lefty J.A. Happ is wedged between Kendrick and Moyer and is starting his second full season in the Majors. Who knows if the hitters have figured him out yet?

Then there is a team’s bullpen that needs some reinforcements with Brad Lidge and J.C. Romero on the shelf. Yes, there are some question marks.

Still, with 18 games scheduled against the Nats and 34 starts penciled in for Halladay, the Phillies have no excuses if they don’t win the NL East for a fourth straight season. In fact, we’re going to ahead and predict that right now.

Here’s how it will shake out without any annoying analysis from some know-it-all.

NL East
Phillies
Braves
Marlins
Mets
Nationals

NL Central
Cardinals
Brewers
Cubs
Reds
Astros
Pirates

NL West
Rockies
Giants
Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Padres

NLDS
Phillies beat Rockies
Cardinals beat Braves

NLCS
Phillies beat Cardinals

MVP: Pedro Martinez

We’ll just leave it at that for the time being. Sure, there’s an American League and all, but it takes way too long to watch those games. It’s a little ridiculous how long it takes those games to complete. But instead of leaving you in the lurch, just go ahead and pick one of the AL East teams (as long as it’s not Baltimore or Toronto) to go to the World Series.

Talk about timing...

WASHINGTON—If there was ever a spot for a good conspiracy theory, why not start it in Washington, D.C.? After all, this is the city where they eat a good conspiracy theory for breakfast. They invented all that stuff here, for crying out loud.

Better yet, Washington and conspiracy theories are a cottage industry within itself. How many books or movies have been produced about the shadowy elements of our government? Washington and conspiracies go hand in hand.

So while standing in line to wait for the Secret Service to search through my belongings, I broached the subject of the timing of the announcement of the Eagles’ trade of Donovan McNabb to the Redskins with a few employees of the Phillies, who will remain nameless. No, they didn’t believe it was a conspiracy, per se, but the timing was questionable.

Why else would the Eagles announce the biggest trade in their history at 8:30 p.m. on Easter Sunday the day before the Phillies were to begin their season with the pitcher acquired in the biggest trade in recent team history on the mound?

And oh yeah, the President of the United States was also going to be at the Phillies’ game, too.

Still, the idea that the Eagles would release huge news just so it would trump the Phillies seems silly. It’s like a petty stunt a fifth-grader would pull if he found out a classmate had the coolest Power Ranger or something. Besides, don’t the Eagles come out of that situation looking worse if it were the case?

“They’ll say otherwise, but there is no question they did this on purpose,” said a Phillies’ employee.

The Eagles’ brass on declared themselves the, “gold standard” amongst franchises in sports, which is curious thing considering they are now in their 50th season without a championship. To make such a proclamation doesn’t team have to win it all at least once?

Better yet, shouldn’t the so-called “gold standard” be above such petty jealousies?

“It killed them when we won it,” a Phillies employee said. “They thought it was going to be them, but we got it done first.”

Coincidentally, some of the sports fans in D.C. suggested that the timing of the trade was the Redskins’ attempt to steal some of the spotlight away from the Capitals, who had just set the franchise for wins a few hours earlier. The Caps also are running away with the Eastern Conference title and appear to be poised to make a legit run at the Stanley Cup, which is a big deal around these parts.

However, the thing about the sports scene in D.C. is that if a player for the Redskins stubs a toe, it’s big news. Still, that doesn’t remove notion that the ‘Skins aren’t above upstaging the other teams in the city. In fact, the day that the Nationals signed top draft pick Stephen Strasburg, the Redskins felt as if that was the perfect time to release some minor quarterback news.

The funny part about it all is that apparently some believe sports fans have the time and appetite for just one sports story a day. Given the landscape of the digital news world, nothing could be further from the truth. Just because the Eagles made a trade with the Redskins it does not mean the Phillies’ Opening Day game will go unnoticed.

Just look at the media landscape as if it were the most opulent buffet in Las Vegas—you can have as much as whatever you want.

Or you could just choose to ignore it all… especially the part about there being some sort of a conspiracy.

A shot in the dark

Sometimes it feels like we write the same thing over andover again. It’s not quite a Groundhog’s Day thing, but often with sports some of the themes repeat themselves.

Actually, those themes can repeat themselves with the same guy, too. For instance, last April I wrote this:

Lidge, it was revealed after Monday’s game, has inflammation in his right knee and was unavailable to pitch. Though Lidge is listed as day-to-day, the inflammation was severe enough for the closer to undergo an MRI last Monday and then have a cortisone shot last Wednesday. For now the closer and manager Charlie Manuel are hopeful that a trip to the disabled list is not needed.

“We don’t think so yet,” said Manuel striking an ominous tone when asked if Lidge could land on the DL.

Lidge also is optimistic despite the fact that the swelling and soreness is on the same knee that he had operated on twice in 2008. However, Lidge pointed out that his knee hurts when he pushes off the rubber from the stretch.

The good news is that the MRI revealed no structural damage to the knee, but there was excess fluid and swelling, the pitcher said.

“Based on the MRI I’m not overly concerned,” Lidge said, standing in front of his locker with a large ice pack wrapped around his right knee. “It’s something that I’m just dealing with the fluid and inflammation. I’m concerned on a small level because it’s not feeling great and I want to get back there as soon as possible. But I think if we nip it in the bud right now, hopefully it will be something I won’t have to worry about for the rest of the year.”

Sound familiar? Lidge something just like that when he got a cortisone shot the other day, only this time is was for his right arm. So if you’re scoring at home, Lidge has had three cortisone shots in the past 12 months, as well as surgery to remove chips out of his throwing arm. Going back to when he first signed on with the Phillies, Lidge has had three surgeries—two on his knee—and a bunch of MRIs.

Oh yes, Lidge has a pretty good health care plan from playing for the Phillies.

And you know what? It’s a good thing, too. If history is any indication, he’s going to need it. After all, even in his best season Lidge was hurt. Remember that? He started the 2008 season on the disabled list after having two different surgeries on his knee before the season began and went out to close out 48 straight games. Considering that he had been removed from the closer’s role in his last season in Houston, Lidge’s perfect season came out of nowhere.

The oddest part is that even though Lidge was banged up, disabled and pitching with chips in his arm, he still appeared in more games in 2009 (67) than he did in 2007 (66).

Now here’s where it’s all connected… Lidge and the Phillies have said pretty much the same thing throughout. That quote in italics above sounds a lot like what Lidge said when he got the cortisone shot the other day.

“This puts you a couple days behind where you want to be,” Lidge said. “That being said, if it works, like we're hoping it's going to, it's going to speed up things a lot on the other side of that.”

The one word common to both quotes is “hope.” Last season manager Charlie Manuel and general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. hoped Lidge would bounce back from the breaks and the shots and find his lost form—you know for as much as a guy pitching with fragments in his elbow could rebound.

This year Lidge and the Phils hope his fastball can top 90-mph and he can get back to saving games a little more efficiently than last year where he set a record for the highest ERA (7.21) by a pitcher with more than 20 saves. But that’s just it—it’s just hope. The only guarantee is that Lidge will get paid the remainder of his $37.5 million deal through the 2011 season (with $1.5 buyout of the option for 2012).

Look, Lidge very well might regain his lost form after another stint on the disabled list. After all, the team physician and the front office say the latest cortisone shot was no big deal. That very well could be the case since Lidge says he feels strong.

“My arm strength is good and my slider was coming around and everything else was going the way it should, but velocity was not going,” Lidge said. “Rather than projecting on when it will, we decided to take action into our own hands, get a cortisone shot and speed the process up.”

Said Amaro: “I think you guys are making a little too much of the cortisone shot. If this helps accelerate him in getting his velocity back, that's more the nature of it.”

However, Lidge very well might be the recipient of the very first cortisone shot that was not a big deal. After all, there’s a reason why cortisone injections are banned in nearly every other professional and amateur sports around the world. According to Brian J. Cole, MD, MBA and H. Ralph Schumacher, Jr, MD in the Journal of American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Lidge and the Phillies could be teetering on the edge of some long-term effects.

Physicians do not want to give more than three, but there is not really a specific limit to the number of shots. However, there are some practical limitations. If a cortisone injection wears off quickly or does not help the problem, then repeating it may not be worthwhile. Also, animal studies have shown effects of weakening of tendons and softening of cartilage with cortisone injections. Repeated cortisone injections multiply these effects and increase the risk of potential problems. This is the reason many physicians limit the number of injections they offer to a patient.

So there’s that and we haven’t even discussed the future of the Phillies’ bullpen. Smartly, though, Manuel cut to the chase about Lidge’s return from this injury.

“We’re just speculating,” Manuel said, “and that’s not good.”

Phillies sell out

The Phillies PR staff sent out an email this morning announcing an unprecedented moment in the team’s history. Approximately a month before the season is to start, the team says it sold more than 3 million tickets to its 81 games and has a few seats left for just 73 other games this season.

Three million tickets sold before the season even starts is a huge deal. More notably, the Phillies also announced in the very same release, that they will cap season-ticket sales at 28,750 with just approximately 250 packages left.

That’s very impressive, to say the least. Considering that Citizens Bank Park holds a little more than 43,000, tickets to Phillies games are going to be a hot commodity this summer. Actually Phillies games might turn out to be more of a happening or an event than an athletic competition. That’s the way it has been in Boston at Fenway Park during the past few years. It used to be that a guy could call up the team on the day of the game and order tickets to see the Red Sox. In fact, we did just that plenty of times during the mid-1990s.

Those days are long gone at Fenway and they could be on the way out in Philadelphia, too. Times are tough, financially speaking, and with other forms of entertainment failing to pack as much bang for the buck as they once did, a night out at the ballpark isn’t so bad. It still costs more than it should, but there’s a lot available for the dollar.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the average ticket price for a Phillies game was $28 back in 2008. Based on those figures along with the current attendance figures and the team is putting more than $1.3 million into the coffers every game. And that doesn’t even include parking, food, novelties or whatever else it is folks have to pay for at a baseball game. Certainly those totals make the $1.3 million per game figure just the tip of the iceberg.

Obviously, there are operating costs for a big league team. Just imagine what the electric bill is for a place like Citizens Bank Park. But when a club is raking in millions of dollars each time it opens its gates, well, it must be a good time to be with the Philadelphia Phillies. I hear the staff money fights are wild!

Nevertheless, since the Phillies are raking it in these days when, not so long ago folks stayed away from The Vet in droves, one has to wonder where that cash is going. Specifically, how is the team reinvesting in ensuring that it will have the best players to continue annual trips back to the playoffs?

That seems like a pretty good question considering what has developed in the past few months. Just last night I wrote that since the Phillies are operating under the guidelines of an expandable salary cap, maybe they ought to consider dealing Jayson Werth. The fact is, I don’t think they should do that at all. I think the Phillies should re-sign Jayson Werth to a three-year deal and move Dom Brown into the outfield rotation when Raul Ibanez’s deal expires.

Based on the e-mailed press release from the Phillies, Werth’s future with the team shouldn’t be a question. In fact, based on the numbers presented by the Phillies, Werth and Cliff Lee should be signed up for a couple more years.

Why not? They sent out an e-mail explaining how well they are selling tickets. Nowhere did it indicate that they are giving away 43,000 seats for each game.

On one side the Phillies are bragging about how much money they are making in a depressed economy, no less, but on the other hand they don’t have an unlimited budget to get the best players?

Something doesn’t make sense here?

Let’s give the Phillies the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are saving all that cash for a rainy day? Perhaps they believe they are so good right now that they can get by without a roster loaded like an All-Star team and when Ryan Howard, Roy Halladay, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley move on, they can tap into those reserves.

That has to be it…

Right?

And since we're talking about bold trades...

Since we like to be progressive and forward thinking here, and since we’ve been discussing wacky trade ideas over the last couple of days, maybe it’s time to discuss a topic that a lot of folks aren’t keen on talking about.

Yeah, leave it to me to be a buzz kill. Seeing as we’re in the midst of one of the two greatest eras in Phillies baseball history, it makes sense to want to sit back and enjoy the ride. After all, baring a major catastrophe the Phillies are going back to the playoffs for the fourth year in a row this October. That’s significant considering the franchise has more losses than any pro team in this hemisphere.

But citing that progressive, forward thinking and general manager who views his job as one in which he has to keep the team competitive even after the stars of this bunch have moved on (and the fact that he traded Cliff Lee in order to rebuild the farm), it just might be the time to do something extreme.

And by extreme I mean trade Jayson Werth.

Look, I know he’s a popular player, who very well might be coming into his prime and slated for a big season. Then again, Werth also has completed just one season where he didn’t have to share playing time with anyone, or spend time recovering from an injury. Of course he bashed 36 homers, had 99 RBIs and went to the All-Star Game in that one season, but that’s kind of beside the point.

There are a few interesting variables that make trading Werth now seem not so foolish. The biggest reason to do, of course, is his contract. Werth is in the final year of his contract and will be paid a salary of $7 million this season. This year, if he posts numbers even remotely close to the stats he produced in 2009 then he could command a pretty hefty deal as a free agent. Considering that Werth already has a World Series ring and had to wait until he was 29 until he played more than 102 games in a season, he might want to cash in.

One of the topics that were most on the minds of the fans and the scribes last winter was Werth’s potential affordability. Working under an obvious salary cap, GM Ruben Amaro Jr. will have to get very creative in order to re-sign Werth to a deal greater than the $7 million he’s getting in 2010.

But Amaro has options. In fact, he has a 22-year-old star in the making that was just sent back to the minors after going 3-for-3 with a pair of home runs in a Grapefruit League game against star Justin Verlander and the Tigers. Oh yes, Domonic Brown has the type of talent that can make folks forget about Jayson Werth very quickly.

Though he hit .417 in his first big league camp, Brown was slated to spend the season at Triple-A in 2010. The guy needs to get his at-bats more than he needs to be sitting on the bench watching Raul Ibanez, Shane Victorino and Werth play. Still, if there is an injury or a slump expect the Phillies to get a police escort to get Brown down the Turnpike from Allentown.

Of course the fear is rushing the kid, who very well could match the speed and power numbers of a young Darryl Strawberry or Reggie Jackson. Hey, there was a reason why the Phillies didn’t get Roy Halladay in July at the deadline and that reason was Dom Brown.

Conversely, the Phillies are notorious for making their top prospects sit in the minors longer than they should. Chase Utley didn’t stop looking over his shoulder until Placido Polanco was traded in 2005 and manager Larry Bowa, against his will, was forced to send him back to Triple-A in 2004 so Doug Glanville could take the last bench spot.

When he wasn’t being mentioned in trade talks with whatever pitcher Pittsburgh felt like trading away at the moment, Ryan Howard had to wait for Jim Thome to get injured before he got a legit shot in the big leagues. Yet when that day finally came, Howard was closing in on his 26th birthday.

There’s no way Brown is going to be in the minors when he’s 25. Shoot, there’s probably not much chance that he’ll be in the minors when he’s 24, either. I imagine if Brown was in any other organization that hadn’t been to the World Series two years in a row or had three outfielders in last summer’s All-Star Game, he might already be playing in the Majors.

So here’s the idea: since Amaro said he traded Cliff Lee was to replenish the minor league system that saw seven of its top 10 players traded, maybe Werth could be dealt for a prospect or two. Of course if he leaves via free agency and is labeled as Type A, the Phillies will get a compensatory draft pick(s), which will help. If Werth is gone for 2011 and Ibanez is headed for his last year on his deal, the Phillies are going to need some reinforcements in order to remain competitive.

At least in the meantime, Brown is nearly ready to take over and he’ll cost perhaps $10 million less than Werth.

Oh, so you want to talk about crazy trades...

SARASOTA, Fla. — OK, here's one for you...

What if the Phillies traded both Kyle Kendrick and Jamie Moyer to the Mets and got back Johan Santana? Huh? How's that one grab you?

Alright, that doesn't sound fair. Let's say the Phillies throw in some cash, too. Why not? Maybe then they could flip Santana to Seattle to get back Cliff Lee.

Then we'd be getting somewhere.

Look, as far as outlandish and ridiculous ideas go, the Kendrick, Moyer, cash, and Santana for Lee deal I just proposed is not any crazier than the one ESPN put out there when they floated the always mysterious "sources" rumor that had the Phillies dealing away Ryan Howard to St. Louis for the game's greatest player, Albert Pujols. Actually, my idea is a lot less crazy than the Howard-for-Pujols bit because at least it makes sense. No, neither deal is ever going to happen.

Never, never, never, never.

In fact, Phils' general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. called the very notion of it, "irresponsible," on the record to Insider, Jim Salisbury.

So there's that.

But what the hell... at least my idea is reasonable.

Let me explain:

You see, to a team like the Mets — one that stinks and is going nowhere, post-haste -- a pitcher like Santana is a luxury. Better yet, it's like living in a trailer park with an Escalade parked out front. Those are some mixed up priorities and financial irresponsibility. If the Mets can remove Santana's salary quickly, it would be wise.

That doesn't mean they'll do it, though. Wise and baseball GMs are two terms that rarely appear in the same paragraph, let alone right next to each other.

Kendrick makes barely above the minimum and Moyer gets a nice salary so that's what the cash is for. Essentially, the Phillies would be doing the Mets a favor in all aspects. And since the Mariners appear to be spending some cash and rebuilding their roster, maybe they’ll go for the Santana for Lee deal, too.

See how easily that came together? Now someone take me to Bellevue. I want the ESPN suite/

Oh yes, there are many reasons why the Howard-Pujols idea is nuts, and most of them are quite obvious. Yes, Howard was born and raised in the St. Louis suburbs and is revered like a hometown hero. When the season ends Howard goes home to Missouri to hang with his friends and family and uses his home base for his off-season workouts before heading to Florida.

Here’s the thing about that… Pujols is from Missouri, too. Sure, Howard is a hometown hero, but Pujols is a hometown god. Not only is he the best player in the game right now, but he might be the greatest Cardinal ever, too. That’s saying something since Stan Musial (the man who should have gotten the same hero worship and publicity for being one of the greatest hitters the way Ted Williams has) is synonymous with the organization. Just nine years into his career, Pujols is poised to own every major hitting record if he doesn’t get bored with it all. Last spring after the Cardinals visited Clearwater for a Grapefruit League game, I asked hitting connoisseur Charlie Manuel his take on Pujols and he dropped a line on me like he was Yoda or something.

“He can be whatever you want him to be,” Charlie said. “Home runs, ribbies, slugging, average, he can do whatever you want.”

Yes, that was the manager’s way of saying Pujols can do it all.

Look, we know Pujols is really, really good. No needs Charlie Manuel’s explanation to see that. Just watch the guy, for Pete’s sakes. If there is one snake the is out of the can of peanut brittle it’s that maybe the idea of trading Howard (and Pujols, too) means the Phillies see a day when they won’t be able to afford him. Coincidentally, Howard and Pujols have contracts that expire after the 2011 season. By then, of course, both men could have another 100 home runs and 300 RBIs tacked onto their stat sheet.

Even scarier, both players will have their Hall-of-Fame credentials stamped and ready for induction despite the fact that they will just be coming into their athletic prime. Imagine that… born months apart in 1979 and 1980 (Pujols is two months younger), both sluggers are on an unprecedented path and they just now are beginning to enter their prime.

Wow.

But with that kind of talent comes a high price. Howard gets $19 million in salary this year and $20 million in 2011, while Pujols gets $16 million for the next two years. In fact, he’s not even the highest paid player on his team.

Sure, Pujols already has more money than he’ll ever be able to spend, but there is pride, ego and all of that stuff. Maybe at the end of his deal Pujols will want to cash in for all the years he was a relative bargain for the Cardinals. Shoot, if Howard is looking for a deal in the A-Rod range (an average salary of $27.5 million over 10 years), what’s Pujols worth?

Does the treasury even print that much money?

Now try this out—and understand we’re just riffing here… maybe the Phillies might believe that if they have to pay upwards of $30 million per season for one player, why not go all in and get the best guy out there. Hell, if you’re already spending $30 million, what’s another $5 million?

Could that be the logic in all of this?

Who knows? Chances are it was just a way to get a few extra clicks on the ol’ web site and to get people talking about baseball again. Certainly there is no harm in that, is there?

Still, the idea of Howard and Pujols both with expiring contracts looming and the potential salary both men could command is quite intriguing. What makes it even more interesting is the notion that if the Phillies can’t afford to keep a guy like Jayson Werth beyond this season, how in the world are they going to be able to afford Howard and/or Pujols?

Poll numbers strike out

One of the funniest moments from writing about thePhillies for all those years came back in 2002 in the midst of Larry Bowa’s reign of error. It had just come out in one of those ubiquitous Sports Illustrated polls in which the players voted the then-Phillies skipper as the worst in the big leagues.

Sure, it was an ambiguous poll to say the least, but the point was players from around the league saw what was going on inside the Phillies dugout during games and wanted no parts of it. Hell, the team even asked that shots of the manager in the dugout during games be limited. No sense putting the dysfunction out there on the airwaves.

Anyway, Bowa said he didn’t care about what the Sports Illustrated poll indicated when asked before a game at the Vet during the 2003 season. In fact, he didn’t care so much that he spent a good portion of the pre-game meeting with the writers talking about how much he didn’t care and how dumb the players were for not seeing his brilliance. OK, he didn’t say it like that in so many words, but he clearly was bothered by his status in the poll.

The funny part wasn’t Bowa’s reaction to his No. 1 status, but the reaction by the players in the Phillies’ clubhouse. When asked about it, most of the players treated the question as if it were a flaming bag of dog crap on the front porch. Rather than jump on the bag to put out the fire, and thus getting soiled shoes, most of the players just let it smolder itself out. They said all the right things, peppering the writers with a steady barrage of jock-speak clichés.

That is except for Mike Lieberthal, another Bowa foil, who gave the best answer of all.

“If I played on another team I’d hate him, too,” Lieberthal said, before explaining how it must look in the Phillies’ dugout to a bystander. Gotta love Lieby… he had trouble figuring out how to use those clichés knowing that his true thoughts were much more fun.

So what’s the point? Who cares about that cantankerous era of Phillies baseball where one never knew what type of land mine rested just around any corner? How about this… maybe there’s something to those polls Sports Illustrated conducts?  After all, in a recent issue, the Sixers’ Andre Iguodala was voted to be amongst the NBA’s most overrated players and the Phillies’ Ruben Amaro Jr. was rated as a middle-of-the-pack general manager in Major League Baseball. Make that, second-division, actually. Ruben came in 19^th while ex-Phillies GM Ed Wade was 29^th out of 30.

Those ratings seem to be a bit off… at least for Wade. Taking his full body of work into account Ed Wade might be a vastly underrated as a big league general manager.

Really? How so? And why does it appear as if I’m talking to myself?

Here’s why Wade is underrated:

·         Hilarity

Don’t sleep on this factor. In a business where hubris and self-absorption are the norm (see: Amaro, R.) and a sense of humor is viewed as a determent, Wade’s unintentional comedy is nothing to sneeze at. Really, do you have to ask? Wade was the guy who parachuted out of a plane—a ballsy act in itself—only to get all tangled up in a tree in South Jersey. You can’t make that up, folks. Wade just hung there in a tree with a parachute strapped to his back. That’s hilarious on so many different levels. If comedians told jokes about big league GMs, Ed Wade would be like George W. Bush.

Plus, Wade has some sort of fetish (yes, it’s a fetish) with former Phillies players/employees. Now that he’s with the Houston Astros, Wade was signed and hired countless dudes he had in Philadelphia. For instance, not only did Wade trade/sign Randy Wolf, Tomas Perez, Jason Michaels, Geoff Geary, Michael Bourn, Matt Kata, Chris Coste, Mike Costanzo, Pedro Feliz, and, of course, Brett Myers, but also he took former Phillies PR man Gene Dias to the Astros with him.

With moves like this and a run-in with pitcher Shawn Chacon where Wade ended up getting choked, the Astros did the only thing they could… they gave Wade a two-year extension.

·         Patience

OK, we don’t know if this is masterful foresight or just dumb luck, but Wade should get a ton of credit for not trading minor leaguers Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Cole Hamels when he has the chance and everyone pleaded with him to do so. Remember that? Of course you don’t because you don’t want to admit how dumb you were. Still, it’s hard to believe a few folks got all lathered up because Wade refused to make deadline deals involving Howard that would have brought back guys like Jeff Suppan or Kris Benson from Pittsburgh.

With the core group of Howard, Utley and Hamels, Wade’s successors could be bold enough to do things like trade for Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay as well as sign Pedro Martinez, Greg Dobbs and Jayson Werth. In fact, it was Wade who swiped Shane Victorino away from the Dodgers in the Rule 5 draft in 2005. Sure, the Phillies eventually offered him back, but sometimes it counts to be lucky, too.

Make no mistake about it, Wade’s fingerprints are all over the Phillies’ roster. Maybe as much as Amaro’s, who has the strange honor of being one of the only GMs in the history of the game to trade and sign three Cy Young Award winners in the span of five months.

Oh yes, Amaro’s moves have been solid, considering the trades for Lee and Halladay and knowing when to cut bait on guys like Pat Burrell. However, he loses points for giving Jamie Moyer a two-year deal worth $13 million. With that money on hand, the Phillies probably would have had a rotation with both Lee and Halladay at the top and Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton and J.A. Happ filling out the other three spots.

Imagine that… Amaro got all those Cy Young Award winners, but would have had two of them in their prime at the top of his pitching rotation if he had allowed then 46-year-old Moyer to walk away.

Hindsight. It has to be a GM’s worst enemy...

Or best friend.

'Oh, but they are HUGE in Syracuse...'

SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Perspective is an interesting thing. OK,that’s not exactly the deepest statement ever typed[1], but maybe I’m going somewhere with this… sit tight.

Anyway, we drive up to Syracuse this morning to get some more Marriott points, take a nap and then head over to the Carrier Dome to take in this clash between the Orangemen and Villanova that’s going to be all over the TV tonight. Apparently Bobby Knight is going to be at the game, too. Oh yes, it’s that big.

Aside: So far I haven’t been able to bribe a college kid to walk over to him and say, “Hey, Knight, what’s up?” Sheesh… kids today.

Actually, it’s such a big deal up here that they made up a whole bunch of t-shirts that say, “Beat Nova” on the front and something about how the game is expected to be the biggest attendance for an on-campus basketball game in the history of on-campus basketball games. More than 34,000 people are going to be in the Dome and they aren’t even using all the space on one side of the joint. That’s how big (size) the building is.

Nevertheless, they are freaking out for the game. Folks suggested we head over to the Dome a good four hours before tip-off because traffic and parking was going to be a huge issue. When we got here we found a bunch of people tailgating inside of an indoor parking garage, which doesn’t do much for ambiance but it keeps the snow and sleet out of the pony bottles of Genesee Cream Ale.

We got here to find a veritable Woodstock of college basketball with people milling around, seeking out tickets and trying to wedge into bars to overpay for watered down beers before going into the stadium to pay even more for watered down beers. Actually, in that sense maybe Woodstock is the wrong analogy. Let’s just call it the Burning Man of college hoops for the day.

So what’s all the hype for? What is it that has all these Central New Yorkers forging a path through the snow in well worn duck boots? It’s not even March yet, for Pete’s sakes. Hell, the Philly media didn’t even bother to send more than a handful of folks to cover the game because, A.) The dead tree types have deadlines (the web sites do too?) and B.) It’s in Syracuse and it’s Saturday night. What’s there to do in Syracuse on a Saturday night other than watch basketball and shotgun Genesee?

Besides, there’s really not much at stake. If Syracuse wins they have a virtual lock on the regular-season Big East title and a No. 1 seed going into Madison Square Garden for the tourney. Better yet, with losses by No. 1 Kansas and No. 2 Kentucky, Syracuse (No. 4) could vault into the top spot in all the land.

Someone cue Casey Kasem.

If Villanova wins then the Big East is all tied up with two games to go. If the tie holds by the time the Big East Tournament rolls around, ‘Nova has the tie-breaker. Better yet, a whole bunch of people go home as angry and disappointed as the two kids I saw at the will call window who were told that the tickets they bought off eBay for $250 were counterfeit.

Talk about a buzz kill.

Regardless of all that, this game really doesn’t mean all that much no matter who wins or loses. For top teams like Syracuse and Villanova the season doesn’t really begin for another week or two. Oh sure, it would be nice to win and all of that, because no one really likes to lose[2].

But you know what? This one is all a matter of perspective. In another month if either ‘Nova or Syracuse are still playing will anyone remember what happened in the Carrier Dome on Feb. 27?

I sure as hell will not.

---

[1] And if it is, I win! Take that, Deepak Chopra.

[2] Even the Washington Generals don’t like to lose. I asked some of them about always getting smacked around by the Globetrotters and it wears on them. Add in the bucket of confetti and it’s downright humiliating.

The Podcast of Awesomeness

The Podcast of Awesomeness is a weekly event where CSNPhilly.com’s John Finger with co-stars Sarah Baicker and Dan Roche, invites some of his funky friends over and they talk about Philadelphia, sports and its participants, and whatever else seems interesting at the time. You know, no big whoop…

Volume 2, No. 6: February 15, 2011

AWESOME 23

Lee Russakoff drops by for some intense talk about the Flyers, Sixers and Phillies. No goofing around... at all.

***

Volume 2, No. 5: February 8, 2011

AWESOME 22

Johnny Goodtimes drops in to talk about Quizzo Bowl 7 with the gang and proves that not Google can help Sarah get the answers right.

***

Volume 2, No. 4: February 1, 2011

AWESOME 21

Marshall Harris stands in for Boonie with John and Sarah as the conversation centers around Jimmy Rollins and the phenomenon of what is overrated or underrated.

***

Volume 2, No. 3: January 25, 2011

AWESOME 20

John and Boonie get together to chat about football and colleague Marshall Harris while Sarah is "on assignment." Meanwhile, people in the newsroom keep walking through the crime scene.

***

Volume 2, No. 2: January 20, 2011

AWESOME 19

John and Boonie get together to chat about football and colleague Marshall Harris while Sarah is "on assignment." Meanwhile, people in the newsroom keep walking through the crime scene.

***

Volume 2, No. 1: January 4, 2011

AWESOME 18

After an unanticipated four-month hiatus, the gang gets back together... sort of.

***

Volume 1, No. 18: September 13, 2010

AWESOME 17

Sarah came up with the idea of an impromptu show so we threw all caution to the wind and went with it. Deitch rode his bike down to the Sports Complex and intern Crazy Cori joined the cast for the unplanned episode.

***

Volume 1, No. 17: September 2, 2010

AWESOME 16

Finger, Boonie and Deitch discuss comedy, the Phillies, Christina Hendricks, The Aristocrats, Nyjer Morgan and fantasy football in the quintessential "guys" show.

***

Volume 1, No. 16: August 24, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 15

On a cloudy day, we limp through a show about missed calls and players from days gone by.

***

Volume 1, No. 15: August 5, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 14

Deitch bails on the show, but Dan Baker leaves some angry messages on his voice mail.

***

Volume 1, No. 14: July 29, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 13

The rest of the gang returns, including Dan Roche Baker, who sermonizes from the mount.

***

Volume 1, No. 13: July 22, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 12.5

Finger and Deitch take care of business without any help from the rest of the gang... and they go off!

***

Volume 1, No. 12: July 8, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 12

The show returns after an unexpected hiatus to see that the struggling Phillies are in a bit of trouble. Plus, why can't people leave Cliff Lee and purple drank alone?

***

Volume 1, No. 11: May 6, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 10

Listen in to the gang blab about hockey, baseball and other types of silliness.

***

Volume 1, No. 10: April 28, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 10

In the landmark 10th episode, we talk about Ryan Howard, advanced metrics, Ian Laperriere and street brawling.

***

Volume 1, No. 9: April 20, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 9

Listen as the gang welcomes back Chris Wilson from his recent U.S. tour and takes the show on the road to the South Philly Tap Room.

***

Volume 1, No. 8: April 15, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 8

Plenty of chatter about Donovan McNabb, Cole Hamels and the Flyers with guest Dan McQuade as well as a phone call from Dennis Deitch in sunny Orlando, Fla.

***

Volume 1, No. 7: March 30, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 7

Ever have an embarrassing moment while taking part in a sporting event? Our friend Beth Shuba has and she joins us to chat about it. Plus, Curt Gill from Atlanta Baseball Talk joins in and tells us that the Braves will be in the playoffs this season. But Beth... she stole the show.

***

Volume 1, No. 6: March 23, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 6

Hey, we talked about the Eagles, the Flyers and the NCAA Tournament during episode No. 6. Plus, Sarah brought a potential intern by as part of his interview and we introduce the newest member of the CSNPhilly.com team, Enrico Campitelli.

***

Volume 1, No. 5: March 18, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 5

We filled out the first hand with an epic show featuring some quizzo action from Johnny Goodtimes. We also checked in with Chris Wilson from Montana while on tour with his band, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. Sarah, Dennis and John discuss their recent road trips, too, while we talk some Phillies and NCAA hoops.

***

Volume 1, No. 4: March 8, 2010

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 4

In the fourth show of The Podcast of Awesomeness, the gang recaps the Academy Awards, ponders Dennis Deitch's trip to Las Vegas, and talks about the Phillies on the phone with Todd Zolecki from Tampa. Oh, and Tom Finer jumps into the fray.

***

Volume 1, No. 3: March 2, 2010

PODCAST NO. 3

We came back in the third episode with more talk about Allen Iverson and the Olympic hockey finale. More importantly, the regular cast of characters was joined by Mike Sielski and Bob Ford, two of the best columnists on the planet.

The show ends with a life tip from Dennis, which is sure to be one of those affirmations that people scrawl into their diaries as a means of hope and strength.

***

Volume 1, No. 2: February 23, 2010

AWESOME EPISODE NO. 2

In the second episode of the show, John is rejoined by Sarah and Dan and contemplates ending the entire show. Also, Dennis Deitch and Mike Radano return for another week and Chris Wilson, the drummer from Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, stops by to chat.Topics ranged from Brian Westbrook's release from the Eagles. Also, Chris offers some Jayson Werth beard-grooming tips for the summertime, the group ponders Allen Iverson’s legacy, Dennis downplays the Olympic hockey game between the U.S. and Canada, while they all lament the epic suckitude of the bands Nickleback and Creed.

Meanwhile, Dennis tells the story about the time when he rendered Stephen Colbert speechless, before Dan walked out.

***

The Debut: February 17, 2010

PODCAST NO. 1

In the debut episode of The John Finger Podcast of Awesomeness, John is joined by co-conspirators Sarah Baicker and Dan Roche, along with guests Andy Schwartz, Dennis Deitch and Mike Radano for a little chat about a whole bunch of stuff, including the Phillies at Spring Training, the Winter Olympics, the 76ers as well as Dave Coggin and NASCAR.

***

We are on Facebook

check us out on iTunes, too.