Pat Burrell is no Gil Hodges

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

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

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

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

How bad was Burrell?

Let’s take a look…

***

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

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

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

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

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

Funny game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funny game.

Good help will be hard to find

PITTSBURGH — Sometimes the easiest thing to do is alsothe hardest one to accomplish. Yeah, that sounds like a trick or some sort of weird riddle, but really, when one looks at the predicament the Phillies have backed themselves in to, it makes perfect sense.

Yes, Chase Utley likely will be out until September recovering from surgery on his right thumb to reattach the ligament to the bone where it belongs. And yes, Placido Polanco — he of the one who does all the little things — is probably out until August so he can recover from a chronic case of tendonitis in his biceps and a bone spur on his elbow.

Then there is Chooch Ruiz, who we don’t know what to expect. Anyone familiar with Brian Westbrook or Keith Primeau understands how concussions can affect a pro sports career. Considering that Ruiz went to visit one of the preeminent sports concussion specialists in the United States while in Pittsburgh on Thursday, it seems to be a significant development that he was told not to go out on a rehab assignment this weekend. Chooch needs to let things mend for a bit longer and rightfully the Phillies are allowing that to happen.

So that’s a big chunk of the Phillies lineup that will be out indefinitely. Utley, Polanco and Chooch gone with no return date set, though we were assured it would be relatively soon based on basic prognosis and guidelines from the medical people. That’s precisely where it gets complicated, too, because two weeks is plenty of time for a club to watch its season implode.

They say a team can’t win a pennant in [inset a month here], but it most definitely can lose one.

That’s what the Phillies have to guard against. Though it doesn’t seem like it from the bird’s eye view, it’s not unreasonable to believe that the season hangs in the balance, right now. Yes, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. can stand pat and wait for his guys to mend and/or start to hit. Considering that Utley, Polanco and Chooch are out and the offense is still struggling, it’s made for a maddening first half for the Phillies.

But a combined four RBIs from just two players over the past two games in starts for Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels, including just a lonely one against the last-place Pirates on Thursday night, doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Here’s where he get to the easy and difficult part… yes, it would make sense for Amaro to makea trade to add some power to the lineup while Utley and Polanco get healthy. It also wouldn’t be such a bad idea to get a catcher or some much-needed pitching depth, too. After all, if there is one thing we’ve learned this season it’s that the Phillies are a flawed team. They were a flawed team when they won the World Series in 2008 and when they went back there in 2009, too. The difference is they did a better job at hiding those ugly areas with trades and acquisitions that got them Joe Blanton, Scott Eyre, Matt Stairs, Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez.

Ideally Amaro would like to follow that pattern again since it has been known to work out pretty well. Plus, sometimes a trade has a way of invigorating a club, kind of like the way getting Lee at the deadline did last year.

All Lee did was put together the greatest postseason by a pitcher in team history since Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1915… and against the Yankees, Dodgers and Rockies, no less.

Obviously the Phillies should go out and make the next big deal in order to keep it together until the big guns get back. Obviously, Amaro is probably wearing out the battery on his Blackberry all day. The problem the GM has, however, isn’t what player to get. That’s generally pretty easy to figure out.

Instead Amaro has a problem with what he can give.

Nope, he doesn’t have much.

He does have Domonic Brown, though. A 22-year-old star-in-the-making recently made the jump to Triple-A where he’s hitting .458 with two homers in seven games going into Thursday’s action. Ideally, the Phillies would like Brown to remain in Allentown for the rest of the summer where he could continue to develop with a September call up in the offing if everything goes well.

Don’t think for a second that the Phillies are going to dangle Brown as trade bait, either. With Jayson Werth in the last year of his contract with a big winter of free agency looming, and the quickly aging Raul Ibanez finished with his current deal after the 2011 season, Brown isn’t going to have to wait too much longer.

But what could speed up the process is if the Phillies keep on struggling with the bats and must make a trade. What do they have to offer? Better yet, if teams know the Phillies are desperate and Amaro is pushing to make a trade, why would any self-respecting GM just make it easy for him?

If the Phillies are hurting and have very little leverage, opposing GMs are going to make them pay.

Back in March we suggested that it might not be a bad idea to shop Werth, which understandably, was greeted with more than a few folks sending messages asking if I had taken leave of my senses. I understood why folks were ripping me and accept that some of them might even make really good points.

But that doesn’t mean my logic was faulty.

Where Amaro has his best options is with Werth and Brown and there is a report out there that this theory is being tested. Knowing that Lee was traded over the winter so that Amaro could replenish the minor league system that saw seven of its top 10 players traded, maybe flipping Werth for some reinforcements is the best card the Phillies have.

Unless Ruben is hiding an ace somewhere.

The Meech abides

NEW YORK—There is something pure and wholesome about personal restraint. It’s one of those things that can make a person stronger or sharper. Sometimes withholding an insatiable urge can even make us better.

At least that’s what they say.

So what about the Phillies’ ability to just say no to scoring runs? Sure, it flies in the face of fundamental baseball theory, but the fact that the Phillies have only been able to score in one inning out of the last 45 shows the resolve of a Tibetan monk.

Take a second to think about how difficult it is to go practically five games without scoring a run… Then take a look at the Phillies’ offense and the fact that they slugged their way into the World Series for two straight years. That makes the fact that the Phillies have been shut out by the Mets in three straight games that much more incredible.

Charlie Manuel figured his guys would get one by accident on Thursday night against the Mets at CitiField. How could they not score one off Mike Pelfrey with runners at the corners, one out and the crafty Placido Polanco coming to the plate? It’s been well documented here and in other spaces that Polanco is one of those gritty ballplayers who do all the little things that don’t show up in the box score. He’ll hit the ball the other way, put it in play, and take a few pitches to extend the inning to allow his teammates to get a look at a pitcher’s repertoire.

Except, of course, when he doesn’t.

With the tying run on third base ready to dash home and put the Phillies in a game for the first time in nearly a week, Polanco didn’t hit the ball the other way. He also didn’t do any little things that don’t show in the box score or take some pitches. He didn’t do any of that. Instead, Polanco grounded into a double play to end the team’s best chance to score a run.

The ol’ GIDP shows up in all of those expanded box scores these days.

It’s not fair to pick on Polanco though, especially since he seems to taking it so hard. After last night’s game he admitted that he was incredibly frustrated by the team’s extraordinary restraint and didn’t attempt to mask his displeasure. Jayson Werth, contrarily, dealt with the frustration by shaving off nearly all of the hair from his face. But in his first game with smooth cheeks, Werth made five outs in four plate appearances by striking out three times and grounding into an inning-ending double play when he was able to make contact.

“No matter how you want to spin it, we're still in first place and we've got a real good ballclub,” Werth said.

Werth is right about that, and that’s what makes this uncanny ability to hold back so much more amazing. Figuring that the purification process in nearly complete, the Phillies are probably a game or two away from an offensive explosion.  That’s how it always happens, right?

“Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you,” Manuel said, but not in a way like Sam Elliott. It would have been better if he sounded like Sam Elliott.

Nevertheless, as written after the game: And sometimes you don’t eat at all.

At least that’s the case for a father and husband from Northeast Philly named Mike Meech. You see, so dedicated to his team is Meech that he decided to go through a purification process of his own just like the Phillies by staging a hunger strike until the team deigns it necessary to score a run. Since 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Meech has not eaten a crumb of food. Reports indicate that he purchased a stromboli for $15 to feast upon when the time was right, but Polanco, Werth and the rest of the Phillies had other ideas.

So now Meech is entering a world of pain. Mark it zero, dude. By the time the Phillies dig in against the Marlins on Friday night it will be more than 48 hours into the hunger strike. Needless to say, he’s fragile… he’s very fragile, man. He needs some nourishment and that stromboli is getting rotten waiting for the Phillies to score a run.

So we have to ask: Has the whole world gone crazy? Is Meech the only one who gives a bleep about the rules? A man has to take up a cause from time to time, and our friend Meech has decided that if the Phillies are going to go down, he’s going with them. Undoubtedly Charlie Manuel can appreciate the plight of one of his biggest boosters considering ol’ Chuck has decided to show more restraint when it comes to his diet, too. In fact, Charlie has been imbibing on a certain brand of diet food, which makes a hunger strike more preferable by comparison.

So when you’re sitting down to watch the Phillies tonight, think of Meech. Better yet, make a sort of Lenten appeal by standing with a man who has put his team’s welfare in front of his own. That’s right, I’m telling you to put down that fork and that hillock of food compressed into a box or a bowl and do the right thing.

Meech and Charlie will know about it and will appreciate the gesture.

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.

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.

Hot time in the old town with the hot corner

Without so much as a flick of an eyelash, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. set the Phillies’ offseason into full swing. He didn’t have to issue a statement, hold a press conference or even sign anything.

Hell, he didn’t even have to answer any questions because that was already handled for the GM by other people. There was a quick e-mail sent out to reporters regarding Pedro Feliz’s option, and Brett Myers told people that Amaro told him that he oughta just go be a free agent.

So now Amaro needs to find a third baseman to replace the sure-handed Feliz, and a knucklehead to replace Myers. And of course, as written three times on this space already (this is the fourth), the Phillies hope to make a trade for Roy Halladay.

Whispers from Phillies sources is the deal for Halladay could include Cole Hamels.

That still leaves the team down a knucklehead with Myers’ departure. Perhaps they’ll go knucklehead-less?

Anyway, as Amaro hangs out at the O’Hare Hilton in Chicago—the very same hotel O.J. Simpson checked into after flying from L.A. the night of the murders—his off-season plans were laid out in appropriate order:

* Third baseman
* Relief pitcher(s)
* The bench

And if there is enough time or money left over maybe they can find a clubhouse knucklehead to replace Myers. But you know… only if they have time.

The search for a new third baseman is an interesting proposition for Amaro. After all, this is one of those rare cases in which it will be difficult for the GM to mess it up since there are plenty of quality free-agent third basemen. Certainly Chone Figgins of the Angels is the cream of the crop, but the Angels want him back and his asking price is reported to be 5-years for $50 million.

Five years for a guy about to turn 32 might be a bit much, but Figgins could be a valuable piece for the Phillies. No, he’s not much of a slugger, but he would be the perfect leadoff hitter in this lineup. Last year he walked 101 times and has an on-base percentage over .385 in the past three seasons.

Compared to Jimmy Rollins, well… there is not much of a comparison. Figgins’ OBP in 2009 was exactly 100-points higher than Rollins’. Plus, as a leadoff hitter Figgins sees 4.21 pitches per plate appearance. On the Phillies, only Jayson Werth saw more pitches (4.51) and he led the Majors.

Figgins also steals more bases than any player for the Phillies, and though he led the league in caught stealing in two out of the past three years, a spring with Davey Lopes could turn him into a 70-stolen base threat.

Figgins would be a perfect table setter for the Phillies’ sluggers and fits in nicely in that he strikes out a lot, too (his BAbip was .356). However, the addition of Figgins would probably rock the boat a little too much because Rollins, for some reason, is the leadoff hitter for life.

He might be the worst leadoff hitter in the big leagues, but Rollins’ is the leadoff hitter nonetheless. Egos are a helluva thing, especially within the space of a baseball clubhouse. Though the Phillies might be better served with Rollins hitting further down in the lineup—like second, seventh—manager Charlie Manuel has bought the idea that he has one leadoff hitter and one only.

Yes, Figgins is the best option for the Phillies. That’s especially the case considering his fielding, statistically speaking, was just as good as Feliz.

Other names that will be whispered into the wind like so many dandelion spores are Adrian Beltre and Mark DeRosa. The fact is, the Phillies have had the hots for both players for years and put the moves on DeRosa during the winter meetings last December. However, neither player is as consistent as Figgins.

Worse, Beltre and DeRosa have had their share of injuries. DeRosa, the former Penn quarterback, has never played more than 149 games in a season (he’s done it twice) and will be 35 in February. Plus, he had surgery on his wrist last week.

Beltre is 13 years into his career and is coming off his worst season. The Phillies can definitely do better.

And certainly they should do better. With the attendance numbers they posted (102 percent capacity for 89 games in the regular- and post-seasons), money isn’t an issue. Plus, with the ever fickle window of opportunity just an injury away from closing, the Phillies aren’t risking all that much by making a move on Figgins (or Halladay, a bullpen piece, and a knucklehead).

Besides, third base is one of those marquee positions for the Phillies, like left field for the Red Sox or center field for the Yankees. Dick Allen played third base. So too did Mike Schmidt and Scott Rolen. They seemed to be in a good spot with Placido Polanco at third, but needed guys like David Bell, Tomas Perez, Tyler Houston, Shawn Wooten, Ramon Martinez, Jose Hernandez, Alex Gonzalez, Wes Helms, Abraham Nunez, Greg Dobbs, Miguel Cairo, Eric Bruntlett and Feliz to hold down the hot corner.

Hey, you had us at Polanco.

Another year goes by

Today is the 21st anniversary of the death of Len Bias. Last year I wrote a longer post about it which was to be published elsewhere, but Brett Myers went out and got arrested in Boston in a case that we remember all too well.

Anyway, I still maintain that Len Bias was the best college basketball player I had ever seen. Better than Michael Jordan, Ralph Sampson, David Robinson, James Worthy, Patrick Ewing, Pearl Washington, Chris Mullin or any of those guys for UNLV.

Anyone who says Bias wasn’t a bigger, stronger, meaner and more polished Michael Jordan, just doesn’t know any better.

Said The Washington Post’s Michael Wilbon: “I saw great players from both the ACC and Big East every night. Jordan. Ewing. Mullin. Sampson. Later on, David Robinson. But Bias was the most awesome collegiate player of that bunch. That jumper was so pure. I mean, Michael Jordan, at that time, would have killed for that jumper. And Bias was 2 ½ inches taller.”

Charles Barkley: “I'd have played against him for the next 14 years. I would have been in my prime and he would have been in his. I'll never forget what he looked like. He was a ‘Wow!’ player. When Maryland played and was on television, I watched. It was like, ‘I need to watch this guy; I'll be seeing him real soon.’ . . . It was just shocking. Thing is, cocaine was huge then. My brother had been in and out of rehab. . . . It was a popular drug at the time. And guys I was playing against, like John Lucas and Michael Ray Richardson and John Drew had done cocaine. I was thinking: ‘What the hell is up with this cocaine? I should try this once to see what it was all about.’ Then, we heard the reports were that Bias only used it once . . . that it was his first time. When I heard that, it scared me to death . . . scared the daylights out of me. It scared me into not trying it even once, not going anywhere near it.”

Twenty one years and it still seems like it was just yesterday.

***
Inevitably, when the Detroit Tigers and manager Jim Leyland arrived in Philadelphia for last weekend’s series, the comparisons between the two skippers would crop up. I suppose the Tigers appearance in last October’s World Series didn’t quell the argument regarding Charlie Manuel and Leyland in some circles because people talked about it.

Leyland, of course, wasn’t too interested in talking about losing out on the Phillies’ gig to Charlie, telling reporters curtly, “Don’t go there,” when the subject was broached last Friday.

Former Phillie Placido Polanco wasn’t too jazzed about comparing Charlie and Leyland either, saying, “What are you trying to say? That Charlie's no good? When you lose, it's the manager's fault, but when you win, the players play good. You have to give the manager credit, but the players have to make the plays.”

Polanco is definitely right about that, but that’s the way it goes in baseball. The manager is always looked at by the fans as some sort of Svengali, when in reality the best managers are smart enough to know to stay out of the way.

Besides, skippering a team like the Detroit Tigers doesn’t exactly take a whole lot of innovation. All Leyland has to do is fill out the lineup card with Polanco, Gary Sheffield, Magglio Ordonez and the rest of that murderers’ row or tell one of his lights’ out young pitcher to throw a no-hitter or shutout. In that regard the strategy showdown between Charlie and Leyland never really manifested.

How hard is it to manage a bunch of home runs?

Regardless, Manuel may have out-smarted himself when he decided to yank starting pitcher Adam Eaton in the seventh inning of Sunday’s game with Gary Sheffield coming to the plate. To that point in the game Eaton had a two-run lead and had just allowed a pair of the six hits he yielded. But instead of letting his starting pitcher with just 91 pitches on the odometer try to wiggle out of his mess, Manuel turned to his bullpen three different times to get the final two outs of the innings.

When it was all finished, the two-run lead had become a three-run deficit and the sit-back-and-let-it-unfold-style of managing that had marked the series blew up like one of those rubber cigars from the cartoons.

Worse, the second-guessing started.

That statistics and sabermetric folks have crunched a lot of numbers to make them prove a lot of different things about the game, but it might be worth it to see what the stats show in regard to meddlesome managers. Certainly Manuel has been criticized for being too loyal and leaving players in spots when they have long surpassed their effectiveness. Pat Burrell springs to mind in that regard.

However, after spending most of the first part of the season doing all he could to avoid his bullpen, Manuel wasn’t shy about using four pitchers to get out of the seventh on Sunday.

Go figure.

***
From White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen on Polanco:

“He's the heart of that club. I don't know why the hell the Phillies let him go.

“To me, the key to that team is Polanco. He's clutch. He's one of the most underrated players in the game. People don't know how good he is.”

Ask Ed Wade about David Bell if you’re looking for the answer on that one.

***
If you’re watching the Indians and Phillies play this week it looks as if Cleveland is treating some familiar faces quite well. David Dellucci, Jason Michaels, Aaron Fultz, Roberto Hernandez and Paul Byrd have all landed with the Indians and have made big contributions to the leaders of the AL Central.

Meanwhile, Joe Borowski is pleased that he ended up with the Indians instead of the Phillies.

***
If you're in Cleveland and looking for a good place to unwind after the Phillies game and don't mind taking a little drive and/or want to avoid the tourist traps and post-frat boy joints on The Flats, try The Barking Spider out near Case Western Reserve University.

I spent a week there one night about a decade ago.

Anyway, it's approximately five miles from the ballpark...

***
Quick observation about the U.S. Open:

How about the dichotomy in the trio of leaders down the stretch? Jim Furyk looked lean and mean and looked just like he did when he was playing hoops for Manheim Township. Tiger Woods looked like a guy who spent all of his free time in the gym and was not to shy about showing off his newly sculpted physique.

And then there was champion Angel Cabrera who chain-smoked his way through the back nine and stopped at the turn for a couple of hotdogs and a beer.

Here’s my prediction – Furyk and Tiger will be amongst the top 10 golfers in the world for the next decade while Cabrera is never heard from again.

Either that or he joins the John Daly wing of the PGA Tour.

Tomorrow: Airports, summer travelling, Bobby Abreu, Jim Furyk and Floyd Landis.

A sort of homecoming

Hola, sports fans. There is a lot happening today from the Tigers arriving in Philadelphia for three games, to Freddy Garcia’s shutdown, to the U.S. Open, to the first reviews of author Floyd Landis’ soon-to-be released memoir, Positively False hitting the ether. Since that’s the case, enough yapping – let’s get into it…

Undoubtedly, Charlie Manuel will face some scrutiny this weekend. The reason, of course, is because the American League champion Detroit Tigers are in town for the weekend and that means Jim Leyland is here. Leyland, as most Phillies fans remember, lost out on the managerial job here when then general manager Ed Wade decided to hire Manuel instead. At the time the thinking (at least by me) was that when Jim Leyland specifically campaigns for your job opening, chances are it’s a slam dunk.

How do you pass on Jim Leyland?

Well…

Manuel is in his third star-crossed season with the Phillies, while Leyland, in just one season, turned the Tigers to a World Series team after 12 straight losing seasons. In 2003 the Tigers lost 113 games. In 2006, with Leyland in charge, the Tigers won 103 games, including the playoffs.

Leyland, in these parts, gets a lot of the credit for turning the Tigers into a force in the American League. To degree Leyland definitely had some influence on making Detroit a winner, though it is much more complicated than that. Yes, a manager has an effect on a baseball team. And it really isn’t a surprise that the Phillies have been better with Charlie Manuel at the helm than they were with Larry Bowa.

Leyland and Manuel are similar in that they make it easy for players to want to come to work and do the job as well as possible, while Bowa’s mission seemed to be one of divide and conquer. As was the adage during Bowa’s time, the Phillies are 0-76, but Bowa is 86-0.

But one thing Leyland did not do was sign and develop the players. The rotation of Jeremy Bonderman, Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson, and Mike Maroth would have been great regardless of the manager. Nor does it hurt that the offense leads the American League in hits, runs, extra-base hits, batting average, slugging percentage and is third in home runs.

Certainly the Phillies will know where they stand amongst baseball’s top teams when the Tigers leave on Sunday afternoon.

But more interesting than Leyland’s arrival is Placido Polanco’s return to Philadelphia. Polanco, as most remember, was the Phillies’ steady second baseman that allowed the team to take its time in bringing along Chase Utley. In fact, even when Utley was ready to play every day, putting Polanco on the bench was a very difficult thing to do. In order to find more playing time for Polanco the Phillies used him in left field for a few games, but not nearly enough at third base.

Third base was the position Polanco played when he was traded to the Phillies as part of the deal for Scott Rolen in 2002. But after playing 131 games at third in 2002, Polanco played just 42 games at the hot corner since then. For some reason the Phillies just weren’t willing to unseat David Bell from that spot. The Phillies definitely would have been a better team with an infield of Ryan Howard, Utley, Polanco and Jimmy Rollins, but sometimes things are as easy as simply sliding around names.

Baseball is complicated like that sometimes.

The “what if” game is the favorite past time of the national past time, and though Utley has solidified himself as the best second baseman in the National League, Polanco has done pretty well since leaving town. Currently he’s third in the league with a .343 batting average, led the Majors in the statistic in 2005 and, most importantly, took home the MVP in last October’s ALCS.

Polanco will gladly let Chase Utley and David Bell have Philadelphia if can play ball in October. The same goes for Charlie Manuel, too. As far as Leyland is concerned, losing out on the Phillies job might have been the best thing that happened.

***
Anyway, based on how things were at the time, trading Polanco to the Tigers for Ugeuth Urbina and Ramon Martinez was a pretty good deal. Then, as now, the Phillies were desperate for bullpen help and Polanco was the only real commodity the team had.

To this day I still get emails from readers asking why Wade and the Phillies didn’t trade Bell instead… OK.

Look at it this way – if you don’t want David Bell, what makes you think another team will want him and then give you a relief pitcher like Urbina? The Phillies couldn’t trade Bell for the same reason why they can’t trade Jon Lieber or Pat Burrell…

No one wants them!

Apropos of nothing, it seems as if both Utley and Polanco will be starting in the All-Star Game next month.

***
I wasn’t quick enough to think of it at the time, but Freddy Garcia could end up being the “deadline deal” the Phillies need if they are still in the hunt next month… that is, of course, if Garcia can still pitch.

There is no time table for when Garcia will even throw again, so any plans regarding his return are just a silly exercise at this point. But… he might be able to return.

***
Through the early going of action in the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in western Pennsylvania, it looked as if Jim Furyk of the Bellair neighborhood in Manheim Township, Lancaster, Pa., was locked in. But then his putter deserted him over the final seven holes. Today Furyk came out and fired a not-so sterling 75 to leave him six-over par.

Despite the score, Furyk still has a shot at winning his second U.S. Open title. Tiger Woods is in it, too, at four-over par, which brings up an interesting point:

Do golf fans want to see the best players in the world struggle to get close to even par as it typically is in the U.S. Open?

Do fans like to see Furyk or Tiger hit a stellar shot near the pin and then have it roll off the green and into the rough?

I’m torn. I don’t like it when a golfer makes a good shot and isn’t rewarded for it, but at the same time I don’t really want to see them take target practice at the pins as if they were at any other course. That’s no fun, either.

Either way, the U.S. Open is the most intriguing of all golf tournaments and it will be even more interesting to see what happens to this little corner of the country when it comes to Merion in Ardmore in 2013.

For one thing, something is going to have to be done about the atrocity that is the Schuylkill Expressway.

***
The New York Times ran a review of West Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pa. native Floyd Landis’ new epic that hits bookstores June 26. In the review it is noted that there is very little new information in the book, however, it was noted that there was a contradiction in some of Landis’ statements about the consequences from the infamous testimony from former Tour de France champ Greg LeMond from the USADA arbitration hearings last month.

To wit:

In an epilogue, Landis writes that he witnessed Geoghegan’s phone call and was shocked by his manager’s attempt to intimidate LeMond by bringing up LeMond’s previously undisclosed history of being sexually abused as a child. So shocked, he writes, that he immediately decided Geoghegan should be fired.

“The only thing I knew right away was that Will needed to go,” Landis writes. “I went to his room and helped him pack his things.

Wait, did Floyd get the same guy who wrote Charles Barkley’s memoirs to work on his?

Regardless, an interesting note is that Floyd is releasing a “Wiki” defense e-book on the same day as the memoirs are released.

Also, I read the first chapter that was previewed on Floyd’s site and it’s pretty much the boilerplate jock autobiography except that I drive past a lot of the places described in the book on my way to Philadelphia. In that regard it's more interesting simply because I may have driven past some of the places described. As I've mentioned in past posts, though Landis and I grew up a short bike ride away from one another, our worlds were as different as night and day. Frankly, even though my roots have been planted in Lancaster since I was 10 years old, it is very rare for me to see an Amish buggy motor past. They don't really come to the urban/suburban area where I live and when they do it trips me out.

Come on, Mr. Stoltzfus, turn on a light already.

Nevertheless, it was interesting reading about a rube from Lancaster County travelling across the country with a cheap car and a tent and then to Europe with the simple hope of being a professional mountain bike rider.

Hopefully my fax request for an advance copy will arrive soon so I can tell everyone all about it.

***
If they have an NBA Finals and nobody watches it, did it really happen?

Apparently the NBA Finals ended this week. Really? And what ever happened to that fun league called the NHL?

Game 5: World Champs

Adam Wainwright, a rookie, entered the ninth for Jeff Weaver to close it out. Wainwright was born in 1981 so he was alive the last time the Cardinals won it. He was nearly 14 months old, but he may have caught an inning here or there on the tube.

Wainwright got an assist when Magglio Ordonez’s liner nicked his glove and trickled to Ronnie Belliard at second, who threw sidearm to Pujols at first.

The kid looks composed even though he has just 63 big-league games under his belt after taking over the closer’s role when Jason Isringhausen went out with an injury in September. Interestingly, Wainwright saved just three games in the regular season and three more in the playoffs before entering Game 5. The game just might be his last save chance, too, since it’s likely that Wainwright will be a starter in 2007 and Isringhausen will return to his job.

Either way it wasn’t easy for the kid, who allowed a one-out double to the white-hot Sean Casey. But when he jammed Ivan Rodriguez to get him to nudge one back to him, Wainwright seemed to give the biggest exhale in Busch Stadium after Albert Pujols gloved the throw to first.

Should it be fitting that Placido Polanco could have made the last out? When he was with the Phillies, Polanco always spoke so fondly of his days with the Cardinals. One could tell that he wished that he had never left St. Louis. Rheal Cormier and Mike Timlin were the same way.

But Polanco is a wise man. He’ll overcome his 0-for-17 in the World Series. Who knows, maybe he’ll bounce back like Scott Rolen did after his oh-fer in 2004. Either way, his two-out walk brought the go-ahead run to the plate. One swing from Brandon Inge could turn around not just the game, but also the entire series. Inge could become Dave Henderson or Mookie Wilson in 1986…

Instead he’s the third out when Wainwright rushed the fastball by him.

The 2006 season is over. Pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater on February 15.

Post script
David Eckstein, on the strength of a four-hit game in Game 4, was named MVP. Rolen was likely second or third in the balloting, but that doesn't matter. Like Curt Schilling, Terry Francona, Darren Daulton and Jim Eisenreich, Rolen left Philadelphia to get his ring.

Game 5: Pitching and defense

It seems as if Placido Polanco is doing his imitation of Scott Rolen's 2004 World Series. That's kind of ironic, I guess, since the pair were traded for one another in 2002 from the Phillies and Cardinals.

Polanco isn't swinging that bat poorly in this World Series, but he's 0-for-17. This oh-fer comes after Polanco was the MVP of the ALCS. In 2004, Rolen went 0-for-15 in the World Series against the Red Sox after slugging the game-winning home run in Game 7 of the NLCS against Roger Clemens.

Polanco seemed to snap his skid in the seventh, but Albert Pujols may have made the play of the series to rob him. Far off the bag at first, Pujols dived to his right and snagged the ball in the web of his far-extended glove. But in order to nail the reasonably speedy Polanco, Pujols had to roll over to his rear, find pitcher Jeff Weaver streaking for first, and hit him with a hard throw from the seat of his pants just to nip Polanco by a step.

Meanwhile, La Russa started the seventh with a new right fielder and left fielder. So Taguchi shifted from left to right and Preston Wilson entered the game. It's all about pitching and defense now, especially since the Cardinals have three outfielders who all have spent significant time as center fielders during their careers.

Defense continued to be a bane for the Tigers in the bottom of the seventh when David Eckstein reached first with an infield single when shortstop Carlos Guillen double-clutched on the throw to first. That was followed by a walk to the free-swinging Preston Wilson from reliever Fernando Rodney, who started the frame.

Perhaps his crooked hat, fashionably askew atop his head knocked him off kilter during the first two hitters of the seventh?

But Rodney got Pujols to pop out, and Edmonds to do the same. With two outs and two on Rolen dumped an RBI single to right just a few feet in front of Magglio Ordonez in right field.

Not only did that hit extend Rolen's hitting streak to 10 games, but also it should have cinched the MVP Award for the former Phillie if the Cardinals can hold the lead.

The Cardinals ended the seventh with the 4-2 lead. They have six outs to go.

Blast from the past II

Note: In our continuing "Blast from the past" series, here's the story from July 29, 2002 when ALCS MVP was traded to the Phillies. As everyone remembers, there was another player or two involved in that deal, which makes the story a lot longer. This one is a beast, so clear your schedule and order in if you want to attempt to delve through.

'I've Died and Gone to Heaven... ' Phillies Deal 'Excited' Scott Rolen to St. Louis
After months of speculation, tons of rumors and lots of innuendo, the Phillies have finally traded Scott Rolen. Once viewed as the rightful heir to Mike Schmidt's throne at third base and as the cornerstone of a franchise on the way up, Rolen left town after an acrimonious season-and-a-half where the luster was chipped away from the city's one-time golden boy.

And Rolen, as stated in an interview with ESPN.com's Peter Gammons, could not be happier about the trade.

"I felt," he said to Gammons upon hearing the news about the trade on Monday night, "as if I'd died and gone to heaven. I'm so excited that I can't wait to get on the plane (Tuesday morning) and get to Florida to join the Cardinals."

For Rolen, Triple-A reliever Doug Nickle and an undisclosed amount of cash, the Phillies have obtained infielder Placido Polanco, lefthanded pitcher Bud Smith and reliever Mike Timlin, general manager Ed Wade announced in a spare conference room in the bowels of Veterans Stadium on Monday.

But more than receiving three players in return for the game's best defensive third baseman, the Phillies have ended a once-happy marriage that seemed destined to end with a ceremony in Cooperstown and his No. 17 hung on a commemorative disc beyond the outfield wall.

Instead, it ended in a soap-operatic mess filled with more whispered back-biting than an episode of Dynasty. With the dust finally clearing, the Phillies have lost their best player and receive a lefthanded pitcher in Smith who threw a Major League no-hitter last Sept. 3 but is still only in Triple-A, a one-time closer in Timlin who is eligible for free agency at the end of the season and might again be dealt before the season ends and an infielder in Polanco who is more akin to line-drive hitting Marlon Anderson than the powerful Rolen.

And it marks the second time since 2000 that the Phillies have lost a player worth the price of a season ticket. Almost two years to the day, Wade dealt Curt Schilling to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Travis Lee, Vicente Padilla, Omar Daal and Nelson Figueroa. Since the deal, Schilling has won a ring and composed a 45-14 record.

Once Spring Training was in full swing, Wade knew Rolen was not going to be a Phillie in 2003.

"I knew in Spring Training that we had a zero chance to get anything done," Wade said.

In brokering the deal, Wade admits that the Phillies are giving up a lot, but he's more interested in the players the team has now opposed to the players they once had.

"We did not replace Scott Rolen with an All-Star, Gold Glove third baseman, but we did replace him with a very good baseball player, and we got some other guys who should help us,'' Wade said.

In adding Rolen, Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty believes his club has added the piece of the puzzle needed to finish off the rest of the NL Central. With a five-game lead over the second-place Cincinnati Reds, Rolen not only picks up a lot of ground in the standings, but also seems slated for his first-ever appearance in the playoffs. This fact should satisfy Rolen, who said during a cantankerous press conference at the beginning of spring training that the Philles were not committed to winning.

"We are very pleased and excited to add Scott Rolen to our lineup," Jocketty said in a statement. "He is an All-Star, a proven run producer and an excellent defensive player."

In a quickly assembled press conference in which only Wade spoke, the GM broke down his side of the negotiations and relayed Rolen's feelings about the deal. After returning to Philadelphia from Atlanta where Rolen belted a home run in a victory over the Braves (wearing a throwback, powder-blue Phils uniform, no less) on Sunday, the new Red Bird was trying to figure out how to get to Miami where he will make his debut against the Marlins on Tuesday.

"He said he appreciated the opportunity and the organization and wondered where he goes from here and how he gets there," Wade said. "He was fairly single-minded in getting his gear and getting on an airplane and making sure that he was with the Cardinals in Florida in time for the game [Tuesday]."

Like Rolen's last season in Philadelphia, Wade said the negotiations with the Cardinals were quite tempestuous with each club making concessions. According to Wade, trade talks between the Cardinals and Phillies broke down without a deal at 11 p.m. in Sunday night and that as of Monday afternoon, the Phils were currently negotiating a deal with an unnamed team until the Cardinals jumped back into the fray.

"We were one phone call away from Scott not being a Cardinal and going somewhere else," said Wade.

The Phillies' GM faced the prospect of getting nothing for his star if Rolen stayed in Philadelphia. If the new basic agreement between players and owners includes a redesign of the the First-Year Player Draft, it's possible that it will eliminate compensatory draft picks for teams that lose free agents.

"At some point you have to say the deal that sits in front of me is good enough that it outweighs gambling that something better is going to be out there 48 hours from now," said Wade. "The players were right."

According to Wade, the deal was finalized at 5 p.m. on Monday and was announced officially at 6:30 p.m. With Monday being an off day in the National League, all players will be with their respective teams by Tuesday. Smith will report to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and will start either on Wednesday or Thursday.

Still, Wade says the deal occurred because the Phillies were very aggressive. Some teams, he claims, "moved out of the process because of the ebb and flow of the labor situation." He categorized the Cardinals as one of those teams as well as six others that he claims he was talking to.

Rolen had been the subject of trade rumors after deciding not to negotiate on a multi-year extension that Wade categorized on Monday as a "lifetime deal." The Phillies report that they were anticipating giving Rolen a 10-year contract extension last November that could've been worth up to $140 million. Rolen ended up signing an $8.6 million, one-year deal in January that kept him and the Phillies away from an arbitration hearing, but made it clear he wanted to become a free agent after this season. That decision forced the Phillies to make a move or risk losing him for nothing.

"I regret the outcome," Wade said. "We were very serious about the offer we made and when that didn't work out we tried to get him to sign a two-year guaranteed contract with player options. We regret the outcome but don't regret the way we approached him."

In reality, the Phillies never offered the 10-years and $140 million they keep touting. Instead, it the guaranteed portion of the offer was six years, $72 million. The deal stretched to 10 years and to $140 million only if one included all the options and incentives and buy-outs in the package, all structured in the club's behalf.

Surely it's not a deal to sneeze at, but nowhere close to the "lifetime" contract Wade and his minions keep throwing out there.

Art of the Deal
Rolen did not sign an extension with the Cardinals, so he remains eligible for free agency. However, when rumors reached fervor on Saturday, Rolen said he would be interested in signing a contract extension with the Cardinals.

About signing, potentially, with the Cardinals, Rolen said on Saturday that the Red Birds were one of the teams he would consider.

"We all know that is a situation I'd be willing to talk about," Rolen said on Saturday.

On Monday, he was a lot less ambiguous with his comments as told to Gammons. Growing up in Jasper, Ind., Rolen says he went to two parks as a kid — St. Louis and Cincinnati.

"I was there at Busch with my dad, sitting in the stands wherever we could get a seat, watching Ozzie Smith," Rolen said. "It may be the best place to play in the game, and it's the place I always dreamed of playing.

"As I said, I've gone to heaven."

And dropping him in the middle of the Cardinals' powerful lineup looks like hell for opposing pitchers. When the Cardinals come to the Vet on Aug. 16 for a three-game set, Rolen should bat fifth in a lineup that looks something like this:

Fernando Vina, 2b
Edgar Renteria, ss
Jim Edmonds, cf
Albert Pujols, lf
Rolen, 3b
J.D. Drew, rf
Tino Martinez, 1b
Mike Matheny, c

Signing potential free agents hasn't been a problem for the Cardinals, who play in front of well-mannered fans in a baseball-crazy city. In the last five years, the Cardinals traded for potential free agents Jim Edmonds and Mark McGwire and convinced them to stay in St. Louis long-term.

However, while Wade says there were numerous suitors all clamoring for Rolen's services, ComcastSportsNet.com sources indicate otherwise. According to one well-placed baseball executive, if a deal with the Cardinals wasn't consummated, Rolen would still be wearing the red-and-white Phillie pinstripes.

"I really searched for another team that was interested and I couldn't find one," the source says. "The Phillies were trying to create a market for Rolen that didn't exist."

Originally, rumors circled that the Phillies were going to receive Double-A prospect Jimmy Journell, who is rated as the Cardinals' top up-and-comer by Baseball America. However, a source says that Journell was never part of any deal. Instead, the source says, the Cardinals were not going to make a deal with the Phillies unless Timlin — a free agent when the season ends — was included in the deal.

But Wade says it was Smith who was the "deal buster."

"He was the key part of the deal," Wade said.

Like the other rumors, it was reported that a deal with another club would not occur if the Phillies had to pay the remainder of Rolen's contract or if he couldn't work out a contract extension with an interested club.

Not at all true.

"I wish I kept a list of all the misinformation," Wade said.

The Players
Polanco, 26, is hitting .284 with five homers and 27 RBIs. He batted .307 last season and .316 in his first full year, in 2000. Wade said he'd play third base and bat second in the Phillies' lineup against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night.

Polanco is a slick fielder who plays three infield positions and leads third basemen in fielding chances. However, he has played too many games at short and second to qualify for the league lead. A prototypical contact hitter, Polanco has struck out just 26 times in 92 games this season.

Smith, who pitched a no-hitter in his rookie season last year, was sent to Triple-A Memphis on July 20 after going 1-5 with a 6.94 ERA in 11 appearances, including 10 starts. The 22-year-old lefthander was 6-3 with a 3.83 ERA in 16 games last year.

In his last outing in the big leagues on July 19, Smith allowed eight runs and nine hits in 4 2/3 innings in a loss to the Pirates.

Smith is best compared to Randy Wolf.

"He's a surplus prospect," Wade said.

Timlin is 1-3 with a 2.51 ERA in 42 appearances and is holding righties to a .197 average. The 36-year-old righthander is in the final year of a contract that is paying him $5.25 million this season. In 1996 he saved 31 games for the Toronto Blue Jays and has saved 114 games during his 11-year Major League career. However, this season he has blown two saves working primarily in middle relief.

Timlin won two World Series' with the Blue Jays and appeared in two games of the 1993 series against the Phillies.

Nickle, 27, was 3-5 with a 2.97 ERA and seven saves in 34 games — one of them a start — at Scranton this season. He appeared in four games — 4 1/3 innings pitched — for the Phillies this season and has made 10 career major-league appearances.

Glory Days
When Scott Rolen came to Philadelphia as a fresh-faced 21-year old, he was too good to be true. He played hard, possessed Midwestern, homespun values and spoke about fair play and hard work. If he was going to do something, he said, he was going to do it all out and to win.

Philadelphia fans immediately latched onto the quiet kid from Jasper, Ind.

After winning the Rookie of the Year Award in 1997, Rolen signed a four-year, $10 million deal with the idea that he was going to be a Phillie for life. In fact, Rolen signed for far less than he could have gotten because he believed the Phillies were on the right path and he was enamored with the idea that he was going to be like his kindred spirit, Mike Schmidt, and spend his entire career in Philadelphia.

But all those losing seasons caught up with Rolen. So too did the firing of mild-mannered manager Terry Francona, who is a close friend of Rolen's. Meanwhile, Rolen's quiet nature in a city full of loud and sometimes abrasive sports fans, wore thin on both sides. Sensitive and thoughtful, Rolen chose to do his talking on the field or in the clubhouse — nowhere else. Philly fans wanted their rough-and-tumble athletes' personas to translate to a give-and-take relationship with the city that Rolen was not willing to have. His family (and his dogs, Enis and Emma) came first and nothing else was a close second.

When prodigal son and fan-favorite Larry Bowa was hired as the team's skipper, many speculated when he and his sensitive third baseman would clash. It didn't take long.

In June of 2001 during a series against Tampa Bay, Bowa told the Philadelphia Daily News that Rolen's recent futility at the plate was "killing us." Rolen took the criticism not as constructive but intended to embarrass him and had it out with the manager before a game against the Devil Rays.

"I came in here with the intent of kicking your ass," Rolen reportedly told Bowa as he walked into the manager's office that day.

Their relationship remained strained ever since and the soap opera began in earnest.

Later that year, Phillies executive assistant and manager of the hard-boiled manager of 1980 World Championship team, Dallas Green, told a radio station that Rolen was OK with being a "so-so" player and that his personality would not allow him to be a great player.

After the season, Rolen summed up the 2001 campaign as the worst he ever went through and cited Bowa and Green as the main culprits in his dissatisfaction. His ire manifested itself during an edgy press conference to kick off spring training.

There, Rolen held a press conference to explain why he opted for free agency questioning what he thought was the team's commitment to winning.

"Philadelphia is the [fourth-largest] market in the game, and I feel that for the last however long, the organization has not acted like it," Rolen said in February. "There's a lack of commitment to what I think is right."

Rolen pointed out that the Phillies, who entered the season with a payroll around $60 million that ranks in the bottom third of all Major League franchises, were notorious for allowing players of star quality walk away when their contracts are about to expire. It happened two seasons ago with Curt Schilling and he wasn't so sure it was going to stop now, he said.

"Part of my whole problem is that I look around and see Bobby Abreu, I see Pat Burrell, I see Doug Glanville and Mike Lieberthal and this is the core that's been talked about for three or four years," Rolen said then. "These are unbelievable ballplayers. But three years from now, when everybody becomes a free agent or arbitration-eligible and it's time to re-sign everybody, I want to turn around and see Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell and Doug Glanville and Mike Lieberthal. To me, what history shows, I will not be able to do that."

Not unless they are playing for the Cardinals.

What followed over the next six weeks were a few public discussions with Bowa and a miserable slump in May and June that turned his .284 April into a .240 average by the end of May. In June, an unnamed teammate reportedly called Rolen a "cancer" and that his status was a distraction to the team.

However, things haven't been all bad for Rolen this season. He started in his first-ever All-Star Game and is on pace to drive in over 100 runs for the second year in a row and third time of his career and belt 25 homers for the fifth season in a row.

But the constant circus around his future was starting to drain him, he told Gammons.

"I think I must have been asked more questions than the rest of the team combined," Rolen said. "It was crazy. In spring training, all the way back to the winter, it was that way. Before the All-Star break, I know I was a little down. I shouldn't have been, but having people leaning on both my shoulders all the time drained me.

"People would tell me that I needed to be more selfish, to play for numbers. But that's not the way I know how to play. I'm not good at playing for numbers, I'm not good at playing for myself. To go from last place to first is more than I ever could have dreamed."

The Future
Even with Polanco in the fold, Wade says the Phillies go into the offseason in a position they haven't been familiar with in almost a decade.

"We go into the offseason for the first time in nine years potentially looking for a third baseman," Wade said.

For now, Wade says his concern is to build for the future and not look into the past that saw superstars Curt Schilling and now Rolen leave amidst acrimony.

"I don't think we did anything to necessarily make the player unhappy,'' Wade said. "We're always trying to do things the right way. We're always trying to make our players comfortable. We're always trying to compensate them fairly. We're always trying to bring teammates around that they are comfortable playing with and gives us a better chance of winning.''

He certainly has given Rolen that chance now ... problem is, it isn't in Philadelphia.

E-mail John R. Finger

Who's at third? Not Polanco

Note: this was written a few innings before Placido Polanco was named MVP of the ALCS.

It’s always unfair to play the “what if” game, but it’s also part of the fun (or agony) of being a baseball fan. No, in this case it isn’t second-guessing or weighing your smarts against those of the manager or players, it pushing ahead the sands of time.

Imagine for a moment if Pat Gillick would have been the Phillies’ general manager during the 2005 season instead of Ed Wade. That was the year when Placido Polanco famously started at second base ahead of Chase Utley on opening day and garnered a bunch of starts – as well as late-inning defensive replacement duty – much to the chagrin to certain segments of the media and the fans.

I believed then as I believe now that Polanco ahead of Utley was the right move. Utley, as some of us recall, was still viewed as a raw free-swinging hitter who also needed work in the field.

That didn’t last too long though.

Polanco then, as he is now, is about as fundamentally sound a ballplayer there is. From a sheer, basic baseball-geek standpoint, Placido Polanco has to be your favorite player. He does everything right.

So imagine that Gillick is in control of the Phillies roster in 2005 when the team had Polanco, Utley and David Bell. Do you think the Phillies would still have Polanco if Gillick were in charge? Do you think Bell would have ended up in Milwaukee or some other baseball port-of-call sooner than July of 2006?

I do. I bet a lot of other people do to.

What if the Phillies had Polanco at third base instead of David Bell in 2005 and Abraham Nunez in 2006? Can you imagine a team with an infield of Polanco, Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard? Polanco in the No. 2 spot in the batting order, with just 43 strikeouts in his last 860-plus plate appearances?

Man… it’s just not fair.

Trust me here: Ed Wade was asked about all of this. So, too, was Charlie Manuel. For some reason they had a unbending loyalty to Bell as the third baseman. Maybe it was the $17 million they were paying him for four years to hit below .200 against righties in 2005? Whatever it was, the common answer we heard was that “Polly is a second baseman … ”

Or something like that.

Well, if that’s true, why has he only committed 15 errors in 322 games at third base during his career, including just a league-leading eight in 131 games during 2002? How come he played five games in left field when Pat Burrell was banged up during ’05?

What kind of pictures did David Bell have of the Phillies’ brass?

Ultimately, Polanco was sent to Detroit on June 8, 2005 for Ugueth Urbina. Since then, Polanco has hit .313 for the Tigers, not including the .412 in the ALDS or .529 in the ALCS with a key, two-out single to bring up Magglio Ordonez in the ninth inning.

All Ordonez did was smack the pennant-clinching homer to send the Tigers to the World Series.

Urbina, on the other hand, remains in a Venezuelan prison for an alleged Pulp Fiction re-enactment gone awry.

At the time, as I recall, many of the scribes hailed the trade as a good deal. The thinking was that since the Phillies weren’t going to use Polanco as an every day player, they might as well get something for him. There were a few others, however, who thought this logic was faulty. Why shouldn’t Polanco play every day in Philadelphia? The goal is to win and go to the playoffs, right? If so, keep Polanco and get rid of Bell.

Who cares if he’s a second baseman?