2010: The year of Roy, Lee and crazy endings

Note: For all intents, this will be the last installment for 2010 and as such we here at The Food would like to extend hearty December wishes to all our supporters, friends, colleagues and even the haters. All of these folks made 2010 a pretty interesting year and we’re hoping 2011 can be just as good. So for now, see you soon and be ready for some cool things to come, including the reemergence of The Podcast of Awesomeness in early January.

I don’t like end of the year lists. In fact, I loathe them. Yeah… loathe. It’s not a normal thing for people to dislike, especially one in the business of recounting things that already happened. Weird, right?

Maybe it’s something about the passage of time that gets some people like me down. Another year slips by, another year older, another missed chance. Or perhaps the veritable annual list is the refuge of the hack, kind of like the post-game or post-season report cards? List and report cards? Lame.

Thing is, I enjoy reading a list from time to time. When done well or uniquely, they can be fascinating. Chances are this won’t be one of them, but alas, I’m saving my ideas for something else.

So, without any more blathering on, here are some lists of a pretty remarkable year that is all but gone.

Best big-time performance nearly everyone forgot about

Roy Halladay vs. San Francisco in Game 5 of NLCS

Undoubtedly, 2010 was a pretty big year for Roy Halladay. In fact, Halladay also should be the top of a list for both elbowing a big event out of the way (perfect game in Miami on the same day as Game 1 of the Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals), while also being shoved out of the limelight (Donovan McNabb was traded to Washington the night before his debut with the Phillies in Washington). The fact is Halladay did everything for the Phillies except for a World Series victory, but we have to figure that the addition of Cliff Lee to the pitching rotation should remedy that.

It wasn’t as if Halladay had too many doubters in 2010, though a few warnings were issued, like my favorite delivered before the Halladay’s postseason debut: “Hey, he’s going to learn that the playoffs are much different than the regular season…”

Yeah, they’re easier. Halladay made his playoff debut with his second no-hitter of the season and just the second ever in postseason history.

But sometimes it really isn’t easy at all. For instance, Halladay did not have an easy time in the do-or-die Game 5 in San Francisco against Giants’ ace Tim Lincecum. Halladay suffered a groin injury during the second inning of the game—one that would have ended his night during the regular season—but persevered long enough to pitch the Phillies to victory. The injury came while attempting to put a little something extra on a pitch to Cody Ross, and hurt so badly that Halladay says he spent the time between innings jogging and riding a stationary bike so the groin would not further tighten and cramp.

So Halladay would pitch an inning then workout until it was time to pitch again. The catch-22 was that the legs are vital to a pitcher like Halladay, so not only was he keeping the cramps at bay, but also was tiring other muscles needed to pitch.

Instead, he labored through six innings, didn’t have the greatest command or velocity, yet still held the Giants to just two runs to beat Lincecum and save the season.

Afterwards, many players on the team said Halladay’s performance was more impressive than the no-hitter and perfect game.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” said Brad Lidge, who got the save in the game. “It’s not going to go down that way. But the guy was pitching on one wheel and he gave us six innings and left with the lead in a game we had to win or else. People won’t realize how great this was because there’s no statistic for it, but we, the guys in this clubhouse, do.”

Equally impressive was how Halladay shrugged it off after the game and even threw his hat into the ring as a possible reliever for a potential Game 7.

“I was going to try to find a way,” Halladay said. “I just hoped that way was going to be good enough and fortunately it was.”

Unfortunately there is no statistic or formula to measure what Halladay meant to the Phillies in that game.

Heroic performance that ended badly

Roy Oswalt in relief vs. San Francisco in Game 4 of NLCS

Who doesn’t love feats of strength? Who doesn’t get excited by extraordinary occurrences? In those regards, a pitcher working on short rest is always a time to sit up and take notice.

First of all, something had to happen to put a team in the position to use a pitcher without proper rest. Usually that thing isn’t good, and in this instance starter Roy Oswalt saw the way the pivotal Game 4 was unfolding and figured he had to do something. When he looked down the right-field line and saw Kyle Kendrick throwing warm-up pitches next to lefty Antonio Bastardo and Ryan Madson so quickly after Chad Durbin gave up the lead on the third hitter he faced, Oswalt probably didn’t feel too confident. Chances are Oswalt might have panicked when he saw Charlie Manuel’s options.

So when Madson went out to the mound to start his second inning of work in the eighth, Oswalt approached pitching coach Rich Dubee with a proposition…

Give me the ball.

Imagine what a legend Oswalt would have become if he would have survived the ninth, figured out a way to win the game, and then rode Halladay’s performance in Game 5 to a 3-2 advantage going back to Philadelphia. Backed by a masterful three-hitter over eight innings just two days prior, Oswalt could have been the catalyst to get the Phillies back into the World Series.

Instead, he was merely a footnote and a mark in the box score that indicates that he got two outs in the ninth inning of a loss. Oh, but it was nearly so much more.

Most disappointing way to end a season

Ryan Howard watching strike three go past with tying and winning runs on base

Yeah, it was the one moment that perfectly defined the Phillies in hitters in 2010. Though Ryan Howard batted a team best .318 in the NLCS, he struck out a record-breaking 12 times. Instead of a big hit like in the 2009 NLDS against Colorado in a similar situation, Howard watched the season end with the umpire waving his right hand in the air.

Oh, but every dark cloud has a silver lining. Knowing that the rapidly aging Phillies’ hitters are streaky and riddled with question marks, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. thought it was necessary to go out and get Cliff Lee.

Way to go, big fella.

Honorable mention

Patrick Kane’s goal in overtime of Game 6 that Michael Leighton still hasn’t seen or fished out of the net was particularly maddening, but not for the reasons one would think.

Though it ended the Flyers’ chances to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 35 years, and ruined an improbable comeback thanks to Scott Hartnell’s goal with 3:59 remaining in regulation, this one was especially sloppy because the Blackhawks had to wait for a review before they could properly celebrate. We knew it was a goal, but we had to wait…

And then Jeremy Roenick cried.

Best one-day performance in Philadelphia

Usain Bolt at the Penn Relays

Actually, this one could go down for the best performance nobody paid much attention to except for the 50,000 people packed into Franklin Field.

Certainly there many candidates for this one, like Roy Halladay and his no-hitters or Michael Vick’s recent spate of awesomeness, but when the fastest man ever to set foot on the planet comes to town and then runs faster than anyone has ever seen before… well, that’s beyond cool.

Usain Bolt, of course, is the 23-year-old Jamaican who destroyed the world records in the 100- and 200-meters at the Olympics in 2008 and the World Championships in 2009 in a manner that transcended mere athletics. In fact, Bolt’s electrifying efforts at those competitions motivated a even a few of the most jaded and experienced sports writers to describe the events as the most exciting and exhilarating they had ever seen.

Moreover, crusty old veteran track coaches have gone so far as to compare Bolt’s talent along the lines of those possessed by Einstein, Beethoven and Newton. Certainly those aren’t the usual names one hears an elite-level athlete compared to.

Still, the largest crowd in the 116-year history of the Penn Relays came to see one guy, and he competed for just 8.79 seconds in his anchor leg effort. Actually, Bolt’s personality and talent is so large in the sport, that Olympic gold medalists and champions of the sport lingered around the track just to catch a glimpse.

And then he did his “Lightning” pose.

“I was leadoff leg and I could actually hear, right next to me, the crowd screaming. I’ve been coming here for about 12 years now, and this was the loudest one. It was great,” said two-time world champion, Lisa Barber, who helped Team USA win the women’s 4x100-meters. “When Bolt was warming up, I couldn't hear my music anymore through my headphones. It's great that Usain is getting this much press. He’s getting so much recognition worldwide.”

Playing a team sport is one thing, but watching a guy run as fast as Bolt is stunning.

Actually, just seeing Bolt run might be the coolest and surreal thing in all of sports. Standing yards away from the finishing line on Saturday, Bolt moves past as if he were a runaway motorcycle and the breeze from his nearly 30-mph wake was enough to cool the crowd on a sun-soaked afternoon.

“I told the guys to make sure I didn't have to work, because I really didn't want to do much,” Bolt said. “I got the baton, so I wasn’t really worried about anything else.”

Worried? What could the fastest man in the history of the earth ever have to worry about?

Best example of being careful or someone will lose an eye

Ian Laperriere blocked shot vs. New Jersey in Game 5 of NHL playoffs

Interestingly, one of the best ways to remove blood from an article of clothing or fabric is with an ice cube. According to one of those helpful hints web sites, the ice will melt through the fabric and take the blood with it. However, blood stains on the ice require a little more elbow grease to come out. The trail of blood left behind by Ian Laperriere on his way to the Flyers’ dressing room took a stoppage of the game, the ice crew to skate out with tools to chip it away and then about 60 or 70 stitches to close up the cut right above his eye.

Who knew a piece of vulcanized rubber traveling approximately 100-mph could cause so much damage to a man’s face? Moreover, who knew a man would be so crazy enough to put his face in the way of something traveling so fast all because he felt it would be beneficial to his teammates?

Better yet, as soon as Laperriere realized he had not left his eye out on the ice and just needed a few dozen stitches, he boasted he would do the same thing over again if the situation arose.

“He would have been back on the bench if they could have gotten him stitched up in time,” Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said.

The best part about Laperriere stopping a puck with his eye to help the Flyers eliminate the Devils in the first round of the playoffs wasn’t all that blood. That was quite disturbing. No, what was cool was that Laperriere took his time to answer question from the press—even offering to “go outside” and fight with a writer—so soon after blood poured out of his face as if being released from a squeezie bottle.

“I do what I do and I don’t think twice about doing it,” Laperriere said. “The next game, if I get a chance to block a shot I’ll go down, because that’s what I do. The day I stop doing that, I’ll retire. Call me dumb, call me stupid, whatever. I block shots.”

He’s not lying. Earlier in the season, Laperriere took a puck to the face that opened up his mouth as if it were a piñata. In that case he needed more than 100 stitches to close the wound, and since it occurred early enough in the game, Laperriere was back on the ice by the third period.

Yes, he blocks shots.

Best game we will still be talking about next year

Eagles 38, Giants 31

Michael Vick, Desean Jackson and 28 points in eight minutes. Was it real or was it Tecmo Bowl?

The fact is the Eagles’ crazy comeback at the Meadowlands last Sunday was the best ending to a regular-season football game most of us will see. However, I must admit I am saddened that the Sept. 17, 1989 game in which the Eagles scored 21 in the final quarter to overcome a 20-point deficit at RFK Stadium.

Remember that one? That’s when Randall Cunningham threw for 447 yards with five TD passes and 12 catches for Keith Jackson. Jerome Brown, Reggie White, Wes Hopkins and the rest of the Gang Green defense was at its chaotic best even though Redskins’ running back Gerald Riggs ran for 221 yards.

Make that 221 yards offset by four fumbles and two interceptions by the greatest Philadelphia team to never win a championship.

Incidentally, the week after the comeback in Washington, the Eagles lost to the 49ers at the Vet when Joe Montana threw four TD passes in the fourth quarter. Ultimately, the Redskins got revenge when they beat the Eagles in a playoff game in Philly. The next day, Buddy Ryan was “fired for winning.”

Best trade

Donovan McNabb to Washington for draft picks in 2010 and 2011

The trade that brought Roy Halladay to Philly was pretty good. So too was the trade for Roy Oswalt, who turned out to be the Phillies’ best pitcher in August and September.

However, has there ever been a more impactful “addition by subtraction” deal than the McNabb trade? McNabb has been sent to the bench in Washington while his replacement, Michael Vick, looks to be the MVP of the NFL. How did that happen?

It’s funny to look back to last April when it all went down. Looking back on what was said the afternoon of the introductory press conference at Redskin Park in Ashburn, Va., the seasons for both teams turned out to be the exact opposite as predicted.

McNabb said he knew his days with the Eagles were numbered when Brian Dawkins was allowed to leave. Even though Andy Reid told anyone who would listen that he saw McNabb quarterbacking his team for the foreseeable future, McNabb knew otherwise. Reid was creating an oil slick on the surface to try and create a diversion of sorts.
 
“We knew it was going on from the beginning,” McNabb said about the trade talks by the Eagles.

“For you not to bring Brian Dawkins back, that (says) we're all replaceable," McNabb said. “I'm a part of it this year. They’re rebuilding, and they're going young. I never knew 33 was old, but I guess I'm old.” 

The Eagles rebuilding? At 10-4, they sure have a funny way of doing it.
 
Better yet, McNabb was telling us how much better it was going to be now that he was finally out of Philly.
 
“You guys from Philly don’t know much about the running game,” he said with one of those grins that makes it seem like a joke, but it’s really a dig. “We will run the ball here.”
 
Yeah, how did that work out?

The best parts were when McNabb copped the Mark McGwire act and said he didn’t want to talk about the past. Football is a team game with 11 men on each side and one man didn’t make a huge difference, McNabb said. But in the next breath he told us how great the Eagles became when they smartly took him with the No. 2 pick in the 1999 draft.
 
“I came to a team that was 3-13 and we went 5-11 (his rookie year) and then average nine of 10 wins a year and made it to five NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl, and not many teams can say that,” McNabb said. “Yes, we didn't win it, but it was a good ride. Every time the Eagles stepped on the field, everybody felt confident we could win that one, and I want to bring that here.” 
 
Or, more succinctly: you’re welcome, Eagles. It was me that made you guys look better.

He was never more right about that than this year. Funny how things play out.

Things that happened that we saw

• Gilbert Arenas fired his six-shooters for the last time of the 2009-10 season in Philadelphia last January. Before the game, Sixers’ coach Eddie Jordan actually said: "The impression I have him is he’s a heckuva three-point shooter, he drives to the basket and he hurt us a lot down there the last time we played them, and he’s an assassin on the floor—he’s a really good player and that’s what we have to prepare for," Jordan said.

  As he walked away, Jordan thought for a quick second and said to no one in particular.

  “I probably should have used another word than 'assassin.'”

• In February they had the Wing Bowl again for some reason. Snooki showed up and people had mass quantities of food.

• The beginning of March saw the end of the winter Olympics, highlighted by the gold-medal hockey game where Canada beat the U.S. Also during March, it was suggested that the Phillies were going to trade Ryan Howard to the Cardinals for Albert Pujols.

• Philadelphia jumped into Major League Soccer when the Philadelphia Union made their debut in April.

• In May, the Phillies could not score a run, a kid got tasered and Mike Meech went on a hunger strike. Floyd Landis also came clean about his past in professional cycling and outed Lance Armstrong as a PED user. This one is sure to heat up big time in 2011. Sadly, the great Robin Roberts died at age 83.

• Tiger Woods brought his golf tournament, as well as some of the best golfers in the world, to Aronimink in Newtown Square. The World Cup mesmerized everyone, and Stephen Strasburg made an incredible big league debut in Washington.

• Dom Brown made it to the Majors in July and hit a double in his first at-bat. The Phillies traded for Roy Oswalt and notorious Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner died.

• In August, Stephen Strasburg pitched his last game in Philadelphia before heading off to Tommy John surgery.

• Brad Lidge capped off a strong season in September, while the Phillies clinched their fourth straight division title and finished the season with the best record in baseball for the first time.

• In October, Jayson Werth played his last game for the Phillies, Roy Halladay threw another no-hitter, Cliff Lee dominated for a little while, and the Giants got to the World Series.

• November saw what is likely to be the end of Jamie Moyer’s career, the beginning of the destruction of the Spectrum and Halladay won the Cy Young Award. Meanwhile, the Giants won the World Series even though Pat Burrell was horrible, and baseball great Sparky Anderson died.

• December? We’ll let you figure that one out.

Howard, Utley have something to fall back on

Ryan Howard and Chase Utley just sat there in straight back chairs with bemused looks on their faces as they watched two drunks wrestle on the floor. Not until they paused to catch a breath with their dress shirts torn open, did the winning lines from the ballplayers help put a bow on the scene.

“I just saw you bite that dude,” Ryan Howard said while appearing as Ryan Howard in the program It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

That was followed by an invitation to wrestle from two of the main characters of the show, played by Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day, who were sprawled out on the floor at PSPCA benefit. Needless to say, charity events for animals have a tendency to get out of hand with grappling and/or fisticuffs popping up throughout a ballroom. It’s a serious business and some folks need to give until it hurts.

However, the invitation to Howard and Utley to join in the wrestling match because they were, “wasted,” was met with a witty rejoinder from the All-Star second baseman.

“No we’re not,” Utley said.

“No, we’re completely sober. But you guys drink a lot though,” Howard added.

“You guys drink more than anyone I’ve ever seen,” Utley finished before the ballplayers shrugged their shoulders and exited, stage right.

And to think, Utley was teammates with Vicente Padilla and has been known to work blue when delivering comeback wise cracks to fans in New York City or the home crowd when expressing delight in winning a World Series. For this occasion, Utley had to defer to the writers to craft his lines—you know, FCC guidelines and all. Plus, he seemed genuinely enthused and didn’t speak in clichés straight out of Bull Durham, unlike in situations with the press at his day job. On an everyday basis, Utley has the charisma of a toilet seat, or maybe he genuinely means that he wants to “stay within himself,” or “take them a day at a time.”

No sense getting ahead of yourself. It’s a long season.

Still, despite the star turn from the All-Star ballplayers, it was hardly the best thespian work by a Phillies player. Granted, it wasn’t bad and the scene in which the players play straight men for Howerton and Day was pretty darned funny. Who knows… it could open the door for more acting work. Howard seems to be branching out from commercials to situation comedies, which shows much more versatility than his work in baseball.

But when Howard paired with Jimmy Rollins for a short feature on the “Funny or Die” web site, the bar was raised pretty high. Here, take a look:

http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf

Certainly there are fewer limitations on the web than with regulated mediums like TV or the radio. For instance, there’s no way the censors would allow Howard to get away with that dance that mimics Prince. It’s just too funny and a big man shouldn’t have moves like that. It wasn’t quite as wacky as Shaq’s entrance with the Jabbawockeez before the All-Star Game a few years ago, but it’s up there. Then again, word on the street was Howard and his buddy Jared was going to use the same moves in a Subway commercial until Shaq beat them to it.

Our loss. A dance with the Jabbawockeez might be the best way for Howard to make up for the appearance on the HBO show Entourage. No, he wasn’t bad, but that show needs to have the plug pulled. Either that or have an episode where the Fonz goes water skiing in his leather jacket.

Of course Jimmy Rollins is no slouch, either. He might not be working with big stars like Jared or the gang from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but his work in an ad for the sporting goods franchise, Dick’s, is Emmy Award quality. That’s the award they give to TV commercials… right?

Interestingly, when it comes to TV commercials the Phillies doing the acting have delievered nothing short of Olivier quality work. If I recall correctly, Mike Schmidt did a commercial for 7-Up in the early 1980s. It was around that time when Steve Carlton hawked milk in a TV spot, which for many of us who never heard him speak because of his refusal to grant any interviews, was a landmark event. We finally heard Lefty talk and then for a while he wouldn’t stop and it was all we could do to seal up his bunker in Colorado to keep him quiet.

Of course Carlton still turns up for the reunion weekends at the ballpark where he usually sits with the broadcast crew for an inning or two where listening in it sounds as if the ol’ left hander is attending a baseball game for the very first time.

The biggest draw for advertisers was Pete Rose, who shilled for everything from Kool-Aid, Wheaties, Nestle Crunch, and Aqua Velva. Having had the chance to hang with Pete in Las Vegas, it seems as if he was given a lifetime supply of Aqua Velva as payment for doing the ads because one whiff made it seem as if he was trying to use it all at once.

But, you know… it’s Aqua Velva. That’s the good stuff.

A commercial and work in a sit-com are very different. Chances are Howard and Utley spent a long day hashing it out with the pros. There was a lot of improve and the script mostly served as a guideline and direction for the actors. It wasn’t just about standing in front of a camera and repeating lines as the guys told former child actor turned MLB.com writer, Todd Zolecki, last summer.

“I don't really see acting in my future,” Utley told Zolecki.

That’s not quite the case for Howard.

“It was cool,” Howard said to Zolecki. “Once again, it was stepping outside my realm and doing it to see how it would go. Doing 'Always Sunny,' especially doing it with Chase, who everybody knows isn't usually a talkative guy—he did a good job. We had a lot of fun doing it. We were over there just clowning the whole time. It's just something that was out of both of our elements.”

See, they have the modest actor patter down perfectly. Perhaps talking to the press about baseball games where pedantic answers are given as a default has helped with the acting.

Nevertheless, the guys still have some work to do if they want to top Scott Rolen’s performance on Saturday Night Live a little more than a decade ago.

Wait… you missed that one? Don’t worry, Rolen didn’t host it like Charles Barkley has twice. However, Rolen appeared in a sketch with about a dozen ballplayers, including Phillie Gregg Jefferies and Mike Sweeney, in which they magically appeared in the room of a little boy played by Chris Kattan. See, the kid had posters of baseball players on his wall and dreamed of playing in the majors until the guys showed up in his room and acted like a bunch of ballplayers.

They blasted music, swilled drinks, made untoward comments at the kid’s mom before it finally was tied together with the show-stopping line from Rolen…

“Hey, Griffey is naked on the lawn again!”

Rolen not only delivered the line flawlessly on national TV, but he did it on a show hosted by Oscar winner Helen Hunt in which Jack Nicholson made a cameo. Nope, he wasn’t working alongside some dudes in the local community theater troupe. Rolen was trading lines with Oscar winners.

But get this… a couple of years later I told Rolen that I saw his acting chops on the show much to his amusement.

“You know, I can get a Screen Actors Guild card for that,” he said.

“Really? Not bad. A lot of actors would kill to get a SAG card. Do you have it?”

“No. I’m not going to get it,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“What am I going to do with it?”

“Well, what if this baseball thing doesn’t work out. You might need something to fall back on.”

Yes, this conversation actually occurred. Someone should have been filming it.

... and Cliff Lee is ready to go in Game 1

Let’s just cut right to it…

The Phillies choked. They blew it. Worse, they choked and blew it with what might have been the best team ever assembled in franchise history—at least after Ruben Amaro Jr. traded for Roy Oswalt.

Yet the idea that the 2010 Phillies were as great as advertised doesn’t really matter anymore because the best team won’t be representing the National League in the World Series this year. Oh sure, the Giants deserve credit because they responded to every bit of gamesmanship and intimidation the Phillies threw at them. Between that phony, Pat Burrell, and Tim Lincecum shouting at Phillies’ players, and Jonathan Sanchez calling out Chase Utley, causing the benches to clear in Game 6, the Giants deserve some credit.

But let’s not give a team with Pat Burrell, Cody Ross and Aubrey Huff in the middle of the batting order too much credit. After all, the Phillies pitchers held them to a .249 average with just two different players hitting homers. The Phillies even outscored the Giants in the six games, 20-19. This was the same Giants that batted just .212 against the Braves in the NLDS. You know, the Braves that the Phillies manhandled during the regular season.

Frankly, it was a sickening display of offensive futility during the playoffs. They batted .212 against the Reds in the NLDS and .216 against the Giants. Sure, Lincecum, Sanchez and Matt Cain are solid pitchers. Lincecum is a bona fide star, in fact, and manager Bruce Bochy has enough versatility in the bullpen to match up, hitter by hitter, late in the game.

Oh yes, the Giants can pitch. In fact, they pitch very well. However, imagine how great a good pitching team will look against a bunch of hitters who were lost. How lost? Take a look at the schizophrenic postseason from Ryan Howard and compare it to his typical production.

It was just last season where Howard set the record for consecutive postseason games with an RBI and was named MVP of the NLCS. That was the postseason of, “Just get me to the plate, boys,” in Game 4 of the NLDS when the Rockies were just an out away from sending the series back to Philadelphia for a deciding Game 5. Moreover, 10 of Howard’s 15 postseason hits in 2009 went for extra-bases and the 17 RBIs in 15 games were one of the big reasons why the Phillies got back to the World Series.

This year Howard had good looking stats, batting .318, posting a .400 on-base percentage and a .500 slugging average. But Howard hit no home runs and got no RBIs. No, it’s not Howard’s fault that there were runners on base when he hit, but when there were men on base he struck out. Seven of Howard’s 12 strikeouts in the NLCS came with runners on base and five of those came with runners in scoring position.

Strikeouts only equal one out, sure, but there are productive outs where runners move up and fielders are forced to make plays. Considering that Howard had three three-strikeout games, including back-to-back triple Ks in Game 5 and 6, the heart of the Phillies’ order was punchless.

“If the production is there, you can tend to get away from strikeouts,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “But I feel especially after Ryan got hurt that he didn't find his swing. I feel like I know that he’s a better hitter than what we saw at the end of the year.”

The same goes for many of the Phillies’ hitters, especially Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley. Utley’s swing looked off most of the postseason as if it were difficult for him to complete it. The question many asked of Manuel was about the second baseman’s health, which is always an issue late in the season. However, straight answers never were offered and the assumption was Utley was properly healed from the thumb injury he suffered in June.

But the Phillies finished the season with the best record in baseball and closed the year by going 49-19. They had Halladay and Oswalt and Hamels lined up and all three lost in the playoffs. Sure, the Phillies pitched as well—maybe better—than the Giants, but that was it.

“I don't think we ever got our offense clicking,” Manuel said. “It always went up and down. We hit a hot streak, especially after Houston swept us earlier in the year. From that period on, we started winning a lot of games. But we weren't blowing people out and weren't really hitting like we can. It seemed like we never put up runs like I know we can.”

Maybe there was something to the injuries or maybe the preparedness. Even the victories in the postseason came in games where something extraordinary occurred. Halladay pitched a no-hitter in one and Hamels a five-hit shutout in another. In Game 2 of the NLDS the Phillies scored five unearned runs and in Game 2 of the NLCS, Oswalt pitched a three-hitter.

Finally, it came down to Halladay pitching six innings on a strained groin just to send the series back to Philadelphia.

But back home where the fans where waiting for hits that never came and runs that never circled the bases, all that was left was disappointment. The team with the best record in baseball fell to a team that batted Pat Burrell cleanup in a NLCS game... Pat Burrell?

When it finally came to an end it was Howard standing at the plate, watching as the third strike buzzed past just above his knees.

“Just get me to the plate, boys.”

“It's kind of a sucky way to end the game, a sucky way to end the year, you know, being that guy,” Howard said. “But I'll have to try and take that and use it as motivation and come back next year.

"I can't say what I want to say.”

No, he can’t, but there will be plenty of talk this winter about that last at-bat and the last series. Plain and simple, the Phillies blew it. Choked. The Phillies were the big bullies on the school yard and they got punched back and didn’t know what to do.

“I just don’t think any of us saw this happening,” closer Brad Lidge said. “I felt like we had the best team in baseball this year. It doesn’t always work out. Unfortunately, we just caught a team that seems to be doing everything right. They got the last hook in there. We just didn’t get our best game out there tonight. So shocked is a good word.”

Shocked like the rest of us that a team with hitters like the Giants could deliver more than the Phillies. Then again, the old, injured sage Jamie Moyer once played for a Seattle club that won 116 games, but lasted just six in the ALCS, To this day Seattle is only one of two franchises never to make it to the World Series.

“We had the best record in baseball, but when you get to the playoffs it really doesn’t mean anything,” Moyer said. “Everything starts just like it did in April. Everyone starts at zero. Now it’s about who is going to play the best, who is going to get the key hits and we fell short. …”

Cliff Lee will pitch in Game 1 of the World Series. Roy Halladay will not.

Werth, Howard know that experience matters

When Jayson Werth got home after last season’s World Series, he didn’t expect to feel the way he did. Sure, losing the World Series to the Yankees is never easy and it would seem that winning it all one year and then falling short in six games the next would temper some of the disappointment, but Werth says he was actually surprised at how emotional he felt.

Granted, Werth didn’t have any expectations of what losing the World Series is supposed to feel like, but when it actually happened it was like a punch in the jaw.

“Looking back I might be a little surprised about the emptiness, but it’s not like I’m sitting around and thinking about, ‘what if, what if,’” Werth explained. “We just have to get out there and start playing. It’s the stuff that comes after—the emotions.”

Perched at a table in a parking lot turned conference hall, Werth went over what he went through during the off-season and how that has shaped the team’s goals for this season and the playoffs. With Game 1 of the NLCS against the Giants set to begin on Saturday night at the Bank, Werth and the Phillies are getting closer to where they want to be, but know all too well how much work remains.

For some reason Werth and his teammate Ryan Howard understand that their experiences have hardened their focus on the current task. They are ready for anything and everything that comes their way. But mostly Werth wants to avoid that emptiness again.

“When I look back to last offseason, I got home and I had a sour taste in my mouth,” Werth said on Friday afternoon. “I definitely have always been the type of person who wants to win and hates to lose, so it probably started last winter. You take a few weeks off and you start to work out and everything hurts and you feel like you haven’t worked out in a couple of years, you slowly build up and you get to spring training and you get ready to go at it again, but the thoughts of all your accomplishments and non-accomplishments are very fresh.

“At the start of the year I definitely had a goal in mind and here we are many months later with a chance to see those goals through with a chance to succeed on the grand stage. It’s an exciting time, but at the same time your ability to focus goes way up and the end result is so near and so close—we’re not many games away. It has a lot to do with a lot of things. You wake up in the morning and you know why you’re going to the ballpark, you know why you’re out there practicing, and you have a sense of what’s going on maybe more than a lot of people realize.

“The old saying that we live for this, I guess it holds true.”

That’s where Werth and the Howard believe the Phillies have an advantage. Experience, especially playoff experience, cannot be measured. Sure, there have been some inexperienced teams that won the World Series, but those runs rarely last more than a season or two. And yes, some seasoned baseball men will tell you that experience rarely supersedes talent or luck, but in the same breath they will explain how it’s the greatest intangible.

The Phillies are loaded with experience. In fact, Werth, Howard, Shane Victorino, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Carlos Ruiz have started 35 straight playoff games together. They have been through it all… together.

Oh sure, the Giants have six players with World Series rings, including Edgar Renteria who ended Game 7 of the 1997 World Series with a walk-off single in the 12^th inning, and Pat Burrell whose long double set the table for the Phillies’ clinching victory in Game 5 of the 2008 World Series. But the Giants also have 16 players who are advancing past the first round for the very first time.

“Each year you learn a little bit more—you grow. Starting in 2007 we didn’t know what to expect so we were the new guys, but once we made it again in 2008 we knew what to expect,” Howard said. “We stayed focused and we knew what we wanted to accomplish. From 2008 to 2009, we wanted to do it again and we got there, but fell short.

“Now we’ve seen all the different aspects of it from just getting there, to getting there and getting on top, to getting there and coming up short.”

Losing to the Yankees last year after setting the record for most strikeouts in the history of the World Series bothers Howard. He doesn’t like talking about failure. Never did. Then again, most ballplayers are like that, which is why Werth describing his disappointment at losing last year is significant. When it all came to a close at Yankee Stadium last November, Werth, Howard and their teammates said all the right things. They built a convincing façade that hid the reality that the defeat stung as bad as it did.

Hell, word around the clubhouse after Game 6 was that Werth announced there were 100 days to spring training during the team’s final gathering for a post-game beer.

At the same time, the Phillies would trade that experience for anything. There’s something about calloused and hardened focus that can push a guy. As one Phillie likes to say, quoting a buddy in the Marines, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

Yes, experience matters.

“It helps. It definitely does. If you look back at 2007 when we first got into the playoffs we went up against a buzz saw team in the Rockies and we didn’t fare too well. I think experience had something to do with that,” Werth said. “The next year we go to Milwaukee and the first game there—that first night in Milwaukee—it was louder than any place I’ve ever been and it affected us. We were shell shocked a little bit and we lost that game and then the next night we came out and it was just as loud, and it had no affect on us.

“We’re in our fourth year of the postseason now and there’s definitely something to be said for postseason experiences and all that going forward.”

Said Howard: “Being there. Being in those situations from before. We don’t panic. We’ve been in these situations before so we’re not going to panic. We’ve been up, we’ve been down and had to come back. We’ve seen it all.”

That’s what the Phillies are clinging to. Even going up against Tim Lincecum, who threw a magnificent, two-hit, 14-strikeout shutout against the Braves in his playoff debut hasn’t fazed the Phillies. They know Lincecum and respect him.

But then again every pitcher this time of the year is dangerous. All of them. The Dodgers were supposed to have the pitching staff and deep bullpen that was going to outlast the Phillies in 2008 and 2009, but it just didn’t happen that way. Both times the Phillies won in five games.

“We’ve seen him quite a bit. We know what he’s featuring and what to expect,” Werth said about Lincecum, but then again...

“We’ve seen some pretty good pitching over the years,” he added. “When you get to this level they’re all pretty good. We’ve been here before and with the experience we’ve had it definitely helped us along the way.”

A veteran and tested playoff club, the Phillies can’t wait to get started. They want to get back to work.

“I’m feeling good, I’m feeling alright. I’m excited for tomorrow night,” Howard said.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to rhyme. That was my Muhammad Ali moment.”

The 2010 Phillies: The greatest team that nearly wasn't

WASHINGTON — Although the Phillies have done nothing more than guarantee three more games on the schedule, there is already a buzz whether the 2010 team is the best in club history. With 94 wins and a chance to be the first National League team since the 1942-44 Cardinals to make it to the World Series three years in a row, the Phillies aren’t flirting with just franchise greatness… this is all-time stuff.

Of course the hyperbole alarm sounds whenever anyone puts out the “best ever” line, and even in this case the players are leery of celebrating anything more than what has already been accomplished. In fact, Jimmy Rollins said for this Phillies team to be considered great they have to win the World Series.

However, in the same breath Rollins says the 2010 team is the best he’s ever played on.

“Definitely. We’re better all around—less question marks. Not that question marks ever bothered us because we like to prove skeptics wrong, but coming into this year there were only one or two things people were iffy about,” Rollins said. “Then we had a great acquisition in little Roy [Oswalt] and that took the pressure off of Cole [Hamels], and then Roy [Halladay] took the pressure off of everybody. He just came in and shut the door. Lights out.”

The weird part is general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. says there were internal discussions with the team’s brass over whether or not it was time to cut bait. Struggling to score runs during an extended stretch in July where the Phillies lost three out of four in Pittsburgh and Chicago, Amaro said the idea of trading some of the integral pieces to the fourth straight NL East title had been broached.

“There was some concern that maybe guys were getting older, less productive,” Amaro said. “If you look up and down our lineup, I don’t know if there is any guy, other than maybe Carlos Ruiz, who is having a career year. We talked about this internally and yet we still are creeping up on 95 wins, which is amazing to me. I would have been the first to be able to tell you that I didn’t think we were going to get to 90 wins when we were right around the middle of July. So for us to kind of turn on the way we’ve turned it on, is even surprising to me. 

“What’s great about this is that, one, we really haven’t had the kind of production that we typically would have from even the guys in the middle [of the lineup]. Chase Utley hasn’t had his typical year. Ryan Howard hasn’t had his typical year. Jimmy Rollins obviously hasn’t had a great year, he’s had injury issues and such. We’ve got a lot of down production from a lot of guys and hopefully they can turn it on and come up with some offensive production as we get into the postseason.”

So call it the great break up that wasn’t. Following the team’s fourth straight loss and sixth in seven games to send its record to 48-46, the Phillies won eight in a row and 13 out of the next 15 games. They also made a deal to add Roy Oswalt to the rotation and became even more fearsome.

From that low point of 48-46 and seven games out in the NL East, the Phillies have gone 46-17 and six games up and winning games at a .730 clip. There was a game after a Friday afternoon loss in Chicago where Manuel sat at his desk in the cramped office and went over the math in his head while wondering aloud if his team could get it together. Less than a week later, hitting coach Milt Thompson was fired then, for whatever reason, the Phillies began winning at a rate that exceeded the more modest numbers Manuel charted in his head.

Yet paced by pitching with the hitters beginning to find their way, the Phillies are peaking at the right time. Still, the team knows that none of it matters unless they go the whole way. The great lesson learned during the current run is winning has a way of changing the way people look at things.

For history to judge the Phillies most favorably, they have to win.

After all, does anyone remember much about the Oakland teams that went to the postseason in four straight seasons but never made it past the ALDS? How about the Indians of the 1990s that made it the playoffs for five seasons in a row and the World Series twice, but never wore the ring?

Of course there are also the Braves that dominated divisional play for 14 years in a row, but have just one title—against the Indians in ’95—to show for it.

Going back a bit, the Orioles made it to the World Series three years in a row (1969, 1970, 1971), but won it once. The same thing happened with Oakland in 1988, 1989 and 1990. Those teams are remembered as dynasties that might have been had it been able to finish the deal.

Are the Phillies worried about how history might judge them?

“You play this game to try and win championships and that’s our focus,” Howard said. “We stay focused on the task at hand and let you guys tell us where it fits into the history books. That will sort itself out.”

Like Howard, Rollins isn’t ready for reflection. Just winning.

“I haven’t thought about it like that, but it’s something I’ll go through when it’s all said and done,” Rollins said. “It’s hard to do. Everything has to go your way, you have to have a good team, you have to have great pitching, you have to have timely hitting, you have to have guys who are having career years who are coming together where things are going your way. You don’t think too far into the future. You just try and blaze your own trail right now. And when the light is out, then you look back.”

Howard and Utley bring the chicken soup

Who doesn’t like a little baseball wisdom?

All it takes is one…

Take two and hit it to the opposite field…

The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers…

Oh yes, the three-run homer. Is there anything it can’t cure? It’s like penicillin or chicken soup, and oftentimes it just takes one to make everything feel better. Knowing how troubled the Phillies’ offense has been this season, it seemed as if a little three-run homer for the soul is exactly what the team needed.

Actually, if it were Ryan Howard to provide some of the medicine, even better.

Ryan Howard and home runs have kind of been strangers lately. In fact, Howard hadn’t hit a homer since July 27, a span of 13 games. Add in the 16 games he missed because of his injured ankle, and it seemed like forever since The Big Piece hit a homer. Worse, the homer drought was sort of a microcosm of his post-DL production. Going just 4-for-36 with no extra-base hits, one RBI and 16 strikeouts was just as ugly to watch as it was to read.

“You see it. If you watch the games you can see I’m not comfortable in the box. I’m just trying to get it back, get a good pitch to hit and go from there,” Howard said last week. “It’s tough when you’re on the DL and you get out of that rhythm it’s kind of like going back to spring training all over again.”

Apparently, the problem was nothing more than finding that rhythm. Knowing that Howard and Chase Utley were like bombs waiting to explode, manager Charlie Manuel may have put his guys back into the lineup sooner than he should have. But that’s the thing about explosives—there’s a lot of patience involved. You have to wait for the reward. Obviously, Manuel was willing to put up with the bad in order to get to the good.

“We wanted them back, but the people who saw them play [said they were ready] and they wanted them to come back,” Manuel said. “If we would have left them down there longer and let them get a few at-bats, yeah, they would have benefited from it. But where we were at, we wanted them back when they were healthy.”

Clearly it has to be a little more than a coincidence that the Phillies scored eight runs in a game where Howard belted a three-run homer. Truth is the Phillies hadn’t scored more than eight runs in a game in two weeks until The Big Piece hit his three-run bomb to left-center field on Tuesday night. Better yet, Howard’s homer was followed by a long double in Wednesday’s finale and five more runs to take two out of three against the Dodgers.

“I wasn’t happy about hitting a home run,” Howard said. “I was just happy to get a hit.”

Looking for something to highlight for the moment when the Phillies got it going? It just might turn out to be the Aug. 31 game at Dodger Stadium where Howard hit that three-run homer. In the two winning games against the Dodgers, the Phillies scored 13 runs which is nearly as many as they scored in the six previous games.

Howard hit the long ones and Utley… well, he just hit. Certainly that was a welcomed change considering the other big bat in the middle of the order went 5-for-9 in the two games against the Dodgers with three doubles in Wednesday’s finale. A 5-for-9 offsets a 2-for-21 jag pretty nicely.

“When we’re clicking it seems like everyone wants to hit with him,” Manuel said. “Like if Howard and Utley are hitting, everyone else does too. They want to be along with it.”

The good part about that is it’s time to hit. The Phillies have been winning games despite their offense. It’s almost as if the pitching staff has decided to carry the load alone since there has been so little help from the hitters.

Howard is a monster in September. In exactly a season’s worth of September games—162 in the month during his career—heading into Wednesday’s tilt, Howard has clubbed 52 homers and picked up 141 RBIs to go with a .314 batting average. When other plays slow down as the season dwindles, the big man heats up. With the benefit of 16 extra days off, Howard should be quite ready if he has his mojo working.

And maybe that will be the tonic for Utley, too. Notoriously a slow finisher, partially because he has played through injuries, Utley has the benefit of 46 games off. Time spent on the disabled list should rejuvenate Utley down the stretch for a change, which was the silver lining when the injuries hit.

So now that the offense is hitting back, it’s just a matter of the Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt maintaining to the finish line. Oh yes, that’s the first part of the perfect remedy. If the three-run homer is the chicken soup, the pitching is what ties it together.

The chicken soup might make the Phillies feel better, but they can’t survive without H2O.

George Brett's 'freak-out' still sets the standard

As far as angry moments go, Ryan Howard was right up there last week when he was thrown out of a game by minor-league substitute umpire Scott Barry during the 14th inning of the Phillies’ loss to the Astros at Citizens Bank Park. In fact, just the sight of the 6-foot-4, 250-pound slugger running out onto the infield to confront Barry and his bad call is one that will be etched into some folks’ minds forever.

Think about it… Howard is as laidback and affable as they come. He’s living the good life and appreciates it. He likes to laugh and have fun and hit baseballs really, really far. What’s not to be happy about that?

But even the nicest guys can only be pushed so far. Barry blew the check-swing third strike call and then exacerbated the situation by tossing Howard out of the game for nothing more than displaying emotion. The ump did the same thing a few days before when he threw out the Nats’ Ryan Zimmerman from a game for being upset at himself for striking out. Get this—Zimmerman swung at a pitch, missed and was angry with himself so he chucked his bat and helmet. To Barry, apparently, this is a major offense.

But we never heard Barry’s side of things. We also never heard from umpire Greg Gibson, who made an undecipherable call against the Phillies in the opening game of the series, which directly lead to the Astros’ game-winning runs. If that wasn’t frustrating enough, the acting crew chief Sam Holbrook claimed there was a rule from Major League Baseball that prohibited the umps from speaking with the press.

Or maybe they just didn’t want to be held accountable. Clearly Jim Joyce, the umpire who blew the call in Armando Galarraga’s near perfect game in May, missed that memo.

Obviously there were times in the past where the umpire talked about a specific call in a game. However, upon looking back at one of baseball’s most famous incidents where a player ran to an umpire to confront him, curiously, there are no post-game comments from the game officials.

Oh yes, I’m talking about the Pine-Tar Game.

Remember that one? At Yankee Stadium on July 24, 1983, George Brett hit what appeared to be the go-ahead home run off the Yankees’ Goose Gossage with two outs in the ninth inning. However, citing a rule that was mostly used during the Deadball Era, Brett was called out because his bat had too much pine tar on it. When umpire Tim McClelland signaled that Brett was out, one of the all-time greatest freak outs in the history of sports occurred. Brett stormed out of the dugout with arms flailing and mouth running before being restrained just as he reached McClelland.

Here’s how it looked:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXPLw_m5MQ&w=480&h=385]

In the moment, McClelland’s call was correct because according to the way the rule was written (Rule 1.10b), a player cannot use a bat with a foreign substance more than 18 inches from the handle. However, as interpreted by American League president Lee MacPhail, the rule was put into the books because pine tar ruined baseballs at a time when they still retrieved them when they landed in the stands. In 1983, the pine-tar rule was antiquated almost the way certain laws to translate to modern times.

Nevertheless, it was tough to find any comments from McClelland about the incident in the direct aftermath or in the decades to follow. However, in a report from The New York Times on the 25th anniversary of the incident, McClelland was disappointed that the call was overturned.

“We’ve got to rule on the letter of the law, and the letter said that we should call him out,” McClelland said. “But if I’d have gone to Billy Martin and said, ‘Hey Billy, you’re right by the rules, but come on’ — who knows what Billy would have done?”

“When the rule was originally made, it was actually for the protection of the hitter, because if the pine tar would get on the ball, then the pitcher could grip the ball better and snap off curves and stuff like that,” McClelland said. “So, really, it’s kind of funny how the rule was made for the protection of the hitter, but the penalty was on the hitter.”

Long known for his unemotional demeanor, his slow and deliberate strike calls as well as a bunch of really poor calls, i.e. Matt Holliday scoring the winning run in the NL West tiebreaker in 2007 and the play in the 2009 ALCS where Nick Swisher was called out for leaving a base too early which came before the negated double play where two Yankees’ players arrived at third base at the same time and were tagged while not standing on the base.

McClelland spoke to the media after those calls, but not after the Pine-Tar game. As a rookie ump, crew chief Joe Brinkman handled the media, which is the common protocol. However, in Philadelphia when requests for comment were made to Gibson and Barry, those requests were denied.

Regardless, it’s tough to compare Brett’s freak out with Howard’s slow dash through the infield. Sure, having Howard angry with you is probably scarier than George Brett, and there was plenty of pointing, gesturing and the always dramatic, hold-me-back posturing, but it didn’t quite grab hold the same way. Perhaps in 1983 we weren’t used to seeing ballplayers charge after the umps. Maybe we’ve built up immunity to that kind of stuff with the proliferation of media. Needless to say, the scribes in the press box didn’t have Twitter to report the action as it unfolded in 1983, while Barry’s overreaction was well documented in the moment.

So maybe that’s why it was downplayed a bit nationally. Howard’s ejection was barely mentioned by The Associated Press or by the Houston media. Apparently it wasn’t a big deal…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhAyORKGUe4&w=640&h=385]

Meanwhile, Howard had a conversation with Barry last Thursday when they were both working at first base. Barry, of course, couldn’t be reached for comment, and Howard only confirmed that he spoke to the ump.

At least for now, Howard wants to forget about the incident.

I've seen him mad before," manager Charlie Manuel said, "but never like that."

Brett, however, never stopped talking about his place in one of the more peculiar games ever played. In fact, a couple of years ago Brett said he gathers up his family and they sit down to watch daddy’s little freak out.

“I probably watch it at least once a year with my boys," Brett said during the 25th anniversary of the game. “They just want to watch the aftermath of when the umpire threw me out.”

Better yet, Brett said the Pint-Tar game helped people forget that he had hemorrhoid problems during the 1980 World Series against the Phillies. Because of that Brett went from being the hemorrhoid guy to the pine-tar man.

“Actually, when I ran out of the dugout I had no idea I looked like that. When I saw my reaction I said, ‘You've got to be (kidding) me,’ Brett remembered during the 25th anniversary. “That's the one at-bat you're remembered for and it was an at-bat in July. I never thought it would be that big a deal. Only in New York.”

So that’s what it was… maybe it would have been a bigger deal that Howard was ejected had it been a game against the Mets?

Brown making his way in a familiar manner

It was after the third inning of a Sunday afternoon game at The Vet on Sept. 17, 2000 when it was painfully obvious that Jimmy Rollins was never going to spend a minute in the minor leagues again. Only 21 that afternoon, Rollins hit a triple to lead off the inning for his first hit, but didn’t move too far from the bag afterwards as Bobby Abreu, Pat Burrell and Travis Lee struck out in order to end the inning.

But the point was made. Rollins was a big leaguer. No longer did he have to defer to the likes of Desi Relaford, Tomas Perez and Alex Arias because he needed to spend time at Triple-A so he could get the chance to play every day. All Terry Francona—and then Larry Bowa—had to do was write his name in the lineup and let him go.

Actually, the third-inning triple was just for show. Rollins walked into the old clubhouse ready to go. There was no sense denying it any more.

Just about 10 years later, Rollins snuck a peak over at rookie Dom Brown as he fished through his locker for his batting practice gear, and was asked the same question. He’d sign his name on a bat, glance over at the 6-foot-6 outfielder, and then smile mischievously remembering what it was like back when he was trying to elbow his way into the big-league lineup for good.

“You’ll have to ask Ruben that,” Rollins said with a knowing smile when asked if Brown will ever have to go back to the minors to be a regular player.

In other words, the answer was no. Rollins didn’t say it because he didn’t need to. If the Phillies wanted to send Brown back to the minors for more seasoning, they had plenty of chances to do it by now.

So let’s ask the general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. about Brown’s immediate future.

“It would have been nice [to get Brown more playing time], but right now we’re trying to win as many games as we can and he has the ability to do some things that even if he’s not playing every day to help us,” Amaro explained. “He has the ability to run the bases and hit with some power from the left side as we’ve seen. He gives us the chance to have the best club out there.”

Certainly Brown is in a position Rollins never went through. When he came up from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to play shortstop he didn’t have to look over his shoulder or wait his turn. From Sept. 17, 2000 to today, Rollins has been the Phillies shortstop without question. In fact, there stands a good chance that the team will offer Rollins a contract extension simply because there is no one in the minors breathing down his neck. Plus, even though Rollins is the longest-tenured Phillie, it’s not like he’s old or getting old. He’s coming into his prime athletic years right now with contract that ends after the 2011 season.

“I’m only 31,” Rollins said. “And the only reason I’ve been here the longest is because Pat (Burrell) left. You have to give those guys credit for drafting guys, bringing them along and keeping them together.”

In other words, Rollins wants to stick around for a while. And who knows? Maybe if the right deal is struck Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels very well could spend their entire careers playing for just one team. Needless to say, in the free agency era players tend to bounce from team to team a lot so if the Phillies are able to keep their main guys together. It says a lot about the guys running the club and the players, too.

A few lockers down, the next great Phillie quietly prepared for a game where he might only get in to pinch hit. Interestingly, Brown has been called on to pinch hit as many times (9) as Rollins has since 2006. Chalk that up to an experience Brown will have when he is a veteran that guys like Rollins, Howard and Utley don’t know all that well.

Where they all have common ground is in the waiting. Like Brown and Rollins, Utley and Howard had to wait in line to get into the big leagues, too. For Rollins it simply was a matter of seasoning since it’s likely he could have skipped the 2000 season at Triple-A and hit .221 like Arias, Relaford and Perez combined for that year. But unlike those guys, Brown is attempting to establish himself on a team that went to the World Series for two straight years. Rollins joined a Phillies team that was on the way to 97 losses and replacing the manager. That’s about as different a situation as one can get.

In other words, it was a good idea for Rollins to spend the season playing for a team that went to the championship round of the playoffs. Just like it’s a good idea for Brown to take the ride with the two-time defending National League champs instead of dominating for a Triple-A club playing out the string.

Brown definitely will learn more in the big leagues than he would in Allentown for the rest of the season.

In the meantime, Brown will wait for his chance just like the other big guns on the team had to do. Of course before he realizes, he’ll blink and will be 10 years into his major league career just like Rollins.

“It feels like it was just yesterday,” Rollins said about that sunny Sunday in September of 2000 when he hit that first triple.

It always feels that way. No matter what.

Does Charlie have Phillies on the right pace?

From the way Charlie Manuel explains it, he’s an organic kind of guy. In baseball there is a natural ebb and flow of things that Charlie doesn’t like to mess with. With its rhythms and whatnot, a baseball season unfolds a certain way for a reason so when there is anomaly that pops up, Charlie rarely bats an eye.

For instance, if a player comes out of the gate hitting everything in sight and posting huge numbers, Charlie doesn’t get too excited. Just wait, he says, everything will even out as long as nature is allowed to work its course. After all, it would be silly to sprint the first mile of a marathon with 25 miles left.

Pace yourself.

So with Shane Victorino back with the team after going 6-for-8 with a homer, triple and four RBIs in two Triple-A rehab games, and Chase Utley cleared to resume his hitting drills while Ryan Howard was back to taking grounders, don’t get too crazy with excitement yet. Charlie says there will be a period where the players will have to knock off some rust.

It won’t be the players’ fitness or skills that will be the issue, the skipper says. It will be the hitters’ timing. As Charlie explains, it often takes a player more time to recover his timing at the plate and his in-game conditioning. Sometimes just gripping a bat feels a bit weird even though the hits could be dropping in. As a result, a late-season injury to guys like Howard, Utley or Victorino might not be the boon logic would dictate.

On the plus side, the Phillies will have some depth.

“I feel like when we get everybody healthy our bench definitely should be as strong as it’s been all year,” Charlie said. “Without a doubt.”

That’s the only doubt Manuel doesn’t have. Otherwise he’s full of them. Baseball managers always are—even successful ones like Big Chuck. Truth is, calling them “managers” is a misnomer this time of year considering there is very little they get to manage at all. With the Phillies it has been about the injuries as well as some inexplicable ineffectiveness with the bullpen. Sure, Brad Lidge appears to have it together despite a bit of a dip in the velocity of his fastball, but the club’s lone lefty, J.C. Romero, is dealing with some strange “slow hand” phenomenon.

“My hand was slow,” Romero explained after a rough outing on Tuesday night against the Dodgers. “Not my arm. My arm got there. My hand was slow.”

Wait… aren’t they connected?

“I still, to a certain extent, don't understand what the problem is,” Charlie said about his lonely lefty. “We have to find out about it.”

See what were saying about “managing?” How can anyone have a say over a guy whose arm is moving faster than his hand? Perhaps it could be Romero’s mouth is working faster than his brain in this instance?

But don’t think for a minute Charlie would trade his injuries for the one Braves’ skipper Bobby Cox is dealing with, or for the craziness Mets’ manager Jerry Manuel has going on with his closer. After all, Victorino can go out there and play tonight while Utley and Howard should be back before the end of the month. Actually, the toughest decision Manuel has looming is whether or not to keep top hitting prospect Dom Brown in the majors or send him back to Triple-A for the final week(s) of the International League season.

Certainly there are some big issues concerning the Phillies, like what they are going to be able to do about the left-handed reliever problem. For now, we’ll just have to pretend that Ryan Madson is a lefty and hope he continues to strikeout left-handed hitters at a rate of 25 percent per at-bat. The righty handled two of the Dodgers’ toughest lefties in the eighth inning of a close game on Wednesday night and might find himself pushed into more righty-on-lefty action as long as Romero’s left hand continues to belabor the pace.

Still, no one with the Phillies was called down to the precinct house in order to post bail for the closer early Thursday morning. According to published reports, the Mets’ All-Star closer Francisco Rodriguez cursed at reporters before allegedly walking to another portion of the clubhouse where he was accused of committing third-degree assault on his 53-year-old father-in-law. The 53-year old went off to the hospital, while K-Rod was arraigned and released on $5,000 bail on Thursday.

With the rival Phillies headed for Queens this weekend, K-Rod likely will be serving a team-issued suspension. Meanwhile, ace lefty Johan Santana has been sued for rape by a Florida woman after authorities declined to prosecute.

In comparison, Charlie will take those injuries.

But certainly not the one that appears to cost Braves’ future Hall-of-Famer Chipper Jones the rest of the season. It came out Thursday that Jones tore the ACL in his left knee and likely will have season-ending surgery. If that’s the case, the first-place Braves will go into the final month of the season without their best hitter, who just so happens to be a Phillie killer, while hoping the aches and pains suffered by All-Stars Jason Heyward and Martin Prado relent enough so they can carry the load.

“When you think of the Atlanta Braves, the first guy you think of is Chipper Jones,” Braves’ GM Frank Wren told the Associated Press. “His presence in our lineup has been increasing based on his performance the last couple of months. He was a force. So, yeah, we're losing a lot.”

So put this way, the Phillies might be coming together just in time. Considering spring training lasts approximately six weeks, Charlie’s boys ought to be running at full steam in time for the last week of the season.

Talk about perfect timing.

Missing the Big Piece could cause big problems

So far the Phillies have done OK without slugger Ryan Howard. Of course it’s been just one game, but Ben Francisco and Carlos Ruiz popped homers and piled up seven hits on Tuesday night in Miami. That’s good because if the Phillies are going to survive the spate of injuries plaguing the team, guys like Ruiz, Francisco and new cleanup hitter, Jayson Werth, are going to have to deliver.

Because teams with injury problems like the Phillies don’t win otherwise.

Yeah, there have been a few teams in recent history that lost its top slugger during the regular season and were able to keep it together to get to the World Series. For instance, the Yankees played the first 28 games of 2009 without Alex Rodriguez, which would have been a crippling loss, if the team didn’t have guys like Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira ready to pick up the slack.

In 2007, Manny Ramirez missed 24 games in September for the Red Sox and hit his final homer of the regular season on Aug. 28. But when the playoffs started, Ramirez was back in the lineup and batted .400 with four homers through the first two rounds of the playoffs.

It also didn’t hurt that the Red Sox had David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis and American League rookie of the year, Dustin Pedroia. The Sox were so stacked that they traded Ramirez to the Dodgers midway through the 2008 season.

There’s always a fallback slugger, like in 1990 when Eric Davis missed 23 games in May and the last week of the regular season, but was ready to go in the playoffs when Reds’ teammates Paul O’Neil, Chris Sabo and Mariano Duncan stepped up. Davis was the best player on the Reds in 1990, but registered a 2.6 Wins over replacement (WAR) because guys like Billy Hatcher and Glenn Braggs kept the machine running.

Ah yes, running. That’s one way to combat a power deficiency. That’s how the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals made up for losing Jack Clark for 34 games in September and October. Considering that Clark banged out 22 homers in 122 games, which was exactly two more than the combined total of the six players on the team that played 100 games that year, his loss was significant.

Nevertheless, the Cardinals won 101 games and made it to the seventh game of the World Series (they actually won it in six games, but Don Denkinger… you know) partially because they swiped 314 bases—110 from Vince Coleman—and had a .335 on-base percentage as a team. Tommy Herr led the team with 110 RBIs even though he hit just eight homers. Willie McGee drove in 82 runs with just 10 homers and 18 triples to capture the NL MVP Award.

The strangest stat from the 1987 Cardinals is that they won 101 games with two pitchers that won 21 games with five players getting at least 30 stolen bases. Herr and Ozzie Smith swiped 31 bags in ’85, which would have led the Phillies in 2009 and been the fourth-best in the National League.

Yes, the game has changed.

But speed, as they say, kills, and it’s a weapon the Phillies used to their advantage to get to the World Series the past two seasons by swiping bags at a better than 80 percent clip. However, the running game for the Phillies has been grounded a bit, too. Shane Victorino leads the club with 20 steals, but he’s out for another few weeks with an abdominal injury. Jimmy Rollins hasn’t been caught stealing all season and has the second-most steals in franchise history in the modern era. But between the calf injury that led to a pair of DL stints and a sore foot that ballooned after getting smashed by a foul ball, Rollins has simply trying to hold it together.

So the Phillies are missing their speed and power as we head into the throes of August. And if that isn’t enough, Chase Utley is still days away from simply gripping a bat after he ripped the ligament on his right thumb. Over 162 games, Howard and Utley average nearly 80 homers per season, which is seven fewer than what the 1985 Cardinals hit all season.

What can the Phillies do if they can’t bash and run past the opposition? Werth, the darling of the SABR set, is streaky at best and followed a two-doubles effort in Washington with four strikeouts against the Marlins. There’s Rollins and Placido Polanco, but those guys are still recovering from stints on the disabled list. Raul Ibanez is starting to swing the bat, and catcher Carlos Ruiz is putting together his best season offensively. Also, Dom Brown is holding down a spot in the heart of the lineup, but is it fair to ask a rookie to keep the team together until the big guns start to trickle back?

So what do they do without Howard, a player that has dominated Septembers past?

How about pitching and defense?

Good thing the Phillies have the Roys and Cole, huh? Now if they can just close out some games they’ll be OK… maybe.

Sign of respect

WASHINGTON — Shane Victorino was incredulous when he saw the clubhouse attendants at Nationals Park walking to the locker to the right of his holding a couple of baseballs to be signed. The Phillies’ centerfielder just couldn’t get past it.

“I’ve been here for four years and never been asked to sign anything,” Victorino yelled in mock indignation. “He’s been here for one day and he’s already signing.”

It’s a common rite in baseball circles, actually. One player on an opposing team gives a shiny, new baseball to a clubbie and sends him over to the other clubhouse to have it signed by a certain player. Players love signed those baseballs, too. It’s like a great sign of respect if a peer asks for an autograph (without actually asking), usually reserved for the big-time players. Word is Cal Ripken used to make special time just to sign items from the other team, and I once saw Red Sox old-time legend Johnny Pesky exhilarated by the fact that Jim Thome had sent two baseballs to have signed a few years back at Fenway.

“Are you joking with me,” Pesky said, amazed that Thome wanted the balls signed. “Jim Thome wants me to sign these?”

This time it was a player on the Nationals who sent Victorino into a faux tizzy for asking Dom Brown to sign a baseball. After all, to that point Victorino had played in 775 career games including the playoffs and All-Star Game, while Brown had been in just three games with just two starts.

Here was a kid, just 22 and drafted in the 20^th round from Stone Mountain, Ga. because scouts thought he was going to go play wide receiver for the University of Miami, signing autographs for other major leaguers. Moreover, when Brown entered the clubhouse at Nationals Park on his first road trip as a big leaguer, a guy with a rookie of the year award, an MVP, and four of the top most prolific home run-hitting seasons in franchise history, was the first to greet him.

“Hello, Mr. Brown,” Ryan Howard said.

Mister Brown?

So much for the rookie hazing.

Then again, the Phillies organization isn’t treating Brown like a typical rookie. No one is expecting the team’s untouchable prospect to just blend in to the background, with his eyes open and mouth shut. Instead, because of the injuries to nearly every starter this season, Brown is going to be treated like a 22-year old rookie in his first trip to the big leagues.

Nope… Instead, the Phillies are going to treat Brown like a major leaguer.

Actually, there aren’t too many major leaguers that had to have a press conference before his first game and then another for the TV audience as he jogged off the field after he got two hits in his debut. That kind of proves that the Phillies are expecting things from Brown they wouldn’t ordinarily expect from a kid called up from Triple-A in late July. Though manager Charlie Manuel says he’ll likely use Brown 70 percent of the time, and likely against just right-handed pitchers at that, the idea is for Brown to produce.

“Domonic Brown is going to have to come up and make an impact,” general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said last week. “I remember talking to Paul Owens about this. You've done your job if you have one or two players per year to have some kind of impact from your system on your major-league club. We have to have that happen. Otherwise, we won't be viable.”

In other words, there’s a lot riding on Brown’s production.

But so far he’s handling it well. He’s started four games and has two multi-hit games. He’s driven in a few runs, swiped a bag, and played solid in right field. After Brown made a diving catch last Saturday night at Nationals Park, center fielder Jayson Werth paused to watch the replay on the giant video screen hanging above the ballpark.

That’s just it… lots of the players are paying attention to Brown. Aside from asking for him autographs, the three wise guys of the Phillies—Victorino, Howard and Jimmy Rollins—marveled over the kid’s physique as much as the time he spent in the batting cage. None of the former MVPs or All-Stars on the team was built like that when they were 22.

And just like the rookie is expected, Brown smiled and took the good-natured ribbing from his older, wiser teammates. Hey, it’s his first big-league road trip and rather than head out on the town to dinner with teammates, or museums and sights in D.C. (“Yeah, I’m going to go to the zoo with Dom Brown,” Victorino mocked his inquisitors over his mentorship), Brown is just worrying about making a good impression.

“He’s very mature for his age. He has his head on right and he likes to play and he puts a lot into it so that’s going to help him,” Manuel said.

“Strawberry had the same type of body, he might be a bit taller. He’s a little like [Braves’ rookie Jason] Heyward, but a different style of hitting. [Brown] keeps his bat up higher and has different kind of a swing. It’s high and he comes down on the ball, but he’s bigger, of course.”

Bigger in many senses, too. Not even a week into his big-league career and Brown is being called Mister by Howard and signing autographs for his new peers, much to Victorino’s chagrin. Now all he has to do is go hit.

The next big thing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh yes, he’s that good.

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

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

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

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

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

As Charlie would say, “Funny game.”

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

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

Who knew?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Watch the game.”

How can you not?

Howard's end

We interrupt the trade chatter and the latest disappointingloss in order to strap on the rose-colored glasses with a hypothetical.

Ready?

Let’s say the Phillies figure out the mess that has placed them in the middle of a 1-5 road trip, they relearn how to score runs and get into the playoffs for a fourth season in a row. Hey, it could happen, after all they benefited from the Mets’ collapse in 2007, overcoming a deficit worse than the one they face now. Anyway, so if the Phillies get into the playoffs and Ryan Howard continues to produce at the current rate, is he the MVP again?

Like mentioned before, this is a hypothetical and since there are two-and-a-half months remaining in the season, there still is a lot to be determined. However, the one thing that is guaranteed is that Howard will hit at least 40 home runs and top 120 RBIs this season.

Let’s put those numbers in perspective for a moment before we get into the real reason why Howard could be the MVP.

Currently, Howard is one of four players in Major League Baseball history to reach the 40-120 plateau in four consecutive seasons. If Howard were to get there again this year, he would join Babe Ruth as the only players to club 40 homers and drive in 120 runs in five consecutive seasons.

For even more historical perspective on Howard’s numbers, he has 714 RBIs in 824 career games which comes to an average of 140 RBIs per 162 games. Considering that Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew and Jim Rice maxed out at 140 RBIs in a season and that Howard’s career-high is 149, it shows Howard’s historical and uncanny consistency.

Howard hit four homers in four games last weekend at Wrigley Field, one that bounced out onto Sheffield Avenue that witnesses say was the longest hit in the ballpark this season, and appears to be getting into that zone he finds during the last few months of every season.

Oh yeah, that late-season surge. Though they say there is no way to apply a metric to how “clutch” a hitter is, maybe we can try with Howard, so here it goes:

Of Howard’s 243 career homers, 96 of them have come during the final two months of the season, while 247 of his 714 RBIs have come during the same time period. Yes, that’s 40 percent of his career home run total and 35 percent of his RBIs when the games seem to matter the most.

Homers and RBIs don’t do anything for you? OK, try this—Howard’s OPS in September is 1.112 with a .314 batting average, and his second half OPS is 1.047.

That points to the fact that Howard gets going when a lot of players start to wind down. You know how they compare Howard to other big sluggers that faded out during their early 30s with injuries and broken down bodies? Guess what? They were wrong. Hey, I was one of those guys and once put Howard in the same class as guys like Mo Vaughn, Greg Luzinski and Boog Powell—big fellas who piled up the numbers early and faded soon after their 30s. I’ll admit it, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Howard is an athlete. He’s big, but not built like those other guys and he’s never been injured. He had a sinus infection, but never an injury. Not once.

None of this explains why Howard could be an MVP in 2010, though. To start, his strikeouts are down a bit and as a result his batting average is right around .300. His slugging is down slightly, but he’s on base for a career-high in hits, doubles and runs.

Howard’s also on pace to lead the National league in RBIs for a fourth straight season. No one in Major League Baseball history has ever led the league in RBIs for straight seasons.

Howard will have competition, of course. Count on Albert Pujols being in the mix, along with Joey Votto from Cincinnati, David Wright from the Mets and Corey Hart from Milwaukee to name a few. However, special recognition goes to players who carry their teams into the playoffs and if the Phillies get there it likely will be because Howard takes them there.

Yes, the Phillies need some pitching and some support for Howard since Jayson Werth appears to have gone into the tank. Still, Howard is the man for the Phillies. He’s been the team’s best hitter and the go-to guy in the clubhouse, as well. In the quiet din of the clubhouse after games, Howard has assured the traveling media that they could rely on him for quotes and insight. No, it doesn’t sound like much, but that’s leadership that often goes unnoticed. See, Howard does the dirty work of dealing with the press so his teammates can go about their business. Pete Rose famously did that for the Big Red Machine and the 1980 Phillies, allowing Joe Morgan and Mike Schmidt to become MVPs.

The difference in this case is that Howard is the MVP. He’s been rewarded with the big, fat contract and as a result has kept the team on his back. If the Phillies rally to get back to the playoffs, Howard will have earned that salary and he’ll probably have the numbers to show it, too.

How deep do the Phillies' problems run?

CHICAGO — At this stage it’s pretty easy being negative. Considering that the Phillies have lost six of eight games to NL Central doormats Pittsburgh and Chicago, and struggled even to score runs off the Cubs at Wrigley Field, yeah, it’s easy to be down on the Phillies.

There’s a lot to be disappointed about, too. Cliff Lee is gone, traded for prospects that may not be able to help the club for the length of the next contract the All-Star lefty signs. Plus, because general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. thought the Phils were better off without Brett Myers, a pitcher who is putting together the best year of his career with the Astros, the Phillies’ rotation is left with Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and a bunch of guys.

Sometimes those guys pitch well, but most of the time they don’t.

Indeed it was a tough winter for Amaro. Juan Castro, his addition to the bench, was given his unconditional waivers last Saturday. That was because Placido Polanco, the splashy free-agent signee of the off-season, had returned from a stint on the disabled list.

Moreover, Amaro called lefty reliever Scott Eyre’s bluff… and lost. Eyre claimed he would retire rather than play for a team other than the Phillies and kept his word. Future Hall-of-Famer Pedro Martinez was not offered a contract following a postseason in which he started 30 percent of the team’s final 10 games, including two of the World Series games at Yankee Stadium, and now also appears to be retired.

Both pitchers wanted to play for the Phillies, and certainly would have contributed to the team. But for whatever reason their help wasn’t needed. Hell, even Chan Ho Park took a smaller contract than the one offered to him by the Phillies in order to pitch for the Yankees.

Just to pile on, last-year’s free-agent signee Raul Ibanez has struggled after a winter where he had surgery for a sports hernia, and Shane Victorino seems unable to get a hit unless it’s a homer or extra-base knock. Meanwhile, free-agent to be Jayson Werth has turned surly and his attitude questioned as his batting average plummets and his strikeout totals pile up. In four games at Wrigley Field last weekend, Werth struck out nine times—the first five of those came in the first eight plate appearances where he didn’t even move the bat from his shoulder.

“Swing,” manager Charlie Manuel said exacerbatedly after a game in which the team racked up eight strikeouts looking as frozen as an angry possum cowering under the back tires of a car on a pitch-black night.

Meanwhile, Brad Lidge hasn’t been bad, but he hasn’t exactly inspired confidence, either. Ryan Madson’s season has been better known for his ability to kick chairs like a wacko David Akers more than setting up games. Off-season addition Jose Contreras has been inconsistent, while countryman Danys Baez has turned into another one of Amaro’s follies.

Quick, does someone know the opposite of the word, architect?

The most frustrating part of a season that has the Phillies fighting to make up 5½ games in the suddenly competitive NL East, and has driven Manuel crazier than anything has been the offense’s inability to score runs consistently. Post-game meetings with the manager are like summer reruns where the former hitting coach attempts to explain away the dearth of hitting and energy before finally giving up and falling back on his old standbys.

“You guys are stat guys... take a look. If you can't see where the problem is at,” Manuel said after Sunday night’s loss where the ace Halladay gave up six runs in six innings while a lefty named Tom Gorzelanny shut them down. “I don't have to sit here and say anything about anybody. You should be able to read the stats and read what happens and watch the game every night. I don't have to sit here and say anything negative about anybody. It speaks for itself. Nobody can take away your performance. No one can hide it, though, neither.”

The issue for Manuel is inconsistency. Lots of inconsistency.

“It’s the same thing every night,” he said.

Manuel is wrong about the inconsistency. The thing is the only way his team has been consistent this season is with its maddening and inexplicable inconsistency. For a manager who prides himself on his knowledge of hitting with intricate insight on nearly every hitter he’s ever seen, the lack of production from his hitters is especially maddening. In fact, sometimes it seems as if Manuel prefers the teams he coached in Cleveland even though they never won the World Series.

Hitting solves a lot of problems, goes Manuel’s logic. When a team hits, he says, mistakes don’t stand out and the pitching looks better if it’s not really the case.

“Everything looks good when you hit,” Manuel said.

In the interest in fairness, however, Amaro was able to made deals to get three different Cy Young Award winners on his team (even though he dumped two of them). He also put deals in place for Hamels and Howard. With Howard it appears as if the slugger will be with the Phillies for the rest of his career. Halladay likely will finish his career with the Phillies, too. Those players are a very strong cornerstone.

However, Lee is gone, presumably over money though we’ve never received a straight or satisfying answer as to why the pitcher was traded. That’s especially maddening considering Amaro threw good money at bad contracts for Baez and Castro, as well as a three-year deal for starter Joe Blanton at $8 million per season.

Moreover, the team will be saddled with $23 million owed to Lidge and Ibanez in 2011, with extensions for Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Madson and Hamels.

The bottom line is that the Phillies still need pitching and a bat or two in the outfield. Sure, Domonic Brown is on the way, but that still doesn’t answer the pitcher issue…

Or why two guys like Lee or Myers were allowed to walk away.

World Cup action scores big in Phillies' clubhouse

NEW YORK — It wasn’t so much the audacity of the shot from the end line that snaked between the North Korean goalie and the right post that stopped people in their tracks, it was the lavishness of the celebration by Brazil’s midfielder, Maicon. Part interpretive dance mixed with equal parts long-distance dedication, Maicon says the goal in Tuesday’s World Cup match was a dedication to his wife.

Which kind of makes the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers...

Nevertheless, it was the celebration that got the most attention in the Phillies’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium nearly three hours before that night’s game against the defending World Champion Yankees. Oh sure, players like Ryan Howard—a standout soccer player when he was kid, he says—love the competition and the athleticism of the game and have a bit more than a passing interest in the World Cup (they are sports fans after all), but more than anything else it’s the theatrics.

Ryan Howard couldn’t get enough of the showmanship.

Oh make no mistake about it; Howard is a savvy fan of soccer. He knows which teams are usually strong in international play which is why Spain’s loss to Switzerland on Wednesday raised a few eyebrows around the team’s clubhouse. But the Phillies’ cleanup hitter also knows that every goal scored in the World Cup is a small miracle. They are like lightning strikes or immovable forces of nature calmly brushed aside. In a more hyperbolic and extreme sense, a goal like Maicon’s proves there are forces larger than us in the universe.

Or something like that…

“A 1-0 game is like 10-0,” Howard said, comparing soccer scores to baseball. “A 2-0 game is a blowout and the 4-0 game like Germany had the other day, that’s ridiculous.”

Surely some saw Maicon’s post-goal celebration as ridiculous. Better yet, it was arguably more compelling than the shot that tucked into the net just inside the left post. In fact, after such a magical goal everyone in the room knew the celebration would be equally as spectacular. When we all realized that the shot had indeed found the net, someone said, “OK, here we go,” in anticipation of what was to come next.

Maicon didn’t disappoint.

Overflowing with emotion, Maicon ran toward the sidelines with his eyes and index finger pointed toward the heavens before he dropped to his knees and put his fingers to his mouth that from the first glance looked as if he were imitating Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies or was sucking his thumb. Only later did we learn that he was giving tribute to his wife in a manner that would make former NBA player Doug Christie jealous.

“And to score in the first game? I cried, but I was happy. I kissed my wedding ring for everything that my wife has done for me,” Maicon explained to reporters after the match. “It is a thank you for everyone who has been by my side.”

Later, Maicon got into wardrobe and performed the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

Kidding aside, Maicon’s celebration led to an interesting topic of discussion, one I’m sure others have pondered as well…

How come baseball players don’t celebrate the way they do in other sports? Certainly a home run is a physics experiment that could have saved Sir Isaac Newton some time waiting for that piece of fruit to clunk him on the head. Moreover, a perfect swing of the bat that meets the ball oh so perfectly is just as artful as anything that occurs in the so-called, “Beautiful Game.” Clearly this was a question for Howard, one of history’s most prolific home run hitters.

“The next time you hit a home run you should celebrate like that,” I said to Howard while pointing to Maicon on the TV hanging above the clubhouse.

“What, you mean drop to my knees and suck my thumb?”Howard answered with a big smile and a laugh.

“Well, maybe not like that, but it looks like [Maicon] could get around the bases pretty quickly. Maybe you could just do that slide on the knees or do a little touchdown dance?”

Obviously this was all so ridiculous. Howard hits so many homers that he be worn out simply by getting around the bases. Still, it is worth mentioning that Howard’s current home run trot has its own panache with its relaxed movement around the bases that finishes with a little skip at home plate where he registers the run with his right foot as though he were dipping his big toe into a swimming pool to test the temperature of the water. Howard is cool with his own unique style. Howard’s big, smooth and strong vibe works in baseball so much better than anything that could have been choreographed by Bob Fosse or even Charo.

Either way, it never gets old. We could watch Howard or Maicon do their thing all summer long. At least that’s the sense one would get in a stroll through Manhattan where restaurants and pubs entice potential patrons by advertising the day’s World Cup games with big signs out front, while stores dress up mannequins in the latest team kits. Better yet, there were more folks seen around town in soccer gear than there were people dressed in Mets garb.

Was that dude really wearing a Lionel Messi shirt on the No. 4 train?

Adapt, evolve, survive

Well now everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
—Bruce Springsteen

NEW YORK — Now we don’t know what is happening with the Phillies. The issues regarding the collective offensive slump could be one of those fluke things or maybe even something larger at work. We’ll be able to figure out those things at the end of the season when we ask what went wrong or right for this ballclub.

But make no mistake about it… something is wrong with the Phillies these days and walking in to Yankee Stadium for three games beginning tonight is probably not the best remedy. After all, not only do the Yankees have the best record in baseball, but also they are 22-7 at home this season.

So as the Phillies hope for a resurrection and look for a big-time measuring stick, we can only project and ask questions. No, it’s not the best situation, but until something breaks it’s all we have.

The question:

Is this it? Is this 32-29 version of the Phillies — the team that is 6-14 in the last 20 games — what we’re going to have to deal with for the rest of the season? And if so, how did we get here?

No, things don’t look too promising, and though manager Charlie Manuel remains upbeat and continues to trot of the mantra that his guys will hit (and pitch?), secretly he is worried. Why wouldn’t he be? Manuel knows as well as anyone that sometimes the twists and turns of the game have a way of settling in. At some point the trends stop being aberrations or spikes in a chart and become the norm. Just listen to Manuel speak if you need proof. He’ll cite line and verse about a time when the Phillies dropped into an offensive swoon, stayed there and never really wiggled out of it.

It began, Manuel recalls often, with a 20-run explosion in St. Louis in 2008, followed by the thought that the Phillies were on the way to scoring 1,000 runs for the season only to replaced with the reality that the team wasn’t going to score many runs without slugging a home run.

Worse, the great hitting coach’s team went on to win the World Series that year not by slugging past teams, but with pitching and defense.

Of all the indignities!

In the meantime the numbers are pretty harrowing. Worse, the owners of some of the ugliest digits are the players the Phillies can least afford to post them. After tying Reggie Jackson's World Series record with five homers in last October's Fall Classic, Chase Utley has dropped off considerably. Though he clubbed 10 homers in the first two months of the season, the All-Star second baseman has not hit one since May 20, a span of 21 games. Uglier yet, Utley has batted just .153 in that span. That's far worse than the .230 with two homers Ryan Howard has provided over the last 20 games or the .164 average and lone homer from free-agent to be, Jayson Werth in that same period.

As the manager might say, “Not good…”

The most alarming of the team-wide slumps is with Utley, who looks as if he is a marathoner who hit the wall. It’s not that Utley isn’t posting the numbers because sometimes that can be subjective and/or not an accurate measure. No, the part that Utley barely has warning track power anymore is what is strange. Last year Utley was whipped at the end of the season because had off-season hip surgery, rushed to get back to the lineup and then played in 156 regular-season games and 15 more in the playoffs. It was understandable for a guy to wear down under those circumstances.

However, how could Utley look so tired just 59 games into this season considering Manuel promised to give his second baseman more days off during the season? Instead, because of the Phillies’ struggles it’s become a vicious cycle. Manuel can’t rest Utley because the team needs to win games, but by continually trotting him out there he has begun to take the shape of a pencil worn down to the nub.

There are other variables at work, too. For instance, pitchers appear to have regrouped after being bludgeoned during the so-called “Steroid Era.” In making up for lost time and fighting back against ballparks built to cater to baseball’s lost age, the big-league pitchers have mounted an insurrection with three no-hitters and two perfect games already this season. Those tallies would be four and three if Jim Joyce hadn’t missed a call at first base in Detroit two weeks ago.

Like any living species, pitchers adapt and evolve. So after more than a decade of being treated like chum for hitters, the tables have turned. For a team filled with talented yet strikeout-prone and flawed hitters like the Phillies, opponents finally appear to be exploiting certain weaknesses.

All of those theories and questions only create more theories and questions. Still, the only question that matters in the short term is to wonder how quickly can the Phillies adjust, adapt and evolve.  Because if the answer is not, “very quickly,” what we see might just be what we’re going to get.

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.”

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 10

Truth be told, we don’t have much to be angry about here at The Podcast of Awesomeness. No one is living out on the streets and we’re all in reasonably decent health. Sure, there might a few mental issues here or there, but for the most part life is good.

That doesn’t mean we don’t engage in our share of dramas or controversies. Sometimes we even stick our snouts into places they don’t belong and then yelp when they get snapped. Chalk that up to human nature… or just plain busybody-ness.

With that in mind the gang was unified in the simmering anger over numerical order. Yep, those tricky numbers—or statistics as they sometimes like to be called—got our rugs in a bunch. It’s not that we don’t appreciate representative digits and all they do for us, it’s just that sometimes they ruin all the fun.

For instance, when it pertains to Ryan Howard and his statistical body of work and how it relates to his contract extension, well, we just have no patience. The thing of it is there is so much the numbers do not reveal about Howard, which is something else considering he has already posted several of the most statistically awesome seasons in Phillies history.

Look, we all appreciate “advanced metrics” and what they explain about baseball. We get it. The numbers actually paint some sort of a portrait. However, if it comes down to the numbers over the nuance of the game and the sheer beauty of watching the drama and stories unfold, the numbers can go pound sand.

Yeah, that’s right.

Anyway, listen to the gang as we react to the reaction about the Howard deal and discuss hockey player, Ian Laperriere. Check it out:

AWESOME NO. 10

Oh yeah, it should be mentioned that this little dog-and-pony show will evolve into a videocast. And you know what? We’re going all out with it, too. We’re talking a live band, solid production values and a desk from Ikea.

Nope, we can’t wait either.

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.

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?