Shine on you crazy diamonds

Here it is... this is Charlie Manuel's World Series ring shown off by hand model extraordinaire, Leslie Gudel. The BlackBerry pictures certainly don't do the ring justice, but trust me - the thing is as big as a belt buckle. In fact, Charlie even reported that there is some room for him to grow into the ring. More importantly, it's nice. It's not tacky like the one the Marlins got in 2003. However, it's definitely something noticeable when it's worn. Several of the players left the ballpark with their new bling on and it stood out.

Anyway, here's Chuck's ring:

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Speaking of the hand model, we were a bit taken aback when Chipper Jones said he was going to play out his current contract and then "sail off into the sunset."

Unlike with Curt Schilling, there is no debating that Chipper is a first ballot Hall of Famer.

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Oh, here's a crazy story... at Tuesday night's game at the Bank, I asked a few members of the Phillies PR staff when the team would make the traditional White House visit that championship teams often are honored with.

Actually, not to be confusing, I asked, "Hey, when is the team going to visit the White House. You guys have that off-day, afterall?"

I figured the question was appropriate considering the team will be in The District next week and had an off-day scheduled for Tuesday. But, good question, right? It was quick, concise and to the point and can illicit just a handful of answers.

Or so I thought. Apparently it was a stumper because no one on the staff had an answer to give me or another colleague of the writing press corps.

So imagine our surprise this morning when we woke up, clicked on our mobile devices and saw that the team web site was reporting that the Phillies would visit with the President next Tuesday at the White House.

Wha happened?

I guess the query was too complex or maybe they thought I asked if the team was going to the White House right this minute. As in, "Hey, are guys going to visit the White House, right now?"

Hey, it's not the first time this type of confusion has occurred in the past month. But the season is young... they'll get it together and make sure I don't have answers to basic questions at least once per series.

And of course I will always report back to you there in front of your computer... that's right, I'm looking out for you, dear readers.

So yeah, the Phillies are going to the White House next Tuesday. In fact, Gary Matthews already has an in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since his daughter and President Obama's daughter were friends in Chicago.

Yeah, that's right... Sarge rolls with the leader of the free world.

Bling bling

Say what?

The cool thing about baseball is that something new happens all the time. It's even better with players like Jamie Moyer around because he has been pitching in the big leagues since before I started high school. He spans eras. Dynasties even. Listen to Moyer talk about baseball and you are bound to get some type of insight. After all, guys like him don't stick around the game for a quarter of a century by accident. He's clearly doing something right.

But here's something else you will noticed about Moyer: when he loses he gets a little crusty. Or, as ballplayers like to say, "he gets the ass." That's short for "red ass," which we in the normal world might call a rant, tantrum or general-type anger.

Moyer definitely has the ass after last night's loss to the Braves. In five innings he gave up four runs and eight hits, including a pair of homers. Both of those homers came on Moyer's first pitch of an inning. More precise, Kelly Johnson ripped Moyer's very first pitch of the season deep into the right-field seats.

As far as auspicious beginnings go, this was the auspiciousist.

After the game, in the silence and stillness of the Phillies' post-game clubhouse, is where the education began. When Moyer was finally dressed, showered and ready to chat about the game nearly 30 minutes after the last pitch, he dropped a nugget out there a lot of us had never heard before.

To wit:

"At times I had pretty decent command," he said. "The first pitch of the game, he put a charge into it. He squared it up. The ball that Chipper hit was a pretty good pitch as well. It might have been a little bit up in the zone. A lot of times you get that professional courtesy, but it's not assumed. They've got a bat in their hands, they're supposed to swing.

"Two pitches, two solo home runs. That's going to happen in this ballpark. We're down 4-0, we're still in the game. That's the way I see it. I've only played here 2-plus years but four runs is nothing. You try to not give up any runs. But if you're down by four, down by three, especially in today's game in pretty much any ballpark, you're still in the game."

Wait... professional courtesy? Really? Does it go something like: "Hey Kelly, I know you were in diapers when I broke into the game, but we have this thing called a 'professional courtesy.' I'm going to throw a meatball right down the middle and you have to watch it go by. OK? Here it comes..."

Maybe Moyer just had the ass, but he knows as well as anyone that as soon as you leave Florida, it's game on.

Professional courtesy?

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Speaking of professionals, Pat Burrell, Geoff Jenkins, Kyle Kendrick and Adam Eaton all turned up for the ring ceremony on Wednesday morning.

Needless to say, Eaton was booed loudly.

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Big Chuck let Leslie try out the World Series ring. Not a bad fit.

Keeping cool

Ryan Howard went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in Sunday's season opener. (AP)

OK, everybody… deep breath. All at once – inhale and then exhale.

One more time…

Now, do we feel better?

No?  Not even when we realize that there are six months and 161 games to go?

“We played one game, man,” manager Charlie Manuel said.

“Oh my goodness,” Jimmy Rollins said in mock/sarcastic horror. “I am heartbroken that we lost a game.”

Yes, the Phillies opened their most anticipated season ever with a resounding 4-1 loss to divisional foe Atlanta in a game where starter Brett Myers gave up three home runs and four runs in the first two innings.

Meanwhile, Braves’ ace Derek Lowe pitched a two-hitter through eight innings where he got the Phillies to make 17 outs in which the ball never left the infield. As a result, panic has set in, the title defense has gone awry and the sky is falling. Didn’t they see the omens when a paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne completely missed the stadium and landed in the parking lot with the ball for the ceremonial first pitch?

Or when they removed the ladder from the field to the stands where Manuel was raising the championship banner?

Talk about your omens.

So excuse the Phillies if they are not as worried about the loss in the first game as everyone else. Excuse Manuel if he isn’t too concerned about the amount of lefties in the middle of the order or the grounders Lowe coaxed out of his team. Pardon Myers if he did not fire his glove into the stands and kick over the water cooler upon his exit from the game.

Excuse the Phillies if they don’t go 162-0.

Continue reading this story ...

Say cheese

Walking around the office this morning we stumbled upon a few company employees posing for their staff photo. Take a look:

Opening Night: Sixth inning

Brett Myers is probably finished for the night considering he is set to bat second in the sixth inning. Still, his line won't look too good though he certainly settled in after the second inning. Myers line: 6 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 3 HR -- 97 pitches

To end his night, Myers whiffed Derek Lowe with a 3-2 curve.

Yes, Lowe is fearsome.

Speaking of fearsome, rookie Jordan Schafer was given a two-out intentional walk. In getting that walk Schafer holds tight to the mantle of greatest hitter of all-time.

Meanwhile, Greg Dobbs got his first pinch-hit of the season (a fly out to the track in right) and the Phillies sent four hitters to the plate in the sixth. Call it a taught two-hitter for Lowe through six...

And call it a blogging night for me. It's time to go do some writing about this epic, so check CSNPhilly.com after the game... or better yet, now.

Opening Night: Fifth inning

Maybe Brett Myers has settled in? After all, he seems to be on a roll here after working out those early-inning jitters. Following Yunel Escobar's third-inning double, Myers retired eight of nine before Chipper Jones belted a double. He bounced back from that hit by whiffing Brian McCann for his fifth strikeout. However, Myers has not tossed a single perfect inning. The Braves have scratched out a hit in every frame so far.

Meanwhile, Derek Lowe appears to be loose as a goose. After Chipper Jones made a nice pick and throw to nail Jayson Werth in the fourth, the pitcher and third baseman were yucking it up near the mound. Call it just another game for the veteran righty.

Lowe also has been quite economical. Through five innings, he has thrown just 64 pitches (43 strikes) with three whiffs and a single.

Lowe is making it look easy.

Opening Night: Fourth inning

Here's an idea for a rule change in baseball: Give the managers a red flag like they do NFL coaches for instant replays. If there is a call the skipper would like to challenge, he simply throws the red flag and the umps head off to look at the video in order to iron it out.

But if the manager throws the flag and the ump was correct, the team loses a trip to the mound. Or, maybe more extreme, the team could lose a bench player or a relief pitcher.

Could work, right?

As far as the mound visit thing goes, it could be a serious reprimand for coaches like Joe Kerrigan of Pittsburgh. Ol' Tastycake Joe loves going to the mound for a visit. The problem with that is most pitchers aren't too jazzed about his visits.

Here's a funny story:

During a spring training game against the Pirates in mid-March, Kerrigan went to the mound and one of the Phillies' players was heckling the ex-Phillie coach by shouting to the opposing pitcher: "Don't listen to him, you won't learn bleep."

True story.

Anyway, Myers faced four hitters in the fourth where he allowed a two-out single to that Jordan Schafer. So far in his big-league career, Schafer is 2-for-2 with a homer.

He also owns the greatest batting average of all-time.

In fact, Schafer has out-hit the Phillies through four innings. In the fourth the Phillies went in order again. That makes them 1-for-13 this year.

Opening Night: third inning

OK, maybe Brett Myers is just getting his work in? That can be the only explanation considering the Braves are tee-ing off on him. In fact, little Yunel Escobar ripped one high off the wall in deep left-center for a double. Myers was lucky, too, because it came inches away from being the fourth homer of the game. Then again, before his late June demotion to Triple-A last season Myers was leading the Majors in homers allowed by a wide margin.

But unlike his first two frames, Myers stayed away from trouble. After the double, the pitcher whiffed Chipper Jones, got Brian McCann to pop out and Garrett Anderson to ground out to end the frame unscathed.

Nevertheless, Charlie Manuel got J.A. Happ up in the 'pen.

Meanwhile, Derek Lowe made it once through the Phillies lineup and finally got the first hit of the season. The honor goes to Carlos Ruiz whose ground-rule double inside the third-base bag.

So far the Phillies are 1-for-10 this year.

opening night: second inning

Just saw a guy having a conversation with a person even though he had his cell phone plastered to his ear. Very odd. Also on the odd front was Myers' first pitch of the second inning to Jeff Francoeur... that one turned into a souvenir and gave the Braves a 3-0 lead. An out later, rookie Jordan Shafer smacked one near the 409 sign in left-center.

For Shafer it was a pretty big hit in his first Major League plate appearance.

Yeah, that's right... a home run in his first Major League plate appearance. Pretty good. Jermaine Dye was the last Brave to homer in his first AB. Mark Saccomanno of the Astros was the last big leaguer to homer in his first at-bat. He did it last Sept. 8.

Meanwhile, all the homers shoot my theory about Myers being relaxed right in the rear.

Derek Lowe has been relaxed -- six up and six down for the new Brave. He also has a four-run lead.

Opening Night: First inning

It's kind of hard to believe that Brett Myers is making his third straight Opening Day start. After all, Myers pitched out of the bullpen just a handful of starts after his maiden Opening Day start. Last year, of course, he still had his head in the 'pen during the opener. In fact, the Phillies more or less admitted that Myers got the nod over Cole Hamels as a reward for being a good soldier in 2007.

This year Myers got the start because Hamels wasn't ready to go. Because of that Myers might be more ready to pitch since he does not have the first-time jitters nor his mind wandering about being a closer.

Hell, he might just allow himself to go out and pitch this year. Pretty novel concept, huh?

Anyway, Myers pitched cautiously to cleanup hitter Brian McCann after Chipper Jones laced a two-out, two-strike single.

Apparently it wasn't cautious enough because after falling behind in the count to McCann, Myers left a fastball up and it ended up in the second deck. Just like that Myers was in a 2-0 hole.

So much for our theories, huh?

Against Lowe, the Phillies went in order though Chase Utley gave the fans a start when he flied to the warning track in right.

On another note, Pat Gillick threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Jayson Stark, sitting to my immediate right, offered that the ex-GM probably warmed up in the 'pen before delivering a solid strike across the plate to catcher Chris Coste.

I countered with Gillick was probably wondering how he was unable to get rid of Coste after all this time.

Opening night: pre-game

Interesting scene here at the ballpark on Opening Night. The team entered through Ashburn Alley and passed a tunnel of fans as they do every opener, however, there was a slight difference. Charlie Manuel remained on Ashburn Alley where he raised the 2008 championship flag. Needless to say, the crowd was really into it.

They also showed a video montage of last year's highlights. Matt Stairs homer in the NLCS, Joe Blanton's homer in Game 3 of the World Series, and the final pitch of the World Series drew the loudest cheers.

The boos? Chipper Jones... who else? Though I'm not quite sure where the animosity toward Chipper comes from.

Either way, Derek Lowe also was booed really loud, too, which was also perplexing.

Maybe sometimes they boo just to boo.

Big cheers? Stairs, Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge, Davey Lopes, Charlie and, of course, the starters.

Anthem time.

The waiting is the hardest part

Charlie Manuel waits by the cage before batting practice. He says he got to the park at 10:15 a.m. this morning, so he had plenty of time to mull over things -- especially his lineup:

11- Rollins, ss 28- Werth, rf 26- Utley, 2b 6- Howard, 1b 29- Ibanez, lf 8- Victorino, cf 7- Feliz, 3b 51- Ruiz, c 39- Myers, p

Here we are again

We don't do sentiment here. We appreciate and, conversely, call out people and things, but sentiment isn't our bag. Not anymore. Not since spending time in the kitchen and watching what the chef does with the soup. So baseball opening day/night has no special allure here. It means no days off since December, lose your vacation days and sleep on the floor in the office. The kids? Show 'em a picture of daddy.

But baseball gets folks all weepy. Americans love to wax on about baseball. Yes, it's true. It's also true that there are companies that exist solely to produce that saccharine sweet baseball-as-a-metaphor-for-life bullbleep. You know, that NPR/Field of Dreams tripe about ghosts walking out of the corn or holding your dad's hand as you walk into Fenway or something like that.

Man, it just makes me want to throw up.

Why, you ask (or even if you didn't I'm going to write it anyway)? Perhaps it's because the reality of life has made a bigger impression than the fairy tale. For instance, my first exposure to baseball came at Veterans Stadium and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. At the Vet the design was so bad that nearly every seat in the house sucked. I can remember walking in there for the first time in 1976 and thinking that we'd be better off watching the game at home on TV - at least then I'd be able to see what the players looked like. At least then I wouldn't have some jackass spill beer down my back as I nursed a nose bleed brought on from the altitude of the crappy seats.

Or in Baltimore, a neighborhood stadium with sardine can-styled parking, National Bohemian beer ads everywhere, and drunk cab driver on the dugout leading the cheers for the weeded crowd that needed to yank out the ganja one last time so that the he would be numb for when the police billy clubs rained down on him after being tackled for running out on the field.

You're crazy if you think going to places like that doesn't have an effect on a kid prone to over-thinking everything.

Even now it seems as if baseball is personified by odd behavior. Like Billy Wagner exposing himself after being asked about throwing a slider, Charlie Manuel's stories about Billy Martin, or Brett Myers just being Brett Myers.

The truth is I prefer the reality to the produced fairy tales. I appreciate it. Just like the put on part - you know, the crap about how time starts on Opening Day - the truth is so different from real life. Accepted behavior and norms are pulverized with a fungo and no one goes to jail for it.

Who doesn't appreciate that?

So let's wax on...

A few years ago the Vet was closed and mercifully blown up. Personally, I think the park got off easy. I would have preferred torture or waterboarding instead of implosion, but it all worked out in the end.

Anyway, all these things are selfish. It's a charmed life hanging at the park and sleeping on the floor. It could be worse - it could be the Nationals instead of the World Champs.

Look for the live blog updates tonight. I'd do it on Twitter, but there is nothing more annoying than way too many obsessive tweets.

Wright's close up ends quickly

The vision of missed jump shot followed by missed jump shot chipping away the orange paint from rim was still fresh. The sting of defeat was still working its way down the solar plexus and into the pit of the stomach of those Villanova players who vainly tried to keep pace with the North Carolina Tar Heels all night long in Saturday’s National Semifinal.

The pain and the inevitable “what if…” had not quite set in as Saturday melted into Sunday.

Still, even though accepting the loss in the Final Four will be difficult, it’s easy to imagine Jay Wright back in the same spot of the NCAA Tournament in the not too distant future.

It’s also not too difficult to imagine a different result than the 83-69 defeat to Carolina, just one step away from the National Championship game.

You see, Wright, just 47, is built to last at Villanova. He still is not halfway through a contract extension that lasts until 2013 and will compensate him well enough to keep him in those sharp-looking, single-breasted suits. More importantly, Wright seems to have received the extension for doing something that is often rare in sports these days…

He paid his dues.

Aside from the long car rides beating the recruiting trail as an assistant at Rochester, Drexel and Villanova, before taking over at Hofstra, Wright has restored the luster to ‘Nova that was lost during the angst-filled final days of Rollie Massimino’s run on the Main Line. He has embraced the Big Five series instead of brushing it aside as a trite hometown obligation, while turning his program into a bona fide powerhouse that isn’t going to tiptoe up and surprise anyone.

Continue reading this story ...

Primeau takes one for the team

It was a strange thing when it happened. Actually, it was a watershed moment in more ways than one only we didn’t know the entire story at the time. For some (like me) it was one of those peculiar moments in sports that makes one take notice of something extraordinary. It even changes the way we look at the games.

Yes, that was the day Keith Primeau stopped being just a mere hockey player and became something beyond that. Perhaps in some ridiculous sense he became something like a warrior-poet or some such non-sense.

Either way, he wasn’t exactly some dude skating around and whacking at a puck despite the fact that he was doing something really stupid like fighting.

Actually, Primeau was fighting in a playoff hockey game just a couple days after he had spent the night in the hospital after being knocked out cold during a game in Pittsburgh. In order to get Primeau off the ice medics had to gingerly tip-toe out there with a stretcher, strap him down and mince back off lest they slip and suffer the same fate.

I remember it like it was yesterday, though it was just about nine years ago. I remember it so vividly because it was one of those crazy little nuanced moments that people collect and talk about to others who might also have a similar collection.

Continue reading this story ...

Familiar faces

Final Four time means the players become instant stars. It also means that the thousands of media types looking for a story even the slightest bit out of the norm will look nearly anywhere... even to long forgotten photos of pee-wee hoops teams from 1995. Recognize anyone in this picture:

Needless to say, this team was pretty good. Check out the story here.

Iverson No Longer Has the Answers

It’s kind of like a guy who holds his hand over an open flame and is upset if he gets burned. Oh, we all saw it coming and knew the result, but it still funny to watch the guy with his medium-well hand whine and complain about his own silliness.

Yes, Allen Iverson hasn’t changed a lick, folks.

It seems like forever ago that Allen Iverson played for the 76ers. But two trades and 2½ seasons later, Iverson still hasn’t gotten it. Sometimes he says the right things and claims that it’s about the team and winning a championship, but the reality is starkly different.

No, Iverson has not changed.

Continue reading this story ...

Betting on Raul

Huge slumps aside, Pat Burrell was an integral part of the Phillies' victory in the World Series last year. Actually, his only hit of the Series set up the WFC-winning run. As a result, he got to lead the parade down Broad Street atop of a Clydesdale-drawn beer truck with his wife and dog. C'mon, you remember.

Anyway, it should be no surprise that Burrell's replacement in left field and the batting order has received a bit of attention as the most-anticipated season in team history quickly approaches.

Both The New York Times and Sports Illustrated have pinned a portion of the Phillies' success on whether or not Raul Ibanez can continue his string of 100-RBI seasons. Hitting fifth in the lineup behind the Phillies' big hitters, Ibanez should get his chances to drive in a few runs.

At least that's the reasoning behind why general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. signed Ibanez for three years and allowed Burrell to walk.

From SI:

Burrell's other shortcoming was at the plate, where he was just as prone to kill a rally as a hanging curve. "Raul doesn't give us as much raw power as Pat, but we felt like he was going to be a more consistent hitter," says general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. (Manuel echoed the sentiment when he used the word consistent three times in 10 seconds while talking about Ibañez.) Burrell hit .215 in the second half of 2008 -- the same average he had in the first half of '07 -- and he hit .234 with runners in scoring position for the entire season. Ibañez, on the other hand, has been largely immune from peaks and valleys; in his seven seasons as a regular, he's never hit worse than .260 in a half. And he's a career .305 hitter with runners in scoring position.

So there's that. Ibanez makes more contact, has a better batting average and, thus, drives in more runs than Burrell. But Ibanez's left-handedness also puts manager Charlie Manuel in a tough spot in the late innings.

As SI suggests, maybe a slight lineup adjustment makes sense:

Having replaced lumbering Pat Burrell in leftfield with lumbering Raul Ibañez, the Phillies find themselves with the 3-4-5 part of their lineup batting exclusively from the left side. That will be a major tactical issue late in games, when opposing managers bring in relief specialists to face Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Ibañez in high-leverage situations. All lefthanded hitters struggle against such lefties as the Braves' Mike Gonzalez and the Mets' Pedro Feliciano. Sliding Jayson Werth (career .374 on-base percentage, .545 slugging versus lefthanders) into the fifth spot ahead of Ibañez would force managers to choose between making a pitching change or taking a bad matchup, a decision that will come up repeatedly in the 36 games Philadelphia plays against its top two division rivals.

Meanwhile, there's the matter of the right-handed hitter for the bench. Gary Sheffield is all the talk for now, but (for a lot of reasons) doesn't seem realistic. Besides, Sheffield is a big name that gets people talking - certainly the Phillies have been pretty good at getting people to talk lately.

Maybe a slugger like Willy Mo Pena - recently released by the Nationals - might be the big right-handed bat the Phillies need for the bench?