Philly boy Roy(s)... and Cole, too

His puffy eyes tinged with red and blurriness gave it away that Ruben Amaro Jr. had not slept much lately. If his appearance wasn’t a giveaway to how little he’d been sleeping, his voice did. No, his words weren’t quite slurred together, but they weren’t exactly robust, either.

No, Amaro wasn’t commiserating the one-year anniversary of the acquisition of Cliff Lee, which, coincidentally, was Thursday. Those no more lamenting the one that got away since it’s not unfair to suggest that the team’s starting staff is stronger now than it was then.

Instead, the Phillies general manager had to be thinking about the few mornings of extra sleep-in time based on his work transforming the Phillies’ starting rotation. Actually, Amaro just didn’t transform the Phillies’ rotation. No, that’s far too tame. Instead, those sleepless nights could result in the Phillies going to battle over the next two seasons—and possibly the season after that—with a top of the rotation that rivals any put together in team history.

See, from here on out the Phillies have three aces, a veteran wild card and fifth starter that performs along the lines of which a fifth starter should. In fact, if the Phillies get into the playoffs for a fourth year in a row, there is no team in the National League that can match up with their top three.

Seriously, what team wants to face Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and the new ace, Roy Oswalt, over a five or seven game series? Sure, those are just names on paper and the game is, as pointed out by Amaro, played by human beings.

As far as that goes, with Thursday’s acquisition of Oswalt, the humans assembled by Amaro just might be the best trio ever to wear a Phillies’ uniform.

Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt? More like electric chair, lethal injection and firing squad.

After the 1916 season where Grover Cleveland Alexander (33 wins), Eppa Rixey (22) and Al Demaree (19) combined for 74 wins, the next best starting trio in team history was on the 1977 club that got 53 wins from Steve Carlton (23), Larry Christenson (19) and Jim Lonborg (11) on the way to a 101 win season and an early exit in the playoffs. The World Champion 1980 club got 52 of their 91 wins from Carlton (24), Dick Ruthven (17) and Bob Walk (11) with no club coming close since.

What does that mean now that the Phillies have Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt, three All-Stars and perennial Cy Young Award candidates?

“I think it’s time for them to go pitch and win,” Amaro said.

That shouldn’t be a problem considering the Phillies’ penchant for scoring runs and the fact that the Philly Big Three are hitting their prime athletic years. Yes, with the addition of Oswalt the Phillies’ budget is pushed to the max. In fact, The Big Three are owed $45.5 million in salary for 2011 on top of the combined $31.5 million owed to Brad Lidge, Raul Ibanez and Jimmy Rollins in the final year of their deals, with the $35 million owed to Ryan Howard and Chase Utley means many more sleepless nights for Amaro as he attempts to figure out how to stretch his dollars.

A baseball roster is like a human body in that if something is wrong with the foot, it could have an effect on the back. Everything is connected, and if that means eight guys are owed a combined $112 million, it’s going to be tough to squeeze in Jayson Werth and/or Chad Durbin when nine other players are owed $38.75 million if J.C. Romero’s option is exercised. That’s more than $150 million with eight spots left open on the roster.

In 2009, only one team spent more than $150 million in player salaries.

Want to guess which team that was?

“This is not easy and it’s not going to happen all of the time,” Amaro said, sounding a lot like a guy who spent way too much money on a really cool car that he wanted. “We don’t have unlimited funds.”

The Phillies have issues, too. For instance, they surely want to bolster the backend of the bullpen with a more efficient closer. They also could use a bat for the bench and a lefty specialist in the ‘pen. They could probably stand a few more seats in the ballpark in order to add on to the revenue from ticket sales, too.

But the bigger question is this…

Is it worth it?

Not since the Braves had Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz has a team in the National League had a top of the rotation as fearsome as the Phillies. The 1971 Orioles got to the World Series (and lost in seven) with four starting pitchers that won at least 20 games. More recently the Oakland A’s had a strong threesome with Tim Hudson, mark Mulder and Barry Zito before they were faced with matching process in free agency.

Heck, even Oswalt was part of a nasty group with Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte with the Astros (and Lidge as the closer) that got to the World Series. But for the Phillies? Yes, this is unprecedented.

That ought to make a manager like Charlie Manuel feel lucky, huh?

“I feel lucky every day,” Manuel said about his fearsome threesome. “That’s good. I like it. Five [ace starters] would be good, too. What the hell? I want to be the best.”

With the best starting pitching trio Manuel should be set for a franchise best fourth straight trip to the playoffs and it “sends a message that we’re all about winning,” Manuel said.

Combined, Hamels, Halladay and Oswalt have a Cy Young Award, a pair of NLCS MVP Awards, and a World Series MVP Award, too. Add in the 11 combined All-Star appearances and four 20-win seasons, and clearly the Phillies are stacked.

But it guarantees nothing. In the past the Phillies never won it all with three aces, though to be fair, they never had three studs like Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt before, either.

“I want the most perfect team I can get,” Manuel said.

Tall order. For now he just has the best team Amaro could squeeze in under $150 million.

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 13

There’s a line in the film Bad Santa where Billy Bob Thornton tells the kid disappointed by the fact that his mutilated Advent calendar garnered him just one lousy candy corn a phrase that I like to carry around with me in all facets of life.

The line:

"They all can’t be winners, can they?"

It’s so true. Despite the best intentions of the artist, the hours put into the project and the talent therein, sometimes there are clunkers. Hey, it happens. After all, sometimes even Michael Jordan had a bad game.

After the avant jazz that Dennis Deitch and yours truly put on to the Internets last week in the show billed as Episode 12.5, you can almost expect a bit of a letdown. It’s common—human nature even—for something like that to happen. It’s not on purpose, mind you, it just is.

Oh sure, we came out gunning with the full roster plus Sarah Baicker’s friend, Pat Gallen, but as our friend Dan Roche pointed out early in the Episode No. 13, it was a lot like Clyde Frazier and Pearl Monroe working with the Knicks back in the early ‘70s.

No, we’re not sure which one of us is Clyde and which is Pearl… but listen in anyway:

AWESOME 13

Still, it was nice to have the whole gang back together again. A few of the old favorites from episodes past turned up as well as a rundown of all the great laundromats across the U.S. for all of those out there looking for clean clothes.

So we’ll be back with the crew next week, too. Hopefully we’re back to be-bopping and scatting as usual as long as Dave DeBusschere doesn’t take away any shots from Clyde and Pearl.

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?

Moyer defiantly faces reality

Jamie Moyer often talked about retirement. No, he didn’tdwell on it as if he were waiting for it to arrive like it was the Grim Reaper dressed in a hood and carrying a scythe. But retirement was never a topic that was off limits to Moyer.

Even now, in light of a left elbow injury deemed “significant” that could end his season and by default, his career, Moyer doesn’t get sneaky or attempt to hide the obvious. His repertoire has been the same ever since he broke in to the big leagues in that game against Steve Carlton at Wrigley Field in 1986.

“I’m still under contract so I feel obligated to make every effort to allow this to heal and to give myself that chance to pitch,” Moyer said.

See, Moyer used the idea of retirement as a tool. With his edgy and upfront way of dealing with things, it’s fair to deduce that retirement and his age motivated him and kept him going. He loved to point out that his father-in-law, ex-basketball coach Digger Phelps, urged him to give up baseball and think about another line of work.

Moyer heard from Phelps during a period where he had been released three times and granted free agency another three times. He had been traded twice and sent to the minors three more times. In fact, even Charlie Manuel, the most diplomatic of baseball men when it comes to evaluating a player’s talent, said he thought Moyer was one his way out of baseball during the early ‘90s.

We all know what happened next. Moyer hooked up with the Mariners when he was 34 and won 145 games in the next 11 seasons and finishing in the top five of the Cy Young Award balloting three times. When he arrived in Philadelphia for the stretch drive in 2006, most baseball folks thought he was simply finishing up a solid career with his hometown team.

But then he kept going. The Phillies kept giving him contracts, too. There were a couple of one-year deals and then a two-year deal after he helped pitch the Phillies to their second World Series title. There were accolades, records and milestones that the sage lefty seemed to have to address after every game he pitched. He handled it with aplomb to a point, but then got bored with it.

“You start getting caught up in things like that and you might start losing some focus on things you need to do,” Moyer told me in an chat in the deserted clubhouse at Nationals Park a couple of seasons ago, while contemplating his place in baseball history. “I think there's plenty of time for me to look back at the end of the season or at the end of my career and say, ‘You know what? That was cool,' or ‘I remember that,' or ‘I remember that game.' But for me, having the opportunity to have the longevity that I have is the most special thing for me. To continue my career and to play and to contribute with a team, I think that is first and foremost. If you are around long enough, those things are going to start to happen.”

That was the pat answer for a little while, but then to Moyer it stopped being about age and instead became about results again. Actually, it seemed as if he wanted to answer the questions the same way as any other veteran on the club without first discussing that he was the oldest player in the game.

And why not? In the four seasons he pitched for the Phillies, no one won more games. Even last year when he struggled and was removed from the rotation in favor for Pedro Martinez, Moyer led the club in wins. At age 47, after a winter spent recovering from three surgeries, Moyer led the club in wins halfway through the season.

In doing so Moyer wasn’t simply defying the odds or his age, he was simply defiant. When he reached some age-related milestone or career mark hinging on longevity, the old lefty shrugged it off. He was bored by the idea that he was old, yet stoked the fires by saying he had no thoughts on his imminent retirement.

He pointed out that consistent workouts, a solid fitness foundation and smart recovery were the key to athletic longevity. His age was meaningless aside from the fact that it required a bit more recovery time between workouts. Otherwise, when pondering the reasons why so few players lasted as long as him, Moyer saw it austerely.

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

Moyer never accepted it. Better yet, he never accepted what people told him he should do with his career—his life.

But with serious injuries all bets are off. Misty-eyed and reflective before Friday night’s game against the Rockies at the Bank, it’s obvious that Moyer knows he is going to be forced with a tough decision or the cold slap of reality very soon. Yes, there are still tests to complete and scenarios to discuss, but Moyer understands that the exit after one scoreless inning in St. Louis on Wednesday could have been his last lap.

“It’s probably one of those situations that you don’t want to have happen, but if it happens it happens. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t turn back and change anything. The injury is the injury—you live with it,” he said. “I can honestly look myself in the mirror and say, if that’s my last outing, so be it. I really gave it my best and I enjoyed my career. But that’s not the way I’m looking at it as that being the case.”

Still defiant and engaged in a fight with those who are resigned to accept outcomes and convention wisdom, it’s clear that Moyer’s goal was to keep pitching until it was no longer physically possible. He wasn’t slowing down and he wasn’t taking shortcuts, either.

He never lost it.

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

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

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

There was no smirk this time with those words. No tears, either. It was face-slapping reality, no different than the most inexplicable 267 wins in baseball history.

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 12.5

We all have our issues. You could be the most laidback, placid dude on earth and there is sure to be something to make you act as if you have a bee in your bonnet. It’s only natural—human nature or whatever.

This morning our man Dennis Deitch and yours truly showed up at the Wachovia Center with engineer extraordinaire, Ben Seidman, with a hive in our headdresses. We were angry about things we could not control and, ultimately, were inconsequential. Hey, the Phillies stink. We have eyes and can see what’s going on this ballclub and it’s sickening. What makes that especially so is that it never had to be like this.

Want to hear two old ballscribes in full rant? OK, here it is anyway:

AWESOME PODCAST 12.5

We’re calling this 12.5 because it’s a scaled down crew. It’s kind of like when Robert Plant and Jimmy Page went out on the road without John Paul Jones a few years ago, but rather than do some self-indulgent blues numbers with ridiculous solos, we stick with the rock. I’m not sure who the Plant or Page is in this scenario, but we didn’t slow it down with some self-absorbed noodling or extended, blues’d up “Stairway” thing.

Nope. Not at all.

We went after it from the jump. Nobody gets a chance to come up for air. Deitch came gunning at the first riff and I stepped on the gas when given the chance. In fact, rather than just 60 minutes of our regular The Podcast of Awesomeness fare, we bring you 90 minutes of The Podcast of Angryness.

Come get some.

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.

The winter of the Phillies' discontent

CHICAGO — Charlie Manuel was quick to tell his National League All-Stars that someone in the victorious clubhouse following the 3-1 victory on Tuesday night was going to enjoy playing Game 1 of the World Series this October in their home ballpark.

But Manuel was quick to point out that he wasn’t just talking to the players from the Braves, Reds, Padres or Cardinals, but looking straight at Ryan Howard and Roy Halladay from his club when he said that. See, Manuel very much enjoyed getting to the World Series the past couple of years and very much wants to pad his resume with a few more trips to the Fall Classic, too.

“Keep strivin’,” Manuel said. “I want to keep going.”

The want-to and the able-to are always so fickle, though. Absolutely, a third trip in a row to the World Series just might cinch Manuel’s legacy in Philadelphia — that is if he hasn’t done that already with a title in 2008 and a return trip to the big dance in ’09. No, the Phillies never have had a manager go to the World Series twice and only one other guy, Danny Ozark, went to the playoffs three times like Manuel.

Still, to hear it in the manager’s voice and to see the wear on his face following the 12-6 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field on Thursday night, the Phillies could be headed for a light schedule in October for a change. Indeed, there is trouble lurking in the not-so distance horizon for the Phillies and things could spin out of control quickly if they aren’t careful. See, this season Manuel’s crew is much more flawed than in seasons past. The inability to generate offense without a home run has caused some trouble, while injuries have forced guys like Wilson Valdez and Greg Dobbs into key roles.

Certainly games missed by Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Placido Polanco and Carlos Ruiz have hurt the team, but definitely not more than the pitching has hurt.

“We have holes,” Manuel pointed out after the latest loss that set the team to 5½ games off the pace in the NL East and two back for sixth place in the wild-card chase.

Manuel knows as well as anyone about the team’s shortcomings, but he only scratches the surface. Sure, the Phillies’ starters had an ERA of 3.95 and led the league in complete games, innings pitches and strikeouts-to-walks ratio, but those numbers lie.

Bald-faced lie.

What those numbers don’t reveal is that the Phillies desperately need pitching because they are all skewed by Halladay’s presence. Even the relief pitchers have fared well with Halladay’s addition to the staff because the corps of bullpen men have worked the fewest innings in the majors. Needless to say it helps that Halladay can gobble up nearly eight innings every time out.

So what happens when Halladay is taken out of the equation? Do you really want to know?

Try this out: with Halladay the Phils went into Thursday’s second-half opener with the sixth best starter’s ERA in the National League and sixth-best mark overall. But take Halladay’s 2.19 ERA out of the mix and overall ERA jumps to 4.43 while the starters’ sky rockets to 4.54.

In other words, the Phillies need some pitching… before it’s too late.

Now there are two ways to handle this—three if complaining about the Cliff Lee trade is an option, because let’s face it… it’s was a really bad move and could be the reason why the team has been so unhinged this season. No, trading Lee wasn’t the worst possible trade general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. could have made, but it’s up there.

Regardless, one way to make a charge is simply for the rotation to dial it up. Sure, Cole Hamels has been good this year, but he is also prone to inconsistency like the rest of the staff. If the Phillies are going to get back into the playoffs for a fourth straight season, Hamels is going to have to pitch like it’s 2008 or if he magically morphs into Cliff Lee.

Consistency is the key.

“Is it good enough? I don’t know. I mean we gotta pitch,” Manuel said. “If we pitch consistently, put it like this, for where we want to go we have to play high .500 [winning percentage] or low .600 the rest of the way. That means ours pitching has to be very consistent.”

Another way for the staff to gain consistency is to add a missing piece. Nope, unless Amaro has a time machine, either DeLorean model or hot tub, Lee is gone forever. It also doesn’t appear as if Pedro Martinez will be ready to help the club the rest of the way this season, nor does it seem likely that they can get a stud like Roy Oswalt since the y have a dearth of bargaining chips. Trading Jayson Werth clearly has become a very wise move because it seems apparent that he will not be re-signed, but what kind of value does he have?

A player like Werth would be desirable on a club making a push for the playoffs, but even there he isn’t very attractive since he likely could only be a two month rental. Besides, if a team is in contention, it is not going to deal away valuable pitching talent for Werth. That wouldn’t make sense.

Then again, trading away Lee and re-signing Joe Blanton for three years after he was shopped during the winter meetings only for the Phils’ to learn there wasn’t any interest. That’s no knock on Blanton, but really… why sign him for three years and $24 million when there is a chance to give Lee an extension?

It doesn’t make any sense.

Speaking of not making much sense, the decision to allow Brett Myers to walk away seems to have come back and bit the team on the rear, too. Making matters worse is the fact that Myers is exactly the type of pitcher the Phillies need right now. In fact, Myers is quietly putting together the best season of his career with the Astros, checking in with a 3.41 ERA in 18 starts and 121 innings.

Sure, there was plenty of baggage that came with having Myers on the team, but there was no shortage of enthusiasm. These days the only way some of the players on the club express themselves is by screaming expletives at a father and his son sitting in the right-field seats.

Maybe we can rephrase the old baseball adage by pointing out that a team can’t win a pennant in December, but this one just might have lost one last winter.

Steinbrenner's complicated legacy

It’s not unreasonable to believe that 20 years ago,George Steinbrenner might have been the most despised sports figure in the world and maybe even the most disliked man in America. Think about it… when the message came over the public address system at the old Yankee Stadium that commissioner Fay Vincent (the last real commissioner, by the way) had Steinbrenner banned for life from the day-to-day operations, the hometown fans stood up and cheered.

For two minutes.

Granted it was a Monday night game in the South Bronx where the last-place Yankees, on their way to 97 losses, had Steve Balboni batting cleanup and Dave LaPoint on the mound, so there weren’t too many people in the old stadium. Granted, these were the days before there was cachet about going to a ballgame, especially ones where Stump Merrill is the manager of the Yankees, and Starbucks and gentrification hadn’t overwhelmed New York City. These were the rough days before the proliferation of political correctness and mass marketing where a man’s words, faults and deeds were never spun or the public wasn’t so easily duped.

The fact remains, two minutes to cheer for anything is a big deal.

Winning the World Series a bunch of times, coupled with turning a $10 million investment into billions has a way of changing a few minds here and there. Plus, with the passage of time memories get softer and the bad times lose an edge. The good ol’ days, they’re called. Or maybe the term revisionist history applies.

They old saying goes that it’s nice to speak ill of the dead, and since George M. Steinbrenner III died this morning in Tampa, Fla. of a heart attack at age 80, there’s no need to say mean things. That’s not cool. Besides, Big Stein was never anything more than a caricature to me. I’d been to his ballparks, wrote about his teams and handed him over my money and I was always happy to do so. In some weird sense, a signature franchise is kind of fun. Operations like the Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Manchester United, etc. serve a purpose even for the detractors. After all, what fun is drama without villains?

We can’t excuse treating history like a press release, though. History cannot be whitewashed as if it were a ride in an amusement park. Sure, in recent years Steinbrenner was looked at as some sort of beloved elder statesman who spent lavishly and celebrated championships. To watch one of the talking heads get all weepy on ESPN this morning is to believe that the 1970s, ‘80s and early ‘90s never happened.

Yes, Steinbrenner was a philanthropist. Locally, he donated millions to the Penn Relays and had awards named after his father, Henry, as a result. But what rich guy — one with inherited wealth at that — did not give to charity. Tax deductions and public relations don’t grow on trees, you know.

The subtitle of an autobiography about Steinbrenner is apt: Poor Little Rich Boy. In fact, Steinbrenner’s relationship with his father Henry very well could have been the point of reference for all his behavior. He was charitable and a deadbeat; kind and a bully. Henry Steinbrenner would pull strings for his son and give him companies to run, but then browbeat him afterwards for not being the quintessential self-made man.

That’s what the Yankees were for Steinbrenner — they were a way to prove to his dad that he could do something by himself. So focused on making the Yankees the most famous and best franchise in sports and showing his father he could accomplish something on his own that Steinbrenner nearly destroyed it. The facts are undeniable.

* In his first 23 years with the Yankees, Steinbrenner had 14 different men as manager. Billy Martin was hired and fired four times, while Lou Piniella and Bob Lemon held the reins on two different occasions. Before the 1981 season, Steinbrenner announced that Dick Howser was stepping down to take advantage of real estate opportunities in Florida. In actuality, the real estate deal was Steinbrenner paying off Howser’s mortgage because he couldn’t figure out how to fire a manager who had won 103 games the season before.

* Steinbrenner was banned for life from running the Yankees because he paid a small-time gambler $40,000 to dig up “dirt” on star outfielder Dave Winfield. As part of his contract, Winfield was guaranteed $300,000 from Steinbrenner for his charity foundation. When Steinbrenner never paid up, Winfield sued. This lifetime ban came months after Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball for gambling activities, however, Steinbrenner was reinstated three years later by acting commissioner Bud Selig.

* Steinbrenner was indicted on 14 criminal counts on April 5, 1974, then pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's presidential re-election campaign. He also pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstruction of justice on Aug. 23, 1974. He was fined $15,000, and his firm was assessed $20,000 for the offense. On Nov. 27, 1974, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended him for two years, but later reduced that amount to fifteen months, with Steinbrenner returning to the Yankees in 1976. Some published accounts say he continued to run the show on the sly.

Steinbrenner never served a day in prison after U.S. President Ronald Reagan pardoned him on Jan. 19, 1989, in one of the final acts of his presidency.

*Before the 1985 season, Steinbrenner stated about manager Yogi Berra: “Yogi will be the manager the entire season, win or lose.” But after a 6-10 start to the season, Yogi was fired and refused to step into Yankee Stadium for 14 years until he received an apology.

* Ken Griffey Jr. was stated to never play for the Yankees, despite chances to do so, presumably because he was upset with the way his father was treated by Steinbrenner when the elder Griffey played for the team.

* Steinbrenner forced grown men to shave and wear their hair a certain length and even suspended star Don Mattingly because he deemed his hair too long.

* Steinbrenner says he got into a fight with Dodgers fans in an elevator after Game 3 of the 1981 World Series, though no one stepped forward nor was there evidence that the owner was in a scrap. Nevertheless, Steinbrenner held a press conference in his hotel room in Los Angeles to show off the cast around his arm, while whispers circulated that the owner allegedly staged the fight in order to fire up his team.

* After losing to the Dodgers in six games in the 1981 World Series, Steinbrenner offered an apology to the city of New York for the defeat. It took the Yankees 15 years to reach another World Series.

* Billy Martin on Reggie Jackson and Steinbrenner during the height of the Bronx Zoo Era: “The two were meant for each other. One's a born liar, and the other's convicted.”

These events were all part of the life of George M. Steinbrenner III and to be sure there was never another owner like him. For good or worse, the sports landscape with its outrageous salaries, high ticket prices, regional team/cable partnerships, lucrative sponsorship deals, and overall distancing between sports figures and the public was spearheaded by Steinbrenner.

Want to know why the average salary in baseball is more than $2 million or why it costs so much to park and buy food at the ballpark? Big Stein is the man. Indeed, Major League Baseball went from a mom and pop operation to a billion dollar industry thanks largely to Steinbrenner.

Along the way, he was parodied on Seinfeld, hosted Saturday Night Live, was a fixture at Elaine’s and made it so nearly every single baseball game played every year was televised. He was both the fan’s greatest friend and enemy. He was the villain and the hero as well as the protector and the bully.

Steinbrenner was every bit a contradiction and the modern idea of what a sports owner should be like, and it will be a lot more boring without him. Nope, Steinbrenner was never boring, which is probably the greatest compliment anyone could ever receive.

LeBron will make you go, 'Woooooooo'

Go ahead and admit it… you watched. Oh sure, you’ll say it was simply for the spectacle or the circus and that you really didn’t care one way or the other, but that’s bunk.

You watched and you know why you did.

Look, I’m into the show as much as the next guy. I like the insanity and hyperbole that rides along in a sidecar with media hype. The bigger, the better. In fact, if something is prefaced with “World” or “Super” in the title, sign me up.

Yes, more Super World Spectacular Circuses, please.

Now this doesn’t mean I think these are quality events. This is strictly about the hype and the over-the-top matter in which we often treat the mundane. I’m no sociologist or media critic, but the manner in which we produce and consume certain events has to explain something about our culture.

Yeah, deep statement, I know. But can you think of an earnestly produced “news” event that was filled with more hilarity than the LeBron James thing over the past few days? Frankly, it had it all. There was manufactured drama, fake emotion and overwrought victors and vanquished. Plus, there was Jim Gray, whose un-ironic seriousness for unimportant events is more amazing than anything conjured on “Dynasty” or the crew from the mockumentaries, “Best in Show” or “This is Spinal Tap.”

Choosing Gray over a character created by Christopher Guest or Harry Shearer for his hour-long ESPN drama, “decision,” was a masterstroke.

So too was the rant of an open letter posted by scorned Cleveland owner, Dan Gilbert, whose other claim to fame is that he is the owner of the company that makes the oversized posters called, “Fathead.” The company’s spokesman was alleged serial sexual harasser, Ben Roethlisberger. In addition to being the owner of the Cavaliers, a team that paid LeBron more than $62 million during the past seven years, Gilbert also owns the companies that created TurboTax and 1-800-Contacts.

In other words, Gilbert knows all doing big things cheaply and quickly. However, it is disappointing that he chose to address his pain over LeBron’s spurning of Cleveland with a letter posted on the Internet as opposed to a soliloquy with Mean Gene Okerlund at his side.

But yes, I watched the LeBron infomercial. That is to say I dialed it up on the Internet and viewed it while taking the Amtrak train home from 30th Street Station, with one ear eavesdropping on the conversations of my fellow travelers gripping their mobile devices and announcing the play-by-play as it occurred. Call it a live blog/tweet come to life all while using public transport.

That’s so much community and carbon offsetting in one cramped, tin can it makes me want to pile into a rubber raft and attack oil tankers… or at least find a recycling can for my water bottle. Amtrak, a government agency, does not have recycling aboard their trains. Yes, that’s the true shame of the LeBron-athon.

But that’s about as deep as it got for most folks in regard to the LeBron circus. People allowed themselves to get sucked in to take hard line stances on a particular side. The anger and indignation directed at inanimate objects like ESPN, Cleveland, Miami and LeBron James was not only so thick and rich that it could drizzled over waffles, but also was amazingly comical.

What we were able to deduce from the entire extravaganza is that the virtue sports fans most value from their athletes is loyalty…

Excuse me while I drop to one knee in order to catch my breath from laughing myself silly.

Another funny moment that came out of LeBron’s TV show happened the other day while Wilmington News Journal­ artiste, Martin Frank, and I were talking about it, when Phils’ skipper Charlie Manuel overheard us. For those who don’t know, Big Chuck was a pretty good basketball player in his day and had several scholarship offers to play collegiately, including one from Penn. Charlie is also a professed fan of the game and once admitted he “kept up” with the career of fellow Virginian and NBA star, Ralph Sampson.

Anyway, Charlie heard us talking and turned around with a question, “What do you guys think of it?”

Not feeling up to getting way too deep into it, we settled on Martin’s summary that “it was weird.” Which, to put it mildly, it was. The whole thing was weird. But Charlie spent a lot of years in Cleveland coaching and managing the Indians and might have more insight into the psyche of its citizenship than either of us. Still, when asked for his thoughts, Charlie just kind of shrugged. When it was pointed out that LeBron had “taken less money to go to Miami,” the ol’ manager had the best analysis of anyone in any type of media could have dreamed.

“Woooooooo,” Charlie said in mock, sarcastic awe.

If there is any way to describe the minute difference between an athlete drawing a $20 million salary or a lesser, $15 million one, Charlie did it with one syllable.

“Woooooooo.”

Exactly. Woooooooo, indeed.

Versatility has served Figueroa well

It wasn’t long after he had cleared waivers and was sent back to Triple-A when Nelson Figueroa took the mound and gave up a run. When that happened, the professional journeyman only had one thought…

“Well, I’m done,” Figueroa said. “I’ll never get back there now.”

The funny thing about the two runs Figueroa allowed for Lehigh Valley is that they were the only two he gave up in three starts covering 19 innings. In that same span the righty struck out 18, and allowed just 13 hitters to get on base. His 3-0 record with a 0.95 ERA was further proof that Figueroa could get outs in the big leagues.

Then again, this is not news. Figueroa has been that guy for a long time — the proverbial square peg in a round hole. Sometimes it seems as if the strikes against him are his age, repertoire or the location of his dominant hand. Maybe if he were younger, threw harder or was a lefty, Figueroa’s career would have turned out differently.

No one would fault Figueroa if he had some bitterness or had called it quits long ago. However, that hasn’t been the case at all. With an arsenal of what seems to be about 100 different pitches along with a handful of derivations, Figueroa is like a Swiss Army knife for Charlie Manuel.

In fact, this season Figueroa has started a game, closed one, come in as the long man and as a situational right-hander. Mixed in there is a week as the International League player of the week and enough frequent traveler miles to circle the earth.

To top it off, Figueroa is back with the Phillies a decade after he was traded from Arizona as part of the Curt Schilling trade.

It’s crazy to think that of all the players in that trade — Omar Daal, Travis Lee and Vicente Padilla — that Figueroa would somehow manage to find a way back with the Phillies.

Oh, but the right-hander has taken the scenic route. Last season Figueroa, from Coney Island in Brooklyn, made 10 starts for the Mets and has appeared in 32 games for his hometown team over the past two seasons. In between his 2001 season for the Phillies and 2009 work for New York, Figueroa has pitched for Milwaukee and Pittsburgh in the Majors, as well as Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Nashville, Long Island, Buffalo, Chihuahua in the Mexican League as well as South Korea and Taiwan.

All told Figueroa has pitched for 18 different teams, which doesn’t include winter league when he was MVP of the 2007 Chinese Professional Baseball League championship series. Shoot, he even took the entire 2005 season off to recover from two different shoulder surgeries after tearing his rotator cuff.

“I can relate to that a lot,” said Manuel, who had a playing career very similar to Figueroa. “I played five years in the minors before I even made the major leagues and I used to get sent out some to play for some and then get called back. Yeah, I can relate to those things.”

Manuel went to Figueroa for two innings on back-to-back nights, which in the modern game is definitely old school. Actually, Figueroa would have gone back to the mound in the 13th for a third inning and was waiting on deck to hit until catcher Brian Schneider blasted his walk-off homer to give the pitcher his second big league win of the season.

Like a lot of ballplayers, Figueroa says he hasn’t thought much about how much longer he’ll play. What makes him unique is that with a degree in American Studies from renowned Brandeis University, the vagabond lifestyle of a journeyman pitcher is an interesting career choice.

“I’ve learned one thing in this game, you can’t control anything,” he said “I can only control when the ball is in my hand and I’m out there on the mound.”

This year he’s been in control, but for how long. When Chad Durbin returns from the disabled list after the All-Star Break, Figueroa could be caught in another numbers crunch and be designated for assignment for the third time this year between two teams in the NL East.

Still, it’s almost a guarantee that Figueroa will be pitching for somewhere for the rest of the year. It might not be in the big leagues, but as long as he’s still consistently getting outs with control over that vast repertoire of pitches, some team will want him. After all, pitchers that get outs just don’t grow on trees.

Jayson Werth has 'moved on'

If this is a strange period in Jayson Werth’s life, he’s doing an excellent job of remaining inside the insular world of baseball where seldom do outside forces penetrate. According to the Phillies’ right fielder, not only hasn’t he paid attention to the trade rumors, but he also seemed oblivious to the bad press swirling after an incident involving a fan and his son.

Sure, calling it an “incident” might lend itself to the connotation that something sinister occurred when it was nothing of the sort. Instead, replays showed a fan extending his arms straight up into the air to make a catch of a foul ball as Werth lunged into the stands with his glove hand in attempt to make the catch.

Whether or not Werth could have caught the ball with two outs in the 12th inning is debatable, however, there is no evidence whatsoever that the fan did anything to impede or disrupt the game. Nevertheless, after the man made the catch and handed the ball to his young son — both dressed in Phillies shirts — Werth appeared to angrily shout at the man and child with a curse or two added for emphasis.

As the replays showed, it was not a moment for Werth to be proud of though he admitted he still has not given the incident much thought.

“I may have not still realized that,” Werth said hours before Friday night’s game against the Cincinnati Reds at the Bank. “I’m assuming people are upset, but to me it was just something that happened and I moved on right after.”

Yes, Werth apologized… kind of. When asked if he had reached out to the man or child, Werth said he had not. In fact, Werth says he had “moved on.”

“There has been some backlash. Honestly in the heat of the moment and the situation that goes on on the field I’m definitely in a different mindset than I would be in a normal setting,” Werth explained, never using the words “sorry” or “regret” once. “I don’t think I would have yelled at anybody like that if that wasn’t the case. We had the game on the line. If a guy comes up and hits a home run on the next pitch, I think it’s a pretty big deal.

“Obviously I feel bad for the guy and the kid and the people that were sitting around there. It was definitely out of character a little bit. I don’t feel bad about playing hard and going after balls in the stands and stuff like that. It’s just one of those deals — it is part of the game.”

In other words, the only thing that matters to Jayson Werth is Jayson Werth. Considering he is heading into his free-agent winter and has stated that his pending free agency is “something that he has played his entire career for,” his mercenary nature is evident. Sure, Werth has stated that he enjoys playing for the Phillies and would love to remain with the club beyond this season, but, y’know, as long as the price is right.

Still, Werth’s verbal assault on a child and his father mixed with Shane Victorino’s claims that players are beginning to hear some catcalls and boos from the paying customers make it seem as if the bloom is off the rose for the two-time defending National League champs. Resting in third place in the NL East by five games and sixth in the wild-card race by 2½ games, some of the paying customers might not be too pleased with the state of the ballclub. Sure, injuries are partially to blame, but some folks still seem disappointed that the popular lefty ace Cliff Lee was traded away last winter in what some see as a cost-cutting measure.

Plus, with the organization announcing its 81st consecutive sellout crowd on Thursday night—not counting the three “away” games at the Bank against Toronto—a perceived cost-cutting move might not go over well.

Werth acknowledges this.

“I know where we’re playing,” he said. “I know what’s at stake here and the fans know what’s at stake. I was at the parade. There were a lot of people at the parade. This place can be as good as any. When we’re winning and you’re on a float down Broad Street , there is nothing better. Right now we’re not winning. We have to play better.”

But will Werth be one of the guys trying to take the Phillies to an unprecedented fourth straight playoff appearance? According to reports, the Phillies have listened to offers for the right fielder, though some of the reports claim that the price is too high for other clubs. Plus, if Werth were to be dealt it he would be the second of the core group from the 2008 World Champions to depart.

Coincidence that it could be Pat Burrell and Werth?

“It’s part of the game. Right now my focus is playing baseball right here for the Philadelphia Phillies and my teammates and winning ball games,” Werth said.

Manager Charlie Manuel did not offer much insight aside from the notion that he wants the team to add a pitcher. He’s also not sure his wish list will be met since, as he puts it, “my picks are too high.” Certainly he can scratch off Lee from the list after he was traded to a team in bankruptcy.

Back at the Bank, Werth said he had not reached out to the man and child he shouted and it doesn’t appear as if the thought crossed his mind. When asked when he realized the incident had become a big deal, Werth said he might not have come to that conclusion.

Based on his comments and attitude before Friday night’s game, it appears as if he’s not going to get there.

“I may have not realized it was a big deal,” Werth said. “I’m assuming people are upset if that’s what you’re telling me, but to me it’s just something that happened and I moved on right after.”

Meanwhile, reports are that the Red Sox, Yankees and Rays are interesting in brokering a deal for Werth, and if that were to occur, expect him to talk about moving on and trades being part of the game. Apparently brushing past bad behavior is part of the game, too.

Maybe Werth believes that because something occurs "in the heat of the moment" it's OK to excuse dignity and class.

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 12

Every once in a while things get away from us. Just when it seems as if there’s a solid rhythm and everyone is locked in and on the same page, it all goes to hell.

That’s what happened with the Podcast of Awesomeness for the past two months. Just when we were cooking along and kicking some butts, everything gets thrown into the wind. First, the Flyers got into the Stanley Cup Finals and that led to another thing and the next thing we know we’re all scattered and doing our own thing.

But like General Douglas MacArthur knew oh so well, the Internet is littered with podcasts that just faded away. Either someone got bored or the entire enterprise got stale or whatever. Obviously, we knew all of this going into it. The cautionary tales were easy to discern.

So after two months of doing nothing, we forged on. Rather than surrender to the whims of society and popular culture, troops were rallied, schedules made and trains were boarded.

As a result, we got the job done.

No, this isn’t the greatest podcast ever, but it’s not the worst one, either. If you’re going for a long drive and want something to keep you company, just download this thing and get to driving. We don’t care where you’re taking us, let’s just go.

AWESOME 12

Just like the completion of every other episode of this enterprise, we feel invigorated. We’re ready to get after it again, if not immediately then at least a week later. Hey, we have the technology and because you’re still reading this, so do you. So, for all the good stuff on the Phillies, Michael Vick, Purple Drank and the World Cup, this is the one-stop web site.

Thank you for bearing with us.

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Phillies want what they already had

The most telling story I’ve heard about the Phillies lately comes from Braves’ manager Bobby Cox when he heard that his NL East rivals were able to make a deal with the Blue Jays for Roy Halladay. When told that Halladay was joining up with the two-time defending National League champs, Cox didn’t quite break into hysterics like Nancy Kerrigan when she was kneecapped (literally) by a lead pipe, but it was close.

Cox says he cursed at a rate he saves for the likes of C.B. Bucknor or Dan Iassogna. It was more than angry over the fact that the Phillies had added the best pitcher in the game to a roster that went to the World Series twice in a row. Cox was upset because he’d been on the other side and knows what pitchers like Halladay can do for a team.

Remember back when the Braves, fresh off two straight trips to the World Series, added Greg Maddux to the staff with John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Steve Avery? The troubling part wasn’t that the Braves suddenly had three future Hall of Famers and a fourth guy—Avery—who had already piled up two 18-win seasons and an MVP in the NLCS before he had turned 23. Nope, that wasn’t the part that drove everyone upside down.

The part that was the most heart wrenching was that with Maddux the Braves suddenly had three future Hall of Famers who were not even in their primes yet. All three guys were 26 or 27 when they joined up together and each had four seasons where they won at least 14 games in a season. In the case of Maddux and Glavine, 20 wins per season was the base line, while Smoltz, the least accomplished of the trio at the time, is the only pitcher to ever win at least 200 games and save at least 150.

Nope, the Braves weren’t messing around back then and when he heard that the Phillies had traded for Halladay, he saw history repeating itself. The Phillies, like the Braves, were poised to dominate the NL East for at least half of the next decade considering the ages of their stars of the rotation and the ability of their hitters. The Braves and Mets were going to have a tough time.

But then Cox heard that the Phillies had traded Cliff Lee and suddenly he wasn’t so worried any more. Oh sure, Halladay and Cole Hamels is a pretty nice combo, especially considering the fact that Hamels is just 26 the way Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux were two decades ago. Halladay, 33, was a bit older, but he had moved past the injury-prone years and was looking at another five seasons of top-level pitching.

Add Halladay to a rotation with Hamels and Lee and it’s the modern version of the ’93 Braves with J.A. Happ starring as Avery and Joe Blanton playing the role of Pete Smith. With that rotation the only thing the Phillies would have to worry about is injuries (duh) and whether the National League could win the All-Star Game to give the Phillies home-field advantage in the World Series.

But then Cox found out that the Phillies had traded Lee, too, and suddenly he wasn’t so upset any more. He didn’t have to worry about the best pitching trio in the game because Phils’ general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. believed it was more important for his team to be competitive for many years instead of great this year.

Those weren’t his words, of course, but they could have been. At least that’s the way it seems considering the Phillies added three prospects in J.C. Ramirez, Phillippe Aumont and Tyson Gillies from Seattle for a pitcher who might win his second Cy Young Award if he spends the entire season in the American League. Sure, there was a money aspect to it, too. Amaro says the Phillies could have afforded Lee this season, yes. However, it appears as if he was scared off by demands of a potential long-term deal from Lee’s camp.

This comes despite the fact that if Lee were to pitch 2010 for the Phillies at $9 million and then walked away in the winter because of some over-the-top contract demands, it’s the pitcher who suffers and not the club. At least that’s how it plays out in the always important PR aspect of it.

What makes all of that funny (not ha-ha funny) is the fact that four months after Lee was traded for those minor leaguers, Amaro and the Phillies gave Ryan Howard a five-year, $125 million deal that doesn’t kick in until 2012 and lasts until 2016. This is no to debate the merits of Howard’s contract extension. Good for him, I say. Instead, the curious thing about the contract extension for Howard was that his current deal won’t end until after 2011. And considering that Howard just got a $50,000 bonus for being named to the All-Star team, it’s been a pretty good year for the big fella.

Lee only got $10,000 for making the All-Star team and gets $250,000 more for winning the Cy Young. All he got for putting together the greatest postseason in team history since Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1915 was a trade to Seattle.

But even that’s not the funniest part (again, not ha-ha). The funniest part has been listening to the GM go on and on about how the Phillies need to add pitching possibly before the July 31 trading deadline with this fantastic quote:

“My job is to continue to make this team better.”

He said this long after Lee was traded and now wants to go out and get a pitcher.

“I’m always more concerned about pitching,” Amaro said. “At the end of the day our team should be able to handle some losses in the lineup. With the offensive talent we have, we should be able to absorb some losses. But you can never have enough pitching if you want to contend.

“For me, pitching (remains a priority) because we know our infielders will be back.”

Nope, you can never have enough pitching if you want to contend. That’s what the Phillies’ general manager said on Tuesday afternoon before his team’s extra-inning loss to the Cox’s Braves, where Hamels again pitched well a day after Halladay beat the Braves with a complete-game gem.

However, instead of going for the triple threat with Lee, the Phillies closed out the series against the first-place Braves with 47-year-old lefty Jamie Moyer.

“If we had Cliff Lee, we wouldn’t have Roy Halladay,” Amaro said. “It’s pretty simple. Time and circumstance dictate what you can and can’t do. We felt like we were in a position to hold on to one and not the other, and long-term we couldn’t leave the cupboard bare.”

Oh, but the GM said the team could have kept them both in 2010. Instead, he’s talking about years down the road because in the Phillies’ world it seems it is better to be competitive than great.

Why can't baseball make up its mind?

Just when you think you’re out, they pull you right back in. And this time it’s the veritable Mafioso of whiners and complainers out there finger wagging and indignation that seems almost unnatural given the subject matter.

That’s until we see that it’s July and the roster for next week’s All-Star Game had just been announced.

On the scale of injustices occurring these days, it appears as if All-Star “snubs” to guys like Joey Votto and Heath Bell rank right up there with racial intolerance, economic malfeasance and the BP disaster. Of course I’m basing this all off the acrimony and dissent put out on social media outlets, which I’m sure is an accurate representation of all trenchant discourse.

So at the risk of sounding like the PR department for BP, let me put it out there for all the outraged and disenchanted out there…

Get over it!

There, I said it.

OK, I’ll agree with the argument that Joey Votto, Josh Willingham, Billy Wagner, Miguel Olivo and Colby Rasmus should be All-Stars. I also understand that Omar Infante should not be an All-Star if not for any other reason than he doesn’t qualify for the league leadership in most offensive categories. But I also know that in this instance we should, to borrow a phrase, hate the game and not the player.

See, the All-Star Game and the process for which players are chosen is ridiculously flawed. If there is any injustice here it’s not that certain deserving players get left off, but the argument occurs as all. Major League Baseball wants to have it both ways with its broken and, dare we say, stupid system. It wants a showcase where fans can celebrate the game, yet also wants a meaningful contest where something is at stake. That’s not a case of making a cake and eating it, too, that’s pure intellectual dishonesty.

With its All-Star Game set up the way it is, Major League Baseball clearly thinks everyone is dumb… and that’s just mean.

In no other major sport do they pretend that an exhibition is truly meaningful and then hamstring the teams by forcing them to take players that may not be worthy. Just think how Charlie Manuel feels about trying to win a game that is being marketed with the slogan, “It counts!”yet being told that his starters will be a bunch of guys that won a popularity contest on the Internet. If that isn’t enough, he has to select a utility player, a non-closer reliever, and any starting pitcher to play in the Sunday game before the break is not eligible for the All-Star Game.

But you know, it counts.

If baseball wants to have a show, have a show. Do what the NBA does with its All-Star Game where it’s a weekend of parties, dunks and fancy, environmentally deficient cars, lots of showing off, Shakira, and at the end, two minutes of basketball played by the best athletes on the planet. The NBA makes no apologies, either. Instead it touts that it has the best All-Star Game out there and they might even be correct if only for the fact that it doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

The NFL does pretty much the same thing, only most players bag out of it since it seems silly to play an exhibition football game after a long season. Maybe the best way to improve the NFL Pro Bowl is to make it a flag football game, or a “Battle of the Network Stars.”

That is if such a thing as network stars even exist anymore.

I’m not even sure if the NHL has an All-Star Game, but if it did, even the hopelessly disorganized NHL wouldn’t put on an All-Star Game the way MLB does. It just doesn’t make any sense and everyone can see that. Think about it… you have probably been in fantasy football leagues better organized than the NHL and if that league sees the folly of the baseball All-Star Game, then it’s really quite obvious.

What Major League Baseball should do is make a decision whether it wants to have a showcase for its fans or a real game with its best players. Truth be told, there is no way to do both and even the most rational fan would argue that the best way to showcase a sport is to have the best players and teams in meaningful games. That’s what happens in Europe with soccer’s Premier leagues and Champions League. Understanding the simple fact that sports fans — the core audience for baseball, by the way — want their games with no frills, bells or whistles, soccer is perfect. There are no commercials, no fluff and no extraneous goofing off. For no more than two hours you are going to get the sport and nothing else even if it has to go extra time.

It’s so simple that it’s genius. If anyone wants to know why soccer is the most popular sport on earth it’s because they don’t get mixed up in all the sideshows or waste anyone’s time. Instead, they allow the fans to make that choice.

In the meantime, Charlie Manuel is going to Anaheim with a compromised club. Worse, he’s being told he has to win or his side won’t get home-field advantage in the World Series. Maybe if he truly was able to select his players it wouldn’t be so bad, but y’know, it’s a show…

Only it’s not. They say it counts, except it doesn’t.

Confused? So is Major League Baseball.

Helping out with the All-Stars

PITTSBURGH — Guys like me have no particular insight or influence when it comes to Phils’ manager Charlie Manuel and his decision making. Come to think about it, no else really does, either. Charlie is his own man and isn’t afraid to put his ass on the line.

The buck stops with Charlie.

So when discussing the All-Star Game and Manuel’s job as manager for the National League for the second year in a row, there wasn’t much reading between the lines. Charlie said he had a deadline in which to submit his roster and like anyone with a busy life and a job that takes him to place like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, he was probably going to go right up until the last minute.

Actually, that makes sense because choosing an All-Star team isn’t exactly like writing a paper for an anthropology class. History doesn’t change, but baseball statistics are never static. Just when you think you have a handle on what the numbers show about a ballplayer he’ll ground out to end the fourth inning somewhere or some nerd will develop some new metric that revolutionizes everything.

Ultimately, however, it comes down to the numbers and more than anything Charlie will take a look at the more mainstream of them before submitting his selections.

And because we’re like that in the sports writing business, I took the time to come up with a starting nine for both leagues. No, Charlie didn’t ask me to do it and as stated earlier, it’s doubtful this exercise will have any influence. Truth be told, I didn’t even vote in the All-Star balloting.

But because there’s nothing else really going on and no World Cup action to tune in for, here’s my starting nine for the National League:

C — Miguel Olivo, Colorado
Actual pick — Yadier Molina, St. Louis
This was purely a statistical and offensive selection seeing as Olivo leads all National League catchers with 11 homers and 39 RBIs. Truth is I can’t really recall an instance when I saw Olivo play this season and his numbers could be inflated because he’s playing for the Rockies at Coors Field this season instead of for the Kansas City Royals. It’s a lot different when a guy gets to bat behind Jason Giambi instead of Alberto Collaspo.

Brian McCann of Atlanta just might be the best all-around catcher in the league and will be there with Molina and Olivo, though it would be interesting to see if Carlos Ruiz would have been in the mix had he been able to stay healthy.

1B — Albert Pujols, St. Louis
Actual pick: Pujols
I didn’t even bother looking up Pujols’s stats and I haven’t checked his line in a box score all season. Oh sure, Joey Votto from Cincinnati is having a monster first half and Ryan Howard has posted some decent numbers, too. But as long as Pujols is drawing breath on this planet, he’s in the All-Star Game.

In fact, Pujols could be 90 and retired for 20 years and I would write his name in for the All-Star Game. I wouldn’t even care if his UZR was subpar because Pujols is the best hitter we have ever seen.

2B — Martin Prado, Atlanta
Actual pick: Chase Utley, Philadelphia
Going by what I get to see on a regular basis, a guy like Prado deserves some investigation. Did you know that Prado comes from the same hometown (Marcay, Venezuela) as ex-Phillies outfielder Bobby Abreu? Or that last season Prado hit three homers with 10 RBIs and a .432 batting average in 15 games against the Phillies?

How about this one… did you know that Prado leads the National League with a .336 batting average and finished first in the player’s balloting for the All-Star Game? It’s true. Prado beat Utley in the player’s vote, 472-276. That’s right, Prado beat Utley like a gong.

Because Utley is out with a torn up thumb until September, Prado will get the starting nod for Big Chuck’s National Leaguers.

3B — Scott Rolen, Cincinnati
Actual pick: David Wright, New York
I have a confession to make and it makes me a little uncomfortable, but here it goes… Scott Rolen is my favorite player. Yes, Pujols is the best hitter I’ve ever seen. Much better than even Rod Carew, George Brett or Tony Gwynn, but if my sons ever are interested in playing baseball seriously, I’ll get a DVD of Rolen, pop it into the machine and show it to my kids.

Then I'd probably say something like, "That, son, is how you play the game."

Because Rolen plays the game exactly the way it should be played and it's not really very subtle, either. For now though, the kids like the big fella. For intance, my oldest likes Ryan Howard because he had a life-sized poster in his room and the Phillies’ first baseman has some flair in the batters’ box with that exaggerated trigger with his bat pushed forward like a sword and, of course, he hits a lot of homers. Kids like big dudes who hit homers. When I was my son's age it was Greg Luzinski that every kid copied. Now it's The Big Piece.

Meanwhile my youngest doesn’t know what the hell a baseball is yet, but he'll learn because he's a lefty. All they both know about baseball is that it often keeps their daddy away from home and that’s not a good thing.

But back to Rolen...

There are no hidden meanings when Rolen plays third base or circles the bases. It’s all effort and power with some finesse sprinkled in around third base with some glove work that even forced Mike Schmidt to admit that Rolen was the best he’d ever seen. There also is no searching for nuance, which somehow makes his game appealing. Rolen really doesn't have any style when he plays and anyone with a sense of fashion will tell you, sometimes no style is style.

If there is something beneath the surface with Rolen it's that he has an iconoclastic quality, if you will. It was something that the folks in Philly didn't get at all, and maybe the only explanation is it's some sort of Indiana thing that is ingrained with dudes from that part of the world as if it’s part of their DNA. Letterman, John Cougar Mellencamp and Larry Bird all seem to have the same kind of qualities as Rolen, and they all come from the same place. 

Indiana.

For some reason certain folks from Indiana react to every slight or insult. When he was in playing in Philly, Rolen looked like he played baseball because he wanted revenge for something. It was something to see. Sure, guys with his sensibilities have traits that can be a bit alienating, but whatever.

Do you think everyone likes Letterman, Mellencamp or Bird? Do you think they care?

As far as the 2010 season goes Rolen seems to be on the path for the comeback player of the year. Healthy for the first time in about a half a decade, Rolen won the player’s balloting by 30 votes over David Wright. Plus, with his sixth All-Star appearance, Rolen has the third-most All-Star appearances on the squad behind Pujols and Roy Halladay.

He's old, but at least he has his panache back.

SS — Hanley Ramirez, Florida
Actual pick: Ramirez
There are two things that are peculiar about Ramirez. One is to wonder how he would be discussed if he played in Boston, Philadelphia or New York instead of Miami. If he spent five minutes playing for the Yankees or Mets, folks would probably be talking about Ramirez as if he were the second coming of Honus Wagner. Instead, we get to chalk down Jose Reyes as the most overrated New York player.

The second peculiarity is that most people only know Ramirez as the guy who lollygagged after a ball and then battled with his soon-to-be ex-manager. Of course that has a lot to do with Ramirez playing in Miami instead of an actual sports town, but hey, what are you going to do? Ramirez was voted to start in the All-Star Game for the third time so it appears as if they’ve heard of him somewhere.

OF—Andre Ethier, Los Angeles; Corey Hart, Milwaukee; Josh Willingham, Washington
Actual picks: Ryan Braun, Milwaukee; Ethier; Jason Heyward, Atlanta
My picks are all statistically based because if I was going by what I have seen, Hart would never be there. Has there ever been a player that always ends the season with great statistics, but whenever you get the chance to see him play, he stinks? That’s Corey Hart for me.

Then again I’m probably focusing on Hart because he won the final five Internet balloting two years ago and I was unfamiliar with his body of work aside from the humiliating 3-for-13 he posted in the 2008 NLDS against the Phillies.

Besides, who didn’t love that tune, “Sunglasses at Night” by Canadian pop-rocker Corey Hart back in 1983? Just thinking about it makes me want to break out a key-tar and rock out.

Either way, Corey Hart (but not Corey Hart) is having a solid season. I still haven't seen him play this year and I'm sure if I did he'd go 0-for-4 with a couple of K's and a throwing error, but whatever. His numbers look really good.

P — Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado
Actual pick: Jimenez (player vote)
Remember the first time you saw Jimenez pitch? It was probably in September of 2007 at the Bank or maybe even in October of that year in the NLDS. If you’re like me (and why wouldn’t you be?) you probably said aloud, “Holy bleep, what was that pitch?!”

You also probably thought, “I bet that guy is going to be a star if he can put it all together.”

Jimenez’s had what big leaguers like to call, “electric stuff.” He was raw back then, but threw 98 with breaking pitches that hissed and slithered like a snake. He was exciting in a way folks get excited when they discover a really good band that no one else has heard of, but now that everyone has caught up with the proper way of seeing things, you somehow feel justified and self-assured that you know baseball talent when you see it.

Hell, you might even be ready for a gig as a scout so you can go bird-doggin' around looking for the next best thing.

Anyway, Jimenez pitched the clinching Game 3 at Coors Field in the ’07 NLDS and held the Phillies to just three hits in an interesting duel with Jamie Moyer, which was his coming out party. People got a good, first look at him then though it took some time for him to get right here.

Two years after that rookie season, Jimenez won 27 games and showed flashes of brilliance though the rawness was most prevalent. This year, though, it appears as if he’s put it all together. At 14-1 with a 2.27 ERA, Jimenez already has a no-hitter to his credit and should get the starting nod for the National Leaguers.   

Interestingly, Halladay finished second in the player balloting behind Jimenez. However, since Manuel will be thinking more about his club than the National Leaguers, don’t expect Halladay to get into the game.

And that's it. There are you're National League All-Stars as defined by me. Get busy debating the merits of Omar Infante or Joey Votto. There's seven days to fight about it until everyone shows up in Anaheim for the big game.

Good help will be hard to find

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instead Amaro has a problem with what he can give.

Nope, he doesn’t have much.

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

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

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

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

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

But that doesn’t mean my logic was faulty.

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

Unless Ruben is hiding an ace somewhere.

Revisiting Jim Furyk's outside game

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Old rivals die hard. Either that orold rivals just get old and like to talk about the old glory days. Oh yes, those halcyon days when we had more hair and could drill 20-footers from the corner...

Jim Furyk remembers those days, too, especially the part about the 20-footers from the corner, which he recalled in better detail than a pro athlete with his resume should. See, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and former No. 2 rated player in the world (he’s currently ranked No. 5) was known less for his unconventional golf swing and stellar short game when he was a student at Manheim Township High School in Lancaster, Pa., and more for his stroke from the outside on the Blue Streaks’ basketball team.

At least that’s how I remember it, though Furyk politely corrected some of those memories about his basketball career on Tuesday afternoon as he finished up a practice round at Aronimink Golf Club ahead of the AT&T National. Playing somewhat near his hometown (head out 30 west until you get to Manheim Pike and then make a right at Granite Run… that will take you into his old ‘hood), or at least close enough that fans waiting for autographs called out, “Go Blue Streaks!” at him, Furyk explained that the 20-footer from the corner against Lebanon wasn’t as clutch as believed.

It was still a pretty big shot though.

“We had to beat them once in the next two games in order to win the second-half title,” Furyk said, before calling his abilities on the basketball court, “average.”

For a golfer (whatever that means), he still looks like he could give some high school kids a good run after finishing up 18 holes. Fit and trim as he was in high school, Furyk is playing some of the best golf of his life these days. Perhaps the only things that betray his age are the list of tournaments won and a hairline that has disappeared and crawled away for good.

As for Furyk being just an "average" ballplayer, I beg to differ. Considering that he played at the quintessential suburban high school in which it was somewhat surprising to learn that John Hughes did not scout out the place in order to research some of his movies like Pretty in Pink or The Breakfast Club or even 16 Candles, they were no pushover for us at the inner-city McCaskey High. We always thought we could waltz into gyms like Manheim Township or Hempfield and just intimidate them because our team was not made up of too many white kids, but that wasn’t always the case.

Township could play and the reason for that was guys like Furyk knew their roles and were put in positions where they could rely on their strengths. For the gang at McCaskey — and every other team in the Lancaster-Lebanon League circa 1988 — that meant Furyk could not be left open.

“You guys had more talent,” Furyk conceded to me, “but we put it together better.”

It’s difficult to argue with that considering Furyk’s team went to the league championship to face Warwick, which was a juggernaut that season with all-stater, Jack Hurd. If that name sounds familiar it’s because Hurd went on to start for four years at La Salle and has a spot in the Big 5 Hall of Fame. You can see his picture hanging on the wall at The Palestra if you look for it. Because of this fact, Hurd was the real star of the sports scene back then. Chalk it up to being the guy with a full ride to play for a Division I basketball program, while the other guy was best known for a sport that doesn't exactly draw too many spectators.

To some degree, Furyk went somewhat unnoticed in those days. Oh sure, we all knew how good he was at golf considering he won the state championship by a record 12 strokes. Even for high school where the talent parity in sports is not the same as it is in higher levels of competition, Furyk was like the Globetrotters playing against the Washington Generals.

All he needed was a bucket of confetti.

“It wasn’t like he shot par and everyone else was terrible,” said a high school and amateur golf competitor of Furyk’s named Ben Miller, from Lancaster. “He shot [two great rounds] and just ran away from everyone.”

That’s kind of the way it was in the 2003 U.S. Open where he tied the all-time record for the lowest 72-hole score in tournament history. The difference there, of course, was that Furyk was beating Tiger Woods and not punk kids named Miller from Lancaster. Still, it was during his senior year at Manheim Township where his path to a career in golf first became crystal clear.

“Up until his junior year he was really, really good,” Miller said. “But by his senior year there was no one who could compete with him. He just went to a different level.”

But consider this… just what in the hell was Furyk doing on the basketball court to begin with? Considering he was the top amateur golfer in Pennsylvania probably since Latrobe's Arnie Palmer tore it up, it’s a wonder he wasn’t sequestered at Meadia Heights hitting balls all day. Or, perhaps, if he had shown such talent for golf these days he could have been enrolled in one of those special schools where kids focus on their sport all day long with some book learnin’ sprinkled in.

Instead Furyk was a regular dude who played whatever sports he could. Miller says Furyk was a champion swimmer when he was a kid and played football, too. Still, think of the time he spent playing competitive high school basketball where an injury could have ruined one of the era’s best all-around golf careers. Didn’t anyone tell him to stop?

“No, all my friends were on the basketball team, so it was a chance for me to hang out with them,” he said, adding that some of the guys from the Township hoops squad were in his wedding and he still keeps in close touch with them now. Golf (obviously) didn’t have that social aspect with all its need to shush anyone who makes even the slightest noise when shifting from one foot to another.

In Lancaster, Pa. in 1988 being on the golf team wasn’t the path to popularity.

“Playing golf wasn’t too cool back then,” Furyk said, noting that during the golf season he had to bring his clubs to school and stash them in the coach’s office. “There was no way I was going to ride the bus to school with my clubs so I used to make my mom drive me. I wasn’t going to be seen carrying my golf bag on the bus or around school.”

Ah, but times change. What was uncool in the 1980s is viewed differently these days and one has to imagine that a state champion golfer would not get picked on for dragging his golf clubs around at school. Maybe getting a ride from mom would be the wrong move, but golf — for someone as good as Furyk — nah, not any more.

Besides, it wasn’t like the cool kids or jocks were pasting a “kick me” sign on his back in the hallways as if he were George McFly. This is Jim Furyk we’re talking about… he was on the basketball team.

Here’s the really interesting part… during Furyk’s senior year Billy Owens of Carlisle High and later Syracuse University (and then six different teams in the NBA), was the best player in Pennsylvania. Fortunately, Furyk says, he never had to face Owens in basketball like some of us. But where it gets interesting is Owens is exactly 11 days older than Furyk and was the more heralded athlete during high school and for many years after, too.

But Owens has been retired from the NBA since 2001 while Furyk, at age 40, has already won two tournaments this year and has won the sixth-most number of tournaments among active players. Yes, at 40, Furyk is just getting started.

“That’s why golf is a great game,” he said.

Taking on the World

The texts and messages rolled in almost as quickly as ithappened. Mostly, with the group of folks I have given my contact information to, the knee-jerk response was laughter. After all, it’s not every day that the general manager of a baseball team that is coming off of two straight trips to the World Series takes a shot at you on live TV.

Call it a badge of honor or something like that. After all, acknowledgment is a good thing (or something).

Anyway, when I learned about the comments they were always followed up by the question, “are you mad?” My theory on why this was the question is because I’m sure the cats who asked were hoping for a little tête à tête between the GM and me. Look, I don’t associate with the most noble of folks. Actually, these are the types of people who take delight in the failure of others and love a good soap opera more so than a digging through the archives.

Yes, my friends are weasels. Then again, that’s why they are my friends.

So once I pieced together the smarty-pants comments from the GM about me on live television, the easy answer to the questions was, “No, why would I be angry?”

That was the truth, too. Angry? Nope, not with the GM. Considering I compared him to Nixon bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War when playing us press types for fools during the Winter Meetings. Remember that? The GM told us the Phillies weren’t in the mix for Roy Halladay, but then a couple days later he made the big trade. Incidentally, Halladay pitches tonight against the team he was traded from.

Synergy, huh?

Nevertheless, for those of us who like to dish it out we sure as shoot better be able to take it, too. There might be a little bit of crying allowed in baseball, but there is no place for whining. Rub some dirt on that bruised ego and get back out there is what I say.

So what does this have to do with the United States national team and the World Cup? Well, not much unless we relate it to me (and this is all about me). See, a couple of weeks ago I sat at the Linc and watched the World Cup squad take on Turkey in their last game in the U.S. before jetting off to South Africa. From that game and the reports on the previous game against the Czech Republic, my thought was Bob Bradley’s team could be setting itself up for a big crash.

I even wrote this:

Bob Bradley is a smart man. As the coach of the U.S. World Cup team headed for South Africa on Monday, Bradley has to be pretty sharp. So when listening to the coach speak after games it’s best to listen to the words he’s not saying as opposed to what is said.

Now this isn’t to say that Bradley is performing avant jazz by bebopping and scatting confusing and cryptic phrases on our ears. No, far from it. However, following the 2-1 victory over the national team from Turkey on Saturday afternoon at the Linc, it was evident that the coach believes his team has some more work to do before its first match against England on June 12.

Again, Bradley wasn’t hiding anything, but then again he really didn’t have to. There was no conspiratorial tone from Bradley whatsoever. Still, it seemed as if Bradley was trying to sell the notion that everything was going to be OK.

Certainly that’s a relative term when it comes to U.S. soccer in international competition. Still, based on the team’s painful 0-3 showing in the last World Cup and the experience of the players on the current roster, Team USA has to be a little better than OK. It’s the round of 16 or bust in South Africa for the U.S.

Yep, Bradley knew what he was saying that afternoon in Philadelphia. He outlined exactly what his team had to do in the final week and a half leading up to the World Cup opener against England and things have actually gone better than planned. Oh yes, there were some tense moments there before Landon Donovan scored in extra time to boost the U.S. to the win of Group C, and it’s not unfair to suggest that Bradley’s boys deserved a lot less stress on their run to the final 16.

But you know what? Bradley gets it. The coach really knows what he’s doing. He knows when to push his guys and when to relax on the whip a bit. Moreover, there is nothing about the undefeated round robin stage that has been a mistake. The U.S. won the group because it was the best team.

As far as dealing with the press in South Africa, it appears as if Bradley has kept it just as avant as he did that day in Philadelphia. If the quarterfinals game against Ghana comes down to strategery and acumen, the U.S. is going to march on.

So here we are with another big plate of crow, a fork and a sharp knife. In fact, if it comes to that I’m going to hold my nose and take a big bite.

No, the U.S. is not going to win the World Cup. At least not until the next Kobe Bryant and LeBron James opt for soccer instead of other sports.In other words, this could be a very good year for U.S. Soccer… that is if it can take care of a few issues before the games start. That means no more repeats of the first half of the game against Turkey in Philadelphia.

Yep, that was me. I typed that just enough arrogance to force others to believe that I knew what I was talking about. So now with it all out on the table like this, let’s entertain the thought for a moment—y’know, tempt fate, the football gods and Posh Spice with some crazy talk…

What if the U.S. wins this thing? Really, what then? Will there be an explosion, a war, a day off from work, a chance for the international community to question the very nature of life?

Yes, what if the U.S. wins the World Cup?

Is this the craziest thing ever?

Jamie Moyer ain't half bad, either

We get it. Jamie Moyer is old. At 47 it’s safe to say that Moyer has been old for a while now—at least in baseball terms. Sports, like most things, are a young man’s game and guys like Moyer are often viewed as a novelty or a curious relic.

So don’t come here looking for the standard, “age-is-just-a-number-like-ERA” crap. We’ve been there before, citing examples of folks like Dara Torres as athletes like Moyer who have defied conventional reasoning by competing at a high level well past their prime.

In other words, spare us. Moyer is 47, big deal. He’s been in his 40s since 2002 and promptly went out and won 21 games for Seattle. He’s also won 55 games since joining the Phillies at the end of the 2006 season when he was 43 and currently is tied for the team leadership in wins with eight.

Yes, Moyer is old. We know this. So instead of harping on the uniqueness of a 47-year-old lefty with a fastball that couldn’t scuff Plexiglas still getting it done at an elite level, perhaps we should look at the “why” and the “how.”

Age? Whatever.

What makes Moyer unique is that he still has the will to compete. Sure, it helps that he only goes out there once every five days and uses guile and grit more than muscle and power, but he still has to push himself through the vagaries and mundanity of a long season. Chalk that up to an active mind or the ability to shove aside human nature and boredom.

Think about it… baseball has been Moyer’s professional focus just about every day for four decades. That’s either genius or crazy.

Or both.

“That’s luck,” Moyer said when it was pointed out that he’s led the Phillies in wins through their recent run.

Actually, Moyer is wrong about that and it was pointed out to him that luck has nothing to do with his wins. He corrected himself to explain that he has worked quite hard, and that’s true, but at some point it goes beyond luck and hard work. Sometimes ballplayers like Moyer ignore the most obvious reason for success is talent. Everyone in baseball works hard and it will only get a player to a certain point.

Get this… Moyer is talented, too. He might not want to admit it, but it’s true.

So what keeps him going now? He says he isn’t too impressed by the milestones he achieves seemingly every time he steps onto the mound, trotting out the old line about all a guy can accomplish by just hanging around long enough. For instance, in Tuesday night’s win over Cleveland Moyer tied both Bob Feller in wins with 266 and Robin Roberts in homers allowed with 505. Feller, of course, lost more than three years of his 20s while serving in World War II, but the only players ahead of Moyer on the all-time list for wins not in the Hall of Fame are Jim Kaat, Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux.

The numbers and the names aren’t what keep Moyer going. That’s for him to enjoy later. No, the reason why he keeps coming back for more is the winning. Not so much as him getting the wins as it is the team. Just the idea of getting another World Series ring is enough to keep Moyer in it.

Need proof? Try this… Moyer says he was ready to retire after the 2006 season. Sitting in Anaheim waiting to pitch in a meaningless game for the Mariners in mid-August, Moyer says he and his wife had a 90-minute conversation over the phone about his decision to pack it in. He just couldn’t bear another season playing for a mediocre team with no realistic shot to win the World Series.

Enough was enough until he was offered an interesting proposition…

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

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

Luck? Nah, luck is for the lottery.

“There’s still a lot of baseball left and it’s a responsibility of mine to come here and perform,” he said, not sounding like an old man just hanging on for the ride.

“You can’t rest on your laurels. If you have to wait for it, it’s not going to happen.”

As for homers allowed, it’s just Roberts and Moyer all alone at the top of the list. And chances are no one is going to get close to the record unless Tim Wakefield or Javier Vazquez “get hot.” Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being the pitcher who allowed the most homers ever. Bad pitchers aren’t ever given the chance to give up as many homers as Moyer.

“The only thing I think about is I’ve had a lot of chances to be able to do that,” Moyer said. “It’s probably not a record that I'm most proud of, but I'm proud of the opportunity that I've had to have those chances. And with my style of pitching, you know what? You’re going to give up home runs. That’s just the way it is. Some of them go really far. Some of them don’t. That's the way it goes.”

Yeah, we get it. Moyer has been around for a long time, which is a great accomplishment. But the beauty of Moyer’s success is that he’s not interested in simply showing up and getting credit. Yeah, there’s some luck and hard work involved, but there’s something else more important at play, too.

Jamie Moyer is pretty good.