Howard and Utley bring the chicken soup

Who doesn’t like a little baseball wisdom?

All it takes is one…

Take two and hit it to the opposite field…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No rhyme or reason to the no-hitter

So the Phillies nearly were no-hit again on Monday night at Dodger Stadium. This time it was Hiroki Kuroda who flirted with blanking the Phillies until Shane Victorino came through with a solid single to right field with one out in the eighth inning.

For those scoring at home, there have been 19 one-hitters in the big leagues this season and the Phillies were involved in four of them. There also have been five no-hitters—excluding the no-so perfect game from Armando Galarraga—the most since 1991 when there were seven no-hitters, which was the dawn of the so-called steroid era.

Can the level field between pitching and hitting be as simple as improved drug testing?

That's a question that will be answered in time. For now, however, we have to figure what can we make of this and why the pitching has caught up to hitting.

Either way, there is a rebirth of extraordinary well-pitched games. Of the 20 perfect games (21 if you count Galarraga), three of them (four if you count… you know) have come since July of 2009. That’s 15 percent of all the perfect games in history happening within a 10-month span.

It also means that after being one-hit three times this season, the Phillies are about due for the ol’ no-no…

Doesn’t it?

Well, yes and no. Historically, no-hitters have existed in a vacuum. There were no hints or warnings that they were going to happen. For instance, before the White Sox’s Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Rays in July of 2009, there was no event that gave off a warning sign that it was about to happen. In fact, before the perfect game, the Rays had won four of six and were 5 games off the pace in the AL East. If there were candidates of teams to be no-hit, the Rays were hardly at the top of the list.

But since that perfect game, the Rays have been involved in three no-hitters. One of those was a perfect game by Dallas Braden in Oakland, followed by an eight-walk, 149-pitch no-no in Arizona by Edwin Jackson.

Despite the fact that the Rays (81-50) are tied for the best record in baseball with the Yankees, they also have been one-hit twice and two-hit twice this season. In fact, the Rays have been two-hit, one-hit or no-hit at least once every month this season. With September to start on Wednesday, the Rays are due again.

It appears as if the Phillies are in the same boat as the Rays only without the perfect game out in front. Since April 16, 1978 when the Cardinals’ Bob Forsch threw a no-hitter against the Phillies, the team has not been beaten by an official no-hitter. Yes, there was the rain-shortened, five-inning no-no by the Expos’ Pascual Perez in late 1988, but that doesn’t count in the official records.

Better yet, the Phillies have been so resistant to extraordinary pitching that since Forsch threw his no-hitter, they had been victims of a one-hitter just 11 times heading into this season. Yes, that’s just 11 one-hitters in 31 seasons.

So clearly the Phillies are making up for lost time. This season they have been one-hit three times (Daisuke Matsusaka, R.A. Dickey, Kuroda) which is the exact number of times the Phillies had been one-hit since 1994. Plus, if we figure that the Rays were coming off a season in which they got to the World Series and had only been one-hit or no-hit four times in their entire existence (going back to 1998), the Phillies are ripe for the taking.

Then again, who knows with these things. Before 1978 it seemed like the Phillies were the easiest team to throw a no-hitter against. From 1960 to 1972, the Phillies came up on the zero end of things in the hits category eight times, including two in the same season (1960) to the Milwaukee Braves. Meanwhile, in the World Series era, Philadelphia pitchers have tossed just 13 no-hitters, with eight of those coming from Phillies pitchers.

Perhaps the only thing we’ve been able to determine through all of this is no-hitters and Philadelphia don’t go together all that well. Adding in the fact that the New York Mets have not had a single no-hitter in their history and the Dodgers have had 20, these are events that occur totally at random.

And with a lot of luck.

Strong finish could result in playoffs, cool trophy for Halladay

If we’re ranking the off-season deals around baseball, the one that brought Roy Halladay to the Phillies just might be the best one. The truth is Halladay has been everything as advertised for the Phillies and maybe more. Of course the final analysis cannot be completed until Halladay pitches in the playoffs (IF he pitches in the playoffs), but so far there isn’t anything to complain about.

As a result of his performance, Halladay is right in the mix to win his second Cy Young Award along with Tim Hudson of the Braves, Adam Wainwright from the Cardinals, Ubaldo Jimenez from the Rockies, and the Marlins’ Josh Johnson.

Interestingly, four of the top 10 pitchers in wins, ERA and strikeouts come from the NL East, which shows how well pitch Halladay has to pitch in every game. Moreover, since the Phillies play the Braves and Marlins 13 times in September, Halladay will have to dial it up for his final half-dozen starts.

But that shouldn’t be a problem. After all, this season Halladay leads the league in ERA (2.22), innings (207), complete games (8), shutouts (3) and strikeouts (186). He also leads the league in WAR, walks per nine innings (1.1) and could move into a tie for the league leadership with 17 wins if he beats the Dodgers on Monday night.

The Phillies have not had anyone win the pitching triple crown (wins, ERA and strikeouts) since Steve Carlton in 1972, a 20-game winner since 1982 (Carlton) or a Cy Young Award winner since 1987 (Steve Bedrosian). In fact, the Phillies haven’t had a right-hander win 20 games since Robin Roberts did it in 1955.

With those milestones also comes the perfect game in Miami where Halladay retired all 27 Marlins in a 1-0 victory against Johnson. So yeah, as far as resume fodder goes, Halladay likely will have it all.

“I think he should definitely be in there,” manager Charlie Manuel said a couple of weeks ago. “There are some guys having some big years, but he’s definitely right in there with complete games and our team has definitely been in contention, so I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be there. He has a chance to pull that off if you guys vote for him.”

Yeah, there it is. Will the voters go for Halladay if he has a bad, relatively speaking, September? Halladay is just outside of the top 10 in losses, which is hardly his fault given the Phillies’ streaky offense this season. Though Halladay has a 4.87 ERA in his nine losses and has allowed 13 of his 16 homers in those games, the Phillies have scored three runs or fewer in eight of those games and zero or one in four of them. Even in his no-decisions the Phillies didn’t give him much support, either. One of those resulted in a 1-0 victory for the team and the other turned into a 4-3 defeat.

In fact, in six of Halladay’s 16 wins he received either one or two runs of support.

Sure, these superlatives are fantastic, but they don’t really answer the question…

Can Halladay win the Cy Young Award?

Well, that all depends. Counting Monday night’s start at Dodger Stadium, Halladay will make seven more starts this season. But even if he wins them all and the Phillies fall out of the playoffs, he could have a tough time winning the Cy Young. See, BBWAA voters are a fickle bunch and they seem to put a lot of stock in winning. Even still, it will be very difficult to deny Halladay.

Better yet, considering Halladay has never gone into September with his team within 10 games, this should be an exciting time for him. Actually, the reason why he wanted to join the Phillies was to get a chance to pitch in meaningful, late-season games. It also didn’t hurt that he would not have to move from his Florida home since the Blue Jays and Phillies train next to each other in Dunedin and Clearwater.

Nevertheless, Halladay said he wanted to pitch in some big games and it looks like he got his wish. Starting on Monday night and going to the last regular-season game in Atlanta on Oct. 2, every start will be a big deal.

“Obviously it’s been a while since I’ve gotten to this part of the season and been on a team that’s been knocking on the door, so yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to it,” Halladay said a couple of weeks back. “We have a couple of guys coming back and it’s going to be fun. This is the biggest reason why I wanted to come here and to give ourselves a chance is pretty important.”

So if Halladay comes through in September not only will he probably get a cool looking plaque, but also it should put the Phillies into the playoffs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s how it looked:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strasburg's injury hurts more than Nationals

It’s no fun celebrating cautionary tales or being a cynic. No one with any semblance of tact or class wants to be the “told-you-so” guy or the jackass always pointing out the mistakes of others. There’s too much of that as it is.

It would have been fun to witness greatness for a change. No, not the drug-fueled superhuman feats of strength that defined baseball just a short time ago, but instead we long for pure, unbridled skill and talent. A right arm touched by the gods, for lack of better hyperbole.

So with the news that Stephen Strasburg, the once-in-a-lifetime pitching phenom for the Washington Nationals, would likely have to undergo Tommy John surgery to fix that right arm, well, the cynicism rang hollow.

No one wanted the kid to get hurt. Not the players on the Phillies, manager Charlie Manuel or any real fans of the game. Yeah, the Phillies have six games remaining against the Nationals and will likely be fighting for a playoff spot in those games, so not having to face a pitcher like Strasburg is key. In his lone appearance against the Phillies, which was also the game where the “significant tear” of the ligament holding his elbow together was too much to bear, the pitcher dominated. He allowed two hits in 4 1/3 innings without a walk to go with six strikeouts. Noting that he had three mediocre outings in a row leading up to the game against the Phillies, the first four innings of the game were promising.

Manuel, who said he was looking forward to seeing the kid pitch against his team in the days leading up to the game, was pleased to report that the hype matched the skill. Even Ryan Howard, who got one of the hits against Strasburg, walked away impressed.

“He has an easy 98-mph fastball and a great hammer. He’s really good, though it’s like some of us said — the media took it and ran with it,” Howard said. “To his credit, he’s handled it all pretty well.”

Easy. That was the word a lot of players used when talking about Strasburg’s pitching motion. It seemed as if he wasted very little energy before throwing the ball 100-mph. He also had that hammer—the curve ball from hell—that had the makings of becoming the best pitch in the game.

That is if it wasn’t already.

Then he reportedly heard a “pop” in his elbow and got scared. Obviously, that pop resonated pretty loudly because it conjured up names and tales of haunted glory and unfilled promise. As quickly as one of those fastballs old names were bandied about. And as skewed as the angle on his curve, opinion came from mouth breathers of satellite radio and the floor of Congress. Actually, you could set your watch to it. Todd Van Poppel, David Clyde, Brien Taylor, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood should be starring in beer commercials any day for as much as they have been talked about lately. Talk about a Q rating…

Or maybe we should say, gentlemen, start your second-guessing. Based on watching Strasburg pitch in the minors, his major league debut and his final big league start, the kid was treated as if he were a Ming vase since signing with the Nats last year. Even in the minors Strasburg had an entourage of major league public relations people setting up the velvet ropes around the meal ticket. Moreover, his outings were monitored as if they were science experiments with strict pitch counts and plenty of rest.

If there was one pitcher who should not have gotten hurt it was Strasburg. After all, there were all those ex-big leaguers who said the kid was being babied too much. He needed to toughen up and pitch more.

Oops.

“It's frustrating, because this happens to people you think it shouldn't happen to,” Nats GM Mike Rizzo told The Washington Post. “This player was developed and cared for the correct way. Things like this happen. Pitchers break down. Pitchers get hurt. We're satisfied with the way he was developed. I know [Strasburg's agent] Scott Boras was satisfied with the way he's been treated, and Stephen is also. We're good with that. Frustrated, yes. Second-guessing ourselves, no.”

The silver lining is that Tommy John surgery is very common. There are plenty of players on every team in the big leagues that have undergone the operation, which more and more seems like one of those milestones pitchers have to cross…

The minors, a big league debut, arbitration, free agency and Tommy John. Not necessarily in that order.

There’s also a chance that when Strasburg returns in April of 2012 that his fastball will be faster than it was before. The drawback is it will take him some time to regain the feel for his curveball, but the fastball will be OK. Besides, there were nine players in the All-Star Game that had Tommy John surgery: Chris Carpenter, Tim Hudson, Josh Johnson, Arthur Rhodes, Brian Wilson, Joakim Soria, Hong-Chih Kuo, Rafael Soriano and Billy Wagner.

Is baseball doomed in D.C.?
The problem isn’t the surgery, it’s the recovery. It’s not the process, either, but the time. In baseball, like any other corporate structure, time is money. Considering that Strasburg wasn’t just the ace of the Nats, but also The Franchise, it’s fair to ask if baseball in Washington can weather this storm. Yes, Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman are good ballplayers, and Josh Willingham is having a tremendous season while Nyjer Morgan could become a solid leadoff man. But those guys weren’t putting the butts in the seats.

Only the Pirates and Marlins averaged fewer fans per game than the Nationals amongst National League teams, and even in Strasburg’s last home start just 21,695 fans turned out—a good 2,000 below the team’s average per game.

So even with Strasburg was baseball viable in Washington?

Think about it… Washington is a two-time loser in baseball, yet when the Expos where no longer right for Montreal, MLB insisted on giving the city a third shot. Worse, they stuck it to the overburdened taxpayers of D.C. and forced them to build a ballpark that no one goes to.

Now it could be a career-threatening arm injury to cause a section of Southeast D.C. to go back to its pre-Nationals Park form, while the franchise moves on to Portland, Charlotte, Las Vegas or maybe even Monterrey, Mexico. We’ll start using names like Brien Taylor, David Clyde and Todd Van Poppel. We’ll tell more cautionary tales only to go back to believing the hype with the next kid with an arm that supersedes his years.

Washington could be a three-time loser with baseball, which only guarantees that there will not be a fourth chance.

“He’s going to be a tremendous pitcher,” Manuel said. “He has to stay healthy, though.”

Stay healthy because only the entire franchise is depending on it.

Don't mess with Jim, Part 2: When crazy isn't funny

It has long been the official stance here at Finger Food that ex-big league pitcher and soon-to-be ex-senator, Jim Bunning, was (indeed) crazy. We don’t mean that in a clinical sense, because to make such a diagnosis would require an advanced degree, and really… who has the time?

No, Bunning, the first man to pitch a perfect game for the Phillies, toss a no-hitter and win 100 games in both leagues, is simply batbleep crazy. Generally, batbleep crazy folks are the kind we like. After all, these are people who are not only extremely entertaining and sometimes have savant-like talents, but also they are harmless.

Remember when Chad Ochocinco was Chad Johnson? The dude went down to the courthouse, filled out all the paper work, hired a lawyer, went to court and legally had his name changed. In fact, we loved it. America loved it and accepted it very quickly. Rarely will an announcer accidentally drop a “Chad Johnson” when addressing Ochocinco the way they kept calling Muhammad Ali, Cassius Clay and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lew Alcindor. There is no grand statement involved when a man who wears the uniform number, 85, changes his last name to Ochocinco because it’s just crazy.

Batbleep crazy.

And because of this most folks wouldn’t vote for Ochocinco for county dog catcher if he were to run. You can’t have a guy as crazy as a loon holding an office. Look, there are plenty of precedents but that doesn’t make it right. Just look at what the people in the Commonwealth of Kentucky did by electing ol’ right-hander Jim Bunning to congress.

Maybe the good folks of Kentucky simply have a warped sense of humor?  That has to be the case… right? Why else would Bunning be elected to anything aside from a well-heeled player representative for the Major League Baseball Players Association? In fact, Bunning was instrumental in the early days of MLBPA when he advocated player strikes and work stoppages. The truth is the MLBPA might not have been what it was if it were not for the hard work of guys like Bunning.

It’s also true that Bunning likely turned to politics because he couldn’t hack it in baseball. Oh sure, Bunning is pretty good at revisionist history about his playing career like we all are. In his day ballplayers were tougher, smarter and the game was better… just ask him, he’ll tell you.

See, Bunning is one of those old ballplayers who walked uphill for 10 miles in a driving snow storm just to be able to pitch in a ballgame. In an interview with Politico.com about Washington’s ace pitcher Stephen Strasburg, Bunning could not resist taking shots at the kid who struggled throw a couple of arm injuries in his first pro season. The news on Friday was that Strasburg will need Tommy John Surgery, but before he had even an inkling of the facts, Bunning, the old MLBPA leader, ripped a current member of the union.

“Five hundred twenty starts, I never refused the ball,” Bunning told Politico.com. “What a joke!”

It was 519 starts, but that’s probably just an oversight from a senator who has made a career of whitewashing his real record. To hear the stories from the old days, Bunning was equal parts crazy and jerk. My favorite story comes from the book Temporary Insanity, written by former Phillie Jay Johnstone. To set it up, here is a story I wrote for our pal Mike Meech over at The Fightins:

On my way to the press box lavatory, I literally ran into Jay Johnstone. No one was hurt, but the first thought that popped into my head when nearly trampling the Dodgers’ broadcaster was, “Hey, I read your book when I was a kid.”

The book was called Temporary Insanity and it wasn’t too bad for jock-lit. There were plenty of good stories about all the crazy things baseball players like to do in their free time, including some of the finer details about Johnstone’s time as a Phillies farmhand where he spent most of his energy terrorizing his manager Jim Bunning.

Bunning, of course, is currently the senior Republican senator from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and based on a conversation I had with him in 2003, he still has not let go of the mental anguish Johnstone caused him. Maybe that’s why he was screwing the unemployed of his state, but I digress.

My favorite story from the book was when Johnstone caught wind that Bunning had been trying to nail him for any team rule infraction he could. So just to steam his manager even more than already necessary, Johnstone spread the word that he was organizing a wild, beer-drinking and card-playing night in his room at the team hotel. As it was told, Johnstone wanted everyone to spread word that the party would be a bona fide rager to end all ragers and to make sure that the manager found out, too. Don’t invite the dude, but just make sure Bunning knew all about it was the plan.

Bunning, as planned, got wind of the party and thinking he was finally going to get his chance to burn Johnstone once and for all, the manager showed up at the room after curfew only to find Johnstone sitting on his bed and reading a book.

Oh yes, the wild rager turned out to be nothing but a rouse. Johnstone set it up so that Bunning would show up only to catch him reading a book.

Classic.

More exasperating for Bunning was when Johnstone looked up from his book at the angry figure in the doorway and said something like, “Hiya, skip! You’re out kind of late, aren’t you?”

As the story goes, Bunning stormed out of there chapped that he couldn’t finally stick it to Johnstone. However, later the future senator got the last laugh. During that conversation with Bunning in 2003, I asked him about Johnstone and he told me that when the Phillies’ brass called him about the best player on his team he immediately told them about the guy who had been a veritable bee in his bonnet. As a result of that, the Phillies called up Johnstone from the minors and he went on to be a valuable left-handed bat for the team.

“I was finally rid of him,” the senator said.

Oh yes, a win-win for all.

It doesn't sound the least bit unreasonable to surmise that because Bunning couldn't hack it as a minor-league manager or control Jay Johnstone, he went on to be a U.S. Senator.

Bunning was in Philadelphia on Thursday to fete Roy Halladay for throwing the second perfect game in team history with all the pomp and circumstance reserved for the last time the team had a ceremony for Halladay for throwing the second perfect game in team history. That one was in June, I think, only Bunning couldn’t be there.

This time, Bunning turned up and told the team’s official web site about how great Halladay’s perfect game was as it related to his perfect game in 1964.

That was the year when Bunning was the ace pitcher for the team that experienced the worst late-season collapse in baseball history.

“After [Halladay's] eight years in the American League there has been no loss in effectiveness,” Bunning noted. “I had the same kind of experience, I had nine years in the American League before I got here. Now, I had a no-hitter in the American League first, but he's come close an awful lot of times.

“I watched the tape of that game and he ran a lot of 3-2 counts. I had just two when I had a perfect game, and truth be told, I faced much weaker competition. But the focus it took to battle through was amazing.”

In other words, Halladay was pretty perfect, but not as perfect as Bunning.

Sheesh!

If that was all the craziness we got from the senator, it wouldn’t be anything to bat an eye at. However, the reporter Bunning spoke to was doing some stringer work for MLB.com and has been unemployed since December of 2008 because of cutbacks at his former newspaper. As the tale was told, the writer was introduced to the senator as an old newspaper writer who was unemployed because of the state of the economy.

Bunning’s response to this information?

“I can’t wait until they are all gone,” the senator said about newspapers.

Oh yes he did!

Bunning, of course, is the same guy who held up unemployment benefits to guys like this reporter last February. In a stance that was a head-scratcher to members of both political parties, Bunning did everything he could to deny folks unemployment benefits.

Here’s what we wrote in February:

On the floor Thursday night, he breached Senate protocol when he shouted out: “Tough s—” as Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley pleaded with him to drop his objection.

Or this gem from the ol’ ballplayer himself:

I want to assure the people that have, heh, watched this thing until quarter of twelve — and I have missed the Kentucky-South Carolina game that started at 9 o’clock, and it’s the only redeeming chance we had to beat South Carolina, since they’re the only team that has beat Kentucky this year — all of these things that we have talked about and all the provisions that have been discussed, the unemployment benefits, all these things. If we’d have taken the longer version of the job bill…we wouldn’t have spent three hours plus telling everybody in the United States of America that Senator Bunning doesn’t give a damn about the people that are on unemployment.

So the fact that there was an unemployment rate pushing toward 11 percent in Kentucky is of less importance than the regular-season matchup between Kentucky and South Carolina to Bunning. He also can’t wait for newspapers to go out of business.

He says he's getting a plaque from his friends for "dealing" with newspapers for 60 years, too.

Yeah...

Brown making his way in a familiar manner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It always feels that way. No matter what.

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 15

There are energizing powers in the sunshine. Whether it’s the vitamin D or simply the warmth, the fact remains that sunshine makes us feel good. Hell, John Denver made a career on just this very fact.

So it’s only logical that when the clouds prevail and the sun is hidden away, those recuperative energies dwindle. Sometimes we drag and it takes everything we have just to carry our sorry asses to where we need to be. Without the sun it’s often as if we spent the last 12 hours sleeping only to wake up and want to go right back to bed.

That was the way we felt this morning when we all stumbled in to the office to record the 15^th episode of the Podcast. If there were greenies or coffee available we would have ingested them with the multi-vitamin we all take in the morning, but since we work with an operating budget of $0, we have to pick up each other. Our energy source is Sarah or Boonie or me (or whomever), so when one of us is drained, we all suffer.

We’re a team and no part is greater than the sum.

So here’s our 39-minute effort for a cloudy, chilly and dour Tuesday morning:

PODCAST OF AWESOMENESS 15

We have plenty of Pat Burrell chatter along with the abstract notion of the base line. We even go on about Donovan McNabb a bit, too, but then we all get sleepy and want to do something else.

Zzzzzzzzzz…

Sweeney poised to seize the moment

When Matt Stairs joined the Phillies in late August of 2008, no one really thought much of it. Stairs was going to be a pinch hitter — an extra left-handed bat off the bench — for the September playoff race. There were no illusions as to why the Phillies traded for Stairs.

Then again, Stairs was just another late-season pick-up by general manager Pat Gillick in a long list of such moves. In 2006 Gillick swung a post-deadline deal for veteran Jeff Conine as well as less splashier moves to get veterans Jose Hernandez and Randall Simon. Jamie Moyer also came aboard in a late-season trade in ’06 and still hasn’t left.

Sometimes those additions have a smaller impact. For instance, in late 2007 the Phillies picked up Russell Branyan for two weeks in August before trading him to the Cardinals just before the September postseason rosters had to be set. But in nine at-bats with the Phillies, Branyan hit two home runs to go with six strikeouts.

That’s pretty much the definition of hit-or-miss.

Stairs wasn’t quite as extreme as Branyan during his 2008 run with the Phillies. He got into 19 games during the final month, hit two homers (three strikeouts) and even started three times. But even then Stairs just kind of blended in.

Until the playoffs, that is…

Stairs, of course, hit a home run in Game 4 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium that very well might be the most clutch hit in franchise history. After that homer that propelled the Phils to the win in Game 4 and the clincher in Game 5, it didn’t really matter what he did afterwards. That home run was enough, but the fact that he said all of the right things and embraced the Philly fans was the icing on the cake.

So it’s with that nod to cult-hero worship that Mike Sweeney arrived in Philadelphia as yet another shrewd, post-deadline move. In fact, Sweeney was quickly dubbed, “The Right-Handed Matt Stairs” upon his arrival as a backup first baseman to Ryan Howard as well as the quintessential “professional hitter” for late-game pinch-hitting situations.

Still, for a guy who has driven in 144 RBIs in a season, batted better than .300 five times and a 200-hit season, before injuries cost him much of the past five seasons, comparisons to Stairs didn’t seem to fit Sweeney’s career arc when he broke in with Kansas City in 1995. With the Royals, Sweeney the team’s best player and biggest box office draw. In fact, the Royals’ only winning season since George Brett retired came in 2003 when Sweeney and Raul Ibanez, with Carlos Beltran, were just a few of the eight guys on the team to club at least 13 homers.

Sweeney was a star in Kansas City even though he and Stairs were teammates during three straight 100-loss seasons. Nevertheless, it’s kind of strange that just a handful of years removed from being teammates, the star of those teams hopes to follow in the footsteps of the quintessential journeyman.

“It’s an honor to be compared to Matt,” Sweeney said before Monday night’s game against the Astros at the Bank. “He’s a great competitor, a great teammate and a good friend.”

What Sweeney has going for him is that just like Stairs he’s the kind of player manager Charlie Manuel likes to have around. The manager likes hitters with track records and even though Sweeney hasn’t played in more than 74 games since 2005, Manuel is confident in his veteran hitter for one big reason…

“I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him his entire career,” the manager said.

“Sweeney hadn’t played much this year and he got to play some, which was good for him,” Manuel said. “I look for Sweeney to really help us coming off the bench when Howard comes back. That will cut into his playing time, of course, but in September having him and (Ben) Francisco on the bench gives us two really good right-handed hitters.”

Before the injuries became chronic, Sweeney once had a streak of 171 consecutive games played that was snapped when he was suspended for beating up Angels’ pitcher Jeff Weaver when he reportedly insulted Sweeney’s devout Catholic faith. So to find himself on the bench after two decades of being at the heart of his team, admittedly, has been an adjustment, but not one that has been difficult.

After all, the Phillies are just the third team Sweeney has played for that will finish the season with a winning record and he has appeared in the fourth-highest number of games amongst active players without a playoff appearance.

Stairs had something of a playoff drought himself while playing every day in Kansas City, Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Montreal and Chicago during some lean times. But these days he’s working on a third straight playoff appearance with the resurgent Padres in a limited role. Actually, limited doesn’t seem to describe it considering Stairs has started just 12 games this season.

Since joining the Phillies two weeks ago, Sweeney nearly has Stairs beat in starts.

“I’ve always been an everyday guy, but my role is to come off the bench,” Sweeney said. “That’s what is great about this game. One day you’re playing every day and the next day you’re called on to be a pinch hitter and both days you’re called on to help the team. That’s what it’s all about.”

When he first joined the Phillies, Sweeney called it “a dream come true.” But that was before he spent any time in the clubhouse with his new teammates. The notion of getting to the playoffs and mixing it up in a pennant race was enough.

However, since coming aboard Sweeney has blended in. As a pinch hitter he’s 3-for-8 with a walk, sacrifice fly and two RBIs, and often can be seen talking baseball with rookie Dom Brown, the Phillies’ top prospect who started the season at Double-A.

More than a dream, the stay in Philadelphia has been even better than Sweeney imagined.

“Love it,” he said. “The guys have been great. It’s the best group of guys I’ve ever been around. We’re winning and that’s what we’re here to do.

“It’s awesome. The guys in the clubhouse have a great makeup and fire and passion, so yeah, it’s a joy to be a part of.”

Sweeney can often be found taking extra batting practice before the game before playing catch with his six-year-old son, also dressed in a No. 5 uniform top with "Sweeney" written on the back. In fact, young Sweeney is already such a fixture in the team's clubhouse that he already has a signature handshake with boss of the romper room, Shane Victorino.

Matt Stairs used to talk that way, too. In fact, he still talks fondly about his time with the Phillies, and not just because it allowed him a chance to become a folk hero. Still, comparisons are tough to live up to and even more difficult to rationalize—especially when it’s about something as rare as amazing playoff moments.

But there something about Sweeney that makes one believe that he’s going to make an impact on the season. After all, he’s waited too long to allow the moment to simply slip by.

'Remember his name...'

It’s not often that Pat Burrell felt helpless in an athletic competition, especially during high school when he was the all-American slugger and All-Star quarterback at Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose, Calif., but there he was faced with the near impossible task of trying to tackle Pat Tillman.

In addition to being the quarterback for Bellarmine, the alma mater of at least 13 former major leaguers and a pile of NFL players, Olympians and pro soccer players, Burrell was the team’s kicker, too. That meant he usually hung back as the last line of defense if a returner broke through the wedge and the defensive coverage and was on the way to the end zone.

So in a game against Leland High, Burrell kicked off to running back/linebacker/kick returner, Tillman, and waited with the sense that it was going to come down to him preventing a touchdown. And sure enough, he was right. In a matter of seconds all that was left between Tillman and the end zone was Burrell.

“I thought, ‘Oh, bleep,’” Burrell remembered Thursday afternoon before the Giants beat the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.

Burrell said he stopped Tillman from scoring a touchdown, but only because he approached from an angle and tripped him. Technically, it wasn’t really a tackle, but it got the job done.

It’s interesting, though, that two kids from San Jose, Calif. born exactly a month apart during 1976 are involved in two very different things this Friday. Burrell likely will bat cleanup for the Giants in St. Louis where his team tries to make up some ground in the playoff race. Tillman, the ex-college and NFL star who enlisted to become an Army Ranger only to be killed in Afghanistan six years ago, is the subject of a documentary to be released Friday.

The film, called The Tillman Story, directed by Amir Bar-Lev, took the Sundance Film Festival by storm and opened it up to an audience that might not have been seeking it in certain parts of the mainstream media or from best-selling author, Jon Krakauer. In fact, renowned journalist Charles P. Pierce called the tale that emerged after Tillman’s death, “extraordinary,” and “the greatest sports-related story of my lifetime.”

Pierce wrote:

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Pat Tillman's life and death is the greatest sports-related story of my lifetime. It had extraordinary sacrifice, that led, horribly, to the ultimate sacrifice. It had tragedy and heartbreak. It had lies and deceit. It had a family honoring its lost son by forcing the institution that sought to hide the truth about his death to come clean in the light of day. And, in the middle of it, was someone whose writings before his death indicate, had he survived, that he would have come out of his experience a different, brilliant man. It is every bit an epic. It needs a Homer to tell it.

I mention this only because the man who was most responsible for fudging the truth about Pat Tillman's death is going to have a very bad Wednesday. The Tillmans have been, and are, unrelenting. They honor us all just by being our fellow citizens and doing their duty as such.

Obviously, the Tillman story wouldn’t be as compelling if it weren’t for the man himself. He was, after all, a man who believed in honesty and integrity above anything else. He was a pro football player who turned down a $9 million deal from the Rams out of loyalty to the Cardinals. The Cardinals were the team that gave him a chance when no other team would — to Tillman there was no price on that.

Sadly, Tillman’s sense of loyalty and righteousness was seen as kooky and weird. Since the world is a rat race, the conventional wisdom indicates that it’s OK to be a rat. But not to Tillman. For some reason no one could believe that someone could challenge every convention and mean it. It was further baffling to folks that Tillman would trade a $3.6 million contract from the Cardinals for the salary of an enlisted man in the Army.

Was he crazy?

No, not at all. He was just real. Dignity, honor, loyalty and truth weren’t throwaway words to Tillman. Life was short, he reasoned, so why should he always do what was expected instead of challenging himself.

Maybe the military and the government underestimated these qualities when they lied about him after his death. As Krakauer wrote, they stole his honor and rewarded him by using him as a propaganda tool. Wars were ugly business and as one of the men who was part of the initial wave of soldiers into Iraq in 2003 and viewed the action as “criminal.”

Perhaps that’s why the government lied about him and why his belongings were destroyed, including his diary. Here was a man living his life by a code of ethics and morals and they used him for their own selfishness.

Tillman’s story is complicated and further exasperated by the fact that he could not be pigeonholed in life or death.

Burrell and Tillman. Both from San Jose who took similar and divergent paths. When asked if he was familiar with Tillman’s posthumous story, Burrell just looked forlornly and shook his head slowly, as if to express how unbelievable life can be sometimes.

Rowand remembers, 'For who? For what?'

It was the greatest catch many of us saw and that was before we understood the aftermath. Like a receiver on a fly pattern, Aaron Rowand ran as hard as he could to a point where he thought the ball was going to land, which was amazing enough.

The situation called for it, Rowand said. With the bases loaded and two outs and pitcher Gavin Floyd nearing his 30^th pitch in the first inning, the May, 2006 game was hanging in the balance. Xavier Nady’s long fly had escaped Rowand's glove, he could have run for days.

It was when his momentum carried him that extra half-step and he looked up where things went wrong.

In retrospect, maybe it didn’t all go wrong. Sure, Rowand got hurt pretty badly. Who can forget Pat Burrell and Bobby Abreu frantically waving for the training staff to rush out to the center field warning track to help as blood poured from Rowand’s face? Very quickly, he was helped from the field by some paramedics to an ambulance waiting to rush him to Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Center City. In that short time, Rowand went from just the very capable center fielder that arrived in town as part of the Jim Thome deal to a cult hero.

And all it took was a face plant into an exposed metal bar, a broken nose that required surgery, stitches for his mouth and nose, a plastic splint to protect his still-tender nose, dark violet bruises ringing his eyes and cheeks, and two weeks on the disabled list.

It was a few days later when Rowand truly became the cult hero when he dropped the retort to Ricky Watters’ infamous explanation as to why he developed alligator arms while going for a pass from Randall Cunningham over the middle.

“For who? My teammates. For what? To win,” Rowand said without hesitation or wavering. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Looking back on it, a writer for Baseball Prospectus named Clay Davenport surmised that Rowand’s catch was the equivalent to him hitting two home runs in the game. Had Nady gotten a double or triple on that play, the Phillies would have had just a 30.8 percent chance to win the game based on Davenport’s situational data. But making the catch gave the Phillies nearly a 60 percent chance to win, Davenport wrote. In other words, for a team that missed the playoffs by one game in 2005 and had not seen post-season baseball since 1993, “The Catch” was something that could have transformed the team.

Of course the Phillies barely missed the playoffs in 2006, though they rallied for a strong second-half when Abreu was traded to the Yankees. In 2007, with Rowand playing 161 games, the Phillies finally made it to the playoffs, though the trip lasted just three games.

Interestingly, Rowand missed one game in 2007 because he injured his shoulder playing tag at his daughter’s birthday party. Oh yes, no matter what the game was Rowand went all out.

“The next day I got shot up a little bit and went back out there and it was fine,” Rowand remembered for us before Tuesday night’s game between the Phillies and Giants at the Bank.

So as he’s getting closer to the end of his current five-year deal with the Giants and his career creeps closer past the middle toward the end, how does Rowand feel about that one play — one that sent him to the hospital and kept him out of action for a couple of weeks — defining his legacy? Yes, it was the greatest catch some of us ever saw, but a baseball player with a World Series ring with the White Sox in 2005, a Gold Glove and an All-Star Game berth should be known for more…

Right?

Then again, if that’s what it is, Rowand doesn’t mind.

“I look at it more along the lines as there are a lot worse things you can be or be remembered for,” he said. “If it’s going to be me being remembered for playing the game hard and being a good teammate, I don’t think anyone could ask for more than that. If that’s what I’m remembered for, after I retire and I’m bleeping long gone, so be it. It’s a good thing to be remembered for.”

Looking back, that’s not too far off from what Rowand told us in the moment. Clearly Rowand was more valuable to the Phillies on the field than rolled up in a heap on the warning track with blood pouring from his face like it was a spigot. After all, he was a player who knocked himself out cold when he ran into a cinderblock wall in college and separated his shoulder colliding with a wall in Chicago — didn’t he understand the concept of restraint?

That answer is obvious, and here’s how Rowand explained it:

“That’s why [the critics] are sitting behind a desk or a microphone,” he said tersely with his purple-ringed eyes narrowing. “I enjoy doing what I’m doing and my teammates enjoy it, too. I want to win. That’s how I play. People can call me stupid. I don’t care. I’m sure the fans got a kick out of it and I know my teammates did. Think what you want — I’m here to play and play hard.”

Rowand was clearly the heart and soul of those Phillies teams, just as he was when he was playing for the White Sox, too. More interestingly, Rowand became a “Philly Guy” in a relatively short time. Think about it… Rowand spent two seasons playing for the Phillies, just missed out on winning the World Series here (“hell yes I’m jealous!”) and took the five years offered to him from the Giants, which was better than the deal offered by the Phillies.

Still, does Rowand ever wonder how he became so beloved in Philadelphia?

“The thing about these fans is they are some of the smartest baseball fans in the country,” he said. “I think everyone knows they can be rough sometimes, but it stems from a good spot. It stems from passion, it stems from their infatuation with this team. It’s a blue collar town, people here work hard and they come out and watch their sports teams play and they can relate with the guys who have the same mentality they have when they go to work.”

When Rowand was here he went to work. No doubt about that. So when the Phillies fans cheer the return of Pat Burrell, don’t doubt for a second that they will cheer for Rowand, too.

Philadelphia's First Dynasty: 100 Years after the A's ruled

Second story in a series

Before there was Babe Ruth and the Yankees, the 1910 Athletics set the standard for which all Philadelphia baseball teams are based. That was the season Connie Mack guided Philadelphia to four trips to the World Series in five years, capturing three championships. In ’10, the A’s rolled over the Cubs in five games, six games over the Giants in ’11, a five-game victory over the Giants in ’13 before it came to an end in four games to the Braves in 1914.

The first dynasty of baseball history came to a crash landing in 1915 when Mack sold off his great players or they jumped to the upstart Federal League as the A’s spent the next seven seasons in last place.

Could you imagine what we would have written and said about Mack in this day and age if he sold Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins and Chief Bender to make a little cash though it meant a decade in the second division? That would be like David Montgomery being told by the Phillies’ partners to dump Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Roy Halladay in order to line the team’s coffers.

Strangely, Mack chose to sell out when his core group of stars were just coming into their primes and it’s not far-fetched to think that the Philadelphia Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies could have played in the 1915 World Series. The first two games would have been played at the Baker Bowl on Broad and Huntingdon in North Philly, packed up the gear after the games, and walked down Lehigh for five blocks to Shibe Park.

Forget a subway series; Philadelphia could have hosted the Lehigh Avenue series.

Anyway, over the next few months we will write about the 100 years since Philadelphia started baseball’s first dynasty. Look for some stylings about the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics here over the next few months. We’ll revisit the “Deadball Era” where Frank “Home Run” Baker hit just two homers in 1910, but he led the league the next four straight years with totals of 11, 10, 12 and 9.

So here’s a little slice of the Deadball Era for the Digital Age.

Connie Mack

For as synonymous as his name was with baseball during the first half of the last century and for as much as he was as part of Philadelphia like Ben Franklin, W.C. Fields and Grace Kelly, there is a lot we don’t know about Connie Mack. Like Franklin, Mack moved to Philadelphia from Massachusetts and remained for the rest of his life.

But unlike Franklin, it’s difficult to find Mack’s name on much in the city. Sure, there is no way to compare a Founding Father with the most prolific manager in Major League Baseball history, but in a city where sports is treated with so much importance, Philadelphians don’t show much pride that Mack won the World Series five times for his adopted home town.

Truth is, in more than a decade of writing about baseball in Philadelphia, I have heard just one story about Connie Mack and that related to the formation of the Philadelphia Sportswriters Association, which was formed to combat cronyism in the press box.

Of course Mack also lost more games than he won in his 50 years as manager of the Philadelphia A’s, spent the last two decades of his career achieving solid mediocrity in the standings and seemingly popularized the practice of the “fire sale.” Oh yes, even a century ago Mack, also the owner of the A’s, massaged his player payroll the way clubs do now. Ultimately, the Mack family sold the A’s before the 1954 season and just like that, Philadelphia became a one-team town. Two years after the A’s moved to Kansas City, Mack died at age 93 in his home on Anderson Street in Mt. Airy.

So to remember Mack in Philadelphia these days we have a ballpark that was torn down in 1976 and a statue set into its first location in 1957 that now rests in front of its third ballpark. However, a quick bit of research revealed no schools named after Mack, though there is a movement to get him depicted on a stamp.

Perhaps the lack of modern day recognition had something to do with Mack’s reputation as a manager/owner more concerned with the bottom line on the balance sheet instead of the standings. Still, the 1910 team was known for its “$100,000 Infield” with Hall of Famers, Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, and Stuffy McInnis.

Home Run Baker hit two homers in 1910.

However, between 1934 and 1950 Philadelphia had two teams that combined for four winning records. Plus, during his 50 seasons with the Athletics, Mack had twice as many 100-loss seasons (10) than he did 100-win seasons (5). Chances are Mack would have never lasted as long as manager of the A’s if he didn’t also own the team, and as such, he was quoted as defining his ownership philosophy thusly:

“The best thing for a team financially is to be in the running and finish second. If you win, the players all expect raises.”

As a manager, historian Bill James, in his Guide to Managers, wrote that Mack: favored a set lineup; did not generally use a platoon approach; preferred young players to veterans; preferred hitters with power who got on base a lot to high-batting-average players; did not often send in a pinch-hitter; did not often use his bench players; did not often employ the sacrifice bunt; believed in "big-inning" offense rather than small ball; and very rarely issued an intentional base on balls.

In other words, he managed similarly to Earl Weaver though their personalities could not have been more different. Mack was elegant with soft eyes and was said to never curse, smoke or drink. In other words, he did not cut the mold for future Philadelphia favorites like Buddy Ryan or Jim Fregosi. Instead, imagine a better-dressed, fitter Andy Reid—at least in a public setting with the press. As a manager, Mack looked for young players with “baseball smarts” and then just let them play without much input.

Nevertheless, Mack put together two of baseball’s first dynasties in two different eras of the game though he didn’t change his style all that much. During the Deadball Era, Mack’s teams routinely led the American League in slugging, on-base percentage and batting average. The 1910 club was led by college grad, Eddie Collins, who paced the team with four homers and a .324 batting average.

Notably, the 1910 A’s did it with pitching. Amazingly, the team won 102 games though they carried just eight pitchers with four of them amassing at least 250 innings. Jack Coombs was the ace with a 31-9 record, 1.30 ERA in 353 innings and 13 shutouts. Five of Mack’s starters combined for 114 complete games.

Compared to 1929 through 1931 with Jimmie Foxx and Al Simmons who challenged Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the Yankees for the home run crown, the 1910 A’s clubbed just nine homers in 150 games.

But maybe he was called “The Tall Tactician,” because Mack was tall and people like alliteration? Tactically, he set the lineup and let the players go do their thing, though there was one request Mack asked of his players before the 1910 World Series began at Shibe Park on 21^st and Lehigh. That request:

Don’t drink alcohol.

Never one for setting curfews and known for treating his players like adults, Mack asked his players to take a pledge not to drink during the World Series against the Cubs. However, before the clinching game 5, an outfielder named Topsy Hartsel told the manager he needed a drink in order to get through it.

Hartsel got his drink and appeared as the leadoff hitter in Game 5 where he went 1-for-5 with a pair of runs and two stolen bases in his only game of the series. As a result, Connie Mack, born Cornelius McGillicuddy (a name he never legally jettisoned), won his first World Series.

Does Charlie have Phillies on the right pace?

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

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

Pace yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wait… aren’t they connected?

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

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

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

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

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

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

In comparison, Charlie will take those injuries.

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

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

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

Talk about perfect timing.

Picking on the wrong guy

The message was relayed quickly. It had to be since it was about life and death… or at least about whether or not I would be picked up and stuffed into a trash can. Considering that I am 6-foot-1 and heavier than I have ever been in my life—far heavier than the comfortable 160 pounds I prefer to carry—the fact that the trash-can stuff wasn’t hyperbole was a bit worrisome.

“You tell him the next time I see him I’m going to kick his ass,” was the message Scott Rolen sent through Mike Radano to give to me.

OK, it was a joke (I hope!), but after zinging Rolen the day before about his recent health history only to hear how back spasms kept him out of the lineup, yeah, the ass-kicking retort was the play right there.

“Tell him I’m ready whenever he is,” was my reply. Hey, why not? Since we’re just joking around (I hope!), might as well return the volley. C’mon, like Scott Rolen is really going to beat me up. Why would he waste his time? Sure, I zinged him pretty good—all in good fun—but would he really go through with a pretend threat?

Yeah, I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

That was never more evident than Tuesday night when Rolen turned into a human bowling ball before turning his former Cardinals’ teammate Chris Carpenter into a human ragdoll. Knowing the brotherhood and comradery that goes on inside of a baseball clubhouse and the fact Rolen and Carpenter were teammates for a long time with the Cardinals, I got scared. If Rolen can pick up a 6-for-6, 250-pound dude like Carpenter and heave him against the backstop with a crush of ballplayers all jostling and grabbing one another around him, I realized I was going to become intimate with the inside of a trashcan whether we were joking around or not.

This is especially true after it was revealed that Rolen was trying to be the peacemaker. Reports say Rolen rushed at Carpenter after the pitcher exacerbated the situation by yelling at Reds’ manager Dusty Baker. “We're not going to let this happen,” Rolen reportedly shouted at Carpenter before grabbing a hold of him shoving him against the backstop. “We're not going to let this happen.”

Not sure of the context there, but it makes Rolen sound like a “peacemaker” much like Clint Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars.

“It was two teams defending their own people, and standing up for their own players and managers and coaches, so ... that got ugly and obviously it was heated when it started,” Rolen said.

OK, by now most baseball fans saw the donnybrook that occurred in Cincinnati last night spurred on by Reds’ second baseman Brandon Phillips calling the Cardinals, “whiny bitches.” Maybe Phillips’ words were not the most diplomatic of things to say, but harmless nonetheless. The paradox, of course, was when relayed of what Phillips said, Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa acted like a little whiny bitch. Truth be told, La Russa has been called a lot worse than a whiny bitch, but as they say, “The truth hurts.”

The only people upset by being called “whiny bitches” are little whiny bitches. At least that’s my theory.

For those who didn’t see it, take a look.

Anyway, whiny bitches aside, the Reds-Cards brawl was a pretty good one by baseball standards. It was almost like one of those classic old-timey fights from the 1970s where someone like Spaceman Bill Lee would get body slammed by Carlton Fisk or Don Zimmer… and yes, they were on the same team. Besides, when is the last time a baseball fight was sparked by a silly quote in a newspaper? Maybe that’s the underlying theme in all of this not being discussed? If not for the written word, would anyone gotten worked up over Phillips’ comment? Would Scott Rolen have had to choke a whiny bitch?

The short answer? No.

Which brings us back to the main point… why would anyone start a fight with Rolen hovering around the area? To start with, the dude has the widest shoulders I’ve ever seen. Coat racks? Not even close—they are more like the size of a walk-in closet. At 6-foot-4, Rolen has to walk sideways through a standard doorway because his shoulders are so wide. Plus, when he shakes your hand, your hand and part of the wrist disappears. He just swallows it up.

Here’s how intimidating Rolen is… when ex-Phillies manager Larry Bowa was talking trash about him in the Daily News in June of 2001, Rolen burst into the manager’s office in St. Petersburg before a game against the Devil Rays and said, “I came in here with the intent to kick your ass.”

Now as far as great quotes reported in a newspaper go, Rolen telling Bowa he was going to be turned into a hand puppet is almost up there with Phillips calling the Cardinals “whiny bitches.” The difference, of course, was Phillips’ words are very comical. They were so funny that you can go back and re-read them a second after the first read and they would still be funny. And, if they are being read aloud, the right interpretation could be a one-man act.

Imagine a dramatic reading of Brandon Phillips by Christopher Walken. It works on so many different levels.

But with Rolen telling Bowa to get ready to get his ass kicked, that was serious. If Bowa would have left a little puddle on the ground next to his shoes it would have been completely understandable. Most times Rolen is a really funny dude with that dry wit typical of his fellow Indianans, David Letterman, John Cougar Mellencamp or Larry Bird.

Yet for some reason certain folks from Indiana seem to 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. We appreciate iconoclastic tendencies here. In fact, it’s the preferred style we like from our athletes here at The Food. Better yet, 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.

Or something.

The point is, the next time we cross paths I’m just going to throw myself onto the ground like someone about to be mauled by a grizzly or a jaguar.

Think it will work?

These are the good old days

Just last Saturday Jim Bunning, the baseball Hall-of-Famer turned soon-to-be-former U.S. Senator, talked about being one of two Phillies pitchers to throw a perfect games during the Phillies annual alumni weekend where the highlight was Darren Daulton’s induction into the club’s Wall of Fame.

Otherwise, when the Phillies host a reunion the public events always seem to come off rather tame. After all, aside from honoring Freddy Schmidt because he just so happened to play 29 games for the Phillies in 1947 and has remained alive long enough to be the fourth-oldest living Phillie.

Hey, maybe if we’re lucky we’ll all get to be old someday, too. Just like Freddy Schmidt.

Nevertheless, the alumni weekend only reinforced the notion that we are in the midst of one of the two golden ages of Phillies baseball. There were the years from 1976 to 1983 when the Phillies went to the playoffs six times and the World Series twice, and now. So no matter how popular Dutch and John Kruk were, or how often we get to hear from Mitch Williams and Ricky Bottalico, it’s not as if we’re celebrating some transcendent victory that will never be forgotten. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

‘Personality clashes’

No, apparently it’s when ex-Phillies get together as members of the coaching staff for another team where true chaos ensues. At least that’s the way it looked in Pittsburgh last weekend with ex-Phillies coaches Joe Kerrigan and Gary Varsho. While the Phillies trotted out the oddest trio of Hall-of Famers out there in Bunning, Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt [1](they were not introduced in order of craziness, but then again that’s debatable), Kerrigan and Varsho were being relieved of their duties on the coaching staff with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Even though the Pirates will finish with a losing season for the 18^th year in a row, ex-Phillies catcher and Pirates manager John Russell could no longer work with Kerrigan or Varsho with published reports coming out of Pittsburgh indicated there were “personality clashes and differences of philosophy.”

According to a report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

According to multiple accounts Sunday, Russell's call was motivated by a perceived lack of loyalty, though Russell declined to discuss any specifics. Several players and others inside the team described scenes on recent road trips to Texas, Oakland and St. Louis where Kerrigan and Varsho either were openly critical of Russell or having mini-meetings with some coaches or players away from Russell.

Russell tends to be the patient, unmoved type, but that apparently changed in St. Louis. Management began discussing the firings as early as Wednesday, and action was taken early Sunday morning.

“It was a very gut-wrenching decision,” Russell said, seated in his office with Huntington standing at his side. “There are some issues I've been working through for quite some time now that could not be resolved in a way I felt would be for the betterment of this organization. I respect both men greatly. I lost two friends today. That's tough to deal with. But my main focus is this team, and I felt moving forward that this was the time to do this. With two months left in the season, I wanted to accomplish something this year moving into next year.”

Now if this were an isolated incident maybe it would be a surprise, but, well… you know.

Both Kerrigan and Varsho worked together on the Phillies staff under manager Larry Bowa, who, incidentally, is in Philadelphia on Tuesday night working as the third-base coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Should it come as a surprise that two of Bowa’s coaches were fired for being, “backstabbers?”

Where there is smoke…

Varsho was Bowa’s bench coach from 2001 to 2004 and even managed the last two games of the ’04 season after Bowa was fired. Along with Mick Billmeyer, Varsho was the lone holdover from the underachieving Bowa Era to the wildly successful Charlie Manuel regime. However, Varsho lasted just a season with Manuel before being let go for similar circumstances that occurred in Pittsburgh. The whispers indicate that Varsho was maneuvering behind the scenes to take credit for the Phillies success and undermining Manuel in the process.

Meanwhile, there have been few instances where Kerrigan did not leave under cloudy circumstances. In 2004 he announced he would resign from his job as the team’s pitching coach rather than have the indignity of not having his contract renewed. It certainly was no surprise that even Kerrigan saw the writing on the wall following a tumultuous two-year run where he nearly came to blows with pitcher Brett Myers in 2003 and was punched in the face by reliever Tim Worrell hours before a game in 2004.

Funny story: during a spring training game between the Phillies and Pirates in Clearwater in 2009, Kerrigan went to the mound to talk to a pitcher only to be heckled from the dugout by Myers who shouted, “Don’t listen to him, you won’t learn [bleep]!”

Even in one of his first press conferences as a Phillie, Pedro Martinez took a shot at Kerrigan for no other reason than to do it. Why not? For years Kerrigan claimed to have taught Pedro his hall-of-fame changeup from his days with the Expos and Red Sox though according to the pitcher, he didn’t so much as speak to the coach for years.

“I was never part of any back-and-forth with anybody. I never have,” Pedro said last summer. “The person who I probably got into an argument with one time was Joe Kerrigan and that was in the best year I ever had.”

Imagine that… a guy on the way to a Hall-of-Fame career with three Cy Young Awards who went 41-10 with a 1.90 ERA in his two best seasons in Boston got into a tiff with Kerrigan? Say it isn’t so. Hey, the guy really knows pitching and as far as analysts go, he's baseball geek to the highest order. That's a compliment. But knowing that Pedro argued with him and knowing this years after the fact and it’s no wonder there was nearly a fight with Myers. After all, if Pedro Martinez wasn’t good enough during his days in Boston, it would take a pitching coach with riot gear or a strong jaw to preside over the 2003 and 2004 Phillies.

Bowa the mentor?

No one only ever accused Bowa of being the nurturing type. However, Jimmy Rollins is quick to give the former irascible manager some credit for helping his development, and Alex Rodriguez worked closely with Bowa when they were both with the Mariners and the Yankees.

A guy can do a lot worse than J-Roll and A-Rod.

And maybe that’s where Bowa’s post-playing legacy lays? The fact is there are very few people on the planet who know as much about baseball as Bowa, and he very well could be the finest third-base coach in the game.

But in two relatively short stints as a manager, Bowa was a failure partially because of the atmosphere of chaos he fostered. Say what you will about the chemistry in the clubhouse and how it relates to winning. No, the players don’t need to like each other, but they should trust and respect one another. Since a particular pitching coach nearly got his lights knocked out by two different pitchers, it’s safe to assume that chaos reigned under Bowa.

He has been in a good role working in the shadows cast by manager Joe Torre and bench coach Don Mattingly since their days together with the Yankees. Bowa can work with infielders, coach third and be the bad cop in certain situations. For instance, in a recent interview with T.J. Simers of the LA Times, Bowa tried to light a fire under underachieving outfielder Matt Kemp and the struggling Dodgers.

Oh yes, Bowa still wants to win. Nothing has changed there. But at the same time, Torre doesn’t have to look over his shoulder and wonder if Bowa is selling him out. The thing that appears to make Bowa different from Kerrigan and Varsho is that he just wants to win the World Series every year and doesn’t care who gets the credit.

Check out this bit from Simers’ story:

On Friday night after Andre Ethier had been thrown out at home plate by a few feet, Bowa returned to the dugout screaming and throwing things.

"No one said anything, but it was like they were all looking at me and saying, 'What's Bowa mad at?'

"It cost us a run," snapped Bowa...

There is the reason why Bowa has had a job in baseball every year going back to the 1960s. The guy loves the game more than anyone else. Loves it so much it’s downright painful.

No tickets left

It used to be that Bowa’s old teammates from the first golden age used to be needed in order to get a big crowd for a ballgame in Philly. Winning has a way of making the sideshows unimportant.

Still, the Phillies alumni weekends are always good for some unintentional comedy. For instance, amidst guys like Schmidt, Carlton and Bunning, a player like Doug Clemens or Keith Hughes trots out onto the field to be introduced before the game. Looking back at the records, Hughes played in exactly 37 games for the Phillies – 93 over the course of four seasons with Baltimore, New York and Cincinnati.

No one needs to see old ballplayers like Keith Hughes or even Jim Bunning to trot out onto the field from a historically moribund franchise to realize that these are the good ol’ days. Right here, right now.

That’s the thing isn’t it? By winning the World Series the Phillies have made alumni weekends useless. Sure, it’s neat to see Mike Lieberthal and Dick Allen around the ballpark again, but really, if there is anything that the Phils prove with their old players is that they weren’t very good for a long, long, long time.

Besides, it used to be that the team needed to summon Schmidt from the golf course in Florida and Carlton from his underground bunker near the Four Corners region of Colorado in order to get folks to come out to the ballpark. That little glimpse at members of the team’s only championship used to put fannies in the seats before folks realized that a contending ballclub was far more interesting than a trip down amnesia lane.

Hey, there’s Greg Luzinski! Didn’t I just see him out in right field eating ribs?

---

[1] Apropos of nothing, is there another franchise that has a weirder collection of Hall of Famers than the Phillies? Now that Robin Roberts has passed on and one of the true gentleman is no longer walking the earth, the Phillies players enshrined in Cooperstown are a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. This has nothing to do with politics or the “elders of Zion,” but really, what gives with those guys?

Plus, why is Jim Bunning in the Hall of Fame to begin with? He never pitched in the World Series and was the ace pitcher on a team responsible for one of the greatest late-season collapses in sports history… hey, winning matters. That’s why they keep score. If Bunning is a Hall of Famer, then so too are Jim Kaat, Tommy John, Jack Morris, Luis Tiant and Bert Blyleven.

The not-so mysteriousness of the closer

It’s impossible to know if a single pitch that ends with a bad result can serve as an alarm bell for a pitcher, but ever since Brad Lidge gave up that game-winning home run to Ryan Zimmerman in Washington last weekend, he’s been almost unhittable.

Lidge has appeared in four games since serving up that homer with a one-run lead with one out in the ninth inning at Nationals Park where he has faced 11 hitters and retired 10 of them. Of those 11 hitters, Lidge notched four strikeouts, allowed one single and picked up three more saves to give him 13 this season in 17 chances.

The difference has been his command, says Manuel.

“He’s getting ahead of the hitters or when he falls behind early in the count he rebounds and catches up and he’s in a position to avoid what I call a ‘have-to’ count where he has to throw a certain pitch,” Manuel said. “He’s been getting his slider over and throwing enough fastballs inside. He’s been throwing more strikes.”

No, his season stats don’t pop off the page, but it hasn’t been awful. Though there still is that sense of impending doom when Lidge comes in from the bullpen in the ninth inning and a noticeable loss of velocity in his fastball that he doesn’t throw nearly as much as he did in the past, the results are much improved from last season. Yes, there is still talk about replacing Lidge as the Phillies’ closer amongst fans and media-types, and the $11.5 million he is owed for the 2011 season seems like one of those contracts that might be a year too long. However, when one looks inside the results the conclusion is things could be far worse with any number of closers around the league.

Moreover, when Lidge’s contract ends at the end of next season, there is a pretty good chance that he will have more saves than any anyone else in team history. Lidge needs 27 more saves to tie Jose Mesa with 112 and if he gets there he will probably do it in approximately 50 fewer innings.

So what’s the problem?

For one thing, it’s the ninth inning and it’s a close game. If it wasn’t that way, Lidge wouldn’t be in the game doing that tightrope act where the slightest slip up could end up in a crash landing.

As that goes, there are a handful of tell-all signs that determine whether or not Lidge will be trading high-fives with his teammates at the end of the game or moping off the field with his head down. For instance, if he allows a walk or a hit to the first batter he faces, things have a tendency to go bad. In 28 outings this season, Lidge has allowed the leadoff hitter to reach base eight times (seven on hits) and as those innings progress he has allowed six hits, six walks and seven runs for an ERA of 9.45.

Compared to the 20 games where Lidge gets the first guy out, he has allowed six runs. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that things go much more smoothly when Lidge gets that first out quickly, though he has blown a pair saves in both instances and the Phillies are 6-2 in games where he allows the first hitter to reach base.

Plus, these splits are pretty indicative of most relief pitchers. The result of the first pitch often determines how the at-bat will go and the first hitter can sway the trajectory of the rest of the inning.

Now, quickly, a few things on Lidge…

Lidge has saved 30 games in four of his six full seasons with two years where he got more than 40 saves. For a historical perspective, Goose Gossage only got 30 saves in a season twice. The same goes for Rollie Fingers. Bruce Sutter, the other closer in the Hall of Fame, notched four 30-plus saves seasons just like Lidge.

Of course, 30 saves doesn’t mean what it did in the old days. In fact, of the five closers in the Hall of Fame – Gossage, Sutter, Fingers, Dennis Eckersley and Hoyt Wilhelm – only one has put together more 30-plus saves seasons than Lidge. Certainly that will change when guys like Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman get in, but if he were able to get into a time machine and transport his stats to the 1970s and early ‘80s, Lidge would be on the path to a Hall-of-Fame career.

Infamously, Lidge also has the highest ERA in baseball history for a pitcher with over 20 saves when he got 31 with a 7.21 ERA last season. Manager Charlie Manuel probably would have gone with a different closer if he had one to do that tightrope act as well as Lidge. Since he didn’t (and doesn’t still), Manuel has a pretty good read on what makes for a smooth night for his closer.

Walks.

Like any pitcher, if Lidge can command his pitches things are going to go well. It doesn’t matter if his fastball is 92-mph or 96 as long as he doesn’t give any free passes. In fact, this season Lidge has walked 14 hitters in 11 outings over 11 innings. In those 11 games/innings, the opposition has scored 11 runs off of Lidge and in three of his four blown saves he’s walked at least one hitter.

“The biggest thing about him is when he can stay away from walking guys or getting behind in the count, it’s almost like any other pitcher,” Manuel said. “That’s when he can get people out.”

No, it’s not a big mystery when it comes to being a successful closer. It’s simple, really… throws strikes, get outs. It couldn’t be any less complicated. But what is complicated is what happens in a game when Lidge is just one out—one pitch—away from getting out of an inning. And in more cases than not, getting out of the inning means ending the game for Lidge.

For some unknown reason, Lidge has allowed 10 of his 13 runs this season with two outs. With two outs, hitters are 12-for-38 against him with six extra-base hits (three homers) and eight walks. That comes to a .435 on-base percentage and 1.066 OPS with two outs…

In the last inning of the game.

Is this where the lack of velocity on the fastball gets Lidge? Sure, the slider is his bread-and-butter pitch, but he needs a good fastball to set it up. With two outs in the last inning of a game it seems as if hitters are waiting for that one pitch, which means now more than ever the closer needs to lean on his guile and wits.

PODCAST EPISODE NO. 14

Remember when Eddie Murphy did Buckwheat on Saturday Night Live, or when Mike Myers and Dana Carvey did Wayne and Garth? Or that one song on the radio that gets you flying down the highway and the mojo working like a caffeine injection? You loved it, right?

That is to say, you loved it until you didn’t.

The slippery slope when a team has a knockout, runaway hit of a character is going back to it too much. Yes, people loved seeing Buckwheat or hearing that song until they got too much of it. It got played out. Overexposed might be a better word.

Certainly Lorne Michaels and the gang at SNL know what happens when they lay it on too thick, and yes, his remedy seems to be to go make a movie with those characters. Did you think the “Night at the Roxbury” boys were charming? Yeah, well, wait around and catch the movie sometime on cable.

It’s doubtful we will be making a movie starring Dan Roche as the renowned Philadelphia public address artiste, Dan Baker. But we could. The bit is that good. Listeners to our podcast—yes, all of them—have written in asking for more Dan Roche doing the Dan Baker impression. See, our listeners are old-school like that… they write in.

We climbed on that slippery slope anyway and Dan trotted out his gift for mimicry. Here, take a listen:

AWESOME 14

Here comes the part you don’t want to read… don’t expect Dan doing Dan every time out. That’s the best thing we have so we don’t want to kill it before we have to. See, we’re thinking long term here at The Podcast of Awesomeness and in the meantime, the boys back in R&D are busy coming up with new ideas that we can beat up until they crumble apart like a piñata.

And then we can all dive on top of the sweet, nutritious candy.

Missing the Big Piece could cause big problems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, the game has changed.

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

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

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

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

How about pitching and defense?

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

Sign of respect

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hello, Mr. Brown,” Ryan Howard said.

Mister Brown?

So much for the rookie hazing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The (re)maturation of Cole Hamels

WASHINGTON — The busy-ness of the pregame clubhouse at National Park on Friday afternoon was slightly unnerving. With the Phillies gearing up to make a run at a fourth straight trip to the playoffs with newly acquired ace Roy Oswalt on the mound in his first day in a Phillies’ uniform, the visiting clubhouse was more crowded than usual.

On one side of the room shortstop Jimmy Rollins held court, commenting on everything from the X Games shown on one of the TVs hanging from the ceiling of the clubhouse while discussing everything from Sponge Bob Square Pants, Scooby Doo and the 1960s live action Batman series with Adam West.

Oh, it was deep.

Boom! Bash! Pow!

Meanwhile, in the opposite corner from Rollins, Cole Hamels sat slouched in a chair in front of his locker, with his Barnes & Noble Nook, lamenting the fact that if he would have waited he would have probably purchased an iPad, like most of his teammates, instead.

See, it’s never easy to be a ballplayer like Hamels. No, he’s in a financial situation where he can have a Nook and an iPad, but that seems a little superfluous to Hamels. Besides, in due time the next version of the computer gizmo will come out and it will likely be better and faster than the current one. In the meantime, he’ll get all he can out of the Nook.

No, where it’s not easy being Hamels is playing in a place like Philadelphia. Forget all the stuff about how he’s Southern California cool with so much talent brimming over the surface that he makes the game look effortless by default. Forget that he’s similar to Mike Schmidt in that sometimes it’s not cool to be cool even if that’s just the way the guy is.

He’s so cool that the cockiness and arrogance just oozes from every pore when he walks on and off the field. It’s not exactly a trait that works for everyone, but with Hamels it’s real. It’s him. There was never a time where he didn’t think he could routinely throw a baseball past the best hitters on the planet.

And we ought to know the guy by now, right? Drafted not long after he turned 18 in the first round of the 2002 draft, the first world out on Hamels was that he was damaged goods. Sure, he could throw 94-mph and developed an otherworldly changeup after his pitching coach, Mark Furtak, taught him the circle change grip, but the broken left arm when he was a sophomore in high school scared away teams. Even his hometown Padres shied away and took college shortstop Khalil Greene with the 13^th overall pick.

Eight years after that draft Greene is out of baseball while Hamels is going through another resurgence of his own.

In fact, Hamels ought to be good at that by now. Five seasons into his big league career, Hamels has been damaged goods, a delicate injury-prone lefty, a knucklehead from breaking his hand in a bar fight that cost him much of the 2005 season, a phenom, a future Cy Young Award winner, the MVP of the NLCS and World Series, to struggling pitcher trying to find his game.

Now he’s a spoke in the wheel of one of the best starting rotations in baseball and working on his renewed focus and maturity. No longer is he just the cocky kid with injury problems, Hamels a father and a husband now. On one hand he says his four-year marriage and 10-month old son, Caleb, haven’t changed anything from the way he goes about his business or approaches a game, saying, “I don’t bring [family life] to work.” However, he added, being the father to an active, healthy 10-month-old boy changes a guy’s perspective.

On the field it has made him understand things a bit more. For instance, he’s not buying the hype about the Phillies’ new, “Big Three,” the top-notch pitching trio that also includes Roy Halladay and Oswalt. The Big Three play for the Boston Celtics, he said, giving a nod to Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce over the Miami Heat’s LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade.

“I feel like I'm building on things,” Hamels said. “I'm more aware of what I have to do, how to pitch guys, and I'm comfortable in throwing all the pitches I have.”

Truth is, Hamels talks like a veteran pitcher now instead of the young, brash guy who talked of pitching no-hitters, winning Cy Young awards, going to the Hall-of-Fame and gallivanting with Letterman or Ellen DeGeneres and appearing on his wife’s (second) reality show, as well as the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Those things are fun, but they really don’t mean too much. Take, for instance, the 10-strikeouts he got in seven innings against the Nationals on Sunday afternoon. Sure,

“That was great and all, but I left two pitches up, one to [Ryan] Zimmerman and one to [Adam] Dunn,” he said. “That kind of sums up the game. You can be on things, but you make that one mistake to those two guys and it's costly.”

See… so mature and only 26.

It doesn’t make Hamels less enigmatic, though. After all, some people find a path and that’s the only one they need. Hamels, on the other hand, has been all over the map, especially at the end of the 2009 World Series when the frustration of a mediocre season boiled over into bad body language on the diamond, a misconstrued (foolish) comment, and a minor tiff with a teammate. In Philadelphia, during the digital age, those things get blown up.

Philly ballplayers are supposed to take their beatings stoically. If a player like Chase Utley makes a throwing error, the pitcher has to be cool and can’t go skulking around the mound with bad body language or public displays of dissatisfaction. That’s especially the case during the playoffs where an error by Utley at Dodger Stadium sent Hamels into a mini-tizzy on the mound.

As the post-season wore on and the performances weren’t as good as they were the season before, folks started to turn on Hamels a bit. That was exacerbated by some post-game comments after a poor outing in the World Series when Hamels said he could not wait for the season to end. Sure, it came out harmless and was probably taken a bit out of context, but what ballplayer in the World Series wants the season to end?

How did things change so fast? How does a guy go from 4-0 in the postseason in one season to a combined 11-13 with a 4.61 ERA through the entire 2009 season?

Better yet, who cares? Based on the first half of the season Hamels has rewarded general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. and manager Charlie Manuel for their faith in him. Aside from the strong numbers, Hamels has regained his cool even when things don’t go well. Take Saturday afternoon’s game in Washington where Hamels rebounded from Dunn’s homer to retired five straight with a pair of strikeouts. He also whiffed the next two hitters after Zimmerman’s two-run double in the fourth inning and racked up eight strikeouts between the fourth and seventh innings.

The 7-7 record is not indicative of the season Hamels has had. Obviously, the record and the 3.56 ERA show a lack of run support. Considering that the low run support was part of Hamels’ frustration in 2009, the fact that he’s been steady throughout 2010 with nearly a full run less of support from last year, Hamels has impressed his bosses.

“I think right now he’s very good. I can tell you this, he should have more wins than he’s got—without a doubt. He’s pitched good,” Manuel said.

“Hamels is a big-time pitcher. If you sit there and watch how he pitches and things like that, hey, over the course of his career he’ll be known as a big-time pitcher. He’s a good pitcher and he’s smooth and he has a tremendous feel for how to pitch, and yeah, he gets hit some, but so does everybody else.”

As far as comparing the postseason of 2008 to now, don’t bother. Hamels, still far from his prime, hasn’t lost a thing.

“Talent is great. If you can’t see talent then something’s wrong with you,” Manuel said. “Hamels has got good talent and he’s a great pitcher. He might not have a 95-to-100 mph fastball, but he knows how to set up his fastball and when he’s throwing 93 or 94, he can put the ball by you. He can strike people out. That’s hard to find.”

It’s also hard to find a guy who realizes what needs to change and jumps on it. Hamels is still a work in progress — his metamorphosis is far from complete. Hamels refuses to remain static, which might be his best trait…

He’s not boring.