Marinerds, etc.

It's really bizarre living in Philly sometimes, but this is seriously on the door of one of my neighbors' apartments down the hall:



Too funny not to post.

(If you don't get it, see here, among others.)

Hope you are all enjoying whatever you celebrate over this week!

I have been really busy with non-baseball things this past week, so I've had no time to write anything. I really do intend to continue the Leagues series I started. Honest.

What sucks more is, I actually DID do something really cool and baseball-related -- I went on a tour of the Nationals new stadium in DC last Thursday! But I haven't had time or brainpower to crop photos and write it up. I was the only person on my tour and I told the tour guide about this blog (I had to explain how I knew so much random Washington Senators history), so I really should do that soon. I promise.

For now, here's something funny that I found while visiting my mom's house. See, when I was a left-handed kid growing up watching the Phillies, my first favorite player ever was Steve Carlton. I loved Lefty. Then he went away, so my next favorite player was Von Hayes. He hit two home runs on my birthday one year, and he had a funny name. People in Philly always called him "Five for One", and never really appreciated how awesome he was, but I sure did. If there had been a Von Hayes Fan Club when I was a kid, I would have totally been a member.

I was looking through some old photos from the days when my brother and I used to go to all the baseball player appearances in Northeast Philly, and sure enough, found the one from when Von Hayes came to our neighborhood West Coast Video to sign stuff. I remember that I was about 11 years old and way too shy to say anything to him because he was my favorite player -- I think you can tell that he has this look on his face like "Why do you look so terrified of me, kid?"



Oh yeah, and I did get one of the signed photos...



Now here's where it gets kind of weird -- one of the other guys at this particular signing was Brian Propp:





Why exactly they had a Phillies guy and a Flyers guy together is beyond me, but what I do recall is that I wasn't afraid to talk to Propp, mostly because I had no clue who he was. This should be obvious in the fact that it actually says "to Deanna" on the signed headshot.

The next set of photos and stuff in the album had a photo of my brother with Ron Hextall and a signed headshot as well. The 80's really were a good time to be a kid and a sports fan, weren't they?

Oddly, since going to a Flyers game two weeks ago, I have actually found myself wanting to get into hockey, but it seems unlikely that I'll get back to a game this year. And from what Simon said about the Seibu hockey team folding, it doesn't seem likely I'd be getting into hockey in Japan any time soon either.

Another fun set of things I found at my mom's was all of her old baseball yearbooks, which go all the way back to the 1959 Phillies, although she doesn't have every year or anything, and there are certainly random ones in there that both of us were like "Why is this here?" such as a 1963 Yankees yearbook, or a 1966 Orioles yearbook.

I scanned in a few pages from various old Phillies yearbooks. Here are Von Hayes's pages from 1986 and 1987, respectively:


1986


1987

Let me digress for one second to say this: if you're not in the habit of buying baseball team yearbooks, I recommend buying some. Now. They should be discounted from last year's teams soon enough. Buy it, read it, put it in your attic, forget about it for 20 years. Just trust me on this one. These 1980's ones aren't so far removed from today's, but you should see the 1960's era ones. I can only imagine how things will progress 20 years from now...

Anyway, here's what Von had to say back then:

If I weren't a baseball player, I probably would have been a financial manager
My childhood heroes were Ted Williams and John F. Kennedy
My closest friend on another team is Chris Bando
Every New Years I resolve to be a better person
If I had more time I would become a gourmet cook
If I've learned one thing in life, it's to experience all you can while you are young because life is too short

If you were stranded on a deserted island and could have one thing with you, what would you choose? Flipper, because he saves everybody
If they were making a movie about your life, what actor would you want to play you? Harrison Ford
If you could spend a day with one person throughout history who would you pick? Babe Ruth, so I could teach him how to do five-way situps

You see, the weird thing is, to that last question, almost everyone on the team answered "Jesus Christ".

Amusingly, Mike Schmidt had said that every year he resolves to stop eating vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup before he goes to bed.

I'm glad my mom was nuts enough to go to the neighborhood Phillies events when I was a kid. I just wish I hadn't been too shy to talk to anyone except the Philly Phanatic. (Seriously. You know how some kids get yearly photos taken with Santa? Looking through our photo albums, I can pretty much track my childhood through photos with the Philly Phanatic every summer. I suppose that shouldn't be too surprising to most of you.)

Yeah, I know, I still haven't written up last Saturday. I suck. I've been buried in stuff and trying to pack or toss everything I own. Does anyone want a bunch of baseball cards?

Anyway, while going through old stuff I found a few old photos and scanned them in. They suck, but in honor of the Phillies losing their 10,000th game a few days ago, I felt like contributing a story to Celebrate 10,000, from just one of the many losses I saw:

It was 1993, and my friends and I decided to go to a Phillies game together for the heck of it. We were all in high school, and in that obnoxious phase where we all wanted to be on the big screen. So we bought a bunch of GA tickets for $2.50 or whatever they were back then, and sat way up in the 700 level, and painted up a big sheet that said "PUT US ON TV AND THE PHILLIES WILL WIN".

They didn't put us on TV. The Phillies didn't win.

And here's the pictures from that day, which I just found:




I wish I knew what game this actually was, but alas. All I remember is that it was late 1993; and the seats are yellow and the stadium's crowded, so that'd make sense.

You know, I'm not actually sure I've ever brought signs to the park aside from that game and this past week's Raully Fries. I must be forgetting in my old age.

Well, if you're a Phillies fan, at least.

I'll admit I didn't see the game, nor any others, since I spent most of today either in the 80-degree sunny Pittsburgh weather or inside buildings avoiding said sunny weather once it became overwhelming, but I've got Hamels on my fantasy team (whoever said that drafting cute lefties doesn't work is obviously WRONG), so when I first checked the lines I saw the 15 strikeouts and was like "Great, ESPN's all screwed up again," except IT WASN'T SCREWED UP. Old King Cole was a merry old soul indeed.

Phillies 4, Reds 1

This game seems to have had plenty of awesomeness in it:

1) Cole Hamels pitched a complete-game win, throwing 115 pitches, giving up exactly one run -- a home run to Jeff Conine, who's like four times his age -- and gave up 5 hits overall, two walks, and STRUCK OUT 15.
2) The Phillies turned a 5-4-3 triple play! WOW!
3) Chase Cameron Utley, aka "An ace homers cutely", hit a home run (and no doubt it was done in a cute manner). So did Aaron Rowand, whose name does not anagram conveniently.

Seriously, 15 strikeouts may very well end up being the top strikeout performance of the season. If you look back over the last few years, there's only a handful of games in the 14-16 range in general.

On the other hand, while looking up the ESPN game score for this one (an 86 -- tying Felix's Opening Day game score and 3 short of his one against the Sox), I noticed that while I was in the midst of travelling to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Mark Buehrle was throwing a no-hitter. Crazy! Man, I go away from baseball for a few days and all hell breaks loose! :)

Veterans Stadium: Field Of Memories, by Rich Westcott

This book recounts the history of Veterans Stadium, the Philadelphia multi-purpose concrete sports venue that stood from 1971 to 2004. There's background on how the stadium came to exist in the first place, stories about the opening and transition to the new park, recounting of various great moments in Phillies and Eagles history that took place in the new park, lists of great football/baseball players and their best moments in the Vet, stories of various promotions and other crazy events in the park, about the birth of the Philly Phanatic, stories about the South Philly residents, and eventually, of course, stories about moving the teams out and blowing the place up.

Just like any other Rich Westcott book, it reads a lot more like an extended newspaper article rather than like a great novel, but to be honest, for once, I didn't mind all that much. I grew up in Veterans Stadium, pretty much, so there were times where I almost had tears in my eyes remembering some players/moments/games/etc. I actually mostly skimmed through the Eagles chapters because they're not as interesting to me -- and to be fair, most of the time the Eagles were complaining about the stadium anyway. The book is a lot more Phillies-heavy than Eagles-heavy in general.

Basically, if you live or lived in Philadelphia and spent way too much of your life in Veterans Stadium, this is a good book to read through, and you'll remember many fond memories. Also, if you're like me and it opened before you were born, it'll be pretty neat to hear about some of the stories from the early years of the park that your parents never told you (like in my case, I don't remember ever hearing about Karl Wallenda walking a tightrope across the field between the foul poles without a net). It even makes a pretty decent bus book -- the writing's pretty pleasant, not too dense, at times humorous, and it splits well into chapters to read one or two per ride.

Plus, the book won me over when it said "Traded to the Phillies from the Cleveland Indians for five players, Von Hayes never quite won the hearts of Phillies fans. He should have."

When I was back east over the holidays, I went through some old photo albums and scanned in a few pictures. (It's funny, but almost every picture of me until I'm about five years old, I'm wearing a Phillies hat or shirt or something, no joke.) These are pictures from the 1980 NLCS and World Series. I'll put a few up here on the blog front page, and the rest are on a separate pictures page. Check 'em out!

All of these pictures (as far as I know) were taken by my father, Mike Rubin, who taught me at a young age the value of a good telephoto lens over the cost of tickets in the 700 level at Veterans Stadium.


October 7, 1980, NLCS, Phillies line up on the first-base line. Check out Bobby Boone and Larry Bowa all the way on the left, and the hair of Garry Maddox and Bake McBride.


NLCS, Astros lining up on the third-base line.


October 21, 1980. Final game of the World Series.


Royals line up on the third-base line.


Tug McGraw replaces Steve Carlton on the mound in the 8th inning.


Willie Wilson at bat, the famous last at-bat of the 1980 World Series.


I think everyone was too excited to get any pictures of the game ending, see.


Bonus picture: this is me, mid-summer 1980. I'm three years old, left-handed, and I want to be Steve Carlton when I grow up.


We're at a neighborhood Phillies event, and the Phanatic won't give me back to my mom. I'm perfectly fine with that.

I figured it's been a pretty Phillies week around this blog, so I might as well finish it off that way. I'll have my next set of Japanese baseball photos up pretty soon.

EDIT> This just in: Pat Gillick ruins Ryan Madson Day by claiming Greg Dobbs off waivers. We'll have to see if I can spread the nickname "Dobby The Bench Elf" to the Phlogosphere.

I realize that today is actually Albert Pujols's birthday (and also another famous Cardinal, Dizzy Dean), and Ryan Madson's birthday is actually August 28th, but after Monday's thread on USSM about, among other things, Ryan Madson avoiding arbitration and signing a $1.1 million one-year contract, and Laurie and I both simultaneously declaring our undying love for the charming and talented Phillies pitcher, I've decided to arbitrarily declare today to be Ryan Madson Day. Hooray! I even bothered fixing my scanner so I could scan in the January 2007 page from the 2006-2007 charities calendar, aka Phillies Phashion.

And then, of course, I found this page of Phillies desktop wallpapers on their official site with the casual-clothes calendar shots of Burrell, Gordon, Madson, Myers, Rowand, and Utley.


No, that's not a fashion model, that's a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.
(That's a re-sized version of the image from the Phillies' site; the calendar scan didn't line up that well)

Actually, to be fair, all of the Phillies wallpapers on that page are awesome. The Ryan Howard MVP one is both super-goofy and super-awesome all at once, really -- he's totally doing the Manny Ramirez 2004-World-Series-postgame gesture, but so what?

The point is, Ryan Madson is awesome, no matter what his 2006 numbers might indicate. For a few quick hits, back in the middle of the 2005 season, Jason Weitzel at Beerleaguer wrote a little retrospective on why it's easy to like Mad Dog. Tom Goyne started the Madson For 2006 Rotation campaign almost exactly a year ago, even making up buttons -- which I never did remember to order off Cafepress. Oops.

Then I drafted Madson to my fantasy team, sniping Tom G for him in the 13th round -- I still can't believe I got Nick Swisher in the 14th round, but hey, this was a Phillies Bloggers league (which, by the way, I eventually placed 3rd out of 14th in, barely edging out the Beerleaguer himself in the finals), where Chase Utley was the 6th overall pick. Anyway, Madson was great for a bit, then the starter role started to wear on him, and when Cole Hamels was called up at the end of May, I dropped Madson from my team for the Phillies' greater good, and he immediately went on a tear, including May 28th, which I was in Philly for, and watched as my newly-dropped wonder boy struck out 7 in 5 innings, giving up 2 runs and batting in 2 runs himself to get the win.

But, the shuffling between starting and relieving wore on him through the year, plus it didn't help that they kept putting him into the game immediately following Cole Hamels, the guy who had replaced him in the rotation. It seemed like Mad Dog was on his way to being sent to the doghouse.

Eventually, though, he got back into the swing of things again, and Mike Berquist wrote the Ryan Madson Reclamation Project, which ended up being irrelevant as Madson reclaimed himself. When Tom Gordon went down with an injury late in the season, Madson and Arthur Rhodes took over the closing duties, as Jason Weitzel had foreseen in saying that perhaps we should think of Madson more as a Trevor Hoffman type.

Of course, the first time I ever saw Ryan Madson pitch in person was the series when the Phillies came to Seattle in 2005, and he gave up a particularly memorable home run -- Mike Morse's first ever big-league home run. But I noticed that despite that, Madson really handled it well, and the day after that he ended up striking out Richie Sexson with the bases loaded, holding the Phillies together in order to stage a comeback in extra innings.

Laurie, however, has a much cooler account of that series, including dissing Billy Wagner in order to get Madson's signature.

In searching for Madson pictures in my collection, I realized I'd cropped and resized a whole bunch of pictures from my trip to Philly this past May, but I'd never actually put them online, so this gave me an excuse to finish those up. These are mostly from May 28th when Ryan Madson got a start against the Brewers, and a few from the Nationals game the next day, May 29th. It has fun pictures of Madson warming up, but also of various things like Hamels and Utley and Howard and all coming out to sign stuff, of Sal Fasano back when he was still the Italian Superhero of Sal's Pals, and some other fun shots around Citizens Bank Park, including Steve Carlton punching the Phanatic. No, just kidding. Anyway:

Deanna Visits Citizens Bank Park May 2006, Photo Set


What the heck, might as well end the post with a Madson photo.

Here's to Ryan Madson becoming the best setup man in the National League in 2007. Or at least having bigger fish to fry.

(Just watch, later this week I'll have a Scot Shields Day if/when the Angels avoid arbitration with him. Maybe I should just declare it Tall Skinny Right-Handed Awesome Setup Men Week or something.)

Dodgers sign catcher Mike Lieberthal

My mom loves to tell this story. It's the summer of 1994, and I've just graduated from high school. In our family, on special occasions like birthdays, the person who's celebrating gets to pick somewhere to go for dinner that evening.

My family asks me where I want to go to celebrate. I'm sure they expected me to want to go to The Pub, a steakhouse I liked over in New Jersey, or something along those lines. But no, there was somewhere else I wanted to get dinner.

"Are the Phillies in town? I want to go to the Phillies game tonight."

So off we go, my whole family, still dressed up from the graduation ceremony, to Veterans Stadium, where my mom proceeds to tell every single person in the stands that her daughter just graduated with high honors, blah blah blah blah blah. I don't really remember the game that well. The Phillies lost, and John Kruk hit a home run, and my mom went on about how cute Darren Daulton was, and I said something like, "Down with Daulton!"

A week later, indeed, down with Daulton, as he broke his collarbone or something. Up with Mike Lieberthal, who replaced Kevin Stocker as my Phillies rookie crush.

Two months later, I moved away to Pittsburgh for college, and never lived in Philly again. A week after that, baseball went on strike, and I ended up pretty busy with classes and whatnot for the next four years, only going to one or two games a season (usually when the Phillies came to Pittsburgh). As the years went by, the Phillies roster changed, and eventually, only one name had stayed the same all along. And now there are none.

It feels like a lifetime since I moved away from Philadelphia. I suppose if you use catcher knees as a timepiece, it has been.

Phillies trade Gavin Floyd to the White Sox for Freddy Garcia

Here's another story. It's May of 2003, and I'm debating what to do for my birthday. The Yankees are in Seattle from the 6th to the 8th, and my birthday's the 7th. As it happens, the music band They Might Be Giants are also playing in town on May 6th and 7th.

One of my friends suggests I go to the TMBG concert on my birthday and the Mariners game the day before or after. That way, just in case the Mariners lose the game -- I rarely seem to actually see the home team win on my birthday -- it won't ruin the day for me. Seemed like a sound plan, so we went with that and got tickets accordingly. The concert rocked, and the next day I get together with a bunch of friends for the game; we get junk food, drinks, find our seats, and have a blast. Edgar Martinez hits a sweet home run in the first inning, the Mariners get a 3-0 lead, everything's peachy.

And then Freddy Garcia gives up nine runs to the Yankees in the third inning. They're just coming up to the plate and hitting him like a printer in Office Space. Julio Mateo comes in to stem the bleeding, and the Yanks ultimately score ten runs total by the time the dust clears.

So we spend the rest of the game watching the stadium empty out and betting on how many runs the Yankees will score total, as the Mariners were eventually completely mauled to the tune of 16-5. It sucked.

A few weeks later we were at pub quiz with a group, and one of the trivia questions that came up was, "Which pitcher holds the record for giving up the most home runs in a season?"

As a joke, I yelled out, "Freddy Garcia!"

It got a good laugh.

Mariners trade Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez

It's the end of August 2006, and I'm in a huge debate over what the hell to do with my fantasy baseball team before heading off to Japan for a few weeks. I know I've got to put it into low-maintenance mode, as it's unlikely I'll be able to switch out my bench players more than once or twice a week, rather than once or twice a day. So I'm culling it down to 9 position players and a whole bunch of starting pitchers.

My favorite fantasy buddy Eugene and I are chatting about it, as I'm tossing players on their ass left and right. Chris Duncan gets the axe, Esteban Loaiza gets a spot. I decide to cut some of my middle relievers too so that it's all closers or starters. I drop Burgos for Broxton. I drop Lowe for Lowry. I look at what's left, and I've got to cut either Scot Shields or Rafael Soriano for another closer. Eugene recommends Tom Mastny, who I know absolutely nothing about, but everyone knows Cleveland's closer situation is somewhat akin to the 80's music video for Godley and Creme's "Cry".

So, what the hell, I ditch Soriano for Mastny. "I'm betting Soriano's totally going to get shut down soon anyway."

The very next day, I swear to god, Soriano gets hit in the head by a line drive by Vladimir Guerrero, and is hospitalized with his condition being reported from anywhere from concussion to hairline skull fracture.

I'm freaked out. I send Eugene an IM. "When I said he was getting shut down, I did NOT mean he should get the Ray Chapman treatment!"

He replies, "Well, look on the bright side. Think of all the Alfonso Soriano owners reacting to the headlines."

I was going to write more about the NPB Industrial/College draft, but got sidetracked. If I don't see a translated list of the draftees anywhere else by tonight, I'll put one together here, at the very least.

So instead, here's what I've been reading today:

There were Jeremy Reed trade rumors abounding in a USSM comment thread yesterday. They haven't turned into anything yet, though.

Pat Lagreid informed me that manager Mike Hargrove is going to be a guest on the Hot Stove League hour on Mariners Radio tonight at 7pm on KOMO 1000, so if you want to hear what Grover's got to say about the offseason so far, tune in and have a listen.

Mariner Minors has a good report up on the Mariners' recent 40-man roster management, about which players are being protected from the Rule 5 draft, which players aren't, and which players have departed (notably, TJ Bohn was claimed by the Braves off waivers and Jeff Harris was signed by Cleveland (I still haven't seen an article confirming it but our Harris informer at LL mentioned it as well)). There's a press release up about the roster moves.

In the realm of "headlines you could amusingly misread", today there was one reading Sox Have Matsuzaka For Dinner. It probably doesn't help that the picture of him in the article makes him look really chubby!

MVPs have been announced for both leagues now. Ryan Howard won the NL Award, a day after turning 27 on Sunday. The Phillies unfurled a banner celebrating it out at CBP, but even better, he stopped by an elementary school in Philly and helped them paint a mural they were making to honor him. They sang happy birthday to him and gave him cake. Sounds like he'll have one busy offseason, making appearances all over the place.

This marks the second MVP in two weeks for Howard, as he was awarded the Japan-MLB All-Star Games MVP as well, captivating the crowds over there with his charming smile and powerful bat.

At least this year, unlike last year, there isn't some stupid football player starting a ton of controversy and keeping Howard from getting his due recognition in Philly; last year when he won the Rookie of the Year, there was barely any coverage of it.

You could make an argument that Albert Pujols deserved the NL MVP more; you could make an argument that Derek Jeter deserved the AL MVP more too, but the winner in that league was Justin Morneau, making a nice Twin set of awards with Johan Santana's Cy Young.

Justin Morneau was also awarded the accolade of "Boyfriend of the Year" by the sasstistical analysts at Bat-Girl. Whether or not he considered this to be a higher honor is unknown, as Morneau could not be reached for comment.

On another note of Cardinals being snubbed, my baseball calendar lists Ken Griffey Jr. for today's player birthday. That's just ridiculous, given that it's Stan Musial's birthday AND the ballpark of the month is Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

I haven't come up with a catchy tune idea for an MVP song parody yet this year, unfortunately.

Okay, I guess technically the book is really called Clearing the Bases: Juiced Players, Monster Salaries, Sham Records, and a Hall of Famer's Search for the Soul of Baseball, by Mike Schmidt with Glen Waggoner. But whatever. I actually got my copy of this book several months ago -- Schmitty was doing some book signings around Philly when it first came out, so my dad went and got me a signed copy as an early birthday present.

I finally got around to reading this book this past week. It took me about eight 30-minute commuting bus rides to get through it. It's really a very good bus book, actually -- I could get through at least a chapter per bus ride, sometimes two, and there wasn't a lot of context to worry about since the subject matter jumps all over the place.

The first six chapters of this book are really awesome; they're basically the autobiography section, where Schmidt talks about his career from the time he signed out of Ohio University, to the day he retired. He just tells a lot of stories in a really fun way; there may have been a really big "oh my god! Mike Schmidt!" factor for me, given that I spent the first 12 years of my life watching him play third base for the Phillies, but I think that the stories do stand on their own just fine.

Unfortunately, just as his career ends, so does the light part of the book. The rest of it deals with his opinions on a bunch of the current issues surrounding the game, and while the tone is still light in most places, the subject matter really isn't quite so much. I think the last eight chapters could be summarized as such (no, these are not direct quotes, I'm just paraphrasing from his point of view):

7,8. "You know, I understand why guys did steroids. They were looking for an edge. I briefly thought I might have done them too if the opportunity had existed when I was a player, but now that I researched stuff for this book and found out what that crap does to your body? No way, man. No way."
9,10. "Hitters today are a lot better than they used to be. The balls and bats are lighter, too. So when you're looking at all the records set nowadays, the numbers guys are racking up, they're legit, you just have to remember to take them in context. Hank woulda hit a thousand homers if he'd played thirty years later. Hell, I might have had 700. Remember, I used to lead the league with 38 homers, after all. Context."
11. "The Hall of Fame selection process kind of sucks. Writers can be jerks. And personally, I'd vote McGwire in, regardless of the controversy."
12. "Oh, for the love of god, will you guys forgive Pete Rose already? I think he knows he screwed up."
13. "Managing a minor league team is really hard. But I think I had a lot of fun. Why, though, do teams invest millions of dollars in prospects and then pay some random dude in single-A $30,000/yr to teach these kids fundamentals? Shouldn't they invest more in lower-level training?"
14. "Okay, so now that you've read my rant, let me just remind you all: Baseball rules. I may be an old-timer and I may sound bitter, and I definitely think today's stars are way overpaid and there's no team loyalty and all that stuff. But who cares, you're reading this because you love baseball as much as I do. Anyone know who's starting for the Phillies tomorrow?"

Anyway, I think this is a pretty entertaining book overall regardless, a fairly quick read, it has some very good points made within it, and it's definitely worth it for Phillies fans or for anyone who was a big Mike Schmidt fan. There'll definitely be moments when you're left shaking your head thinking, "Oh, come ON, whatever, get over it," (which he's very self-aware of and pokes fun of within the book, even), but plenty of moments of "that's awesome", or "yeah, that's a really good point," or "huh, that's an interesting idea, I wonder if it could work" as well.

If nothing else, if you read it this offseason, there'll definitely be moments when he's talking about contracts in the 1970's where you'll suddenly be struck by the amazing salary inflation since free agency -- Schmidt mentions signing a 6yr/$3.3mil contract, making him the highest-paid player in the NL in 1976 at $550k/year. Nowadays, that's not that far above the major league minimum salary. Later he'll remind you of the early 80's when Nolan Ryan was making a million dollars a year for playing baseball. Even I remember my parents saying how ridiculous that was. Funny how things have changed.

Interestingly enough, Mike has his own website now and even a blog.

Holy crap.

I was emailing with my dad about the late Johnny Callison and he sent me scans of the program from the awards dinner he was at in the spring of 1960 -- Dad was getting a citizenship award from the Committee of Boys' Work of The Union League of Philadelphia for a bunch of volunteer work he'd done in high school, and he tells me:

"The autographs are Phillies except for two... one is a bank president and the other is Harry Litwack (the head coach of the Temple basketball team almost forever before John Chaney) and all were seated at my table because I didn't feel like table hopping. The speaker page shows Yankee pitcher Lefty Gomez gave a speech."

Scan of the program listing
Scan of the signatures page

It's a good thing most 17-year-olds these days know better and would get every single person within sight to sign something. Mr. Vernon "Lefty" Gomez! Wow! And it shows John Quinn, the GM of the Phillies, also gave a speech. Lefty Gomez is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Harry Litwack is in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Anyway, I am trying to figure out who the Phillies signatures are, going from the 1960 Phillies roster. I've picked out so far:

Ken Silvestri (was a Phillies coach that year)
Harry Anderson
Ken Walters
Johnny Callison
Cal Neeman
Jimmie Coker
Bobby Malkmus
Bobby Del Greco

The ones I can't figure out are to the left of Harry Anderson, basically. One's probably that bank president he mentioned. Maybe the other one's a coach, like Silvestri? They're not listed on baseball-reference. Maybe neither of them are Phillies signatures and he just forgot after you know, 46 years or so.

Any ideas? Isn't this just plain neat? The funny part is, he somehow assumed that I wouldn't care about players from before I was born. Little does he know...

Johnny Callison died on Thursday, but I failed to notice in all of the Lidle hubbub. Phillies alumni and others remember him. If you don't know who Callison was, and didn't grow up in Philly, it's understandable. He came to the Phillies in 1960 when they were abysmal and was one of the big reasons they had their almost-miracle-until-the-collapse 1964 season; he should have been NL MVP that year, but missed it by a thread just like the rest of the team did. Both of my parents always spoke highly of him; my mom because she went to a lot of Phillies games in the 60's, and my dad because he got to meet a whole bunch of the Phillies at an awards dinner when he was 17, including Callison.

If you did know who he was, this is entirely unrelated, but you might enjoy reading Mike Berquist's series he's doing on the 1950 Phillies in his blog: intro part 1 part 2 part 3

The other thing I'm reading today is Jason Churchill's Mariners roster breakdown with the lookahead to 2007. Quite frankly, I'm totally not into roster speculation because I know I personally have no influence on what the organization does, but Jason's is worth reading because it's funny. For example, his comment on Jon Huber: "Would marry slider if Bush made it legal. Putz’s split is the ring bearer." Or Emiliano Fruto: "Good stuff needs better location. How about Cincinnati?"

In what may be a funny role reversal, Andy Green wants to play in Japan, and rumors link him to the Nippon Ham Fighters. I'm kind of concerned about his 2006 stats, but maybe that was a result of bench rot. He'd probably be an upgrade over Jose Macias at third base, if he could pound the ball in Japan like he did in the PCL in 2004-2005. Plus, his middle name is Mulligan and he was born on 7/7/77. How cool is that?

Also, as an aside, I'm going to probably start trimming my blogroll in a few weeks of baseball blogs that aren't updating in the offseason, as well as adding a few (notably, The Griddle since he's another Fighters fan, and the Baseball Book Review because, hey, baseball books, and Patrick does a book segment on Mariners Radio, too). I also decided to start collecting a page of Player Blogs rather than trying to keep a separate sidebar for them, especially since some are only for the postseason, some are defunct, some are in Japanese, etc.

Yes, sadly, the guy who I'm sure most of us thought would never get traded until the day he either died or retired, Jamie Moyer, has infact been traded to the Phillies. I've been up and down about this all evening -- my Moyer #50 t-shirt is actually sitting on top of my scorecard book, where I put it last night after doing laundry, for when I go to Safeco next week. I don't have the heart to move it.

I've sort of got dual blogizenship between here and the Phlogosphere, because I grew up in Philadelphia going to Phillies games every Sunday for the first half of my life. That experience helped me immeasurably in learning how to appreciate terrible baseball teams like our recent Mariners, but it's given me really weird perspectives in a lot of Phillies-related events this year, such as finding myself in Philly over Memorial Day weekend watching Arthur Rhodes pitch to Jeff Cirillo, who lined a single over David Bell. But I digress.

I think it's pretty cool that Jamie's going to get to go play for the team he watched growing up. I think it's neat that his parents will be able to watch him play again. The Phillies and Mariners both get great "local boy" angles off of this trade, as the two A-ball pitchers we got are from Corvallis and Redmond. Jamie gets to delude himself into thinking he's in a pennant chase again, but, much as I adore the Phillies -- and I really do -- I just don't see them making it to the Wild Card with so many holes on the team, even with the recent tear they've been on after the Abreu trade. Whatever makes him happy, I guess.

But dammit, I'm going to miss seeing Jamie Moyer playing catch with people in the stands during BP, or sitting around signing stuff and chatting with kids and all. I'm going to miss the novelty of having the oldest and youngest players in the AL on our team. It's sort of like when someone cuts down an old oak tree in front of your house. You don't immediately think it's a gigantic change, and maybe you're even glad that it'll stop shedding leaves and junk onto your car. But a few days later you're hunting for your keys in the sun and sure wish there was a tree there to give you shade, or you suddenly notice that you can look out your window and really notice the ugly burgundy color the people across the street painted their house. And then you're like, Goddamnit, I wish the tree was still here instead of 3000 miles away serving up dingers to Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran, but it's too late, you're stuck with a stump and some seedlings that might grow into another nice big old tree someday.

Goodbye, Jamie, and good luck.

Today was the last softball game of the inaugural season for the House of Slack softball team. In proper style, we managed to lose this one spectacularly as well, though at least we showed some flashes of brilliance, and even had one or two 1-2-3 innings (on defense, not on offense). Because our stellar record was a hefty zero wins against a mere six losses, we did not progress to the playoffs. My goal in the offseason is to strengthen up my arm so I can throw harder than Johnny Damon.

I wore a Phillies cap to softball today. Hilarity ensued... kind of.

The Curse of The Bobbino
A short play in two acts

Act One, Scene One

Deanna approaches the plate for her first at-bat of the day.

Catcher: Oh, are you from Philly?
Deanna: Yeah. Are you?
Catcher: Yeah... I'm from Chester.
Deanna: Oh cool! I grew up in Northeast Philly.
Catcher: Ha, we're about the same then, huh?

Deanna hits the ball, but pops out to short.

Act One, Scene Two

Deanna approaches the plate for her second at-bat.

Deanna: So, are you a Phillies fan too?
Catcher: Yeah. Except that they always suck and always get rid of anyone who's good.
Deanna: Today is NOT the day to get me started on that.

Deanna watches four balls go by, and walks.

Act One, Scene Three

Deanna gets to second on the next play. The opposing shortstop is wearing a Mets hat.

Shortstop: Hahahaha, Phillies fan?
Deanna: Yeah, yeah.
Shortstop: I can't believe that Abreu trade. What a bunch of schmucks.
Deanna: And to the Yankees no less.
Shortstop: Uggggghhh.

Act One, Scene Four

Opposing shortstop is on second base, and Deanna's playing second, as there's a brief time-out.

Deanna: So, the Mets, eh? Do you think they'll really trade Milledge for Zito or whatever?
Shortstop: God, that'd be awesome, wouldn't it? I mean, they really just need another great starter to push them to the pennant...
Deanna: Yeah, it's not like they don't already have Pedro and Glavine and...
Shortstop: ...or like they didn't just lose a tough lefty opponent in their division...
Deanna: Ha ha. You're very funny.

Ball is hit, shortstop runs off.

Act Two, Scene One

Deanna is now playing in her second game of the day, subbing in on the Grand Salami team.

Jon Wells: You're up to bat next, Deanna.
Deanna: Okay... [gets bat, starts walking off]
Jon: Go up there and do a Bobby Abreu impression!
Deanna: I guess, I'm a lefty...
Jon: Be like Tomas Perez!
Deanna: WHAT?
Jon: He's with Tampa Bay now and just hit four doubles in a game against the Yankees!
Deanna: Uhh, okay...
Jon: Be like Kevin Stocker!
Deanna: He's not even left-handed!

Deanna hits a hard grounder towards third, hustles it out, but is thrown out at first.

Deanna: Well, that WAS a pretty good Kevin Stocker imitation, you have to admit.

Act Two, Scene Two

Jon Wells has just gotten himself ejected from the game for arguing a call, and the Grand Salami team has to forfeit the game.

GS Teammate: Uhhh, I didn't even know you could GET ejected from a softball game.
Deanna: This is all my fault. This hat is cursed. Goddamn Pat Gillick.

Deanna takes off the Phillies hat. It immediately starts raining.

THE END


The sad part is, that's pretty much exactly how things went today. I did get about ninety comments of "Phillies, huh? How about that Abreu trade?" from various people. I saw Jon Wells (the editor of the Grand Salami Mariners magazine, who had a team in the same softball league) and complimented him on his stirrups, and he asked if I could sub in for them for their game since one of their female players wasn't able to make it. So after my team's game was done, I ended up subbing in for a second game. I did enjoy playing with the Grand Salami team; they were definitely the nicest people of any of the teams I've subbed with, and very good players in general. Also, I got to try being catcher, which was fun after playing second base for the rest of the season.

I'm really not making up that part about Jon getting ejected from the game, either. It was a weird play, where he was running to home plate, and their catcher was blocking the plate, but the throw home was pretty much right there, and Jon went barrelling into the catcher, knocking her over and knocking the ball away. He was called out; a big argument ensued, and BOOM, the umpire ejected him and called the game a forfeit. Craziness.

Anyway, in the evening, I got to see Derek, Jason, and Jeff from USSM on the "Q It Up Sports" show on Q13, which was a real treat. PositivePaul posted videos of it in the comments on the show-watching thread, if you didn't catch it. Derek and Jeff even wore ties, and looked very spiffy. No, Derek wore a suit, he didn't wear a Doyle jersey with a tie. Jeff stole the show as usual, and Jason had to be prodded to talk. It was just like a pizza feed!

Abreu and Lidle Traded to Yankees

Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle go to the Yankees; the Phillies get a former first-round shortstop C.J. Henry, LHP Matt Smith, rookie league catcher Jesus Sanchez and RHP prospect Carlos Monasterios.

Also, they DFA'ed Ryan Franklin to make room for Randy Wolf, which honestly doesn't soften it any for me. Wolf started today and the Phillies won, but he only went a little over four innings and threw about ninety-seven thousand pitches.

I can't imagine Abreu in a Yankees uniform. I was positive they weren't going to come up with enough stuff to make it worth trading him.

I'm going to cry.

Well, not literally. I'll probably be over it in a few days (though it'll be tough when the Yankees come here in two weeks). It's still just shocking. For years, "Abreu trade rumors" have been exactly that, and every little kid in Philadelphia knows that Bobby's still gonna be there the next day smiling and signing autographs and kicking ass. Until now, of course.

As usual, there's discussion on the roster moves (including yesterday's Bell trade) in various threads on Beerleaguer, Phillies Nation, and The Good Phight, and I'm sure there will be more tomorrow in the Phlogs that don't update much over the weekends. Consensus seems to be, generally, that "this was a really bad deal and an unnecessary salary unload to restock some prospects in a stupidly-depleted farm system".

Even my MOTHER sent me email like "Please explain to me why the stupid Phillies traded a great hitter like Bobby Abreu to the NY Yankees for 4 draft picks?"

I had such high hopes for this year's Phillies team, I really did. The idea that the Mariners have more of a shot at the postseason than they do is just astounding to me.

I'm getting on a plane to fly back to Seattle in a few hours, and I've been up all night, and worried I'd be too incoherent to write a real entry, but also figured it couldn't hurt to get some thoughts out about today's game, even if they'll be scatterbrained, since I have nothing better to do to waste time until it's time to get up and get ready and get on a train to the airport. So here's your "Deanna's Really Tired But Wants To Gush About The Phillies" 4am entry:

Short version: Jimmy Rollins scored the first run for the Phillies within the first three batters of the game. David Bell tacked on the second when Sal Fasano hit a big double. Ryan Zimmerman, pride of UVA, homered in the second inning off of Jon Lieber, who came out after two innings due to a strained groin (and has subsequently been placed on the DL). Clay Condrey took over and kicked butt for four innings. Chase Utley hit an amazing triple in the 3rd, though it was wasted because J-Roll, Abreu, and Burrell all struck out that inning. Nick Johnson eked out a run for the Nats in the 4th after a SUPER AWESOME UTLEY-IGNITED DOUBLE PLAY that advanced him to third, and then Condrey shoulda gotten this great pickoff of Marlon Byrd but J-Roll missed the throw and Johnson scored. Condrey got to plow into Soriano for a tag out during a botched stolen base and botched pickoff. It rocked. The Nats never scored again, and Cormier and Fultz handled the scoreless 7th and 8th innings.

With the score 2-2 going into the 6th, Chase Utley literally knocked Nats pitcher Michael O'Connor out of the game by singling off his left shin. The rest of the 6th and 7th innings were bloodbaths. Majewski took over for O'Connor, and a Burrell walk later, Ryan Howard launched a 362-foot home run into the left-field stands again, which gave O'Connor the loss since Utley was his runner. A few singles later the inning ended, and in the 7th, J-Roll led off with a single, giving way to Joey Eischen who walked Utley and Abreu, giving way to Santiago Ramirez, who served up a single to Burrell which scored J-Roll and Utley. Rowand singled in Abreu, and Bell singled in both Shane Victorino, running for Burrell, and Rowand.

Appropriately, Ryan Franklin pitched the 9th inning for the Phillies as they were ahead by nine runs, and also appropriately, the last out of the game was caught by Shane "V for" Victorino, as the Phillies won 11-2.

Anyway, here are random game comments.

- Cole Hamels signed my ticket today! Yay! He's so *young*. I didn't end up telling him the "I came 3000 miles to see you pitch etc etc" thing though.
- I got to meet Greg Roth, who writes the phlog Caught Looking, during Nats batting practice. That was awesome! He's pretty cool. I'm obviously not as involved in the phlogosphere as I am in the Mariners blogland, but it was still cool to put a face to a name after reading his stuff for a while.
- Oh yeah, I stalked roly-poly Matthew LeCroy but failed to get an autograph. I did cheer him when he came up to bat late in the game though.
- It was Dollar Dog Night at the park, which was pretty awesome. This meant that I got three hot dogs and a soda, and the three hot dogs cost $3 and the soda cost $3.50. During the...5th inning I think? The announcer was like "Due to Dollar Dog Night, Citizens Bank Park is suffering a severe shortage of hot dogs. We've left it up to the usual suspects to solve this," as Smiley, the Hatfield Pig, runs onto the field, and the Philly Phanatic chases it around the field wearing a chef's hat and carrying a big fake meat cleaver. It was pretty freaking funny. There were people all over the park showing Dollar Dog competitions between people, and a bunch of guys who had letters on their chest that spelled out "CHEAP$MEAT".
- Screw this heat and humidity crap the stupid east coast is pulling. It went up to 95 degrees here today and felt like it might rain from time to time. I have no idea how I used to survive summers here; I was as sweaty as a Nageotte after just travelling to the stadium, pretty much, and it mostly only got worse until the sun went down.
- I mentioned it before, but Chase Utley's triple was AWESOME, it really was. I thought it might be a home run, it bounced off the wall in right center, and Utley just ran and ran and kept on running. He's so amazing. The double play off Daryle Ward (boooo) in the 4th was also totally Utley -- he ran out to stop the ground ball, got it, quickly gauged the situation and fired the ball to J-Roll at second instead of just shooting it to first, and caught Zimmerman and Ward. Chase Utley rules in so many ways I can't even begin to express it in words.
- Pat Burrell is really not a good outfielder at all. He looked downright awful making some of the plays, including Soriano's double which bounced around him and over him and under him and whatnot. Still, he's probably about equivalent with Ibanez, which means he doesn't really kill the team, especially since anything hard-hit to left field is probably going to be over the damn wall anyway at CBP.
- In the third inning when Pat Burrell came up to bat, I said to my friend, "Burrell's a babe." They showed the super-cute Burrell smile picture up on the screen, and my friend thought that was really funny. Then he struck out. Go figure.
- The Ask the Phillies thing was about favorite foods. There was this awesome clip of it where they have Fasano saying, "Well, you can guess that I like --" and then it cuts to Jon Lieber saying "Italian food." Then it goes back to Fasano who describes some complex sort of ravioli that's his favorite. Heh. Utley likes sushi. Rowand went on and on about some sort of Mexican food he really likes (actually, maybe it was Cory Lidle, now that I think about it, he did mention tamales).
- Speaking of Sal Fasano, I'm really impressed by his fan club, the "Sal's Pals". They were freaking hilarious, getting up to yell "SAL FA-SA-NO" and clapping for each of his at-bats. For Dollar Dog Night, they were all wearing hot dog hats. And they have t-shirts. There's an article about them in the latest Phillies magazine and it's pretty damn funny, talking about how they see him as "the personality and look we've been waiting for since the Krukker", and about how "Philadelphia has a history of great mustaches", and how Fasano himself is like "I love Philly. If I'd known how crazy the fans would be here, I would have tried to live in South Philly instead of New Jersey." (South Philly has a HUGE Italian population, a huge italian market and some of the best food EVER, and the sports complex is in South Philly as well.)
- I bought a set of the postcard-sized Phillies photo cards (they're like big baseball cards). The Charlie Manuel card actually has all of his hitting stats from when he played in Japan in the late 70's. I thought that was awesome.
- Poor Jon Lieber. He was pitching okay, but unable to really field well even from the get-go, when Jose Vidro smacked the ball up the RF line. Ryan Howard dove and missed, Utley actually made the stop, but when he threw to first base, Lieber wasn't there in time and dropped the ball. When Johnson grounded to first next, Ryan Howard got it, looked for Lieber, and then just ran towards the base like "Uh, I'll just take care of this one by myself."
- I was surprised by the pinch-hitting choice in the second inning, because 1) we didn't know what happened to Lieber, 2) MIKE LIEBERTHAL PINCH-HIT WHEEEEE! Yeah, sure, he flew out to center on a hard line drive, but it was good to see Lieby back in the lineup. Not to diss Sal Fasano, because I'd never do that, but I mean, Lieberthal's the only guy on the team who has been playing for the Phillies since I actually *lived* in Philly, and I know his future in baseball is a little iffy at this point.
- Condrey tagging out Soriano was just damn funny. I'm still giggling remembering it.
- The Nats pitchers suck. But the starter, O'Connor, was actually pretty good.
- Actually, who are we kidding? The Nats as a team just plain suck. To be fair, though, they've had more injuries this year than Ryan Franklin has had delusions of grandeur.
- Whose freaking idea was it to put Marlon Anderson and Marlon Byrd on the same team and have them visit Philly? Sheesh. Talk about a boo fest.
- But speaking of boo fests, a really surprising thing was the LACK OF BOOING in general. I think that for once, the Phillies are fielding a team that everyone actually feels like they can cheer for. Except for perhaps David Bell, the starters really are a gang of guys that Philly really gets behind. J-Roll's got the streak, Utley's the awesomest thing on the planet, Bobby's just Bobby, Burrell's been hitting a ton of home runs, Ryan Howard was the ROY, Aaron Rowand's now got "The Catch", Fasano's got the Sal's Pals, and since most of the bullpen except Ryan Franklin has been kickin' butt and taking names, even they're getting good reception.
- Rheal Cormier! Woooo! I was telling my friend, "I have something to say about Cormier, but I'm not going to until he retires the side so I don't jinx him." So he got a 1-2-3 inning finishing in a strikeout, and then I said "Cormier's kicking butt. I would never have expected it from a 39-year-old supposedly-done guy, but hey, that's what lefties do, I guess."
- Cole Hamels was watching the game from the dugout, leaning on the railing for a while with his head on his hands and his elbows on the railing. At one point the Philly Phanatic just flopped down on top of the dugout and put its head on its elbows and mimicked Hamels, who totally didn't notice. It was really cute.

Okay, that's more than just a few comments I guess. Still. I can't believe the total joy I felt in watching the Phillies games yesterday and today. Maybe it's just the return to the childhood glee I used to have attending Phillies games as a kid, or maybe they were just honestly fun games to watch, and the crowd was really into it too. I'm seriously thinking I'll need to come back here for another long weekend this summer; it was sort of like getting to press the "Reset" button on my baseball attention span, since I had recently been getting apathetic about it. I hope the Mariners games get interesting again, and soon.

Also, if the Phillies lose tomorrow's game, it obviously means they were winning these games just for me!

Well, that was fun. Now it's 4:30am and I only have half an hour left until I should go walk to Market East to catch the R1 to the airport. Whoosh!

Okay, I phreaking love the Phillies. This was a phantastic game. I had a complete and utter blast for pretty much my entire experience at Citizens Bank Park today. No, really.

Short version: The Brewers put two runs on the board early with a Koskie home run. And while the Phillies squandered a bases-loaded-one-out opportunity in the 2nd inning, they struck back in the 4th, when Ryan Madson (!!) hit a 2-RBI single, tying the game. Utley hustled out a grounder and Ryan Howard homered him home in the 5th. Two more runs came in the 6th off a walk and an "infield single", and that's where the score stayed for the rest of the game as the Phillies won it 6-2. Jeff Cirillo got to pinch-hit, and I booed him.

So anyway, I got a later start than I wanted, and forgot that Sunday schedules are kinda slow for the subways, but it's okay. I got to the stadium around 12:30pm or so and had the best timing ever, as apparently a pair of seats had opened up 30 rows behind home plate just then. So I jumped on them and left one in Will Call for my friend Joe, who was driving in from New Jersey and would be late.

It's just as well, because I was going to be all crazy and go around taking pictures anyway. I went to the Phillies dugout and Geoff Geary was out there signing stuff during Brewers batting practice, which was cool, though there were a lot of people bugging him so I didn't try to push my way in, just took a few pictures and moved on. I walked around to Ashburn Alley and decided to try to get a good angle to see Madson warming up. So I ended up talking to the ushers for a while, and they were supposed to theoretically keep people out who didn't have tickets for that area, but when I showed them that I had more expensive seats than that section, and also explained that I pretty much grew up on Phillies Sunday games and now lived 3000 miles away, they let me go down to the triangle point and take pictures of Madson. And Fasano. Holy hell, Fasano is just as funny-looking in person as he is in pictures or on TV. I really don't remember him having that mustache when he was on the Orioles, seriously.

Watching Madson warm up was pretty cool. He's very intense, but still has a gorgeous smile. Fasano was also really intense -- when there was a particularly hard thwack of the ball in the glove or whatnot, you'd hear him call out, "Good one!" or "Great pitch!" or whatever. Also, by the way, I want all the Phillies phans out there to thank me for dropping Ryan Madson from my fantasy team, because ever since I did that, he's been going out there and kicking ass.

After that I wandered back to my seats. Players were out signing stuff! And like, the starting lineup guys -- Howard, Utley, Rowand... and COLE FREAKING HAMELS. Man... I went down there and tried to get him to sign my ticket or something but he totally wouldn't. It was sort of weird, he seemed to be avoiding non-kids, especially after he signed this one jersey for a guy and the guy was like "Sweet, this is totally going on Ebay tomorrow". Whether or not he was kidding, that was a tasteless thing to say. If I end up stalking players for autographs tomorrow, and Hamels is out there, I've totally got to yell something like "I CAME THREE THOUSAND MILES TO SEE YOU PITCH AND THEN YOU POPPED YOUR SHOULDER, YOU HAVE TO SIGN MY TICKET GODDAMNIT".

At any rate, I did take some pictures of the guys signing stuff, so at least I didn't totally come away empty-handed.

Oh, one second, before I talk about the game, I picked up a copy of the Phillies Charities Calendar on my way back to my seat. And I have to say -- I'm really not entirely sure why any guy would ever buy this thing. It's basically just full of these awesome pictures of various guys on the Phillies -- Lieby, Howard, Burrell, J-Roll, Utley, Randy Wolf, Brett Myers, Tom Gordon, Madson, Nunez, Gonzalez, and Rowand. But, rather than being like, action baseball shots, they're all dressed in casual clothes, and all the shots sort of look like they're posing for a fashion magazine or something. They're all great pictures (especially Burrell and Madson) though, and such good-looking guys, so if you're a female Phillies fan, this calendar is totally for you.

Uh, anyway, there was a game. From the very second play of the game, I could tell it was going to be pretty awesome. Rickie Weeks had singled, and then Bill Hall hit this huge ball out to centerfield that looked like a sure home run, and Aaron Rowand ran back, back, back, and caught it like two feet from the wall. It was amazing, especially given what he went through a few weeks ago, and he got a huge standing ovation for this catch too. Be not mistaken: Philadelphia loves Aaron Rowand.

Weeks never got off first. Jimmy Rollins led off the Phillies' half of the first with an "infield single", which is to say, shortstop Bill Hall got the ball and dropped it. J-Roll stole second as Utley struck out, and Bobby advanced him while grounding out, but Burrell popped out to right to end the inning.

Prince Fielder, who is quite large, started off the second inning by hitting a double to left field. Pat Burrell may actually be worse than Raul Ibanez at getting the jump on balls like that, I think; it was a double for Fielder but I think it would have been a triple for several players. At any rate, it was sort of irrelevant as Cordel Leonard Koskie, the Pride of Manitoba, decided to launch a home run about 370 feet into the left field stands. 2-0 Brewers. Moeller struck out and Clark singled. Dana Eveland, the pitcher, tried to sac bunt but kept popping it up foul, as Fasano kept diving for the popups and ended up sprawled on the ground. Eveland eventually struck out and Weeks grounded out to end the inning.

The Phillies loaded the bases in their half of the second as Howard and Rowand both walked. David Bell hit a blooper fly ball to second, and Fasano got hit square on by a pitch. With the bases loaded, Ryan Madson came up to bat, and he worked it to a full count before striking out. With the bases still loaded, J-Roll swung at like the first or second pitch and whoooooooosh, it went way up into the air and landed in Prince Fielder's glove a few feet foul of first. It almost felt like the Mariners for a second there, squandering the bases loaded opportunity.

For NGFT Paul: the Phillies also played "All Right Now" by Free between the halves of the second inning, by the way.

Poor David Bell. He can't do anything right, can he? In the top of the third, he bobbled a hard grounder by Carlos Lee and also missed the throw to first base by several feet; good thing Ryan Howard picked it up or Geoff Jenkins, who had walked and advanced on a wild pitch, might have made it to third or further. Fielder popped out and Koskie grounded out though, so it worked out okay. In the Phillies' half of the third, Bobby Abreu got plunked on the shoulder, but then got caught stealing second, and that was about it.

Moeller and Clark singled to lead off the fourth, but between Dana Eveland failing to bunt properly and striking out on foul tip, Weeks popping up to far right, and Hall striking out, it didn't matter.

But the fourth was a lot more exciting for the Phillies. Ryan Howard led off with a single to right. Aaron Rowand hit a Citizens Bank Park 2004 home run to left-center, by which I mean it hit the left-center wall and fell for a double. David Bell still couldn't do anything right and grounded to third; rather than throwing him out at first, Koskie threw the ball home and had Ryan Howard out by a mile, and then Fasano popped out to left field, so now rather than runners on second and third with no outs, we had runners on first and second with two outs. But it was okay. Ryan Madson to the rescue! He hit this low line drive out to center field and I was so positive it was going to be caught, I was like "Oh no, not again," as the ball somehow eluded Brady Clark and fell to the ground. By the time he got it back in, Rowand had scored, Bell had scored, and Madson was on second. Moments like these are why I find National League games exciting. Rollins grounded out after that, but it was tied at 2-2.

Madson again got into and out of trouble in the top of the 5th, as Jenkins hit a double to left field and Burrell was yet again slow on the uptake. Lee grounded out, and then Fielder got hit square on with the ball in the side. It looked completely unintentional; as Madson released the ball you could tell he knew he made a mistake and he sort of cringed, and he even made a wild pitch after that which advanced Jenkins and Fielder to second and third. But he pulled it back togteher to strike out Koskie and Moeller. Yay!

Utley started off the Phillies' half of the fifth by being CHASE UTLEY, WONDER BOY, as he bounced a grounder to second base, but ran and ran and ran and actually RAN OUT THE GROUNDER, arriving at the base about at the same time as the throw. It was awesome! Abreu and Burrell struck out after that, and then RYAN HOWARD, POWER SOURCE came up to bat and BAM! hit a home run into the left-field stands right behind the foul pole, pretty much, 341 feet. It would have hit the scoreboard and bounced back in in Safeco, I think. Rowand grounded out, but it was now 4-2.

Geoff Geary pitched the top of the 6th. Gabe Gross got a single, but that was it.

Joe Winkelsas, who has a very interesting history, pitched the bottom of the 6th and 7th innings. The 6th was sort of a disaster for him, I suppose. Bell grounded out, as he was wont to do today, and then Sal Fasano got a single. And a pinch-hitting Abraham Nunez reached on error. And then J-Roll loaded the bases, hitting an "infield single" where Prince Fielder was basically too slow to throw him out in time. And Chase Utley hit an "infield single" where the second baseman ended up sort of stopping the ball but then missing it as it rolled along the ground, scoring Fasano. With what might have been a case of nerves at this point, being as the 32-year-old Winkelsas was in his third major-league game ever, he walked Bobby Abreu, scoring Nunez. But then he struck Burrell out on a called third strike (and Burrell did NOT agree with the call and was yelling something at the ump as he walked off) and Ryan Howard grounded out to second. It was now 6-2 Phillies.

As an aside, Ryan Howard walked, singled, and homered off the lefty starter, but grounded out against the righty bullpen guy. That's promising.

Winkelsas shut them down 1-2-3 in the 7th inning though, and Danny Kolb did the same in the 8th. I suppose it's a shame I didn't get to see Redneck Turnbow come out, but I'm happier that the Phillies were winning.

Anyway, actually, between Geoff Geary, Rheal Cormier, Arthur Rhodes, and Tom Gordon, the Brewers really didn't accomplish much for the rest of the game either. Cormier was fantastic, a 1-2-3 inning ending in striking out Prince Fielder. Rhodes was shakier, getting two outs but then giving up singles to Brady Clark and (!!!!) Jeff Cirillo. Yes, it was really bizarre in the ex-Mariner sense of having Rhodes pitch to Cirillo. After a wild pitch, Rhodes struck out Rickie Weeks. And Tom Gordon's inning was pretty much saved by another freaking amazing Rowand catch which easily saved a run, as Jenkins had singled and then Carlos Lee launched what looked like a home run to center again, only to have Rowand snag it by the W.B.Mason sign. It was awesome. And since it was the last out of the game, the standing ovation turned into everyone just standing up for the last out. Fielder struck out, and the third strike was in the dirt, and Fasano threw to Howard, and yay!

The speakers started blaring AC/DC's "You Shook Me (All Night Long)" as the team high-fived. There was a "run around the bases" thing going on after the game, and we actually hung out at the stadium a bit, walking around and stopping in the team store, and it was still going on half an hour later. Pretty crazy.

They had Hamels number t-shirts in the team store. I seriously debated getting one, but didn't, I'll maybe think about it again when I go back to the park Monday night for the Nats game. To pay me back for the ticket, my friend got me a stuffed Philly Phanatic, since I ended up having to throw away my old one when I was moving -- it had been in a box with stuffed animals and the eyes were washed out and the legs were falling off, which I was all sad about, so this is good, I have a brand new one!

After the game we went and got cheesesteaks at Jim's, too, which is always a great way to cap off any afternoon in Philly :)

So yeah. Now I sleep, and tomorrow I see more friends and family and Phillies. It's been a good weekend.

I ended up staying late at work because we were sort of trapped in the office due to the protest downtown, so I watched the Phillies-Braves game over Gameday. It was really reminiscent of Mariners games, as you can see -- a case of plenty of hits, not enough runs scored, plus the patented late-inning Franklin gopher ball. Anyway, for today's game summary, I am channelling Jimmy Rollins:


Wassup Phillies hey, it's J-Roll from the Bay,
Now gatha' round suckas, I got somethin' ta say.
In case ya ain't heard, I'm sittin' on third,
I wanna come home, but ya gimme the bird.
We gettin' on base but the runs ain't scorin',
I'm talkin' ta Chase 'cause he out there snorin',
We losin' last week, now we here in Atlanta,
We stealin' the sacks like a present from Santa,
We get two guys on, but then swingin' an' strike,
Yo Bobby an' Burly, Dellucci an' Mike.
We need some R to the B to the I, can ya hit 'em?
If they ain't gonna do it then we might as well sit 'em.
Hey brotha Bell, ya givin' em hell?
On a day where we slumpin', ya doin' real well.
Yo Rowan' and Ryan, I know you guys tryin'.
We left yas on base like the laundry out dryin'.
And Brett had it rough but he gave us a chance,
Tomorrow we brothas will go out and dance.
We get us support for our man Cory Lidle
And then bust a wrap on American Idol
...suckas.

When I was about five years old, my mom decided to move our Phillies Sunday season tickets up to section 543 (we'd previously been in 330, from my grandfather's ticket plan. Sure, you never got rained on there, but Mom wanted to get a suntan if she was going to sit out at the games on weekends, plus we needed a third seat for my younger brother). During one of our first games that year, I looked out across Veterans Stadium, and I could see a yellow star with an S in the middle of it over one of the concourse entries in the 600 level.

"Mom," I asked, "What's that yellow star up there for?"

"Well," she told me, "That star shows where Willie Stargell hit a home run off of Jim Bunning. It was so high, they put a star in its place."

"Oh," I said. I knew who Willie Stargell was, even if he would retire after that year. "Who's Jim Bunning?"

"Remember what I told you about 1964? He was the reason we got there. And he was also the reason we didn't get there."

---

Jim Bunning: Baseball and Beyond by Frank Dolson

I'm not sure there's a single other name besides "Jim Bunning" that you can type into Google, and the first page that shows up is the page of a U.S. Senator, and the second page that shows up is a Baseball Hall of Fame biography.

While I may not agree with his political views, and while it's true that most of what I knew of him was that he was a no-smile, hard-working competitive player, I have to admit, this book really opened my eyes up to understand a lot more of his life. And honestly, I'm really glad I read it. I enjoyed it a lot -- there are a lot of really funny scenes interspersed all over the book where you'd least expect them, perhaps to echo Bunning's real personality.

It's true that this book may have been a little better as a first-person memoir rather than a third-person biography, and delved a little deeper into things, but if you're looking to hear the story of a guy who spent seven years in the minors before getting called up, then proceeded to win 100 games and notch 1000 strikeouts in both major leagues, as well as pitch a no-hitter in each league, the second a perfect game, and after a long and illustrious career settled down to try minor league managing, then being a player agent, a stock broker, a city councilman, state senator, and eventually get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and to the US Congress at about the same time... well, then you want to hear Jim Bunning's story.

I laughed at the stories of his mishaps with the Mud Hens, and of creative bed check duckers. I almost cried when reading about the second half of the 1964 season. I learned some new stuff about government and candidate campaigning. All in all, I found this book very entertaining. There were a few parts where it dragged on, notably in the story of him running for Kentucky governor in 1983, and during the part where he got fired from the Phillies farm system. There's definitely a bit of propoganda strewn around the book, both about the Phillies and about the Democrats. But there are enough parts that are overly engaging to make up for that, notably the story of his first no-hitter, where apparently the Red Sox actually were stealing signs and knew everything he was going to throw before he threw it, and it still didn't matter.

Plus, it had the best reference to my alma mater that I've found in a baseball book yet:

    "It was so known I used pine tar," Bunning said, "that when I was traded to the Pirates [general manager] Joe L. Brown had a study done so the pine tar we would possibly use was clear."
    Brown figured it would be difficult to accuse somebody of using something you couldn't see. "I got a guy from Carnegie Mellon to develop a pine tar that was white and had no smell," the retired general manager confirmed. "Jim wouldn't use it. He said, 'I'm doing all right with the black stuff.'"
    Bunning's version of the Great Pittsburgh Pine Tar Experiment differed somewhat. "Unfortunately," he remarked, "I didn't stay in Pittsburgh long enough for them to develop it."

So, yeah. This book will probably only really be interesting to Phillies phans or for people who are really interested in hearing rants about the Players' Union and such. But, it's definitely different from your typical baseball biography -- they don't usually include a second career in politics.

---

Oddly enough, in terms of other Phillies books, today Phlogger Tom G pointed out that Mike Schmidt has a book coming out next week. In related news, my father, who still lives in Philly, is really good at getting hints, because when I sent him an email saying, "Hey, did you see this? Mike Schmidt's going to be signing copies of his new book at the Rittenhouse Square Barnes&Noble in two weeks!" he wrote back, "So, you're saying you want an autographed Schmitty book as an early birthday present? I'll see what I can do."

I took this picture while walking around Safeco Field during batting practice before a game against the Oakland A's. I wanted a picture of the Phillies logo square, I think.


Behind the left field scoreboard, where the righty homers fly

I just think the lines are kind of cool from this angle. A lot of times when trying to take "artsy" perspective shots of stadiums, I end up with some stupid-looking picture of a foul pole or something.

Plus, wow, they have pretty high numbered squares back there! I guess that's for when the Mariners have a 22-0 blowout against the Yankees this year, right?

Okay, well, since I just looked it up out of curiosity -- trivia question: what's the highest number they've ever needed to use on the Safeco Field scoreboard during a Mariners game? (You can cheat if you want.)