Evaluating Your Investments

I read an article today by Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com about the process by which the Boston Red Sox scouted Carl Crawford both on and off the field before signing him to a $142 million contract this winter. Carl was quoted as saying he was “creeped out a little bit” by Sox GM Theo Epstein monitoring his off-field activities from time to time. 

“I thought that was a little weird,” Crawford said Tuesday. “I guess that’s what they have to do when they’re making that kind of investment.” – courtesy ESPN.com – Gordon Edes
This is an excellent example of what sports has become, not only in the modern era of large contracts, but in the global media era of what it’s like to be a professional athlete. 
Granted $142 million is a lot of money, and that shouldn’t be given out lightly. There are a lot of factors a team has to consider before signing anyone, even the best players, to large contracts - how healthy will they be over the life of the contract? Has their play been getting better or worse over the last couple seasons? How do they match up against the best teams in the division? – just to name a few.
But now, teams have to consider what a player does off the field just as thoroughly as they do on the field. In the new ‘TMZ’ world where people are obsessed with every move a celebrity makes, it seems a player can’t go out for a relaxing evening with friends without it making Sports Center. 
So on the one hand, I can’t blame the Red Sox at all for a least testing the waters on how Crawford spends his time away from baseball. If he has a tendency to party or get into trouble, it could mean a lot of bad press for the organization. If you’re going to invest that kind of money, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s just good business.
But on the other hand, it kind of disturbs me that its come to this. Athletes have always been held to a higher standard, and all because kids look up to them. But now they’re held to an even higher standard because adults and the media are obsessed with them. Being in the spotlight is part of what comes with being in their position, but this goes way past that. This goes past having to answer to sports writers when you have a bad game, or to answer to angry mom’s when you chew tobacco on live TV. No, this is as close as it’s ever come to sacrificing your right to be a human being, in exchange to play baseball. 
It seems now that we’re only okay with athletes making millions if they’re never allowed to enjoy it.

I IS EXCITED!!

The snow is still melting here in PA, but I can still feel spring in my bones. Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow. The Phillies will have their new-look rotation together at last, poised for what will hopefully be a historic run.

When I was a kid, it was right around now that I would be signing up for little league and just a couple weeks before I’d play my heart out in the freezing cold at try outs. I’d beg my mom and dad for a new mit, new cleats, new batting gloves, anything that I could show of for the new season.

I learned baseball by watching Darren Daulton, Lenny Dykstra, John Kruk, Curt Schilling and Mickey Morandini on their run to the ’93 World Series using my livingroom sofa as a backstop, and an old hockey mask as a catcher’s mask (I still claim to have invented the idea!).

Baseball is in my blood and although my 2010 season ended in disappointment, there’s no feeling quite like the promise of a new year.

A new spring.

New grass.

New players.

New opportunities.

It’s baseball season, baby!

Cooperstown

2043327943_9add43ad72.jpgI’ve only been to Cooperstown, NY once in my short life. It wasn’t for an induction or a special event. It was just a chance for a father and son to experience the heart of the game we’ve enjoyed for as long as I can remember. He and I have shared countless baseball games, and we can say that we saw 6 teams play the year the won the world series [1995 Atlanta Braves - 1997 Florida Marlins - 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks - 2005 Chicago White Sox - 2006 St. Louis Cardinals - 2008 Philadelphia Phillies]. 

It’s a cute little town you don’t see very often anymore. There’s no highway, no Wal-Mart, Target or Starbucks. You feel like you’ve stepped back in time through a cornfield into where baseball was born. We got hotdogs at a little place around the corner from the Hall of Fame, I played in the batting cages along the main road, we took in an old-timers game at Doubleday Field and I bought a vanity street sign marked ’10 Chipper Jones Way.’
Our trip to Cooperstown was when I truly began to appreciate the game of baseball for what is has meant to our country throughout the years. The history of the league can teach us a lot about where we’ve been and where we’re going. It’s a place where the purity of baseball is preserved.
I guess that’s why the whole steroids issue becomes so polarizing. If you get everyone together in the birthplace of baseball to celebrate that purity (however real it is), it’s a little easier to look at the contrast of modern day baseball.


rafael-palmeiro.jpgThis year brings us one step closer to being fully engulfed in the steroids era as Rafael Palmeiro enters the fray. In a few years when Bonds becomes eligible, we’ll be at def-con 5. 
Eventually there will come a time when we all just admit that the steroids era was part of the game just like any other. It existed. It was. And I say instead of ignoring it, or trying to erase it from the history books, we need to embrace it as part of our history. Just as we’ve embraced that at one time, African-Americans were not allowed to play in the league.
I think we should stop arguing about if steroids users are worthy of the hall. We all have our opinions, but if we want to preserve the game going forward, we can’t pretend that the last 20 years didn’t exist.
Vote the players into the hall. Celebrate what they accomplished on the field. Move forward. Move on with this great game of ours.

It’s Not About The Money

We live in a strange time in sports where every detail of a player’s contract is analyzed by experts before it’s even signed. TMZ seems to have cameras and smart-phones everywhere just waiting to catch a player, coach or Jerry Jones saying something off-color. It seems we live in a sports era dedicated to tearing down our most beloved sports figures, or at least watching with a bucket of popcorn as they implode on themselves.

But have we forgotten… they’re human?
It’s easy to forget. For all we know, they’re just little super-human images on our tv screen or robots we gaze at from our $80 field-level seats. They make lots of money playing a game almost everyone has played at one time or another. All those hours I spent in my back yard dreaming of putting on a Phillies uniform and hitting a homerun in front of thousands of screaming fans.. they get to LIVE that. Every day.
We don’t know them personally, but we love to speculate on what’s going on in their heads. When Cliff Lee signed a deal with the Phillies for “less” than he could have gotten elsewhere, websites everywhere filled up with every opinion imaginable as to “why?” Why would he take less money? Why didn’t he want to play for the Yankees? What is he, scared? Scared of the big apple and all the pressure?
Most of them say it’s not about the money, but when I think about it, why else would these guys do this if it wasn’t for the money? 
Think about it. They push their bodies to the limit for all but a few weeks out of the year which accumulates to more exercise in a 10 year career than most people do in a lifetime. Ask any former NFL lineman, most of them struggle to walk by the time they’re 50. Darren Daulton had over 10 knee surgeries and kept coming back. They’re pushed to come back early from injuries and risk further injury, and the great ones are expected to play hurt. A lot of them are bought, sold and traded like commodities on the New York Stock Exchange, moving from city to city dragging their families along with them. And then you add in the pressure from fans. Fans who expect them to perform like cyborgs and win at all cost. If you win, they love you and expect more from you. If you fail, or decide you want to take your talents elsewhere, they’ll hate you and take every opportunity to express that hatred. 
Take a look at that. It’s just a fraction of what these guys go through. The lucky ones get to endure it for maybe 15 years. The insane ones keep quitting a coming back. Would you really want to do all of that? They do. And the only rational explanation I can think of… The money. If you take all of that into account, what other reason would any sane person want to be a professional athlete? 
We sometimes forget that they’re humans, and they make decisions like humans. Not media-driven robots. It seemed like such a foreign concept to most people that Cliff Lee made a decision based on what he and his family wanted, and not where the baseball world had pre-determined he should go.
ENTER: Top 10 Free Agent Pitcher
COMMAND: New York Yankees offer most money
COMMAND: Pitcher must accept offer
ERROR: Pitcher chooses Philadelphia ALERT! ALERT!
In the end, he chose Philly not because he was scared of New York, or thought he couldn’t handle the pressure, but because it’s where he and his family wanted to be. It was a human decision just like the ones we make every day. When we are looking for a job, what do we think about? A nice area to live, an environment we are comfortable in, a competitive salary, friendly co-workers. 
Sound familiar?

Oh, Yes We Did!

“Fearsome Fouresome”

“Four Aces”
“The Fantastic Four”
“R2-C2″
I kind of like that last one.
The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind for me as a Phillies fan. I went online last night and was surprised to see my beloved Phils identified as the “mystery” team vying for Lee’s “talents.” I was further surprised to see a report about 30 minutes later that Lee may actually be leaning toward Philadelphia. I went to bed at about 11:30 here on the east coast with no official word and hoped that Lee would be a Phillie. I didn’t have to wait that long.
Call it inception, call it premonition, call it ESP if you want. I just had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that caused me to wake up at about 4AM and turn on my TV and there they were. Those beautiful words and 12-month-old footage of Cliff Lee in the #34 Phillies uniform now occupied by the defending Cy Young winner, Roy Halladay. 
“Cliff Lee agrees to rejoin Phillies”
Now let’s all just sit back for a moment, catch our collective breath and take this signing for what it is… “Exciting.” No more, no less.
Even if you take away all that Lee is and promises to be, this is exciting for the fans of Philadelphia because we’ve achieved the impossible and the improbable all at the same time. That’s not something we’re used to. 
Anyone who has followed the story and analysis which has been going on since I woke up at 4, you all know what Lee left on the table. And might I add that I have no problem with what the Yankees were trying to do. I know I’ve had my opinions about the Yankees spending habits in the past but I’ve taken a lot of my emotion out of things these days, and I can respect that the Yankees are an organization committed to winning and doing any and everything possible to achieve that goal. 
But I can’t help but take away a small victory just from that alone. Again, we’re used to being the team who takes a shot that turns out to just be a dream. I’m used to a franchise that signs aging veterans like Jamie Moyer and Kevin Millwood, but never anyone in their prime. And 6 years ago, Philadelphia would never be considered a potential suitor for the game’s #1 free agent, especially not when New York is in the running. Not anymore. If nothing else, that alone makes it good to be a Phillies fan these days.
We got back “the one who got away.” New York has its superstars and legends while Philly has their Heroes and Saviors. Lee was one of those heroes for everything he did in the 2009 post season, and once you do that in Philly, there’s only one way to ruin it (see T.O.). I had mixed feelings about last year’s trade. I was excited to have Halladay, but disappointed to see Lee go. But I convinced myself it was all for the better. We had a comparable pitcher in Halladay and we had him signed through 2014 whereas Lee would have likely gone to free agency after 2010. We never thought we’d have him back and were convinced we’d always wonder “what if.”
Now we have him back. Out of everyone in baseball, HE chose US. He chose us because he loved it here so much, he took less than he could have. Now where a destination free agents want to go to instead of wanting to get out of. We in Philly have never had that, we’ve always been one of the ‘have nots’ and now we’re one of the ‘haves.’ So for now I’m just going to be excited about the promise of a great 2011 season, and the promise of a franchise that finally found it’s place among baseball’s best. 
I’ve been waiting since 1993 for this.

All Decade All the Time

It’s 10:14am here in the east and I’m three days removed from my college graduation. So this is what “the real world” is like, huh? I’ve heard about this for what seems like forever. Colleges, these days, pride themselves on preparing us for the great wide world that is going to crush us if we’re not ready.

My opinion.. honestly? Kinda boring.

Okay, I don’t have a “job” yet, but I do have several things going on. I’m attending the Allentown Bartending School after the new year. That should be fun. My ultimate goal would be to get a job in a nice sports bar where I could talk sports all day long. I do that already, but my fiancee is not very receptive unless it about the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I’m also working in a new web series that I’m trying to pitch. It’s called Guys With Girl Problems (cheap plug) and I think people will find it funny. I’ve spent the last 4 1/2 years in college working my tail off toward something I have little interest in. If I’ve learned anything in that time, it’s that I need to be working toward something I believe in.

Wait a minute. This is a baseball blog, right? Sorry. On to baseball!

To quench my winter thirst for baseball in the wake of the Roy Halladay trade, I’m fixed on mlb.com eying the next big moves. One of today’s headlines was regarding the fan voted “all-decade” teams. So I thought I’d weigh in.

Now I don’t know all the rules here. From what I gather, this is like an AL/NL all-century team except just the 2000-2009 decade. So here goes.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

1B: Albert Pujols - No surprises here. They don’t call this guy a machine for nothing. since breaking into the league in 2001, Pujols has hit .334 with 366 dingers and 1,112 RBI on his way to 3 MVPs and a World Series. Some guys would sell their soul for the career this guys has had in 9 years. If Ryan Howard had come into the league earlier than 2006, this might be a more difficult discussion, but Pujols is just undeniable right now.

2B: Chase Utley – Here comes the homer! Okay, yes I’m a Phillies Phanatic but you really can’t argue with Utley at all. I don’t even need to throw out numbers with him. He’s going to go down as the greatest second baseman of all time, even better than Ryne Sandberg.

3B: Chipper Jones – This was a little tougher decision. Chipper has battled some injuries which kept him out the better of one or two seasons and he’s getting up there in age. But I’ve been following his career since he was a rookie in 1995, A lot of people want to shy away from him but at the end of the day you can’t deny what he brings to the plate. Yes, he moved around position wise, playing LF for a couple years, but he’s always been a third baseman.

SS: Jimmy Rollins – This was by far the toughest decision because SS seems to be a forgotten position anymore. It was sexy in the 90′s with Ripken, Jeter, A-Rod and Garciaparra but now I can only name maybe 5 starting shortstops in all of baseball without really thinking hard. For me, it came down to Jimmy Rollins and Rafael Furcal. I went with Rollins because he’s been consistent and clutch and he’s got an MVP trophy and a World Series ring. Furcal has neither. Plus, Rollins and his club have come up victorious in the last 2 NLCS of the decade.Compelling.

LF: Barry Bonds – I’ll take the 2001-2004 Bonds who hit a billion home runs and won 4 consecutive MVPs. Not the 2005-2007 Bonds who played every other day and walked more than he ran. Literally. Steroids or not, the games count so he counts. He never could win a championship but he was playing in San Francisco. Gary Sheffield was a close second, but he spent a lot of the decade in the AL with New York and Detroit.

CF: Jim Edmonds – I had three choices for best CF of the decade. Edmonds, Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran. Beltran only came to the NL at the trade deadline of 2004 so he’s out. That left Jones and Edmonds. Both of these guys were staples in CF for one teams nearly the whole decade. There was a time where no fly ball was safe in St. Louis or Atlanta. I gave the nod to Edmonds because his numbers were a bit more consistent whereas Andruw Jones was more of a bell-curve. 

RF: Gary Sheffield – Yes, I know I mentioned him in the Left Field discussion, but Sheff really did spend more time in Right than Left until recently. I re-thought his career and despite spending 2004-2008 in New York and Detroit, he is still hands down better than the youngsters that have been in right for the rest of the decade. A shout out goes to Will Ferrell, i mean, Adam Dunn.

C: Mike Piazza – Even though he retired in 2008, Piazza still stuck out as the best of the unsung heroes behind the plate. He was one of the few to be feared at the plate and meant a lot to the city of New York following the tragedy of 9/11. Russell Martin, Brian McCann and the Molina family are all great catchers, but Piazza is up on the pedistal in my book.

P: John Smoltz – Picking just one pitcher out of, I don’t know, A MILLION is a tall order. In the end, I went with Smoltz because he was part of what could be the greatest 1-2-3 rotation (Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz) of all time. AND he did what his team needed and stepped into the closer role and was nothing short of a lock. He was the Mo Rivera of the NL for 3 seasons.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

1B: Paul Konerko – This is tricky because the 1B/DH designation is typically one and the same. You can throw around names like Jim Thome and David Ortiz, but they were typically DH. Many First basemen in the AL are there for defensive purposes. Konerko played a lot of 1B in the decade and is one of the most overlooked players of the decade. So I’m going to show him some love in this blog at least.

2B: Alfonso Soriano – It’s hard to remember his time in the AL since his astronomical contract in Chicago and his move to LF, but he was once considered the next great Yankee. After losing the 2001 and 2003 world series respectively, New York traded him away and teams have been overpaying for him ever since. Gotta give it up to a guy who looks like he weighs 150lbs but can power it to China.

3B: Alex Rodriguez – He still seems like he doesn’t know what he’s doing at 3B but what he’s done at the plate greatly overshadows it all. A lot of his great work of the decade was done at SS but its undeniable who belongs at that designation, I had to give 3B to Rodriguez.

SS: Derek Jeter – In my book, he’s still the last true great Yankee. I think he can be mentioned in the same breath as Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. I spent most of my life loathing the Yankee organization, but I always liked Jeter. He’s a classy, old fashioned ballplayer. I really don’t think I need to say anything else.

LF: Manny Ramirez – One of the many great products of the Cleveland Indians organization to experience success somewhere else. Manny has been Manny this whole decade and while his antics on the field have been somewhat comical, he been the best and most consistent hitter we’ve had outside of DH.

CF: Torii Hunter – Center Field used to be a premier position with guys like Mantle and Griffey Jr., but now teams usually want a speedy defensive center fielder and are lucky to find one that might be able to put the bat on the ball well enough to lead off. Hunter has done all that and more and he’s done it year in and year out.

RF: Ichiro – He largely stays out of the media because he doesn’t speak much English and he plays in Seattle. But Ichiro has started almost every All-Star game since he came into the league in 2001 from Japan and he’s the one guy you DO NOT want to see when you’re looking for a safe out. Many fans also discount his defense which is amazing. I remember watch
ing him throw out a tagging runner on a frozen-rope strike from RF to third.

C: Jorge Posada – Consistency is big in my book. There are a lot of players that are hyped up because they have 1 or 2 big months, but I like the players who get it done day in and day out. Posada is one of those players who can hit almost anywhere in the lineup from either side of the plate and put the barrel of the bat on the ball. What more do you want from a catcher?

P: Roy Halladay – Yes, I know, I’m excited to see him in Philadelphia, but he was the workhorse of the AL for the entire decade. A Cy Young in 2003 doesn’t begin to describe what he did for Toronto who otherwise had to think back to Joe Carter’s series winning home run, but Mitch Williams and I don’t want to talk about that. You could make a good case for Roger Clemens or even Andy Pettite, but both of them abandoned the AL for the NL in 2004, and Clemens has been baseball’s version of Brett Favre ever since. So I had to take points away. Halladay has pitched around 200 innings a year in 6 of the last 10 seasons on his way to winning 139 games.

So there it is. My all-decade teams for the AL and NL. Of course there are arguments to be made and I’m open to any of them.

Say it Ain’t So!

WELL HELLO THERE!

Just logged into the Blogosphere for the first time since the great Harry Kallas passed away early last season. It’s been a hectic 8 months since my last post and I’m sorry I haven’t been around to take part in all of the interesting stories that have been going on in the world of baseball in 2009.

I got engaged down in good ol’ Disney World last May. I’m very excited about the wedding which will be this coming July 10th. I wish I could invite everyone. I also just finished up my last semester at Penn State and will be graduating on Saturday. So needless to say, I’ve had a lot going on and unfortunately my blogging had to take a back seat.

But it’s time to end the silence. I’ve got so much to say and wouldn’t rather say it anywhere else. I had some bad experiences during this past world series on facebook, and before I get into the sadness in my heart over the loss of Cliff Lee, I’d like to speak my mind very briefly.

Personally, I thought this had all the makings for one of the greatest and most competitive world series of all time. You couldn’t have put 2 more evenly-matched, equally competitive franchises if it had been written by Bill Shakespeare himself. Unfortunately, the greatness that was the 2009 world series was tarnished by the thousands of New York and Philadelphia fans on facebook, running their mouths in the most vindictive, sadistic and downright awful ways. As if it had any effect on the game itself.

This is sports, people. It’s a game. I loved the Phillies from the day I put on my first red cap, and as much as I may disagree with the Yankees’ front office philosophies, or disagree with their impact on baseball, I’m never going to root for them to fail. I just don’t believe in that anymore. There may have been a time in my young life when I did, but I’ve grown. And so should the rest of the world.

We all love different teams, but we should all love the game more. So let me take this opportunity to congratulate the New York Yankees on their World Series victory in 2009. It was well deserved and I hope to see a rematch in 2010.

**exhale**

Now, on to the 2009-2010 off-season.

I’ve been glued to ESPN and ESPN.com the last two weeks waiting to see what would happen with Roy Halladay much like I did mid-season when the possibility first rose. This is something Yankees fans might not be able to identify with since this is common occurrence in NY; but in Philadelphia, the possibility of acquiring someone like Roy Halladay is like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. It just doesn’t happen that often. If at all.

It didn’t happen in July, but we ended up with Cliff Lee and he was nothing short of amazing in red pin-stripes. From the first time he put on that #34 jersey against San Francisco, Philadelphia was in love. The rest speaks for itself.

Now the rumors came up again regarding Halladay and again, this isn’t something I’m used to. Late Monday afternoon I saw the ESPN ticker go across the screen that the Phillies had agreed to a trade, time stood still… Then, the ticker completed, and I found out that Cliff Lee was then traded to Seattle. My heart sank.

We went from having arguably the best 1-2 rotation in baseball, to the Roy Halladay we’ve coveted since last June. Since late October, there has not been a bigger celebrity in Philadelphia than Cliff Lee. He’s everything the city wants in the pro athlete. He doesn’t talk smack, he doesn’t make empty guarantees, he just plays. If you’re not sure, go search YouTube for a clip of Lee catching a Johnny Damon pop-up in game 1 of the world series and watch him calmly step back onto the rubber and prepare for the next pitch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKoUEhVYpmI

I’m not going to lie… man-crush.

Now he’s a Mariner. He literally could not be any further away from us.

It’s awesome to have Roy Halladay who is widely considered to be the best pitcher in baseball by everyone who has an opinion. His stats in the last 2 seasons are marginally better than Cliff Lee and he’s been doing it in the AL East against the Yankees and Red Sox. He has the makings to be everything Cliff Lee was and more, but still, Philadelphia is left wanting.

I don’t like the position he’s in now. Philadelphia does not quickly forget. Lee was only a Philly for 3 months but it felt like he belonged. He was one of us. I have the eerie feeling that every pitch Halladay makes will be compared to Lee’s. That’s Philadelphia.

I’m not Reuben Amaro, and I suppose it’s a good thing because I’m much more impulsive. I would have looked at the opportunity to have Lee and Halladay in the same uniform and not given a crap how bare the cupboard was. I would have done everything possible to sign Lee to an extension and keep Cliff and Doc in Philly for the next 4-5 years. Lee-Halladay-Hamels. That spells unstoppable.

Reuben said that his job was to put a championship caliber team on the field every year beyond 2010. I agree. But Reuben, your tenure as GM of the Phillies will not be measured in how many years your “could have” won the world series, it will be measured in how many years you did. 2008 belongs to Pat Gillick. You had the opportunity to, in essence, lock in a trip to the 2010 series, and have a great shot at winning it, and you balked. All because you wanted a couple of guys who might be good players 4 or 5 years from now.

In my book, that’s a bad trade. I see your reasoning and I don’t disagree with your job description. I’m glad you want to win year in and year out. But in Philadelphia, we don’t just want to be competitive, we want parades down Broad Street.

The Yankees gave Joe Girardi number 27 because they wanted a 27th championship and they got it. Roy Halladay will wear 34, which happens to be the number of the guy he’s inevitable replacing. They should have given him #3.

The Voice We Knew and Loved

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To many of
us Philadelphia Phillies fans, the loss of Harry Kalas is like losing a family
member. What makes losing a family member so difficult is the fact that we can’t
imagine our lives without them. You go to sleep every night confident that they
will be there when you awake. When they aren’t, it’s an uneasy feeling that can’t
be described. That’s the best way I can explain the emotion that Philadelphia
is feeling right now.

A signature
broadcaster is a rare thing in sports. We think of names like Harry Cary, John
Madden, Marv Albert and – at least for Phillies fans – Harry Kalas. Made famous
by his child-like excitement for the game and his signature catch phrase – “it’s
‘outta’ here!” – Harry Kalas was more than just a voice to so many. In
Philadelphia, he was synonymous with baseball.

He was there
to announce the two Phillies World Championships, first in 1980 and just this
past season.

It’s an old cliché
in baseball to ‘play every game as if it were your last’ and that’s exactly how
Harry announced. Even those who knew him well could hardly tell the difference
between a loss or a win by Harry’s voice, because he was equally excited no
matter what the outcome was. It didn’t matter if the Phillies were in a hunt to
win the division or they were suffering their ten thousandth franchise loss. To
Harry, time stopped with every fly ball deep to right field.

It’s hard to
imagine what life will be like when Philadelphia wakes up tomorrow morning and
Harry isn’t there. He sat in that booth for so many years; most of us assumed
he always would. It’s hard to imagine what will happen the next time Ryan
Howard hits a fly ball deep to right field. Ryan hasn’t hit a homerun yet that
Harry hasn’t called, just like so many Phillies.

In the minds
of many of us, the Phillies won’t quite be the same. For nearly 40 years, the
Phillies hit a lot of long fly balls deep to right field and it was Harry’s
voice that willed them ‘outta here.’ Now, those hits will simply land safely in
the crowd. They’ll count for just the same, but they won’t feel the same.

To Harry:
our voice, our legend, our soul, but most of all, our friend.

We will
always remember the joy you brought to all of our hearts.

We will forever
miss you.

Godspeed,
old friend.

Kalas.jpg

Harry Kalas

1936 – 2009

Shame

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, children of MLBlogs.com; I come to you now with great humility and regret. After weeks of careful consideration and deliberation with my attorneys, advisers and family, I have decided to come clean.

Shame-award-1.jpgI, William Scott Lentz of Reading, Pennsylvania, am guilty of using performance enhancing substances…

I know. I know.

“How could you?” you may say. “How could you tarnish yourself?”

While my original blog featured on the front page of MLBlogs.com last November was clean, I must plead guilty to using performance enhancers in December of 2008.

When I wrote “The Best Idea I Ever Had… Maybe” where I suggested Donovan McNabb join the Phillies bullpen, I tested positive for… gulp… SPELL-CHECK. I don’t know what I was thinking, it was just the pressure of the moment I suppose. I hadn’t written a blog in weeks and I knew that if I didn’t post soon, I may be lost in MLBlogosphere obscurity. The blog started off well, but in the second full paragraph I tackled the word “arbitration” which I butchered. So I paniced. I right clicked on the word and selected the correct spelling, a spelling – I must sadly admit – that was not my own.

It doesn’t stop there.

Name_change_for_Jose_Canseco_Street.jpgA few days later when I posted “C-C-C-Ya Real Soon!” I was on a kick. My McNabb blog drew critical acclaim and I liked the feeling, so I asked Jose Canseco to grease my keyboard with a thin layer of vasoline so my fingers could type faster and thereby allow me to blog faster. The post went by like a blur and before I knew it, it was posted. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I was just lucky I convinced Canseco to leave me out of his next book. Don’t ask me how I did it.

It all just happened so fast.

My third and final “enhanced” post was the fatal “Everything Baseball Should Be: And Everything Baseball Is Not.” At this point, I was so engulfed in the ways of dishonest blogging I had no idea which way was up. I took all of my blog-rage out on the Yankees who were an easy target at the time. The blog was full of vasoline-enduced rants and spell-checking that allowed me to use words such as ‘allegiance’ and ‘romanticised.’ Words I would have never been able to spell naturally. And – as much as it pains me to say – the meatball line is from Seinfeld.

zimmer_don1013.jpgI am a fraud and I have put myself to shame. I’m embarrassed for myself, I’m embarrased for the Yankees and I’m embarrassed that I just stole another line; this time from Don Zimmer.

I must apologize to all of my fans. You all had faith in me and I let you down. I would like to announce that I will spend the remainder of my blogging career educating young writer about the dangers of spell-check. Children: ‘spell-check’ is unnatural so rely on your own spelling talents and do not take the easy way out.

I must also apologize to Jane, the most prominent member of Yankee-nation. I should not have taken out my blogging rage out on the Bronx-bombers and I am truly sorry. Let this be a lesson to you… Vasoline kills people.

Mark my words dear blogging friends, my resolve has never been higher than it is on this day. My blogging career is far from over and I promise you I will spend the rest of it proving to you that I can blog clean. You may see a few more spelling errors and a few less alliterations, but darn it, it’ll be clean. Have faith in me!

Spring Seems So Far Away

January is a
tough month for Major League Baseball. The players have had a good month or two
off depending on when their respective seasons ended and they’re starting to
get that pre-Spring Training itch to get out there and play. Fans – not unlike
all of us on MLBlogosphere – are feeling the full effects of baseball-withdraw
and beginning to lash out at each other.

sad-tribe-fans.jpg

My
girlfriend is a psychology major and she told me about a recent report on
“winter-depression” that Americans suffer from around this time of year. It
seems the human psyche is effected by the amount of sunlight we receive on a
daily basis, and as the daylight of the winter season becomes shorter and
shorter, we become more and more depressed.

The
solution: More light!

This study
reminds me of what we on the ‘sphere’ are suffering from this wintery season. I
live on the east-coast in Reading, PA and we have been experiencing record-low
temperatures. Tuesday night we had a high of 10°F and a -2°F wind-chill.  That’s cold enough to make anyone forget
about the green grass and the boys of summer.

So if the
solution to “winter-depression” is more
sunlight, perhaps the solution to winter baseball-withdraw” is more baseball. Unfortunately they don’t
make special incandescent light bulbs that make us feel like we’re at the
ballpark, but at the very least, I think we can all perk up our baseball
spirits a bit with a few old-fashioned remedies.

PHILLIESSWEAT.jpg

1.       WEAR YOUR
TEAM GEAR WHEREVER YOU GO!

Now, maybe I’m a little biased because my
team just won the world series, but I still wear my ‘MLB Playoffs’ sweatshirt
and ‘NLCS Champions’ wherever I go. No matter where I am, I am reminded of
baseball and my favorite team.

 

My suggestion to us Northeasterners is to buy
some winter team gear – a beanie or a jacket perhaps – and make sure you wear
it every time you go out to shovel the driveway or pick up the mail.

 

opening day.jpg

    2.       GET YOUR
TICKETS NOW!

It may ne early yet, but it’s never too soon
to get your tickets. Personally, I already have my opening day tickets to watch
the Phils get their Championship rings. No, this idea won’t make opening day
come any faster, but it will give you something to look forward to doing. All
you teenage girls can start making red ‘X’s’ on your calendars until the big
day arrives and start crafting your puffy paint ‘Grady Sizemore’ t-shirts.

 

3.       PLAY GOLF,
AMERICA!

Ok. Maybe those of us who are being bombarded
by arctic storms can’t take part in this idea, but those of you who live in
warmer climates have the opportunity to get out on the links and play a game
that is a little bit like baseball. There’s green grass, a few bunkers that can
be confused for an infield and while the rest of your four-some is looking away
you can call your shot over the left field fence.

 

Many of your favorite major leaguers take
advantage of the same opportunity.

Chipper Jones
chipper jones.jpg
John Smoltz
july_smoltz_299x228.jpg
Jason Varitek
varitek golf.jpgDerek Jeter
jeter golfing.jpg

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