What Cliff Lee Means to Me

I ran a quick search of the archives here at Ram­say­ings before I start­ed writ­ing this post. Felt sure I’d writ­ten about Cliff Lee before, because, real­ly, how has any­one with an inter­est in the Phillies not writ­ten about him? Whether it was his acqui­si­tion at the dead­line in ’09 or his inex­plic­a­ble trade before Roy Hal­la­day arrived, I’ve some­how man­aged to not direct­ly address the mag­i­cal left hander.

My first mem­o­ry of Cliff Lee is a fond one. Char­lie fell asleep on my chest while we laid on the couch, watch­ing Cliff car­ry a no-hit­ter through six innings. It was every­thing skep­ti­cal Phillies fans want­ed to see in their new stud pitch­er. I mean, how many play­ers had we acquired in the past that just did­n’t work out? What is Travis Lee up to, after all? Lee’s acqui­si­tion showed that the Phillies orga­ni­za­tion was seri­ous about being a con­tender and not just a flash in the pan. It was a refresh­ing change from my youth, when the Phils were rou­tine­ly a door­mat and most Philadel­phia teams found unin­spir­ing ways to trade away their top-tier tal­ent for lit­tle return.

That was just how we felt when Lee was trad­ed in the 2009 off­sea­son. Three nobod­ies who aren’t even seen as devel­op­ing tal­ent that can suc­ceed at the pro­fes­sion­al lev­el. We may only ever know Tyson Gillies for his run-in with the law last year. It was about mon­ey and restock­ing the farm sys­tem, we were told. Seemed an awful way to dis­pense with a play­er who sin­gle-hand­ed­ly pitched us back into the ’09 series.

Now it seems the Phillies are aton­ing for all of Philadel­phi­a’s sports sins. It’s as if Ruben Amaro is mak­ing us for­get every bad trade and draft pick and free agent acqui­si­tion. Makes it eas­i­er to for­get how Barkley and Schiling exit­ed or how Shawn Bradley arrived. It’s a reas­sur­ance that last sea­son was a pre­cur­sor to the fall. We’re not sell­ing off yet. The Phillies are trans­form­ing Philadel­phia into a knowl­edge­able, pas­sion­ate base­ball town like it’s nev­er been before. The Four Horse­men ride!