Author: J T. Ramsay

J T. Ramsay http://jtramsay.com

In Praise of December

It’s cliche, but hav­ing a baby real­ly changes every­thing. I’ve been see­ing our hol­i­day prepa­ra­tions through Char­lie’s gleam­ing eyes and it just fills me with joy. Hear­ing him say “Han­ta” or “ho ho ho” puts a smile on my face. Can­not wait to see his reac­tion to the tree once it’s com­plete­ly decorated.

Thing I can’t recap­ture is that feel­ing of life slow­ing down. Decem­ber used to feel so long to me as a kid. Not sure if it was that the days were grow­ing short­er, or if the time spent inside meant more time with fam­i­ly, but the sea­son could real­ly sink in. Feel like I could just soak up the Christ­mas music blar­ing out of our lit­tle GE cas­sette play­er, the smell of cook­ies fill­ing our old farm­house. It was a warm, safe, wel­come feel­ing that maybe only a kid can feel.

Try­ing to re-cre­ate that mag­ic isn’t easy, but we’re try­ing. Helen and I have been burn­ing obnox­ious­ly-scent­ed hol­i­day can­dles, crank­ing up the Christ­mas tunes on the TV and get­ting every­thing togeth­er for our annu­al Christ­mas par­ty this week­end. Real­ly look­ing for­ward to see­ing friends and enjoy­ing their com­pa­ny. Can’t wait!

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!

Party Photographers, Slutever at Younglove’s

Caught some amaz­ing local bands at Youn­glove’s last night. Final­ly saw the Par­ty Pho­tog­ra­phers, who total­ly lived up to the hype. Real­ly fun band. Friend­ly peo­ple, too. Check them out over on their Band­camp page. Watch them play Fleet­wood Mac’s “Rhi­an­non” in the video above.

Sur­prise of the night was Slutev­er, who filled in for a last-minute can­cel­la­tion. They were AWESOME! So much fun. You should prob­a­bly get Sor­ry I’m Not Sor­ry right now.

Spe­cial thanks to Mark and Erin for the lift and the banh mi! Thanks to Youn­glove’s, too! Great lit­tle spot and Dock Street is right across the street. Hard to beat if you’re thirsty and want a bite to eat before a gig out in west Philly.

Let’s Talk About MLB Winter Meetings, Okay?

Noth­ing quite as excru­ci­at­ing as watch­ing your team lose a star out­field­er to a sor­ry team with­in the divi­sion — for unrea­son­ably big bucks, mind — while watch­ing them hap­less­ly pur­sue bar­gain bin replace­ments like Jeff Fran­coeur, Matt Diaz, George Sher­rill and Den­nys Reyes. Would’ve been adding insult to injury if we tried to add any of those guys even in a pla­toon. Can’t right­ly tell if it makes it hurt more to hear the Phillies bandied about as being in on Cliff Lee and Zack Greinke or if that’s just part of a push to make guys like me feel bet­ter about a team that real­ly has no choice but to stand pat this off­sea­son and hope things go a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly in 2011.

Will say that the Nats being big spenders real­ly warms my heart. Love that the Fish are being aggres­sive, too. The NL East does­n’t get enough cred­it for being the hor­net’s nest it is.

Last­ly, Selig real­ly does need to expand the league to include the mys­tery team that gets cit­ed any time talks heat up with a free agent. Craig Cal­cater­ra has been writ­ing about this over at Hard­ball Talk for a bit. The tweets com­ing out of Orlan­do have been pos­i­tive­ly hilar­i­ous. Have to say that the rumors def­i­nite­ly keep me engaged with base­ball dur­ing what is oth­er­wise a very slow offseason.