Tag Archives: baseball

How About Them Phillies?

Remem­ber when I wrote this and won­dered whether or not the Phillies would make the post­sea­son? Yeah, seems pret­ty sil­ly now. I’m head­ed to see the Phillies again tonight as they attempt to sweep the Braves, who once led the divi­sion by a healthy sev­en games. The Phillies have gone on a 12 game swing since and now lead by a whop­ping five games. The mind bog­gles at the accomplishment.

Peo­ple are talk­ing about the Padres’ col­lapse? What hap­pened to Atlanta?

What the Phillies top three pitch­ers have accom­plished is noth­ing short of remark­able. Hal­la­day has won 20 games, Cole Hamels has bounced back after a sea­son that test­ed his met­tle and Roy Oswalt has been superb since join­ing at the dead­line. Can you believe Roy Oswalt is our num­ber three? Me neither!

In Praise of September Baseball

I know many of you enjoy the start of foot­ball sea­son. It con­jures thoughts of fall: crisp air, sweaters, chili and Sun­days with friends, hud­dled around the TV.

I love those things, too, but I feel like Sep­tem­ber base­ball gets lost in the fray. It’s the per­fect time of year for casu­al fans to get excit­ed. You have a clear­er sense of who’s good and who’s not, plus you jump into the mix just as the pen­nant races real­ly heat up. Every game counts! And you can eat chili while you watch! And wear a sweater!

So if your team is, say, the Eagles and you’ve already giv­en up on the sea­son, give base­ball a try. A friend can tell you about the play­ers. It’ll be a lot of fun, even for diehard foot­ball fans. Trust me. Give it a chance. You just might like it.

I Threw a Home Run Ball Back

I arrived a bit late to last night’s game, miss­ing the first inning, but I was there for the fol­low­ing 15. What hap­pened in the top of the 4th is some­thing I’ll prob­a­bly remem­ber — and maybe regret — for the rest of my life. I talked to Enri­co over at The 700 Lev­el about it ear­ly this morn­ing. He post­ed our chat in full here.

It was a pret­ty amaz­ing, if con­fus­ing expe­ri­ence. I knew the ball was head­ed direct­ly at me from the moment it left the bat. It just loomed large as it approached. It seemed to be mov­ing slow­ly right before it com­plete­ly explod­ed into the seats next to me. Even though it end­ed up being a beau­ti­ful night, I’m hap­py Helen and Char­lie weren’t with me because I don’t know what we would’ve done as the ball approached. Duck and cover!

Instead it land­ed harm­less­ly in a cuphold­er. I grabbed the ball and tossed it back onto the field. It near­ly rolled to the infield. Should I have turned and hand­ed it to the young girl keep­ing score behind me? In ret­ro­spect, yes, I prob­a­bly should’ve. But I’m not sure any­thing will feel quite as euphor­ic as hear­ing a sta­di­um full of peo­ple cheer the one time you throw a ball inside a major league ball­park. That was amazing.

I’m con­fi­dent that if we hang on to our seats in left field we’ll prob­a­bly get anoth­er shot in the future. We don’t have many right­ies who pull or hit for pow­er, but I’m going to guess that sit­ting in the heart of the low­er left field seats gives me as good a chance as any of catch­ing one in the future. (As I wrote this, Jayson Werth hit a ball that snuck over the left field wall. See!?)

You can help the poor Astros out by watch­ing this video of Car­los Lee’s homer here. Look for me at the :18 and lis­ten to the cheer go up. Tell me that isn’t awesome!

The Trade Deadline, Revisited

Helen and I had tick­ets to Roy Oswalt’s debut as a Phillie. Wish it had gone bet­ter, but it was still a bril­liant move for the Phillies. Few peo­ple believed that J.A. Happ could dupli­cate his suc­cess­ful rook­ie cam­paign, myself includ­ed. The Oswalt deal gives the Phillies an intim­i­dat­ing rota­tion, espe­cial­ly in a short series.

But can they make the play­offs? The Phils have been snakebit­ten yet again, los­ing Shane Vic­tori­no, Raul Ibanez and Ryan Howard to injury, leav­ing Jayson Werth as the only Phillies reg­u­lar who has­n’t been hit with the injury bug. It could­n’t come at a worse time. The Phils have moved with­in 3 games of the Braves and seem to be putting the pieces togeth­er before the lat­est round of injuries hit. (Make that 1 game back. The Giants mirac­u­lous­ly beat the Braves last night.) If they can get healthy for Sep­tem­ber, I’d say they have more than a decent shot at win­ning the NL East yet again.

If not, they still made the right move. Get­ting Oswalt for the 2011 sea­son and beyond is still the right move. Dom Brown will have more expe­ri­ence. We may man­age to keep Jayson Werth, though prob­a­bly not. It’s still the smart thing to have done at the dead­line. Now that we’re only one game behind the Braves, our rota­tion may be too much down the stretch.

Love John­ny Good­times’ let­ter of apol­o­gy to Ruben Amaro, Jr. I guess I should sign on to that as well, huh?

How I’m Feeling Today

I wish I were jok­ing when I said that this scene from Step Broth­ers was the inspi­ra­tion for Bring Your A’s Game. It’s been a pret­ty amaz­ing day for the project. Great write-ups at Geekadel­phia and Philebri­ty, great peo­ple reach­ing out, and even more peo­ple join­ing the cause on Facebook!

I’m amazed at the lev­el of inter­est that’s already been gen­er­at­ed. If you know any­one who loves base­ball and the City of Broth­er­ly Love, then let them know about Bring Your A’s Game!