Tag Archives: baseball

Brad Lidge: Heart Attack Man

While I’m eter­nal­ly grate­ful to Brad Lidge for mak­ing Eric Hinske a house­hold name here in Philadel­phia, I feel that after two con­sec­u­tive bases-loaded saves he should at least con­sid­er chang­ing his entrance music to the Beast­ie Boys’ thrash track, “Heart Attack Man.”

Bring Your A’s Game

Remem­ber how I post­ed that thing about bring­ing the Ath­let­ics back to Philadel­phia this morn­ing? Well, it’s kind of becom­ing a thing. I just reg­is­tered a domain for Bring Your A’s Game, a site ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing the Ath­let­ics back to the City of Broth­er­ly Love.

Where does this rank among my quixot­ic pur­suits? Some­where between my child­hood wish to become Pres­i­dent at 35 (still have two years to get that togeth­er!) and swim­ming in the ’96 Olympics, which is to say, it’s pret­ty far out there. Does this sound com­plete­ly insane, yet strange­ly appeal­ing to you? Be in touch!

As an aside, do you think I should start a Kick­starter account to raise the $295M to buy the team out­right?

Will the Real Phillies Please Stand Up?

I spent a love­ly day with fam­i­ly in the Penn­syl­va­nia hin­ter­lands, which means I’m read­ing Beer­lea­guer com­ments to get a feel for today’s unlike­ly win over Ubal­do Jimenez and the Rock­ies. One read­er shared this gem from today’s Philly Inquirer:

Putting a nice lit­tle bow on the pro­ces­sion of no-com­ments, Phillies gen­er­al man­ag­er Ruben Amaro Jr. was not avail­able to talk about the change in hit­ting coach­es or to update his com­ments about the rotation.

After the Phillies optioned Kendrick on Tues­day, the gen­er­al man­ag­er said, “I think we know exact­ly what we’re going to do [Sat­ur­day]. I just choose not to tell you.”

We now know why. Who would have believed him if he said Kendrick was being replaced by Kendrick in the rotation?

Ouch, Ruben. That’s got­ta hurt.

You know what will hurt more? The Phillies acquir­ing Roy Oswalt, going on a tear, yet falling just short of the wild card. As always, the Phils will prob­a­bly have to win the divi­sion to make the play­offs. The NL West is doing the oth­er two divi­sions no favors.

Thanks for noth­ing, Padres! Why did­n’t you just suck like every­one expect­ed you to so we could grab Heath Bell for our run to the World Series?

So Long, Jamie

Sad to see Jamie Moy­er suf­fer a pos­si­ble career-end­ing injury at the ten­der age of 47.

In all seri­ous­ness, Gramps will be missed. I was at his his­toric com­plete game shutout win over the Braves this year. That’s a pic­ture I took of the score­board from our seats in Sec­tion 143. It was elec­tri­fy­ing. Felt like a per­fect game. Would’ve been, too, were it not for Troy Glaus!

Helen and I have seen more than our fair share of Moy­er starts. Turns out our sea­son tick­et pack­age lines up with some of our dici­est starters, whether it’s Moy­er or Eaton or Blan­ton or Kendrick. We just seem to get the guy who’ll either be lights out or out of the game by the fourth inning. Since Jamie came over from Seat­tle, I can’t think of a pitch­er who leaves me with a big­ger grin on my face than Jamie, through all his ups and downs.

It’s easy to for­get the times he got past­ed by the oppos­ing nine when he gives up a long fly ball to Evan Lon­go­ria, only to have it land in Pat Bur­rel­l’s glove, fol­lowed by Moy­er stick­ing his tongue out at the Tam­pa Bay dugout. Draw­ing a walk ear­li­er this sea­son against Johan San­tana to load the bases, set­ting up anoth­er amaz­ing Vic­tori­no grand slam. Watch­ing him dis­man­tle a young stud like Jason Hey­ward is exact­ly what makes him so spe­cial. It’s been a treat to see him have suc­cess this late in his career.

When we reached the All Star Break I was­n’t sure if the Phils would­n’t give him anoth­er shot, but I don’t think any­one will take that risk now. Ride off into the sun­set, old fel­la. You’ve had an amaz­ing career. We’ll nev­er for­get you dig­ging up the pitch­ing rub­ber in ’08. That was a vet­er­an move, just the sort of thing we brought you here for in the first place.

Then again, read­ing this great post over at Fin­ger Food makes you won­der if the crafty lefty does­n’t have a plan after all.

Welcome Back, Cole

Are you glad we did­n’t ditch Cole to keep Cliff now? His one-hit out­ing under the hot Saint Louis sun was noth­ing short of sen­sa­tion­al. Yet Amaro thinks we need pitching!

I’m thrilled to see Cole bounce back from a lack­lus­ter 2009 cam­paign. He’s becom­ing the ace every­one knew he’d be. Makes me very opti­mistic for the next few years.