Tag Archives: MLB baseball

Bring the A’s Back to Philadelphia

The Ath­let­ics are one of base­bal­l’s most nomadic fran­chis­es. After orig­i­nat­ing here in the late nine­teenth cen­tu­ry and then becom­ing a mod­ern club in 1901, the A’s have moved twice: first to Kansas City in 1954 and then on to Oak­land in 1968, as base­ball fans moved west in droves. Now the club is threat­en­ing to move away from Oak­land. They’re threat­en­ing to move to — wait for it — Sacra­men­to, of all places.

Now maybe the peo­ple of Sacra­men­to would like a pro­fes­sion­al base­ball team, but so did north­ern Vir­ginia and what did they get? The Expos. How’s that work­ing out? Have you been to a Nation­als game? The crowd they claimed was starv­ing for base­ball would appear to appre­ci­ate the diet. Even with pitch­ing phe­nom Stephen Stras­burg the Nats strug­gle to draw a crowd. I have my doubts that Sacra­men­to would be able to sup­port a major league base­ball team any bet­ter than Oak­land does. Lots of love for Tyreke Evans, but even the Kings don’t rule.

Here’s my solu­tion: let’s bring them back to Philadel­phia! I’d have to dou­ble check, but I’m pret­ty sure Philadel­phi­a’s the largest tele­vi­sion mar­ket that does­n’t have two teams. Is it an impos­si­ble pipe dream? Prob­a­bly, but I’m not ready to give up the slim hope that some wild­ly ego­tis­ti­cal entre­pre­neur could­n’t embrace the roman­tic notion of return­ing the A’s to their home­town, the birth­place of pro­fes­sion­al baseball.

I’ll grant that there are many seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able prac­ti­cal con­cerns, first and fore­most being where they’d play. Could Philadel­phia even sup­port two teams? We’re base­ball rich right now, but what about when the Phillies inevitably slide? Will base­ball fans retreat into their homes? Would peo­ple sup­port both teams? How does Chica­go manage?

If the A’s are plan­ning to move any­way, why not at least try to bring them back to Philadel­phia? Can’t the City of Broth­er­ly love make a pitch to win them back?

Get Ready for the 2010 Phillies

As my two favorite Phillies blogs, Beer­lea­guer and the Fight­ins,  vie for the title of best Phillies blog over at the Phield, I look for­ward to Mon­day’s Open­ing Day game against the Nation­als, with tick­ets cour­tesy of for­mer Nation­als right field­er Eli­jah Dukes. (Thanks, dude! I hope you find a team soon!)

This is our third year as sea­son tick­et hold­ers and the first that I’m gen­uine­ly ner­vous about how the sea­son will end. Maybe it’s the feel­ing any­one has when their team gets that close to win­ning back-to-back cham­pi­onships and los­es. Fear creeps in. Doubt, too. Some­how, despite the fact the Phillies trad­ed for a pitch­er who’s arguably the best in base­ball last Decem­ber, I can’t help but won­der how Roy Hal­la­day will be able to fix the Phillies when he can only take the field every fifth day.

With our thin pitch­ing staff already being test­ed by injuries, I can’t help but won­der if this is the year our fan­tas­tic Phils final­ly fall apart. Part of that is a life­time of Phillies pes­simism talk­ing, but it’s also the real­iza­tion that it’s very dif­fi­cult to field a team as con­sis­tent­ly great as the Phillies have these past two years with­out set­backs like this. On the oth­er hand, it’s April, and the Phillies tend to start slow­ly and gain momen­tum as the sea­son pro­gress­es. After all, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. There’s plen­ty of time to beat up on the NL East to secure a play­off berth.

I also feel like this is the first year that the end is in sight. Werth a Yan­kee? Per­ish the thought, but it might hap­pen. Trade Howard? After years of threat­en­ing, this could become a real­i­ty if the Phils aren’t will­ing to pick up his con­tract. The end of Jim­my Rollins’ reign as Phillies short­stop looms. Will the lega­cy of the ’08 Phillies be like that of the ’80 Phils, with Chase Utley as the new Mike Schmidt, the last man stand­ing from the team’s glo­ry days, a Hall of Famer sur­round­ed by also-rans and unproven rookies?

It’s famil­iar to me as some­one who was only 3 when the Phils won in ’80. I spent the bulk of my child­hood hat­ing the loath­some Phillies, even going so far as to resent their rag­tag run in ’93. The Phillies were so bad I chose to fol­low a team that was even worse: the Cleve­land Indi­ans! By ’95, I’d giv­en up on the Tribe and found myself root­ing for a Phillies team led by guys like Kevins Sef­cik and Stock­er. I vivid­ly remem­ber pars­ing the Schilling trade, hop­ing that some­how a guy like Omar Daal might be the answer to the Phils pitch­ing woes. (He was­n’t.) Must my infant son endure the hard­ship of being a Phillies fan just as I had before him? Seems likely.

My wish for the 2010 Phillies is that they win the World Series and enter the pan­theon of great teams. They’re prob­a­bly already there, but to win a third con­sec­u­tive Nation­al League pen­nant would be a thing of beau­ty. To be men­tioned in the same breath as the Big Red Machine is already dizzy­ing, but to sur­pass them would be magical.

So while I’m over­come with nos­tal­gia for the past two won­der­ful sea­sons, my hope is that the Phils enjoy con­tin­ued suc­cess and stay com­pet­i­tive. We won’t always be there in Octo­ber. It could be worse, much worse. We could be Mets fans!

Let’s go Phillies!

The Phillies: Beer and Baseball

The Phillies start their title defense as they play host tonight to the vis­it­ing Atlanta Braves in the sea­son open­er at Cit­i­zen’s Bank Park. Helen and I did­n’t get tick­ets to tonight’s game, so we decid­ed to catch the first of two On Deck pre­sea­son matchups against last year’s World Series run­ners-up, the Tam­pa Bay Rays.

It was an amaz­ing, if blus­tery, night. We sat under the over­hang in sec­tion 137 and watched Pat Bur­rell warm up on his old left field stomp­ing grounds. It was an emo­tion­al moment for Helen and me. We both felt that we real­ly got to “know” Pat in his last sea­son as a Phillie, and sup­port­ed him in our cus­tom­ary seats in sec­tion 143 with rau­cous cheers. We did the same for him last Fri­day, even though he now wears a Rays uniform.

The Phillies hon­ored Pat’s career with a pre-game mon­tage that start­ed when he signed with the team in 1998 right up until he spoke at last fal­l’s World Series cel­e­bra­tion. It was chock full of great mem­o­ries, both good and bad. Pat walked out of the dugout and doffed his cap at the Phillies faith­ful. Pat may not have the great­est rep­u­ta­tion, but on the field, he’s a true class act.

On a lighter note, I was able to enjoy one of three new addi­tions to the Cit­i­zen’s Bank Park beer selec­tion, pair­ing a Troegs Sun­shine Pils with one of Hat­field­’s finest processed meat prod­ucts. Deli­cious! I fig­ure if you’re either pay­ing near­ly dou­ble for Bud­weis­er swill, or you can get one of Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s finest craft brews for $6.75. I fig­ure it’s a great ratio­nale for choos­ing the good stuff when you’re out at the ballpark!

My Phillies Moment on WHYY


The World Series Trophy
Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

As a new base­ball sea­son approach­es (Helen and I are head­ed to the ball­park this Fri­day, as well as twice next week), I just hap­pened to find a record­ed snip­pet I gave to WHYY out­side of John­ny Bren­da’s on WHYY’s Unob­struct­ed View blog.

If I sound like a com­plete doo­fus, it’s prob­a­bly because I was over­come with joy when the Phillies won, and sad that Helen was in sun­ny San Diego on busi­ness. (Trust me: she was sad, too. After all, she changed her trav­el plans so we could go to World Series Game 4 togeth­er. We’ll nev­er for­get Blastin’ Joe Blan­ton slam­ming a homer over the left field wall in Cit­i­zen’s Bank Park.)

It feels like it was only yes­ter­day that I was lit­er­al­ly rac­ing down Frank­ford Avenue as I ran from Mem­phis Tap­room to cel­e­brate with friends at Frank­ford and Girard. I can’t wait for the Phillies to begin their 2009 cam­paign to defend their well-deserved World Cham­pi­on title.

Let’s go, Phils!