Tag Archives: Philadelphia Phillies

The Trade Deadline

A co-work­er said that it was “depress­ing” that I was already talk­ing about look­ing for­ward to the Phillies next sea­son. I told him that once upon a time I’d have felt that way in April!

Times cer­tain­ly have changed for the Phillies. Watch­ing the media cir­cus around their acqui­si­tions of Cliff Lee and Roy Hal­la­day were the sort of spell­bind­ing moves Philadel­phia teams sim­ply don’t make. We’ve his­tor­i­cal­ly been per­ma-sell­ers, unload­ing super­stars like Charles Barkley and Curt Schilling and get­ting noth­ing in return. We’re the sort of town where teams move into a rebuild­ing year that lasts a decade or more. In short, the Phillies are spoil­ing us by being so competitive!

I don’t know if the Phillies can make the play­offs this year, but I like that they’re try­ing to piece togeth­er a top-notch rota­tion that will be here for the next sev­er­al years. I still think they could make a strong run at the play­offs this year. They’ve shown they can do it in the past and if a team like the Rock­ies can go on a tear and snag the wild card the way they did in 2007, then why not us?

Make it excit­ing, Rube. Show us you’ve got what it takes to pull togeth­er a team for the ages with­out Pat Gillick look­ing over your shoul­der. I won’t even men­tion that you’re work­ing with your old boss Ed down in Hous­ton. It shows that you have the desire and will to build a cham­pi­onship team and that’s what this city wants as much as the cham­pi­onships them­selves. Go get Roy Oswalt for the 2010 run and see where we end up.

An Open Letter to Ruben Amaro, Jr.

Ruben,

How are you doing? It’s been a tough sev­en months, huh? You prob­a­bly thought that things would be going swim­ming­ly by now, that Roy Hal­la­day and Placido Polan­co would make us for­get Cliff Lee, that our Phillies would be cruis­ing to their fourth straight divi­sion title, did­n’t you?Con­tin­ue read­ing “An Open Let­ter to Ruben Amaro, Jr.”

Opening Day 2010

Is there any­thing more excit­ing than Open­ing Day? Depends, I guess. Last time I went, the Phils were shelled by a Car­di­nals assault led by Albert Pujols. Pujols bounced a ball off the score­board in left on a drea­ry, cold after­noon at Cit­i­zen’s Bank Park. Pret­ty sure he broke a light or two.

Things quick­ly got out of hand. We sat in the 200 lev­el in right, where a group of drunk­en stu­dents start­ed fights and were puk­ing all over each oth­er. It got so bad they shut down the con­ces­sions. It sucked. We suf­fered through a few more innings and head­ed home. 

We caught their last home game that year, a dis­ap­point­ing loss in a make­up game to the Astros. How things have changed since.

I’m thrilled to be joined on this Open­ing Day by my fam­i­ly to see the Pres­i­dent throw out the first pitch and watch Roy Hal­la­day’s Phillies debut. Here’s to a great 2010 season!

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!