Boom Outta Here: Brett Myers

Yesterday, Ruben Amaro Jr announced that the Phillies were going to be parting way with long time pitcher Brett Myers. Myers has been on the team for the better part of a decade, excluding injuries and moonlighting stints trying to unsuck on the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Brett has provided us with thrilling moments like the epic walk he managed against CC Sabathia in last year’s playoff run or being the closer on the mound when the Phillies made the playoffs for the first time since 1993.

Brett has also provided us with many forehead slapping, boneheaded, stupid moves like first inning home runs and run ins with the press. Jim Rome has made one of those run ins the stuff of legend on his afternoon radio show and it is that particular press conference that I titled this post after. Here is the clip:

Despite all of that, Brett Myers was the kind of a guy you wanted to root for. He was homegrown, having come up through the Phillies farm season following his drafting by the team. He was a funny guy, as can be seen in the following video of one of the best pranks ever:

Poor Kyle, that prank seems a little tasteless now considering the implosion of Kendrick’s major league career.

O, I forgot to mention the “incident” in Boston a few years back and the “incident” a few weeks ago during a “fight” at a bar. You see, above everything else, Brett was prone to anger. You could hear it in that press conference I posted above. You could see it on the mound following a base hit or a walk. He would stomp around, lose composure, and throw the next pitch stupidly hard, right down the middle and more often than not be left standing on the mound, hands on his hips watching a home run land in the distance.

It is that same anger that defined so much of Brett Myers career as a baseball player that also defined who he was off the field. During inter-league play a few years ago, Brett Myers was arrested in Boston for domestic violence. In the ensuing years, this fan never forgot that. Brett Myers, despite everything else, was in all likelihood, an angry redneck prone to violence against women.

I’m not sad to see him go.

Boom Outta Here.

Bye Brett.

And here at the end, High Hopes

It isn’t a year to the day that the Philadelphia Phillies became the champions of baseball but it is close. It isn’t a celebration this year. It is the inevitable march into the barren recess of the offseason that 27 teams face ever year but one team faces it in the worst way possible. They face the offseason as runners up, as losers, as the team that came close but ultimately was defeated. This year, it is the Phillies. The Evil Empire has won, and the redemptive phrase “There is always next year” is stinging a little harder.

Next year is full of question marks. The team is going to be different. They have glaring needs but despite what the Phillies sorely lack, they still made it to the World Series. I am not a General Manager, and I certainly have no idea what options are on the table but in the coming weeks and months we will all find out as our 2010 roster slowly takes shape.

For now, a teary eyed Charlie Manuel said goodbye to 2009 with a few extra wrinkles and a weight of disappointment. Ryan Howard ended the season telling reporters that his World Series record 13 strikeouts, “Weren’t a big deal” and Shane Victorino, the last batter of the year, ended his season optimistically, proud, defiant, and ready to win again come spring.

It’s hard to watch your team lose, harder still when your team loses to the New York Yankees. The analogies are endless. It’s like rooting for –insert evil entity- to win. In truth, last night and for the first team in nine years big money corporate baseball won the championship. The Phillies let them do it. They played like crap. They played like a team that did not deserve a championship.

We’re still the Phillies. We can win. If nothing else, we forever have high hopes. We have next year.

I have two offseason wishes:
1. If Jamie Moyer can no longer pitch, he should be made pitching coach. Dubee is a bum and the team needs a real pitching coach.
2. Tom McCarthy is fired. How I hate his shrill voice… I will not miss that this winter.

So, my fellow sullen fans, do not waste time in despair. Look forward to next year, they still have a shot at another title and at the very least, remain the best team in Philadelphia. About that, let’s hope the Eagles destroy Dallas this weekend. That’ll help. The Sixers are flat out terrible. Who really cares about hockey until the postseason and even then? Eh.

Spring Training can’t come soon enough. 94 days.

High Hopes.

World Series Game Four Notes

There are all different kinds of baseball fans. Some folks watch a game or two a season, when they have the chance and even go to the ballpark once or twice to catch a game in person. There are fans that watch when they remember to, know a couple of statistics and enjoy a baseball conversation at the bar between beers. There are fans like me, who watch every single game they can, know every statistic obsessively, and constantly debate the game as if it were a matter of life and death.

Now, those three fan levels are affected dramatically depending on the team they follow. For me, I have been a Philadelphia Phillies fan for as long as I can remember. As a ten year old child in 1993 I watched the Phillies lose to the Blue Jays in six games on a Joe Carter home run that sparked an excellent call and a terrible memory. From 1994-2006 I watched as a devoted fan of a team a step up from the basement of the National league season after season. I watched Curt Schilling leave and Travis Lee arrive. I exclaimed the certain glory of players like Scott Rolen and Jim Thome as they came to the Phillies to save them.

Nothing, no statistic, no amount of devotion got those Phillies into the postseason until 2007 when the core of a monster baseball team started to hit its stride and the names Utley, Howard and Rollins became a new generation of Whiz Kids bent on years of postseason success. In 2007, the Phillies exited the postseason as quickly as they entered it, being swept by the Colorado Rockies.

2008 was the year of magic. A perfect closer dominated 48 times to gain a place in legend. A team got hot and tore through the postseason as if holding a sword of destiny and cutting through uncertainty without hesitation or question. They were, as Harry Kalas famously called it, the World Champions of baseball. So many stories came from that year it would be foolhardy for me to try and tell them all. The little kid inside me that watched Joe Carter “touch em all” smiled broadly when Jamie Moyer dug the pitching rubber up and paraded around the field.

Last night, the magic faded. The Phillies were beaten in every way possible by a team that has shown itself to be better in every way than our Phillies. It doesn’t matter what should have been or could have been at this point. What matters now is that the Yankees lead us 3 games to 1 and pending a miracle, we are going to lose the World Series.

These Yankees, while having some different faces, are the team that during the years that my Philadelphia Phillies languished, dominated. The biggest stars, the highest paid players, the glitz and glamour of Fitzgerald’s gilded twenties embodied in a baseball team that has taken our magic from us. We are back on the losing end. The Yankees are back on top. It would seem that an order has been restored to the baseball world and it’s an order that strikes sadness into the heart of a baseball fan like me.

Soon, the Phillies will be defeated. I hope they manage to win tomorrow so the Yankees can’t celebrate in our house. They will march into the offseason having made it to two consecutive World Series and accomplished a great deal more than they ever had before, since 1883. We are going to be losers again, but that’s okay. There is certain wonderfulness to losing despite the initial pain. You can always go up and as they say, there is always next year.

This offseason, the Philadelphia Phillies have many questions to answer and many players to deal with. A lot of hard decisions lie ahead for Ruben Amaro and company. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. The National League East is going to be tougher next year and the playoffs are not guaranteed again. For now, while I have the chance, I will cheer the Phillies on as the World Series draws to what has become an inevitable conclusion. Baseball is the greatest game played whether you are on top or not. How long until Spring Training? I’ll be waiting but, man, it is going to feel like a sad forever until pitchers and catchers report.

And screw the Yankees. Seriously.

Go Phillies!

World Series Game 3 Notes

So, they’re bums. They’re playing like bums. They’re acting like bums. They’re hitting like bums. They’re bums. Hamels had better have thrown his last pitch this year. He needs to get ready to start opening day at Coca Cola Park. Last night sucked. It was the least enjoyable, most frustrating, nearly vomit inducing game of baseball I have watched since Travis Lee played first and Robert Person was our ace.

What crap.

What unbelievable crap.

And now, Blanton on the mound against tons of fun; we’re screwed. We’re going to lose the damn series at this rate. Ryan Howard, where in the hell did you go? Chase? Raul? Why is Jayson Werth the offensive star of the World Series? What the turds is going on right now?

Hey Charlie, pitch hit Bruntlett again and I swear I will come down to Philly and take a crap in the on deck circle. My defecation has a better chance of getting a base hit.

Jesus Christ.

Ugh, pending a return to a form they never quite had this year, this one is in the bag. I really thought they were going to win. I thought the Yankees were going to be humbled by a blue collar team who knew what it meant to play a game of baseball the real way. I guess at this point, the Phillies real way of playing baseball has been shown.

Am I jumping the gun? It is after all a 2-1 series.

No I am not. Blanton tonight? Lose. Cliff Lee tomorrow, I want to say win but I don’t know and beyond that Pedro? Things are looking as grim for the Phillies as they look when a cheesesteak stand runs out of meat as Andy Reid arrives.

O and Cole said he "can't wait for it to end". Shamels, neither can we.

World Series Game One Notes

I missed all the pomp and circumstance. I missed the first pitch of the 2009 World Series. I was in class. My friend Andy had the gamecast running on his IPhone and kept me updated by scribbling notes on a piece of paper as class went on. I had thought their goose was cooked after giving up the chance to put CC away in the first with the bases loaded. Then Andy scribbled boldly that Chase had launched an A-Bomb. I began to feel better. The scribbled notes were quick especially for a playoff game. Seemed like a pitching duel on paper (literally).

I finally got home in the 6th inning and discovered there was no pitching duel. CC was throwing a good game but Cliff Lee was doing something entirely different. Stark and the other sportwriters covering the Phillies are proclaiming his performance historic and pulling crazy facts from baseball history to support their claims. It was indeed historic. It was unbelievable. It was transformative.

Transformative?

You see around the time the second batter faced Cliff Lee in the seventh it occurred to me that whoever was at the plate no longer mattered. The entire mystique surrounding the New York Yankees was gone. Lee eliminated it. If I blinked hard enough and fast enough I swear we could have been playing the Washington Nationals last night. Lee sure made them look that way. The game became a routine. Phillies score a few here and there. Chase Utley wakes up. Lee dominates. Lee makes halfhearted catches that are absolutely amazing, hilarious and exemplary of the game on the whole. The catch he made on the mound without moving and barely looking is the catch of the year. Give Cliff Lee a Gold Glove for it, I am not kidding. This write up is going to be shorter than my others because there isn’t much to say. Lee dominates. Lee makes all the history in the first World Series game played in the new Yankee Stadium. Lee has become an October legend. Lee dominates.

I am sure the Washington National impression is going to fade with Pedro on the mound tonight. A lot of folks seem to think Pedro starting is going to be a joke and an easy win for the Yankees, but let me remind everyone that Burnett is going to give up a ton of runs tonight.

The Phillies are going to win 8-6.

(If you want to read all the ridiculous historic things Lee did last night check out Jayson Stark here)


I also want to welcome my good friends Sara and Katie to the majesty of the game of Baseball. Welcome ladies.

World Series Preview

If there is a team that defines the World Series, it is the New York Yankees. No team since the inception of organized professional baseball in the late 1800’s has won more World Series Championships or has had as many World Series appearances and the Yankees. Yankees players with names like Ruth, Jackson, and Jeter have defined the legends of the postseason for one hundred years. They are the highest paid team in baseball in 2009 and in many ways, to lowly Philadelphia fans like me, the mansion on the hill of professional baseball.

Growing up a baseball fan, the dynasty that the Yankees established in the late nineties was an untouchable behemoth of World Series perfection. Bought, sold, and shipped to October year after year the Yankees were always going to win the World Series. They were the best team and hundreds upon thousands of baseball fans playing the part of Charlie Brown waiting for their World Series like a Valentine that never shows up in the mailbox, we hated them.

The majority of us still do. We are the blue collar bums, the Philly fans. Up until 2007, the Philadelphia Phillies had made the postseason three times between 1980 and 2006. The Philadelphia Phillies in existence since 1883 also hold the distinction of having the most losses ever recorded by a professional sports team. So now, in October of 2009 the greatest baseball organization of all team is going up against the losers, the Broad Street bums, The Sillies, The Wheeze kids, us.

Robin Roberts is going to be watching. Robin played against the Yankees as a Philly in 1950 and he hated them then too. Richie Ashburn is gone but I can imagine that wherever Whitey is, if it is possible to watch, he will be. Generations of Philadelphia fans and baseball fans who cheer loudly for any team to beat the Yankees will be watching.

Tonight, our bums who aren’t as cheap as they used to be are going to enter the ornate, over-the-top, baseball cathedral that has been constructed in the Bronx to begin their quest to be the first National League team since the Cincinnati Reds in the late seventies to repeat. It would seem that the Phillies are the underdogs and I would have it no other way. Howard, Rollins, Werth, Utley, Victorino are guys that want to be labeled underdogs. The Phillies always have been. They will face an incredibly potent line up that is nearly our equal in home run production. They will face Jeter, Posada, A-Roid, and all the other names that are more frequently recognized than any others in baseball. They will face the bulk of CC, Burnett, Petitte and the greatest closer in baseball history, Mariano Rivera.

The battle lines have been drawn. The odds are against us. The Yankees look increasingly like that team from the late nineties that we all watched on TV wishing our team was in their place.

You know what, as crazy as it sounds, I believe that the Phillies are going to win. I have no reason to explain it and on paper our chances look about as good as a clear day of late. We’re going to win. It might not be easy and I am sure we are going to lose a couple of games (whenever Hamels starts); but this is it, a defining moment not only for The Phillies but for baseball.

The Philadelphia Phillies are about to become members of the World Series elite and they will do so by beating the team that defined what postseason excellence means.

Go Phillies!

NLCS Game Four Notes

Remember Prediction: Phillies 7 Dodgers 6

Actual game: Phillies 5 Dodgers 4

What a game.

Ryan Howard began the shenanigans taking Randy Wolf deep and extending his consecutive postseason RBI streak to eight. Mr. Red October has now tied Lou Gehrig and looks hot enough to break the record come Wednesday (hopefully.) Joe Blanton began the game magically, retiring the first ten he faced. He seemed poised to continue the run of flawless Phillies pitching that began with Pedro in Game Two and stretched through Cliff Lee’s dominating performance in Game Three.

And then, the wheels fell off and it all went to Hell. Blanton ended up with a light shellacking and the Dodgers ended up with the lead. As the game progressed and the Phillies were down to the Dodgers 4-2 an old Philadelphia fan feeling came gurgling back in my stomach like a Taco Bell burrito an hour after eating. With visions of Joe Carter dancing in my head, I was convinced that this was the end. The Dodgers were going to win the series. The Phillies were cooked.

I had become a Philadelphia Phillies fan again. I hadn’t been since Harry Kalas bellowed his sweet baritone into the October sky last year and Brad Lidge pressed his knees into the ground and raised his arms to God. I was just a fan, win or lose. Sure, I had been on the edge of my seat riding nausea throughout this postseason, but somewhere in the back of my mind I figured they were going to pull it out.

Last night, I sat and swore and yelled as if the whole thing last year never happened. I cursed the players, the manager, the fat guy with mustard on his shirt who managed to get some camera time. I cursed Citizens Bank Park, I cursed Broad Street, and I cursed the Phanatic’s ridiculous tongue. With two men on in the eighth and the bulky Broxton waiting in the wings I cursed Ryan Howard for striking out. As soon as the hefty Broxton stood atop the mound, it had to be over, the beginning of the end, the return to losing; the Philadelphia Phillies I grew up watching were returning. Somewhere, Joe Carter cracked a sly smile.


The funny thing about October baseball is that it really is genuinely unpredictable.

Brad Lidge holds the lead to one in the top of the ninth. Bottom of the ninth, Broxton whose ERA was suspiciously high on the road prepared to knock em down and tie this series up for the Dodgers. Pinch hitter Matt Stairs works a walk. Carlos Ruiz takes one for the team. Two Phillies on base, and Greg Dobbs at the plate. My thoughts at this moment were just pop out Greg, don’t ground into a double play for the love of God, just pop out and sure enough he did.

Jimmy Rollins walked to the plate. Broxton looks in.

( Picture From the Philadelphia Daily News)

Next thing I knew, I was holding my friend CJ off of the ground and screaming. A double into the gap in center field from Jimmy Rollins gave the Phillies a walk off Game Four win. What a game. What a team. One win away from the Pennant. Five wins from the World Series Championship. I was no longer a sullen Philadelphia Phillies fan. I was the new fan, emboldened and excited about the possibility of the next game. Unbelievable? Believe it!

Then again, Cole Hamels starts Game five. Aw crap.

Whatever, they’re going to do it. They’re going to win.

Game Five Prediction: Phillies 6 Dodgers 4

High Hopes!