Once in a lifetime

It’s hard to forget that night in the 1980s when Red Auerbach came down from his seat in the stands, rushed onto the floor where his Celtics and the 76ers were just starting a tussle – during a pre-season game no less – and jumped right into the mix.

Pushing 70 at the time, Auerbach stepped up to Moses Malone, stuck a bony finger into his chest and challenged him to a fight.

Cooler heads eventually prevailed and the 76ers and Celtics seemed to have a good laugh afterwards, but needless to say Red made his point:

Don’t mess with the Celtics.

Certainly Red messed with everyone during a career as a coach and an executive that was aptly described by NBA commission David Stern as the “most important figure in the history of the NBA.”

Often superlatives are dished out where they don’t belong. They are hyperbolic, trite and cliché. The media, it seems, always wants to anoint someone or something as the greatest this or that. My theory behind this is that people want to be close to greatness and want to be able to tell others that they were there for something extraordinary.

That’s human nature, I suppose.

But in regards to Red Auerbach, who died Saturday night just shy of his 89th birthday, Stern nailed it. Stern, as well as anyone, knows that the NBA would have likely failed in the late 1940s or early 1950s had it not been for Auerbach. Better yet, it was Auerbach’s innovation and foresight that spurred the league’s emergence from one of regionalized interest like the current NHL, to a global force.

Simply, Red Auerbach was a genius.

Fortunately, I was able to have a brush with greatness on several occasions. Auerbach and I became pen pals of sorts during my college days. A few times a year I wrote Auerbach letters asking for his opinions and advice on certain subjects mostly related to basketball. I never expected a reply and certainly never handwritten notes on his personal stationary, but every letter received a response and always with an unforgettable pearl of wisdom.

For instance, in response to questions regarding his team’s relative youthfulness, Red wrote: “… experience doesn’t mean bleep.”

He didn’t write bleep, but the point was one that I heard him espouse in interviews and books – if a guy can play, he can play. It doesn’t matter how long he’s been doing it.

Again there’s the genius of Red. Certainly his experience resulted in him picking out something in Bill Russell and Larry Bird that no one else saw. The same thing goes for Bob Cousy, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale.

Red Auerbach was once in a lifetime. Sadly, that long lifetime came to an end.

2 weeks to go

As indicated in a previous post, I moved the running stuff to the new, running site.

It's all there, including the two-weeks to go breakdown.

Oh yeah: Technorati Profile

We can't see you

If the Eagles play a game and nobody is able to watch it, does it make a sound?

In other words, here in Lancaster, Pa. -- just 60 miles from Center City as the crow flies -- the Eagles game is not on TV. Nope, it wasn't "blacked out," nor was there a technical glitch. Simply, it was not broadcast in this area.

This is despite the Eagles thinking that Lancaster was fertile enough ground for their fandom to open one of their Eagles' Stores in the touristy row of strip malls outlining the outer edge of Lancaster proper and the Amish/tourist zone. This is also despite the notion that Lancasterians believe their town is a de facto suburb of Philadelphia and within the Philly media market.

But the reason for the Eagles snub of the Lancaster viewing area isn't because the cable company or TV networks are mean or have it out for the good folks in the Garden Spot. It's simply the fault of geography, which can be a kick in the pants sometimes.

You see, CBS is the network in charge of carrying the Eagles game vs. Jacksonville on Sunday. Unfortunately, the TV station in Lancaster -- WGAL -- is an NBC affiliate. The CBS affiliate is in York or Harrisburg, which just over the Susquehanna River from Lancaster, is technically the Baltimore viewing market. That means the affiliate is bound by the NFL's rules and regulations to show the Ravens-Saints game.

See, what did I tell you about geography?

The funny thing is that Baltimore is closer to most of Lancaster. In fact, a drive from my house to Camden Yards/Inner Harbor is much easier and quicker to make than one to Philadelphia... not to mention much more pleasant than battling traffic on the Schuylkill or Blue Route.

Yet there is no real connection with Baltimore here. Sure, there are a handful of Orioles' fans, but they seem to have diminished considerably during the Angelos reign in the so-called Charm City. The Ravens? What are they? Where did they come from and what happened to the Colts?

The football team in that city is called the Baltimore Colts. You know, Johnny Unitas, Art Donovan, Don Shula, Lenny Moore, Bert Jones, Gino Marchetti, Earl Morrall and Raymond Berry. The name and colors should have remained locked up in Memorial Stadium when the Irsay's packed up that Mayflower truck and snuck out of town in the middle of the night.

The Baltimore Ravens still have a USFL feel to them, and yeah, I know they won the Super Bowl a few years ago. The opposing quarterback in that game, Kerry Collins, is a former basketball and football standout in the Lancaster-Lebanon League.

Lancaster is Eagles and Phillies country, and it used to be the pre-season home for the 76ers, whose training camp was held at Franklin & Marshall College. Nevertheless, that doesn't do anything for the folks who are bummed out that they cannot watch the local football team on Sunday afternoon.

So what's the remedy? Maybe the NFL can start broadcasting their games on the Internet like every other major and minor sports league? Or, better yet, maybe they can allow the local affiliates to decide on their own which games they want to televise to their viewers?

Then again, it's Sunday. Turn off the tube and hang out with the family.

It's all over!

I love the playoffs. I just can’t get enough of it and it will be a drag now that they’re over. Without baseball, sports’ watching on TV reaches its hibernation phase for me. Oh sure, I’ll head out and forage for nourishment every so often, especially when it comes to Big 5 basketball, but for the most part sports viewing is for work.

That means the next time channel 25 (ESPN in these parts) appears on my cable box, the weather will be warmer and the Phillies will be ready to head north.

Seriously, does anyone think I’m going to spend any time watching Chris Berman?

Anyway, the final baseball game of the year revealed a little bit about the Tigers, Jim Leyland, Jeff Weaver, the Cardinals and Kenny Rogers.

Oh yeah?

Well…

It’s a shame when a manager cannot use his best pitcher because the players’ psyche is so fragile that he will not be able to handle the pressure, catcalls or other difficulties of pitching on the road. Leyland would have preferred to use Kenny Rogers and put his 22-inning scoreless innings streak on the line in an elimination game, but he didn’t think Rogers could handle pitching on the road.

Really?

Better yet, Leyland had to map out his post-season rotation so that Rogers only had to pitch at Comerica Park.

Could you imagine Curt Schilling or Pedro Martinez not pitching at Yankee Stadium during the 2004 ALCS because they were too delicate?

Then again, Rogers was the guy who attacked a camera man and pump his fist and carried on as if he just got the last out of the World Series following every out during the playoffs. ESPN's Bill Simmons wrote this about Rogers:

Back to Rogers: Does anyone else believe that he planted that brown stuff on his left hand to deflect attention away from the fact that he fits every possible profile of a steroids/greenies guy? I mean, let's say you just returned from a three-week safari in Africa and I told you, "Yo, there's this veteran pitcher in his early 40s with a storied track record for choking in big games, only now he's working on a 22-inning scoreless streak in October and punctuating each start by screaming after every out and stomping around like a crazy homeless guy trying to clear out a bus stop?" Wouldn't your first thought be, "What's he taking?" Instead, we're worried about some mud on his hand? Somebody make this guy pee in a cup, please.

Hmmm?

Jeff Weaver's breaking pitches were pretty darned good in Game 5. Better yet, Weaver's outing might have earned him a fairly big contract contract this winter, which is pretty good for a pitcher with the worst regular-season ERA (5.76) to win a clinching game in the World Series.

Not bad for a guy bounced out of New York, Detroit, Los Angeles and then designated for assignment in July with the Angels so the team could create a spot for his little brother.

Enough of the La Russa as genius stuff. First, he's just a baseball manager. Just like Charlie Manuel.

La Russa didn't outsmart anyone or himself during the playoffs. He didn't second-guess himself or mull over decisions to the point where he turned smart baseball moves into issues of national importance. Simply, La Russa put his players in the position to perform well.

That's his job.

Though his batting order was different every night, La Russa didn't get too tricky during the World Series or NLCS. When he "benched" Scott Rolen, La Russa said it wasn't for any reason other than the All-Star wasn't swinging well and needed a break.

The result: a 10-game hitting streak in which Rolen went 13-for-37 (.351) with five extra-base hits and nine runs scored. During the World Series, Rolen would have been the MVP if he had driven in a couple more RBIs than the two he collected.

Hopefully no one forget about how good Detroit's Sean Casey was in the World Series. His .529 average (9-for-17) and 1.000 slugging during the series kind of got lost in the shuffle.

Finally, Jayson Stark wrote that the Cardinals are the best 83-win team in baseball history. That kind of makes one wonder where the Phillies would have rated amongst baseball's 85-win teams had they made the playoffs.

Guess we'll never know.

Game 5: World Champs

Adam Wainwright, a rookie, entered the ninth for Jeff Weaver to close it out. Wainwright was born in 1981 so he was alive the last time the Cardinals won it. He was nearly 14 months old, but he may have caught an inning here or there on the tube.

Wainwright got an assist when Magglio Ordonez’s liner nicked his glove and trickled to Ronnie Belliard at second, who threw sidearm to Pujols at first.

The kid looks composed even though he has just 63 big-league games under his belt after taking over the closer’s role when Jason Isringhausen went out with an injury in September. Interestingly, Wainwright saved just three games in the regular season and three more in the playoffs before entering Game 5. The game just might be his last save chance, too, since it’s likely that Wainwright will be a starter in 2007 and Isringhausen will return to his job.

Either way it wasn’t easy for the kid, who allowed a one-out double to the white-hot Sean Casey. But when he jammed Ivan Rodriguez to get him to nudge one back to him, Wainwright seemed to give the biggest exhale in Busch Stadium after Albert Pujols gloved the throw to first.

Should it be fitting that Placido Polanco could have made the last out? When he was with the Phillies, Polanco always spoke so fondly of his days with the Cardinals. One could tell that he wished that he had never left St. Louis. Rheal Cormier and Mike Timlin were the same way.

But Polanco is a wise man. He’ll overcome his 0-for-17 in the World Series. Who knows, maybe he’ll bounce back like Scott Rolen did after his oh-fer in 2004. Either way, his two-out walk brought the go-ahead run to the plate. One swing from Brandon Inge could turn around not just the game, but also the entire series. Inge could become Dave Henderson or Mookie Wilson in 1986…

Instead he’s the third out when Wainwright rushed the fastball by him.

The 2006 season is over. Pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater on February 15.

Post script
David Eckstein, on the strength of a four-hit game in Game 4, was named MVP. Rolen was likely second or third in the balloting, but that doesn't matter. Like Curt Schilling, Terry Francona, Darren Daulton and Jim Eisenreich, Rolen left Philadelphia to get his ring.

Game 5: Three outs to go

When the Red Sox were three outs away from beating the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series, I woke up my then six-month old son and made him sit there with me to watch it end.

I thought the proper fatherly thing to do was to make sure that my son could say that he watched the Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918. After all, the last time the Red Sox had won the World Series, my grandmother was my son’s age.

But like my 88-year old grandmother, my son was born into a world where the Red Sox were the defending World Series champions.

Tonight, my son is 2½ and fast asleep. I’m not going to wake him even though the Cardinals are three outs away from winning the World Series after Jeff Weaver mowed the Tigers down in the eighth and picked up his ninth strikeout of the game. These days it’s just too hard to get him back to sleep, especially with the threat of monsters moving into hiding places in his room while he watches the end of the game.

Besides, he’s already seen the Red Sox win it all. I’d never seen it until my mid-30s.

Generally, though, I don’t root for teams, but I’ll admit that I’m happy for Scott Rolen. He’s my favorite player to watch and as I’ve stated on these pages before, if my son is ever interested in playing baseball and wants to learn how I’ll tell him to copy No. 27 for St. Louis.

It would be much more fun if I could say No. 17 for Philadelphia.

But there is no sense re-hashing all of that.

St. Louis sits on the verge thanks to eight errors by the Tigers. I suppose that’s how this series will be remembered. The Pirates in 1979 was the last time a team made errors in each of the first five games of the World Series. But unlike “The Family,” the Tigers didn’t have the fire power – or Willie Stargell – to overcome their ineptitude.

Three outs to go. The boy is fast asleep.

Game 5: Pitching and defense

It seems as if Placido Polanco is doing his imitation of Scott Rolen's 2004 World Series. That's kind of ironic, I guess, since the pair were traded for one another in 2002 from the Phillies and Cardinals.

Polanco isn't swinging that bat poorly in this World Series, but he's 0-for-17. This oh-fer comes after Polanco was the MVP of the ALCS. In 2004, Rolen went 0-for-15 in the World Series against the Red Sox after slugging the game-winning home run in Game 7 of the NLCS against Roger Clemens.

Polanco seemed to snap his skid in the seventh, but Albert Pujols may have made the play of the series to rob him. Far off the bag at first, Pujols dived to his right and snagged the ball in the web of his far-extended glove. But in order to nail the reasonably speedy Polanco, Pujols had to roll over to his rear, find pitcher Jeff Weaver streaking for first, and hit him with a hard throw from the seat of his pants just to nip Polanco by a step.

Meanwhile, La Russa started the seventh with a new right fielder and left fielder. So Taguchi shifted from left to right and Preston Wilson entered the game. It's all about pitching and defense now, especially since the Cardinals have three outfielders who all have spent significant time as center fielders during their careers.

Defense continued to be a bane for the Tigers in the bottom of the seventh when David Eckstein reached first with an infield single when shortstop Carlos Guillen double-clutched on the throw to first. That was followed by a walk to the free-swinging Preston Wilson from reliever Fernando Rodney, who started the frame.

Perhaps his crooked hat, fashionably askew atop his head knocked him off kilter during the first two hitters of the seventh?

But Rodney got Pujols to pop out, and Edmonds to do the same. With two outs and two on Rolen dumped an RBI single to right just a few feet in front of Magglio Ordonez in right field.

Not only did that hit extend Rolen's hitting streak to 10 games, but also it should have cinched the MVP Award for the former Phillie if the Cardinals can hold the lead.

The Cardinals ended the seventh with the 4-2 lead. They have six outs to go.

Game 5: More errors

Not too long after Tim McCarver made a salient point about Chris Duncan playing right field in the sixth inning of a one-run game, the young outfielder goes ahead and plays a fairly routine warning-track fly ball into a double for Sean Casey.

McCarver said: "At this point you go to four innings of defense."

Actually, nine innings of defense helps, but the point is the Cardinals should worry less about Duncan's offense and more about defense.

But shouldn't the genius Tony La Russa know this?

Defense is the most underrated aspect of the baseball. In fact, Bill James wrote something that got my attention which stated that half of good pitching is really good defense. After presenting this to long-time Major League general manager Pat Gillick, he responded with (essentially) a, "well, yeah... "

Kind of like, "duh."

Proof? Check out the Tigers and the eight unearned runs this series.

Gillick is a self-described pitching and defense guy. I guess I am, too. After all, a baseball team wins more games with good pitching than good hitting.

Nevertheless, Duncan's "error" was a no-harm, no-foul type. Weaver was able to dance out of the sixth with his 3-2 lead to put the Cardinals within nine outs of the title.

On another note, how come I haven't heard anything about former Cardinal Tim McCarver and Cardinals' announcer Joe Buck calling these World Series games?

Game 5: Wha happened!

So I step away for a minute to put the wash in the dryer and another load in the washer and the Cardinals have the lead? Another throwing/fielding error by a Tigers pitcher?

What gives.

While I was away, Verlander fielded a bunt (it was a bunt, right?) cleanly, but his throw to third was behind Inge and skittered into left field. As a result, Molina and So Taguchi scored to give the Cardinals a 3-2 lead.

Molina, the worst-hitting starter in the National League during the regular season, picked up his second hit of the game and currently has a .400 average in the World Series.

But more importantly, what's with the errors and the Tigers pitchers? That's one in every game of this series and they aren't hustling, hard-luck errors, either. The Tigers' errors are simple, routine errors on every day plays. Because of the errors, the Cardinals have scored eight unearned runs this series and there is still a bit to go.

Then again, Weaver picked up two more strikeouts (he has six in five innings) to get through the fifth.

It's 3-2 and the Cardinals are 12 outs away.

Game 5: 1982 Cardinals

The last time the Cardinals won the World Series, a dude from Lancaster was on the mound to get the last out.

Justin Verlander wasn't born yet.

Better yet, the Cardinals' second baseman was also from Lancaster.

In that regard, I wonder what Bruce Sutter, newly inducted to the Hall of Fame this year, and Tom Herr are thinking right now.

I wonder if they're watching?

Sutter has become something of a de facto Cardinals celebrity this summer with his No. 42 retired alongside Jackie Robinson's famous 42. He seemed genuinely touched by the gesture, too -- much more than most players who receive the honor.

I vaguely remember Sutter as a pitcher. The intricacies of pitching were lost on me at such a young age, though I remember how people talked in hushed tones and awe of Sutter's now-famous split-finger fastball. I remember a lot of hitters swinging and missing it when Sutter was pitching for the Cubs, Cards and Braves.

Tom Herr, the second baseman from the '82 Cards, lives very near where I'm sitting right now. According to baseball people that I have talked to who remember Herr from his playing days, the second baseman was not always very popular with his teammates or the media. A lot of people say he was a bit of a clubhouse lawyer and a sometimes uncooperative. A little arrogant, too, they say.

What do I know, I wasn't there.

But if I had to guess, it could be that reputation that kept Herr from becoming a Major League coach or manager after his playing days ended with an unceremonious trade from the Phillies followed by his releases from the Mets and Giants.

Herr is back now, though... kind of. He spent the past two summers managing the independent league Lancaster Barnstormers. They even won the Atlantic League title this year. Whether that re-opens some doors to the Majors remains to be seen. From what I have learned in my six years is that grudges die hard all over the big leagues.

Meanwhile, the game has been a bit sloppy thus far. Aside from Inge's error, the third baseman ran the Tigers out of an inning by getting caught too far off second base on a grounder hit to the left side of the infield.

In the bottom of the the third, Albert Pujols was caught stealing on the back end of hit-and-run in which Jim Edmonds whiffed.

Chris Duncan muffed an easy fly ball in right field with one out in the fourth when Edmonds decided to do his Kelly Leak impression. Duncan's error -- no thanks to Edmonds -- allowed Magglio Ordonez to reach base so that Sean Casey could pound a long home run just inside the foul pole in right.

Just like that and it's 2-1 for the Tigers.

Verlander has the lead.

Game 5 2nd inning

According to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today, the BBWAA is disappointed with the quality of the press box at the brand-new Busch Stadium. All I can say is it’s a good thing the Washington Nationals didn’t make it to the playoffs.

Also, I didn’t hear too many complaints from the BBWAA about Shea Stadium, which is the worst press box I have ever been in, excluding the one at Conestoga Valley High School.

The biggest complaint about the new Busch is that unless one is sitting in the first row of the press box, certain portions of the outfield and the scoreboard cannot be seen.

To that I say that based on my seat in Citizens Bank Park, I never knew there was a scoreboard.

Still, I guess I can understand the problem. The BBWAA wants proper working conditions, which is fine. But I also think the BBWAA is attempting to keep some semblance of a firm grip on the coverage of the game while readers and writers slip away to the growing influence of the Internet and blogs.

Sorry guys, you are nearly irrelevant.

Aside from this cutting edge blog (he said with tongue firmly planted in his cheek), the NY Times – the voice of the establishment – has a live blog going, too. I’m sure the dude at Deadspin is busy tap, tap, tapping away on his keyboard in front of the TV, too.

As someone straddling both sides of the fence between the new media and the establishment, I honestly can say I much more excited about the new stuff. Sportswriting and journalism must adapt.

Or die.

But as a member of the corporate media, all I really want is access. I want to be able to see someone’s face when they answer a tough question and hear the tone of their voice. I want to be able to have the chance to shoot the breeze with a player and get inside what they do to prepare, recover and the process in which makes them a professional athlete practicing their craft.

At Citizens Bank Park, all I can do is watch the game on TV like everyone else. The view from the press box stinks, but the bathrooms are nearby and it doesn't take too long to get to the clubhouses or field.

Anyway, the Cardinals took the lead in the bottom of the second on a throwing error by Brandon Inge. David Eckstein (he’s small and scrappy) grounded a broken-bat grounder to third with two outs and Yadier Molina at third. Inge fielded the ball close to the line, but in his haste to throw out Eckstein, chucked the ball past Sean Casey at first and into right field.

It’s 1-0 Cardinals. They need 21 more outs to become World Champions.

Game 5: 1st inning

I dislike listening to the announcers, but Tim McCarver might have a point in noting that Justin Verlander is nervous. The kid has a nasty fastball, but it appears to be all over the place in the bottom of the first. Infielders and catcher Pudge Rodriguez have paid a few visits in attempt to settle the kid down. The pitching coach even went out to the mound to relax Verlander.

It doesn’t appear as if manager Jim Leyland is going to mess around tonight. Just one out and two free passes into the game and Leyland has the ‘pen up. It’s definitely an all-hands-on-deck game for the down-to-the-wire Tigers.

According to the media guide, Verlander was born in February of 1983. That was the sixth grade for me where a school year was heading toward the backstretch and the move from James Buchanan Elementary to Wheatland Junior High was quickly approaching. If someone were to tell me what I was doing on the day Verlander was born, I probably can remember it.

My guess is it involved something at John May’s house on Wilson Drive. We probably played basketball or threw mulch at cars as they drove past.

Hey, it was Lancaster, Pa. in 1983. We only got MTV a few months earlier.

Anyway, Verlander is only 23. When I was 23 I wasn’t pitching in an elimination game of the World Series. I most likely was hanging around some people who didn’t really like me all that much in Philadelphia. Luckily for everyone involved, I doubt those people and me have seen each other since I was 23.

In case they are reading this (which they aren’t) I still look the same, but I’m much thinner now.

Yet despite the three walks and two wild pitches, Verlander escaped the inning unscathed when Carlos Guillen made a dynamic on-the-run throw to cut down Ronnie Belliard at first. Before heading to commercial, the Fox cameras caught Verlander giving an emphatic fist pump kind of like Johnny Drama’s “VICTORY!”

Is that what the kid needed to relax?

Game 5: Live updates

Are the Cardinals the worst team ever to win a World Series? Are they the worst team to ever be holding the cards in a World Series elimination game? Some think so, but I don’t. At the beginning of the season if one were to say the Cardinals would win the World Series, it wouldn’t be crazy. That was especially the case after watching them rip apart the Phillies in a season-opening sweep at Citizens Bank Park in April.

The Cardinals were really good back then. They were also pretty good through the first half of the season. But then the injuries came and the Cards limped into the playoffs with many believing they wouldn’t get past the first round of the playoffs.

They’re lucky they didn’t have to play the Phillies.

Then again, maybe it didn’t matter. The Cardinals appear to have gotten healthy while tightening up the play at just the right time. And as someone much smarter than me once said, “Once you get into the playoffs anything can happen.”

Maybe that was Charlie Manuel who said that? Sounds like something a lot of baseball people say.

Nevertheless, the top of the first opened with California kid Jeff Weaver striking out the first two hitters with a curve ball that bent like a wiffle ball. Weaver might have it tonight. The perfect inning ended with a weak fly to left.

As for the worst team to win the World Series – How about the 1969 New York Mets? They ended up winning the supposed superior Baltimore Orioles in five games.

Best bets

Last week: 2-1
Year-to-date: 8-5-1

I almost forgot about the football picks for this week. With the World Series and running workouts reaching a fever pitch, it’s amazing that I forgot to brag about the 7-1-1 record over the last three weeks. And here’s the best part – this knowledge is free. Anyone who wants a football pick only has to check this site, or, email me. I’ll even go off the board, one-on-one, for those who need the help.

Anyway, here we go:

Eagles minus 4 over Jacksonville
The logic on this one is that the Eagles lost two straight games on last-second kicks and desperately need a victory. Plus, Jacksonville’s quarterback is banged up and coming off a bad game. Sure, people tell me the Jags’ backup is decent, but aren’t they all? Nevertheless, this one could be the easiest win of the year for the Eagles.

Giants plus 1 over Cleveland
I don’t know… the line looks good. Plus, I have Tiki Barber on my fantasy team. That’s reason enough, right?

ed. note: it turns out that the New York on the odds sheet I was looking at was the Jets not the Giants. Apparently, there is more than one New York team even though the only team in the NFL that actually plays any games in that state is Buffalo. In that case, I love that Chad Pennington dude. Go Jets. J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!

Colts plus 2½ over Denver
There has been a lot of snow in Colorado this week, which probably means the Broncos have been practicing indoors. The Colts are a dome team and always practice indoors (I don’t know if this is fact, but it sounds right) so that makes it all even. Add in the fact that it’s expected to be a temperate 64-degrees and dry in Denver on Sunday, which makes it feel like the indoors, and it’s still level.

Huh?

Just go with the Colts.

For the record, my favorite football picker is Jeff Johnson, who wrote excellent prognostications for McSweeney's. I don't think he does much of it anymore, but the old stuff is really good and worth the read for those who like good writing.

It's Game 4!

More observations from Thursday night's telecast of Game 4 of the World Series:

* Here’s something from Slate that says people dislike the Cardinals because they read Moneyball.

I’m not sure about the argument, though. Tony La Russa might have something to do with people’s dislike of the Cardinals, and around here Scott Rolen may have checkered some reaction to the Cards’ run to the World Series.

* Speaking of Rolen, it might not be too far-fetched to believe he could be the MVP of the World Series if the Cardinals win. After four games Rolen’s batting average is just a shade under .500 and his .813 slugging percentage for an 1.284 OPS. Players with lesser numbers have been named the series MVP.

The drawback, of course, is the RBIs. Rolen has just one in the series, and one in the entire post-season. Excluding pitchers, the fewest amount of RBIs by a World Series MVP are two by Derek Jeter in 2000, Rick Dempsey in 1983 and Pete Rose in 1975.

Perhaps Rolen needs just one more?

* Jayson Stark wonders if La Russa is toying with the Busch Stadium radar guns just to mess with Tigers’ reliever Joel Zumaya’s head.

* This is just a guess, but I would not be shocked if everyone is sick and tired of hearing that John Cougar Mellencamp song on that car commercial. In fact, I’m so annoyed by it that I don’t even know what type of car it’s for. Worse, it is now officially more annoying than Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” car commercial song.

I don’t know what type of car that was for either, but chances are it’s not a car I’d buy.

* ESPN is taking on the ambitious task of adapting Jonathan Mahler’s wonderful book, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning. The eight-hour adaptation, starring John Turturro as Billy Martin and Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner, is supposed to be ready for air next summer.

If ESPN re-creation is half as good as Mahler’s book that documents the summer of tumult in 1977 New York City, it will be well worth sitting still for eight hours to watch the movie.

I’m curious if ESPN will stick strictly with the Yankees aspect of the book or attempt to reach into the political and societal narratives. If so, I’m dying to know who will play Bella Abzug.

* If I were David Eckstein I would be very tired of every talking head pointing out that I’m “little” and “scrappy.” Just once I would like to hear a guy like Eckstein look at an interviewer like Chris Myers and say, “Is that all you can come up with? I’m small? Come on, dude… people out there want your best work.”

* La Russa's move to bring in closer Adam Wainwright for five outs was really smart. Perhaps a starter or two will be in the bullpen as the Cardinals attempt to close it out on Friday night.

* The Cardinals led the Royals 3-1 in the 1985 World Series and the Tigers 3-1 in the 1968 series. They lost both of those. Moreover, in the two previous meetings between the Cardinals and Tigers in the World Series, the team that won Game 4 went on the lose the series.

Hmmm...

In the 1982 World Series, the last time the Cardinals won one, St. Louis trailed Milwaukee 3-2 before winning games 6 and 7.

Off the fence

I always have believed that a person’s religious and political beliefs should be kept out of the workplace. I know that a lot of people define themselves by these tenets and I know that a lot of corporations, including the one I work for, donate a lot of money to specific political candidates.

In fact, in the past I have worked and campaigned for several political candidates and if one (or two) of my friends run for Congress, mayor or district attorney, I will be there for them for whatever they want me to do.

But you will never read about it here, nor will anyone at work hear about it either.

I’m not apolitical – far from it. My political views are hardened by a childhood spent in Washington, D.C. and time spent studying history and politics in school. As I have mentioned in previous posts, in another time my aspiration was to be a political and presidential historian. Because of this I’d like to think my views are well formed and investigated.

Then again, everyone thinks that about himself.

The reason I bring this up is because Cardinals’ pitcher Jeff Suppan, slated to start tonight’s Game 4, is involved in a bit of a controversy because of his role in a political campaign ad in Missouri. Suppan (along with Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner and Kansas City Royals first baseman Mike Sweeney), it seems, has come out against stem-cell research in response to an advertisement featuring actor Michael J. Fox. The actor, as has been well documented, suffers from Parkinson's disease and actively campaigns for stem-cell research.

I’m not going to include anything Suppan or Fox said in their ads because neither man is an expert on the subject or a scientist.

Nevertheless, in six years of being in close quarters with professional athletes, this is really the first time I can remember one jumping into the political fray. Actually, in retrospect, I can remember a handful of political conversations with a baseball player whose views were similar to mine, but that's about it. Some jocks have bumper stickers on their cars with a political bent, but rarely bring those ideas into the clubhouse or near the field.

No, I won’t reveal anything here either.

The point is I think it’s good that Suppan is politically active. A generation ago most athletes were very active in the politics of the United States and their sports. They protested, formed unions and engaged the entire process.

Now, generalizing a little (but not much), professional athletes engage in X-box and gambling or both with a lot of dodging the media and the fans mixed in. Some have no idea about the battles waged and the precedent set by the athletes that came before them.

So before anyone rips Suppan for his political stance, which definitely is fair game, let's hope that his interest in the process sparks more from athletes on all angles of the spectrum.

Let’s just keep it off the field and off these pages.

It's a rain out!

Was it me or did it seem that Joe Buck was laughing at us when he said, “So we’ll send you back to ‘The War at Home’ while we wait out the rain delay in St. Louis.”

It seemed that way to me. Smug and pompous, Joe was taunting us as the camera melted away from the raindrops falling heavily on the tarp at Busch Stadium. Instead of watching Michael Rappaport in some schlocky sit-com, Buck was able to watch it rain. Had he just painted a wall he could have watched it dry instead of watching episode after episode of that show.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

But while waiting for a game that was never to be played on Wednesday night, I did a little thinking and here’s what I came up with: “comedy” isn’t as funny as it used to be.

Yeah, I know. I’m some old guy saying, “things sure were better in my day.” Well… wasn’t it? Does any one think that half of the sit-coms on TV now would have had a chance in the 1980s? Now, it seems as if watching network television is like having a lobotomy without the surgery.

The same goes for comedy movies. Just for comparisons sake, I watched Animal House to see how it held up nearly 30 years after its release. If you want to know the truth, it’s better than anything being produced now.

The reason, I think, is there was actual character and plot development in the old-time comedies. There was a motivation and a familiarity with the characters, while in the Ricky Bobby picture, for instance, it was just a highlight film of one-liners and slick editing.

Don’t get me wrong, Will Ferrell was brilliant in Old School, which I believe is a “throwback” to the glory days of motion-picture comedy, but I’m not sure if he can carry a picture. Take Ron Burgundy -- it was funny and I enjoyed the character, but the movie stunk.

So that’s what we get with the rain out of Game 4 – bad comedy and a bad blog post.

On another note, my 2½-year-old boy has been having trouble sleeping at night lately. It seems as if we have a problem with monsters here on Landis Ave. that I’ll have to take care of soon. Nevertheless, the boy and I spent part of Monday night flipping through the dial, watching old movies hoping it would relax him and get him to fall asleep. However, when his mom got home I knew I was in trouble when he walked over to the TV and pointed at the robust and portly man on the screen.

“Belushi!” he told her. “Belushi!”

The kid is learning... maybe too much.

20 years ago today...

... the ball slipped through Buckner's legs at Shea.

I believe there should be a plaque on the grass behind first base marking the site where it occurred, like a historical marker or something. Every time I'm in that tiny visitors' clubhouse at Shea I think about the scene after that Game 6 when workers had to tear down the podium and put away the champagne by the time the Red Sox made it from the dugout, down the narrow, plank board covered hallway and into the clubhouse.

During the entire inning, Bob Costas saw the entire scene unfold and was prepared to hand the Series trophy to Jean Yawkey and then MVP Award to Bruce Hurst.

Such a wild, wild game.

Here's a re-enactment:



Better yet, here's the Sports Illustrated account by Ron Firmite about Game 6 and the aftermath from Nov. 3, 1986.

Box score

Boston Red Sox

Boston Red Sox    AB  R  H BI BB  K PO  A
Boggs 3b           5  2  3  0  1  0  1  0
Barrett 2b         4  1  3  2  2  0  1  4
Buckner 1b         5  0  0  0  0  0  5  0
Rice lf            5  0  0  0  1  2  5  0
Evans rf           4  0  1  2  1  0  1  0
Gedman c           5  0  1  0  0  1  8  0
Henderson cf       5  1  2  1  0  0  5  0
Owen ss            4  1  3  0  0  1  2  2
 Clemens p        3  0  0  0  0  1  0  1
 Greenwell ph     1  0  0  0  0  1  0  0
 Schiraldi p      1  0  0  0  0  1  0  1
 Stanley p        0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0
Totals            42  5 13  5  5  7 29  8

FIELDING -
DP: 1.
E: Buckner (1), Evans (1), Gedman (2).

BATTING -
2B: Evans (1, off Ojeda); Boggs (3, off Aguilera).
HR: Henderson (2, 10th inning off Aguilera 0 on, 0 out).
SH: Owen (1, off McDowell).
HBP: Buckner (1, by Aguilera).
IBB: Boggs (1, by McDowell).

New York Mets

New York Mets      AB  R  H BI BB  K PO  A
Dykstra cf          4  0  0  0  0  2  4  0
Backman 2b          4  0  1  0  0  1  0  4
Hernandez 1b        4  0  1  0  1  0  6  1
Carter c            4  1  1  1  0  1  9  0
Strawberry rf       2  1  0  0  2  0  5  0
 Aguilera p        0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0
 Mitchell ph       1  1  1  0  0  0  0  0
Knight 3b           4  2  2  2  1  1  0  0
Wilson lf           5  0  1  0  0  1  2  1
Santana ss          1  0  0  0  0  1  0  1
 Heep ph           1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0
 Elster ss         1  0  0  0  0  0  3  3
 Johnson ph, ss    1  0  0  0  0  1  0  0
Ojeda p             2  0  0  0  0  1  0  0
 McDowell p        0  0  0  0  0  0  0  1
 Orosco p          0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0
 Mazzilli ph, rf   2  1  1  0  0  0  1  0
Totals             36  6  8  3  4  9 30 11

FIELDING -
DP: 1.
E: Knight (1), Elster (1).

BATTING -
SH: Dykstra (2, off Schiraldi); Backman (1, off Schiraldi).
SF: Carter (1, off Schiraldi).
IBB: Hernandez (1, by Schiraldi).

BASERUNNING -
SB: Strawberry 2 (3, 2nd base off Clemens/Gedman 2).

Pitching

Boston Red Sox      IP H HR R ER BB K
Clemens              7 4  0 2  1  2 8
Schiraldi L (0-1)  2.2 4  0 4  3  2 1
Stanley              0 0  0 0  0  0 0
Totals               9 8  0 6  4  4 9

New York Mets       IP H HR R ER BB K
Ojeda                6 8  0 2  2  2 3
McDowell           1.2 2  0 1  0  3 1
Orosco             0.1 0  0 0  0  0 0
Aguilera W (1-0)     2 3  1 2  2  0 3
Totals              10 13 1 5  4  5 7

WP: Stanley (1).
HBP: Aguilera (1, Buckner).
IBB: Schiraldi (1, Hernandez); McDowell (2, Boggs).

Umpires: Ford (home), Kibler (1B), Evans (2B),
Wendelstedt (3B), Brinkman (LF), Montague (RF)

Attendance: 55,078

Here you can pick up the bottom of the 10th with two outs and one on:

New site

For all the running geeks out there, I moved all running-related writing, training and musings to another site. So if you find this kind of stuff interesting or just want someone to laugh at, check out the new site.

It's Game 3!

Here are a few observations from Tuesday night’s Game 3 in St. Louis:

* If I’m not mistaken, commissioner Bud Selig took the “boys will be boys” approach to the controversy regarding Kenny Rogers and his dirty hand during Fox’s pre-game show. In an on-the-field interview with the always-entertaining Penn alum, Ken Rosenthal, Selig said that if Tony La Russa didn’t do anything about it, why should he?

Selig said that La Russa has been known to be combative.

What Selig and player’s union president Donald Fehr were with Rosenthal for was to announce the new labor agreement that will last through the 2011 season.

Selig called the new deal “historic.” You know, like the Treaty of Versailles.

* Kevin Kennedy, one of Fox’s pre-game analysts with a penchant for dismissing everything controversial in the game, was on top of his game on Tuesday night. This summer he debunked all steroid and performance-enhancing drug accusations and controversies with a hand waving, “He never tested positive!” As well as, “Put your name next to it! Stop using unnamed sources!”

OK, Mr. Haldeman.

Much to our surprise, Kennedy was just as dismissive of the Rogers controversy.

“It happens all the time,” Kennedy said. “It’s part of the game.”

Could you imagine what Kennedy might say if he were in Uganda with Idi Amin when people just started disappearing.

“What? It’s no big deal. It happens all the time. That’s just Idi being Idi.”

Yes, I see how silly it sounds comparing a brutal, homicidal dictator to a baseball pitcher with dirty hands and an apologist announcer. Better yet, it reminds me of one of my favorite Tug McGraw quotes.

After escaping from a tough, late-inning jam against the Big Red Machine's Joe Morgan, George Foster, Tony Perez and Johnny Bench with his typical aplomb, Tug was asked by a reporter how he was able to stay so cool. “Well,” he said. “Ten million years from now, when the sun burns out and the Earth is just a frozen snowball hurtling through space, nobody's going to care whether or not I got this guy out.”

My favorite Tug quote is when he was asked what he would do with the money he got for making it to the World Series with the Mets in 1973.

“Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish whiskey. The other 10 percent I'll probably waste.”

* I had Nate Robertson on my rotisserie team this season, Game 3 was the first time I saw him pitch. He’s a lefty… imagine that. He wears glasses, too. He’s also No. 29 like 1968 World Series hero Mickey Lolich and has been driving the same car for a really long time.

At various points of the season, I also had Jason Isringhausen, Anthony Reyes, Jason Marquis, Preston Wilson and David Eckstein of the Cardinals, as well as Pudge Rodriguez, Craig Monroe, Brandon Inge and Sean Casey of the Tigers.

I finished in ninth place of a 12-team league.

* Richard Ford’s new novel The Lay of the Land is out. This is the third of the Frank Bascombe series, which includes The Sportswriter and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day. The reviews look good, which isn’t too surprising since Ford is a bit of a media darling. Nevertheless, I’m anxious to dive in.

* I had the chance to tune into the radio broadcast of the start of the game while running an errand. ESPN radio’s Jon Miller and Joe Morgan handle the call on radio, which is filled with much more insight than the TV version.

Yeah, I know a lot of people are not fans of Morgan’s work for ESPN, but there were a few nuggets from Morgan and Miller that the more superficial TV broadcast would miss.

This is no fault of TV, I suppose. After all, if someone is listening to the World Series on the radio they are seeking it out. A non-baseball fan isn’t going to drive around and listen to the game, though that same non-fan person could tune in on TV. You know, maybe the batteries on the remote died or something.

Anyway, Morgan and Miller pointed out that Preston Wilson could be the key for the Cardinals in Game 3. The reason? Wilson is in the No. 2 spot of the batting order, one place ahead of Albert Pujols. It would be Wilson’s job to ensure that the Tigers cannot pitch around the fearsome Pujols.

Yet because Wilson is hitting ahead of Pujols, the duo pointed out, he should get a lot more pitches to hit than if he were batting in front of, say, Jim Edmonds or Scott Rolen. Plus, they said, Tony La Russa likes for someone with some power to hit ahead of Pujols in the No. 2 spot. That’s why Wilson is so important, the announcers said.

This is interesting, though if La Russa likes power in the two-hole, why not try Edmonds or Rolen there. Certainly they both have much more power than Wilson and strike out a lot less, too.

* In the first inning after Robertson came up and in to Pujols, Morgan made a joke.

“Looks like that one slipped. Maybe he needs some pine tar?” Morgan said.

“He plays for the Tigers,” Miller said. “I think I know where he can get some.”

It made me laugh.

Not dead yet

It wasn’t too long ago when people (who actually followed this type of thing) claimed that American marathoning was dead. I never thought much of that was true even though it was clear that American men were not running times any where near those the guys in the 1970s and 1980s ran.

But then again, guys like Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, et al, defy all eras. Those guys were freaks who worked really, really hard. Shorter and Rodgers used to hammer every day, sometimes doing two or three 20-mile runs mixed into their 140-mile weeks, and then race on the weekend. In fact, Rodgers tells stories about running on access roads near the airport so that he could squeeze in an extra workout while waiting to board a plane on the way to some race.

Shorter’s workouts in New Mexico with Prefontaine in which the pair cranked out 180 to 200-mile weeks are legendary.

These days it appears as if those old training methods are en vogue. At least that’s the way it seems from reading Brian Sell’s training logs leading up to his 2:10 performances at Boston and Chicago this year. Better yet, the New York City Marathon on Nov. 5 appears to have one of the deepest fields in decades and that’s not just because world-record holder Paul Tergat or Olympic champ Stefano Baldini are signed on. It’s because Americans like Alan Culpepper, Meb Keflezighi and Dathan Ritzenhein are in the field.

Keflezighi, 31, won the silver medal in the 2004 Olympics and appears in a MasterCard commercial. Despite the silver medal, two Olympic appearances and a third-place finish in last year’s NYC Marathon, it seems as if Meb’s best running is ahead of him.

Culpepper, at 34, may have a smaller window than Meb, but there’s no reason why he can’t make a third Olympic team in 2008. With a sub-2:10 marathon under his belt and a strong fifth-place finish at Boston in April, Culpepper could slip into the top five at NYC.

Then there’s Ritzenhein, who seems like a throwback because he is making his marathon debut at age 23. The runners of the “Dead Era” would never have run a marathon at such a young age, but the guys like Shorter and Rodgers would. In fact, Alberto Salazar won the 1982 New York City Marathon and set a world record for the distance when he was still an undergraduate at Oregon.

Ritzenhein, a very popular runner in the tight-knit cult of running fandom, appears to be cut from that mold. If his third-place finish at the Great North Run half-marathon in England -- where he beat Baldini, double World Marathon Champion Jaouad Gharib, and 2002 New York City champ Rodgers Rop -- is any indication, Ritz could make a name for himself on Nov. 5.

Better yet, the best indicator that American men’s marathoning is on the way back is that 44 runners qualified for next November’s Olympic Marathon Trials in last Sunday’s Chicago Marathon. In order to qualify for the trials, one has to run a marathon under 2:22 for the “B” standard and 2:20 for the “A” standard. In other words, run 26.2 miles at 5:25 pace per mile and you’re in.

Plus, throughout this entire essay, Khalid Khannouchi's name wasn't mentioned once. How's that for proving the health of American marathoning?

Here’s the list of American men who have met the standard for the November 2007 Olympic Trials set to be held in New York City:

Rk	Time		Name	Race	Date
1	2:07:04		Khalid Khannouchi	London Marathon	4/23/06
2	2:08:56		Abdi Abdirahman	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
3	2:09:56		Meb Keflezighi	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
4	2:10:47		Brian Sell	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
	2:10:55		Brian Sell	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
5	2:11:02		Alan Culpepper	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
6	2:12:45		Peter Gilmore	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
7	2:12:53		Mbarak Hussein	Seoul International Marathon	3/12/06
	2:13:53		Mbarak Hussein	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
8	2:14:09		Simon Sawe	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
9	2:14:12		Clint Verran	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
	2:14:23		Clint Verran	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
10	2:14:28		Jim Jurcevich	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
11	2:14:58		Ryan Shay	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
12	2:15:03		Chad Johnson	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
13	2:15:11		Mike Morgan	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
14	2:15:13		Kyle O'Brien	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
15	2:15:20		Brandon Leslie	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
16	2:15:22		Luke Humphrey	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
	2:15:23		Luke Humphrey	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
17	2:15:26		Casey Moulton	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
18	2:15:28		Nate Jenkins	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
19	2:15:35		Patrick Moulton	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
20	2:15:39		Josh Ordway	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
21	2:15:50		Jason Hartmann	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
22	2:16:58		Nicholas Aciniaga	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
23	2:17:05		Martin Rosendahl	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
24	2:17:13		Josh Ordway	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
25	2:17:32		Chris Seaton	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
26	2:17:34		Chris Lundstrom	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
27	2:17:37		Jacob Frey	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
28	2:17:54		Dan Sutton	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
29	2:18:03		Ryan Meissen	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
30	2:18:13		Cecil Franke	Columbus Marathon	10/15/06
31	2:18:14		Fasil Bizuneh	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
32	2:18:18		Chris Graff	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
33	2:18:25		James Lander	St. George Marathon	10/7/06
	2:18:28		Mbarak Hussein	USA Marathon Championships	10/2/05
34	2:18:50		John Lucas	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
35	2:18:56		Dave Ernsberger	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
36	2:19:03		Jason Lehmkuhle	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
37	2:19:12		Carlos Carballo	Los Angeles Marathon	3/19/06
38	2:19:18		Dan Sutton	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
39	2:19:23		Donovan Fellows	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
40	2:19:25		Justin Young	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
	2:19:29		Chad Johnson	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
41	2:19:30		Steve Moreno	Los Angeles Marathon	3/19/06
42	2:19:33		John Mentzer	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
	2:19:37		Chris Lundstrom	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
43	2:19:37		Jason Ryf	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
44	2:19:45		Jason Delaney	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
45	2:19:47		Dan Kahn	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
46	2:19:47		Andrew Cook	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
	2:19:57		Kyle O'Brien	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
47	2:20:09		Jacob Frey	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
49	2:20:10		Trent Briney	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
50	2:20:11		Marzuki Stevens	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
51	2:20:12		Pat Rizzo	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
52	2:20:15		Matt Levassiur	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
53	2:20:19		Justin Patananan	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
54	2:20:19		David Gramlich	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
	2:20:26		Cecil Franke	Flying Pig Marathon	5/7/06
55	2:20:26		Matt Pelletier	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
56	2:20:27		Mike McKeeman	London Marathon	4/23/06
	2:20:27		Patrick Moulton	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
57	2:20:28		Michael Reneau	Grandma's Marathon	6/17/06
58	2:20:28		David Williams	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
59	2:20:32		Corey Stelljes	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
60	2:20:32		Antonio Arce	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
61	2:20:33		Marc Jeuland	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
62	2:20:35		Karl Dusen	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
63	2:20:37		Nicholas Stanko	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
64	2:20:41		Carl Rundell	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
65	2:20:43		Ben Rosario	USA Marathon Championships	10/2/05
	2:20:43		Jason Ryf	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
66	2:20:45		Miguel A. Nuci	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
67	2:20:48		Gene Mitchell	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
68	2:20:49		Donnie Franzen	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
69	2:20:52		Terrance Shea	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
70	2:20:54		Christopher Zieman	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
71	2:20:55		Christopher Wehrman	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
72	2:20:57		Pete Gilman	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
73	2:20:58		Christopher Raabe	Baltimore Marathon	10/14/06
74	2:21:00		Todd Snyder	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
75	2:21:00		Eric Post	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
76	2:21:02		Kyle Baker	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
77	2:21:05		Thomas Kutter	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
78	2:21:09		Eric Heins	Rock 'n Roll Arizona Marathon	1/15/06
	2:21:12		Martin Rosendahl	B.A.A. Boston Marathon	4/17/06
79	2:21:16		Tommy Greenless	Rock 'n Roll Arizona Marathon	1/15/06
80	2:21:18		Garick Hill	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
81	2:21:34		Ed Baker	Austin Marathon	2/19/06
82	2:21:39		Danny Mackey	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06
83	2:21:42		Wynston Alberts	USA Marathon Championships	10/2/05
84	2:21:44		Chris Banks	Los Angeles Marathon	3/19/06
85	2:21:48		Jonathan Little	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
86	2:21:50		Matthew Byrne	Steamtown Marathon	10/8/06
87	2:21:51		Nathan Wadsworth	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
88	2:21:53		John Lucas	Los Angeles Marathon	3/19/06
	2:21:54		Chris Seaton	Rock 'n Roll Arizona Marathon	1/15/06
89	2:21:54		Mike Heidt	Portland Marathon	10/1/06
90	2:21:55		Steve Frisone	St. George Marathon	10/7/06
91	2:21:56		Edward Callinan	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
92	2:21:58		Alan Horton	Chicago Marathon	10/22/06
93	2:22:00		James McGown	USA Marathon Championships	10/1/06

Tacky stuff

Baseball players are very literal. At least they are that way about the rules. If the book doesn’t say one can’t use a chainsaw to aid a pitcher’s grip on a ball, then why not?

Pine tar, dirt, spit, Vaseline, frankincense? Anything to make the ball avoid a bat better.

In fact, most pitchers think like former Phillie Larry Andersen, who told the Inquirer’s Jim Salisbury that he is sympathetic to Tigers’ pitcher Kenny Rogers and the brewing controversy over what the unhittable lefty had on his hand during Game 2 of the World Series. Some speculate that it was pine tar. Others believe it was something more sinister. Rogers says it was just dirt mixed with rosin and sweat.

“Honestly, pine tar is really common with pitchers,” Andersen told Salisbury. “Technically, you could say he was cheating because you're not supposed to use a foreign substance. But I don't look at it that way. He wasn't changing the flight of the ball.”

Former Phillie Todd Jones, now the closer for the Tigers, was equally dismissive when he talked to Salisbury.

“It's one of those unwritten rules,” Jones said in the paper. “You don't check if it's not creating an advantage. Everyone is making a big deal of it. This is something that has been going on for years. Other teams have pitchers that are doing it, too.”

In baseball there is no “spirit of the rules” like there is in track & field and distance running. But even in those sports, the spirit of the rules idea is more about drug doping than actual competition.

If baseball were track or running, the controversy with Rogers would fall under the spirit of the rules category. He might not have broken the rules, technically, but he was definitely bending them.

So what did Rogers have on his hand during Game 2 of the World Series? Why it was Gum Benjamin, of course. You didn’t know?

No, we aren’t certain that it was Gum Benjamin Rogers had on his hand – he isn’t saying. But according to a few experts, the substance on Rogers’ hand looked exactly like Gum Benjamin.

Actually, Gum Benjamin is benzoin, which is resin obtained from certain tropical Asian trees and used in making perfume and medicine. Sometimes Gum Benjamin is used on cuts or abrasions when a band-aid isn’t big enough, but mostly it’s used by musicians – specifically guitar players or harpists – as a tacky, grippy protection. It’s also used in treating skin irritation, looks like iodine and it stays sticky even after it’s washed off.

Though Rogers says his hands were just dirty, something is amiss.

“I don’t believe it was dirt,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said.

But La Russa also didn’t rat out Rogers. Perhaps it goes back to the “no-big-deal” code baseball players’ hold.

“There's a line that I think that defines the competition. And you can sneak over the line, because we're all fighting for the edge. I always think, does it go to the point of abuse? And that's where you start snapping,” La Russa said. “I also know that pitchers -- I was going to say routinely, that may be too strong, because I don't know enough -- pitchers use some sticky stuff to get a better grip from the first throw in Spring Training to the last side they're going to throw in the World Series. Just because there's a little something that they're using to get a better grip, that doesn't cross the line, you know. To me what got my attention was guys that came down and said, man, this thing is real obvious on his hand. I didn't see it. But I did watch video of the other postseason games, so I had an idea of what it looked like, and I said, let's get rid of it and keep playing.

“That's the attitude I took. If he didn't get rid of it, I would have challenged it. But I do think it's a little bit part of the game at times and don't go crazy.”

Yes, I see the irony in what La Russa said. I wonder what he thought in 1998 and 1999 when Mark McGwire was hitting all of those home runs?

Andersen had a better thought in Salisbury’s story.

“You'd think he'd be a little more discreet," Andersen said. "That was such a big spot. Come on.”

Et tu, Wolfie?

It wouldn’t be outlandish to believe that Randy Wolf’s future in Philadelphia disappeared as soon as the ink dried on soon-to-be 44-year-old lefty Jamie Moyer’s two-year, $10.5 million (plus incentives) contract signed on Monday afternoon. After all, with Moyer signed on until he’s Julio Franco’s age and 23-year old Cole Hamels a cog in the rotation for the next 15 years, why would the Phillies need another lefty like Wolf in the rotation?

Besides, the Phillies play their home games in a ballpark notorious for being especially friendly to right-handed hitters (lefties, too), so going after the NL East title with 60 percent of the rotation made up of southpaws might not be the best plan of attack.

Or would it?

Sometimes, though, things aren’t as easy as they appear. Even with lefties Moyer and Hamels set for a rotation with righties Brett Myers and Jon Lieber, it seems as if general manager Pat Gillick isn’t ready to let Wolf walk away just yet.

“We'd like to bring Wolfie back,” said Gillick, noting that the Phillies have been in contact with Wolf’s representatives. “We think his arm is fine and we think he's going to get better. Jamie and I had a conversation in Seattle about three left-handers in the rotation, and we liked the thought of that. We're hopeful that Randy will come back. We'd like to have the same five guys that we had last year. I look at it as a better rotation than we started '06 with. We think bringing Randy back will be a nice way to round out the rotation and start 2007. Hopefully, something will work out.”

Wolf, of course, is eligible to test free agency this winter after completing a four-year, $22 million deal. He also made a return from Tommy John surgery to reconstruct his left elbow in late July and made 12 starts in 2006. Though he was 4-0, Wolf, 30, tossed just 56 2/3 innings for a 5.56 ERA, while allowing hitters to hit .285 against him. Despite that, Gillick believes Wolf was making strides in his return from the injury and was beginning to re-establish his velocity as evidenced in his nearly seven strikeouts per nine innings.

Besides, pitchers returning from Wolf’s injury usually regain their pre-surgery form – and then some – in the second year following surgery. By that rationale, Wolf, and maybe even the Phillies, should expect big things in 2007.

Wolf has stated that he would like to return to Philadelphia for a bunch of reasons. One being that the Phillies drafted him, signed him and gave him the big contract before the 2003 season. More importantly, Wolf wants to be “playing baseball in October,” which might not be such a stretch after back-to-back near misses in 2005 and 2005.

Meanwhile, Moyer will solidify the back end of a rotation that was a problem for the Phillies in 2006. Gavin Floyd, Ryan Madson, Scott Mathieson, Eude Brito, Aaron Fultz and Adam Bernero were thrust into starting roles to varying degrees of mediocrity last season.

Needless to say, if the Phillies are able to add Wolf to the mix with the inning-eater Moyer, the team will have very few surprises in ’07.

What some find surprising is that Moyer, who will turn 44 on Nov. 18, drew a two-year deal from the Phillies. Yes, the Phillies held a $4.75 million option for Moyer the upcoming season, but the St. Joseph’s University alum and Sellersville, Pa. native now calls Seattle home. Gillick believed that Moyer would have been able to find a one-year deal closer to home and had to sweeten the pot a bit in order to keep the 20-year veteran in Philadelphia.

“I certainly felt that if Jamie got out on the marketplace, there was certainly a club out there that was going to give him one year, and there was a possibility that they would give him two years,” Gillick said. “He was important to us not only on the field, but the intangibles in the clubhouse. We wanted him back. I felt that we'd have to step up with more than one year. We think we worked out a situation that is a win-win for both sides. We're really elated that Jamie re-signed with the Phillies for two years.”

Moyer was something of a de facto pitching coach for the Phillies when he joined the club after the trade with the Mariners, tutoring Wolf and Hamels as well as other teammates on the finer points of the game he picked up over the past two decades.

But more than that, the Phillies prospects for getting to the playoffs for the first time since 1993 enticed Moyer. So did the Phillies’ special considerations to Moyer’s family situation where the pitcher can leave the team to go to Seattle to be with his wife and six children when the team’s schedule permitted.

But unlike the deal Roger Clemens had with the Astros in which he only really had to show up for games he was slated to pitch, Moyer won’t do it that way.

“The last six weeks of the season were tough on us as a family,” Moyer said. “I can't thank the Phillies enough for being understanding, and I'm sure my teammates will understand. I'm not here to take advantage of that situation. I won't be missing road trips. I won't be picking and choosing what trips I go on. Personally, I can't do that.”

Most importantly, Moyer believes he isn’t just durable, but he can still pitch, too. At least that’s the way it seemed when he joined the Phillies for the stretch run in August. In eight starts after the trade Moyer worked into the seventh inning in seven of his eight outings on his way to piling up his sixth straight 200-plus innings season and eighth in his last nine years. His 211 1/3 innings in 2006 were the fifth-most by a pitcher at least 43 years old in baseball history.

“I'm trying to be honest with myself,” Moyer said. “At some point in time, it's going to be the end, but right now I haven't seen any signs. I still enjoy playing, and I still have the passion to play. I still feel like I can contribute, and as long as I have opportunities to do that, why not? Playing allows me to feel like a kid.”

Why not, indeed.

It's Game 2!

Now it’s a series. Now it gets interesting. Now the pitching match ups will be more meaningful and each and every at-bat that much more nerve-racking. Hands will grip the bats tighter, managers will second-guess their second-guesses.

Now, for the first time since 2003 there will not be a sweep. Are we headed for seven games? How fun would that be?

Here are a few observations from Game 2 of the World Series:

* Let me get this straight… the game was delayed so John Cougar could come out and sing a car commercial? What, did he forget the words to Jack & Diane and Hurt So Good? You didn’t see Bob Seger pulling that crap and he has volumes of songs that double as car commercials. There are generations of people who only know Seger as a jingle writer for TV ads. The Doobie Brothers? Who are they?

Incidentally, when the Inquirer’s Todd Zolecki was starting out in the biz, an old editor thought it would be a good idea if he went by the nom de guerre Todd Cougar. Later it became Todd Cougar Zolecki, to now when he finally settled on the name his parents gave him.

Todd’s just finished the final mix on his new album and it should be out in time for Christmas.

* Kenny Rogers – you know, the guy who beat up a cameraman in Texas – tosses a two-hitter and Rolen gets the hit? It seems to me that the Fox broadcast team believed that Rogers had pine tar on his pitching hand during the first inning because it appeared to be washed off in the subsequent innings. If Rogers doesn’t use pine tar when he picks fights with cameramen, he shouldn’t use it in the World Series.

Pine tar, of course, is a foreign substance that cannot be placed on the ball intentionally. Certainly, foreign substances are “accidentally” placed on the ball during a course of a game, which can cause it to do all sorts of wacky things. I remember a conversation with Todd Pratt in the Veterans Stadium clubhouse where he revealed all of the zanier things done to the ball in a game. That was fun.

When I was pitching for my fifth-grade team, the Lancaster Township Phillies, I used to scuff and nick the ball with the metal tags on the heel of my Rawlings glove. By doctoring the ball in that manner I was able to make it move a little more than the chintzy spinning curve I used to huck up there.

I suppose by revealing this that I am no longer eligible for the Hall of Fame… oh well, I had a good run.

And since I’m coming clean, I guess I should tell all of my secrets. For instance, I bet on baseball in Las Vegas in August of 2003. I would have won some money, too, if the Phillies would have avoided a sweep in Milwaukee during that ugly losing skid that culminated with team meetings, players-only bus rides and meetings, and Tyler Houston’s inexplicable release that strange, strange day at Shea Stadium.

Boy those were the days.

I also use Ibuprofen quite regularly to battle through 100-plus mile weeks, and ingest obscene amounts of caffeine. So obscene that they recognize me when I walk in the door at the local Starbucks and simply pour me “the usual” instead of asking me for my order.

So obscene that similar amounts of caffeine have been known to kill a Shetland pony.

The usual, of course, is a venti breakfast blend with a double shot. Sometimes I have two, like last Saturday when I nearly crashed the car into the hedge lining my driveway because my caffeine-addled hands were shaking so much and my vision was blurred.

In fact, stealing a page from an interview I recently read with Brian Sell, I have begun mixing sugar-free Red Bull with water and Gatorade. I also stopped doing pushups because I read an interview where Lance Armstrong said he quit doing them during his Tour de France winning streak because he was afraid that the extra weight would slow him down during his climbs up the Alps.

I’m not climbing the Alps any time soon, but the less weight I have to carry around the faster I’ll be.

Then again, if Gaylord Perry and Ty Cobb are in the Hall maybe there’s hope for Pete Rose and me…

Uh, maybe not.

* It’s nice to see all-time good guy Sean Casey in the World Series. Casey is one of those guys who says hello to everyone and can remember the name of every person he meets. Whenever I see him around the ballpark he always has a big smile on his face or is laughing with someone.

Here’s another Casey story: A classmate of his at the University of Richmond told me that when Casey received bids to join several of the fraternities on campus, he paid individual visits to each governing body thanking them for the offer despite turning down several of them.

* Back to cameraman thrower Rogers’ dirty hand. After the game, the angry old man said he simply had dirty hands.

“It was a big clump of dirt,” Rogers said, noting that he had his hands all over the rosin bag. “I didn't know it was there. They told me about, but it was no big deal.”

Upon washing it off, Rogers got better, allowing just two hits in eight innings to extend his 2006 playoff scoreless innings streak to 23. Not bad for a 41-year-old lefty whose ERA from 1996 and 1999 with the Yankees and Mets was 9.47.

Besides, according to supervisor of umpires Steve Palermo, dirt is OK. In fact, there is dirt all over the field. Check it out sometime.

“Dirt is not a foreign substance. That's the playing surface. There was absolutely no detection that he put anything on the ball by any of the umpires. That rule regards if he deliberately put something on the ball to doctor the ball. There was an observation, and [Marquez] saw there was dirt, and he asked him to take it off,” Palermo told reporters in Detroit. “It was observed as dirt. [The umpires] have a pretty good idea what dirt is and what a foreign substance is.”

* Interestingly, Kenny Rogers’ Baseball Reference web page is not sponsored. Ty Cobb’s page and Gaylord Perry’s have the same sponsor. Pete Rose and Pete Rose Jr. also have sponsors.

Kenny Rogers? Yours for $70.

Yeah, I know… $70 seems pretty steep for a journeyman 41-year-old lefty with a short fuse. So in searching for a few bargains, I dug up Jim Todd, an alum of my high school – J.P. McCaskey in Lancaster, Pa. – who pitched for six seasons for the A’s, Cubs, Mariners. Todd is out there for $10.

The other McCaskey kids to make it to the Majors are both available for $10, too. John Parrish, the wild Orioles’ lefty rehabbing from Tommy John surgery is available, just like his classmate Matt Watson, who I’m told played in Japan after call-ups with the Mets and A’s in 2004 and 2005.

Remember the 1980 Phillies? How about Manny Trillo, Bake McBride for $20? Marty Bystrom – I hear he lives in Lancaster County – for $10. Nino Espinosa, Dickie Noles, Randy Lerch, Dick Ruthven, Warren Brusstar, and the coup de grace, John Vukovich, are all available for $10.

That’s money better spent that the $70 for Rogers.

3 weeks to go

Just this week my wife asked me how my training would be different if I didn’t have to worry about money and jobs or any of the burdens a non-Powerball winner has to contend with.

“What would you be doing right now if you didn’t have any of those responsibilities,” she asked.

“Well, after my third massage of the week, I’d get on a plane and head to your parents’ house in Estes Park,” I said.

Estes Park, of course, is in Colorado -- just 30 miles north of Boulder, the mecca of running. Actually, it’s 7,522-plus feet above sea level and it’s where I “officially” started my training for the Harrisburg Marathon on Nov. 12. For 10 days in July, I woke up every morning, drank some coffee with a water chaser before heading off on a 13-mile run over the first half of the Estes Park Marathon course.

If anyone has ever been to Estes Park in June and July, it’s easy to understand why these runs would be perfect. First, while sunny, the temperatures rarely range past 85 degrees with humidity below 20 percent. For Northeasterners, summertime humidity is a killer and is probably the reason why Gatorade was invented.

But aside from the weather and the 8-minute per mile runs, the hill work made me as strong as an ox. Actually, to call what I ran a “hill” doesn’t do it justice. Estes Park, as most know, is the headquarters for the Rocky Mountain National Park. With that in mind, it kind of changes the perspective of what we call a hill here at sea level on the east coast.

Every morning I ran a flat and rolling downhill first two miles before taking off on a four-mile climb (yeah, that’s right) that took me 45 minutes to complete on a fast day. At the apex, the run up the hill took me to 8,150-feet above sea level.

I’m convinced those 45 minutes up that four-mile stretch was the backbone of my entire training program. That’s why if I were financially independent, I would be out there running up those hills to sharpen up for Nov. 12.

Then again, Estes Park was hit with 7½ feet of snow on Tuesday. It probably melted or was quickly cleared away the next day, but I’m definitely not ready for snow running yet. It was a pain running in the rain and high winds this week – who needs snow?

Anyway, on to the week:

Monday – 24 miles in 2:42:20
It felt like it was 1998 all over again. I ran the entire time in the Brick Yards and Baker Field and I did not stop to drink... in fact, I didn't stop at all. It was a pretty good run, though I definitely slowed down at the end.

Tuesday – 15.3 miles in 1:47:34
Ran in a steady downpour. In the old days I would have waited for the rain to pass before running, but I don't have that luxury anymore. What happens if I have to race in the rain? Let’s hope for partly cloudy skies and 55 degrees on Nov. 12.

Wednesday – 17 miles in 1:51: 36
I wanted to run as hard as I could without exerting myself during the second half of the run. However, I could only go 6:10 to 6:15. I ran three miles (after 9.5) in 18:40, which is slower than I felt. Still, it was pretty easy to hold that pace. I hope I can do the same with 5:50 to 6:00 pace.

Thursday – 18 miles in 2:04:12
Tried to make my legs go faster, but they wouldn't do it. Despite the lack of speed, I ran strong and didn't feel bad -- just slow. Did a whole bunch of hills, too. I suppose I did repeats if you want to get technical about it.

Friday – 15.1 miles in 1:46:11
It was as windy as I can ever remember -- excluding that time in Boston in Feb. '98 when the gusts were 70 m.p.h. I woke up tight and tired and not really sure how much I had for a workout. Nevertheless, I kept it together for some decent hill work. I figured if I wasn't going to run fast I might as well get some strength work in.

Saturday – 18.2 miles in 2:04:16
Kept the same pace the entire time. Ran some more hills -- like yesterday -- and even overcame some stomach trouble an hour into the run. Three 2-hour runs in a week is pretty good. The plan was to get up early and go to a 10-mile race, but getting up early in the morning is easier said than done.

Sunday – 7.4 miles in 46:26
Wanted to run another 5k or 5-mile time trial, but my right hamstring was a little tight and I didn't get much sleep. Either way, I was able to keep the pace fairly up tempo. I even took my iPod with me, which is rare.

That’s 115 miles for the week. Three weeks to go – 11 more hard training days and 10 days to taper.

On another note, just for fun I’d like to run the Estes Park Marathon. The race has a nice web site packed with tons of info; such as the race is the “highest paved marathon in the world.”

I’m curious if there is a higher unpaved marathon?

After spending 10 days running the first half of the course, I’m really impressed that some badass named Anton Krupicka ran it in 2:45:02 last June. I’d like to see what Anton could do on a flat course like Chicago… it might be too easy for him.

So, yes, if I didn’t have a job, a mortgage, a car payment and all of that other stuff to worry about, I’d be in Estes getting ready. Every morning I’d go to Kind Coffee for a big cup of caffeine and a Clif Bar and then I’d head up those hills.

A return to sea level for the race would make me feel like one, gigantic lung.

Live on the Web, it's the Chicago Marathon

I love the Internet. I mean I really, really love the Internet. For a fan of sports that television doesn’t really have the time or patience for, the Internet is the greatest invention since fire.

OK, maybe the wheel.

Actually, the Internet has changed the mainstream sports, too. If a team or a league, etc. doesn’t have a top-flight web site it isn’t fulfilling its obligation to its fans. Even better than that, the Internet has changed the entire dynamic of sports (and news). Television and newspapers are nothing more than a delivery method – nothing more or less.

When there is important news, the first place most people turn these days is not the television, it’s the ‘net.

Nevertheless, I spent most of Saturday and Sunday morning tuned into sporting events that I never would have been able to watch under the old way of delivery. Thanks to the wonderful World Wide Web, I got to watch live coverage of The Ironman world championships from Kona, Hawaii on Saturday, as well as live coverage of Sunday’s Chicago Marathon.

In the past, I had been able to watch west-coast baseball games during the pennant races via the Web on MLB.com. Realizing that it was cutting out a segment of its audience, the NHL has followed MLB’s footsteps and is broadcasting selected games on Yahoo! and Comcast, the Web’s most popular sports site. That means if one wants to catch Columbus Blue Jackets games, one can.

Yes, thanks to the Web it’s a great time to be a sports fan.

But everyone already knows that.

Just imagine my Sunday morning delight when I got to watch reigning Boston Marathon champion and course record holder Robert Cheruiyot hold off my pick Daniel Njenga to win the Chicago Marathon in 2:07:35. How fun is that?

Interestingly, the chilly and windy temperatures made for slower times in Chicago this morning (they call it The Windy City for a reason, right?) so Cheruiyot’s 2:07:35 on Chicago’s slick and speedy course was actually slower than his winning time on a tougher Boston course this year. In fact, prior to the race American Brian Sell said that the windy conditions could add 5-plus seconds per mile. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s very significant for runners looking for good times.

But what the Chicago race will be remembered for is Cheruiyot’s fall at the finish line as he was ready to lift his arms in victory while breasting the finishing tape. It appeared as if the Kenyan slipped on either the marathon’s logo at the finish line or the chip-timing mat, which sent his legs into the air and his head to the concrete.



Luckily for Cheruiyot, his feet pitched forward to break the finishing plane before he had to be helped off the course.

You know it’s bad fall when a guy’s feet land last and his head lands first.

Nevertheless, it was a third second-place finish at Chicago for Njenga and a 2:10:48 for Sell, a Pennsylvania kid, who was definitely primed for a sub-2:10.

Sell was the second American finisher behind Abdi Abdiraham, who finished fourth in 2:08:55. That’s the second-fastest time by an American on a non-aided course.

Another interesting observation from watching the race on the feed from the CBS affiliate in Chicago was all of the men – American men – finishing the race as the top women were heading in. Ethiopian Berhane Adere won the women’s race in 2:20:42 in a duel with Galina Bogomolova, in which the pair had to weave around a pack of men digging for the finish.

According to the results, 36 American men met the “A” qualifying standards (2:20) for the Olympic Trials, while 15 more were under the “B” standard (2:22). All told, 117 people finished under 2:30, which makes me think Chicago is the course to run if one is looking for a fast time.

Better yet, the race will be broadcast on the Internet.

It's the World Series!

So Scott Rolen finally got a hit in the World Series, and Albert Pujols finally smashed a home run in his fifth series game. More interestingly, after going 1-for-30 in their first World Series, Rolen and Jim Edmonds went 4-for-8 in Saturday night’s opener. These facts got me thinking…

What were the Tigers watching during their week off?

Who throws Scott Rolen a changeup when he can’t get around on a fastball? Why pitch to Pujols with first base open? Did the Tigers get a hold of the Lions’ scouting tapes?

Geez.

Nevertheless, still feeling the burn of Endy Chavez’s catch to rob him of a home run, Rolen felt a little goofy when describing his homer that snapped his World Series oh-fer.

"The ball was in the air and I was trying to figure out how was this one going to get screwed up," Rolen told reporters. "What's going to happen here? Hit a tree? I wasn't sure who was going to catch that ball. I figured somebody would. I was just happy a fan did."

Rolen also doubled in a 2-for-4 outing in which he scored twice and knocked in his first post-season RBI of 2006. After the well-publicized “feud” with manager Tony La Russa in the NLDS and NLCS, Rolen says he was happy to get the World Series and turn the page.

“It was a challenge. The NLCS was a challenge for me mentally,” Rolen said. “It was nice to turn a page on that and get a new series, a new environment and a new everything. Felt like tonight I had a little fight in me again.”

Pujols also homered, which came on a curious decision from manager Jim Leyland. Though the Tigers’ says his team is going to pitch to Pujols as if the count were 0-2, according to Fox’s Tim McCarver, Tigers’ rookie Justin Verlander grooved a fastball that Pujols smacked on a line over the right-field fence.

Leyland knew it was a mistake and told the announcers so during the inexplicable in-game interview segment.

"I have to take full responsibility,'' Leyland said. “Verlander tried to get one outside but it tailed. Obviously we weren't supposed to be pitching to him.''

Yeah, oops.

But therein lies the rub. Pujols is Pujols. He’s the reigning MVP and the game’s best hitter, so the Tigers know what they are going to get with him. But if Rolen and Edmonds start swinging the bats just a notch better than the combined 10-for-43 in the NLCS, everything changes. Suddenly, the Cardinals aren’t the 83-victory team that limped into the playoffs and surprised both the Padres and Mets.

If Rolen and Edmonds have rebounded as they showed in Game 1, buckle up.

On another note, do you think that guy with the handheld camera had a difficult time keeping up with Rolen during his home-run "trot."

More World Series stuff
According to Baseball Prospectus’ list of the 10 biggest World Series mismatches – based on regular-season winning percentages – two of the series went to seven games, while three underdogs won.

The most notable underdog? The ’69 Mets over the Orioles.

The 2006 World Series is only the seventh most mismatched series, tied with the 1975 World Series, which lasted seven games and featured one of the most memorable games in baseball history.

Beginning in the 1987 World Series, only three teams have won Game 1 and lost the series.

The Ironman

One of my most favorite sporting events in the world takes place today, and no, it’s not the opening game of the World Series or the Temple-Northern Illinois game.

Today is Ironman day. The day some of the badest men and women on the planet turn up on the Hawaiian Island of Kona to swim for 2.4 miles, cycle for 112, all to warm themselves up for a marathon.

Pretty damn cool.

To avoid confusion, though, it should be noted that an “Ironman” is any race that consists of the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 26.2-mile run. The Ironman event in Hawaii is the sports’ world championship and, like the Boston Marathon or Olympic Trials, requires relatively strict qualifying standards for entry. That means the crème de la crème of the triathlon are typically in Hawaii for the event.

In fact, there are 22 Ironman events around the globe each year, including six in the United States. However, aspirants for Hawaii can qualify not only at the Ironman events, but also one of the shorter half-Ironmans or Olympic distance events (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run).

Needless to say, if one were to qualify for Hawaii, one goes.

Unfortunately, The Ironman, as the Hawaiian race is known, is not televised until next month when NBC can edit and dramaticize the event. Needless to say, there are tons of human-interest stories at The Ironman, as well as the always grueling and exciting race for the World Championship. Aside from that, athletes that most would never hear about, like Dave Scott and the irrepressible Mark Allen have created careers out of their numerous victories in Hawaii.

At the same time, Allen’s wife, Julie Moss, became a legend at The Ironman. Moss’ claim to fame came in the ’82 Ironman when, dehydrated, she tried to crawl to the finish line to win the race only to be passed just before the line.

Words don’t do it justice:



So until I get to Hawaii (I have to learn how to swim without sinking first), my Saturday will be spent watching the race on the Internet before tuning into the first game of the World Series.

I think I’ll skip the Temple-Northern Illinois game.

Apropos of nothing, the USATF could learn a lot of promoting its sport and its athletes by copying the playbook of the World Triathlon Corporation. For that matter, so too could most of the major league sports. The Ironman web site is one of the best "league" sports sites out there.

Chicago eve
For the endurance junkies out there, check out the ChasingKIMBIA site, which has been documenting a few of the contender's preparation for Sunday's Chicago Marathon.

I'm also standing by my predictions of a sub-2:10 for Brian Sell, a top 3 finish for American Abdi Abdirahman, and a victory for Japan-based Kenyan Daniel Njenga.

Blast from the past II

Note: In our continuing "Blast from the past" series, here's the story from July 29, 2002 when ALCS MVP was traded to the Phillies. As everyone remembers, there was another player or two involved in that deal, which makes the story a lot longer. This one is a beast, so clear your schedule and order in if you want to attempt to delve through.

'I've Died and Gone to Heaven... ' Phillies Deal 'Excited' Scott Rolen to St. Louis
After months of speculation, tons of rumors and lots of innuendo, the Phillies have finally traded Scott Rolen. Once viewed as the rightful heir to Mike Schmidt's throne at third base and as the cornerstone of a franchise on the way up, Rolen left town after an acrimonious season-and-a-half where the luster was chipped away from the city's one-time golden boy.

And Rolen, as stated in an interview with ESPN.com's Peter Gammons, could not be happier about the trade.

"I felt," he said to Gammons upon hearing the news about the trade on Monday night, "as if I'd died and gone to heaven. I'm so excited that I can't wait to get on the plane (Tuesday morning) and get to Florida to join the Cardinals."

For Rolen, Triple-A reliever Doug Nickle and an undisclosed amount of cash, the Phillies have obtained infielder Placido Polanco, lefthanded pitcher Bud Smith and reliever Mike Timlin, general manager Ed Wade announced in a spare conference room in the bowels of Veterans Stadium on Monday.

But more than receiving three players in return for the game's best defensive third baseman, the Phillies have ended a once-happy marriage that seemed destined to end with a ceremony in Cooperstown and his No. 17 hung on a commemorative disc beyond the outfield wall.

Instead, it ended in a soap-operatic mess filled with more whispered back-biting than an episode of Dynasty. With the dust finally clearing, the Phillies have lost their best player and receive a lefthanded pitcher in Smith who threw a Major League no-hitter last Sept. 3 but is still only in Triple-A, a one-time closer in Timlin who is eligible for free agency at the end of the season and might again be dealt before the season ends and an infielder in Polanco who is more akin to line-drive hitting Marlon Anderson than the powerful Rolen.

And it marks the second time since 2000 that the Phillies have lost a player worth the price of a season ticket. Almost two years to the day, Wade dealt Curt Schilling to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Travis Lee, Vicente Padilla, Omar Daal and Nelson Figueroa. Since the deal, Schilling has won a ring and composed a 45-14 record.

Once Spring Training was in full swing, Wade knew Rolen was not going to be a Phillie in 2003.

"I knew in Spring Training that we had a zero chance to get anything done," Wade said.

In brokering the deal, Wade admits that the Phillies are giving up a lot, but he's more interested in the players the team has now opposed to the players they once had.

"We did not replace Scott Rolen with an All-Star, Gold Glove third baseman, but we did replace him with a very good baseball player, and we got some other guys who should help us,'' Wade said.

In adding Rolen, Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty believes his club has added the piece of the puzzle needed to finish off the rest of the NL Central. With a five-game lead over the second-place Cincinnati Reds, Rolen not only picks up a lot of ground in the standings, but also seems slated for his first-ever appearance in the playoffs. This fact should satisfy Rolen, who said during a cantankerous press conference at the beginning of spring training that the Philles were not committed to winning.

"We are very pleased and excited to add Scott Rolen to our lineup," Jocketty said in a statement. "He is an All-Star, a proven run producer and an excellent defensive player."

In a quickly assembled press conference in which only Wade spoke, the GM broke down his side of the negotiations and relayed Rolen's feelings about the deal. After returning to Philadelphia from Atlanta where Rolen belted a home run in a victory over the Braves (wearing a throwback, powder-blue Phils uniform, no less) on Sunday, the new Red Bird was trying to figure out how to get to Miami where he will make his debut against the Marlins on Tuesday.

"He said he appreciated the opportunity and the organization and wondered where he goes from here and how he gets there," Wade said. "He was fairly single-minded in getting his gear and getting on an airplane and making sure that he was with the Cardinals in Florida in time for the game [Tuesday]."

Like Rolen's last season in Philadelphia, Wade said the negotiations with the Cardinals were quite tempestuous with each club making concessions. According to Wade, trade talks between the Cardinals and Phillies broke down without a deal at 11 p.m. in Sunday night and that as of Monday afternoon, the Phils were currently negotiating a deal with an unnamed team until the Cardinals jumped back into the fray.

"We were one phone call away from Scott not being a Cardinal and going somewhere else," said Wade.

The Phillies' GM faced the prospect of getting nothing for his star if Rolen stayed in Philadelphia. If the new basic agreement between players and owners includes a redesign of the the First-Year Player Draft, it's possible that it will eliminate compensatory draft picks for teams that lose free agents.

"At some point you have to say the deal that sits in front of me is good enough that it outweighs gambling that something better is going to be out there 48 hours from now," said Wade. "The players were right."

According to Wade, the deal was finalized at 5 p.m. on Monday and was announced officially at 6:30 p.m. With Monday being an off day in the National League, all players will be with their respective teams by Tuesday. Smith will report to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and will start either on Wednesday or Thursday.

Still, Wade says the deal occurred because the Phillies were very aggressive. Some teams, he claims, "moved out of the process because of the ebb and flow of the labor situation." He categorized the Cardinals as one of those teams as well as six others that he claims he was talking to.

Rolen had been the subject of trade rumors after deciding not to negotiate on a multi-year extension that Wade categorized on Monday as a "lifetime deal." The Phillies report that they were anticipating giving Rolen a 10-year contract extension last November that could've been worth up to $140 million. Rolen ended up signing an $8.6 million, one-year deal in January that kept him and the Phillies away from an arbitration hearing, but made it clear he wanted to become a free agent after this season. That decision forced the Phillies to make a move or risk losing him for nothing.

"I regret the outcome," Wade said. "We were very serious about the offer we made and when that didn't work out we tried to get him to sign a two-year guaranteed contract with player options. We regret the outcome but don't regret the way we approached him."

In reality, the Phillies never offered the 10-years and $140 million they keep touting. Instead, it the guaranteed portion of the offer was six years, $72 million. The deal stretched to 10 years and to $140 million only if one included all the options and incentives and buy-outs in the package, all structured in the club's behalf.

Surely it's not a deal to sneeze at, but nowhere close to the "lifetime" contract Wade and his minions keep throwing out there.

Art of the Deal
Rolen did not sign an extension with the Cardinals, so he remains eligible for free agency. However, when rumors reached fervor on Saturday, Rolen said he would be interested in signing a contract extension with the Cardinals.

About signing, potentially, with the Cardinals, Rolen said on Saturday that the Red Birds were one of the teams he would consider.

"We all know that is a situation I'd be willing to talk about," Rolen said on Saturday.

On Monday, he was a lot less ambiguous with his comments as told to Gammons. Growing up in Jasper, Ind., Rolen says he went to two parks as a kid — St. Louis and Cincinnati.

"I was there at Busch with my dad, sitting in the stands wherever we could get a seat, watching Ozzie Smith," Rolen said. "It may be the best place to play in the game, and it's the place I always dreamed of playing.

"As I said, I've gone to heaven."

And dropping him in the middle of the Cardinals' powerful lineup looks like hell for opposing pitchers. When the Cardinals come to the Vet on Aug. 16 for a three-game set, Rolen should bat fifth in a lineup that looks something like this:

Fernando Vina, 2b
Edgar Renteria, ss
Jim Edmonds, cf
Albert Pujols, lf
Rolen, 3b
J.D. Drew, rf
Tino Martinez, 1b
Mike Matheny, c

Signing potential free agents hasn't been a problem for the Cardinals, who play in front of well-mannered fans in a baseball-crazy city. In the last five years, the Cardinals traded for potential free agents Jim Edmonds and Mark McGwire and convinced them to stay in St. Louis long-term.

However, while Wade says there were numerous suitors all clamoring for Rolen's services, ComcastSportsNet.com sources indicate otherwise. According to one well-placed baseball executive, if a deal with the Cardinals wasn't consummated, Rolen would still be wearing the red-and-white Phillie pinstripes.

"I really searched for another team that was interested and I couldn't find one," the source says. "The Phillies were trying to create a market for Rolen that didn't exist."

Originally, rumors circled that the Phillies were going to receive Double-A prospect Jimmy Journell, who is rated as the Cardinals' top up-and-comer by Baseball America. However, a source says that Journell was never part of any deal. Instead, the source says, the Cardinals were not going to make a deal with the Phillies unless Timlin — a free agent when the season ends — was included in the deal.

But Wade says it was Smith who was the "deal buster."

"He was the key part of the deal," Wade said.

Like the other rumors, it was reported that a deal with another club would not occur if the Phillies had to pay the remainder of Rolen's contract or if he couldn't work out a contract extension with an interested club.

Not at all true.

"I wish I kept a list of all the misinformation," Wade said.

The Players
Polanco, 26, is hitting .284 with five homers and 27 RBIs. He batted .307 last season and .316 in his first full year, in 2000. Wade said he'd play third base and bat second in the Phillies' lineup against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night.

Polanco is a slick fielder who plays three infield positions and leads third basemen in fielding chances. However, he has played too many games at short and second to qualify for the league lead. A prototypical contact hitter, Polanco has struck out just 26 times in 92 games this season.

Smith, who pitched a no-hitter in his rookie season last year, was sent to Triple-A Memphis on July 20 after going 1-5 with a 6.94 ERA in 11 appearances, including 10 starts. The 22-year-old lefthander was 6-3 with a 3.83 ERA in 16 games last year.

In his last outing in the big leagues on July 19, Smith allowed eight runs and nine hits in 4 2/3 innings in a loss to the Pirates.

Smith is best compared to Randy Wolf.

"He's a surplus prospect," Wade said.

Timlin is 1-3 with a 2.51 ERA in 42 appearances and is holding righties to a .197 average. The 36-year-old righthander is in the final year of a contract that is paying him $5.25 million this season. In 1996 he saved 31 games for the Toronto Blue Jays and has saved 114 games during his 11-year Major League career. However, this season he has blown two saves working primarily in middle relief.

Timlin won two World Series' with the Blue Jays and appeared in two games of the 1993 series against the Phillies.

Nickle, 27, was 3-5 with a 2.97 ERA and seven saves in 34 games — one of them a start — at Scranton this season. He appeared in four games — 4 1/3 innings pitched — for the Phillies this season and has made 10 career major-league appearances.

Glory Days
When Scott Rolen came to Philadelphia as a fresh-faced 21-year old, he was too good to be true. He played hard, possessed Midwestern, homespun values and spoke about fair play and hard work. If he was going to do something, he said, he was going to do it all out and to win.

Philadelphia fans immediately latched onto the quiet kid from Jasper, Ind.

After winning the Rookie of the Year Award in 1997, Rolen signed a four-year, $10 million deal with the idea that he was going to be a Phillie for life. In fact, Rolen signed for far less than he could have gotten because he believed the Phillies were on the right path and he was enamored with the idea that he was going to be like his kindred spirit, Mike Schmidt, and spend his entire career in Philadelphia.

But all those losing seasons caught up with Rolen. So too did the firing of mild-mannered manager Terry Francona, who is a close friend of Rolen's. Meanwhile, Rolen's quiet nature in a city full of loud and sometimes abrasive sports fans, wore thin on both sides. Sensitive and thoughtful, Rolen chose to do his talking on the field or in the clubhouse — nowhere else. Philly fans wanted their rough-and-tumble athletes' personas to translate to a give-and-take relationship with the city that Rolen was not willing to have. His family (and his dogs, Enis and Emma) came first and nothing else was a close second.

When prodigal son and fan-favorite Larry Bowa was hired as the team's skipper, many speculated when he and his sensitive third baseman would clash. It didn't take long.

In June of 2001 during a series against Tampa Bay, Bowa told the Philadelphia Daily News that Rolen's recent futility at the plate was "killing us." Rolen took the criticism not as constructive but intended to embarrass him and had it out with the manager before a game against the Devil Rays.

"I came in here with the intent of kicking your ass," Rolen reportedly told Bowa as he walked into the manager's office that day.

Their relationship remained strained ever since and the soap opera began in earnest.

Later that year, Phillies executive assistant and manager of the hard-boiled manager of 1980 World Championship team, Dallas Green, told a radio station that Rolen was OK with being a "so-so" player and that his personality would not allow him to be a great player.

After the season, Rolen summed up the 2001 campaign as the worst he ever went through and cited Bowa and Green as the main culprits in his dissatisfaction. His ire manifested itself during an edgy press conference to kick off spring training.

There, Rolen held a press conference to explain why he opted for free agency questioning what he thought was the team's commitment to winning.

"Philadelphia is the [fourth-largest] market in the game, and I feel that for the last however long, the organization has not acted like it," Rolen said in February. "There's a lack of commitment to what I think is right."

Rolen pointed out that the Phillies, who entered the season with a payroll around $60 million that ranks in the bottom third of all Major League franchises, were notorious for allowing players of star quality walk away when their contracts are about to expire. It happened two seasons ago with Curt Schilling and he wasn't so sure it was going to stop now, he said.

"Part of my whole problem is that I look around and see Bobby Abreu, I see Pat Burrell, I see Doug Glanville and Mike Lieberthal and this is the core that's been talked about for three or four years," Rolen said then. "These are unbelievable ballplayers. But three years from now, when everybody becomes a free agent or arbitration-eligible and it's time to re-sign everybody, I want to turn around and see Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell and Doug Glanville and Mike Lieberthal. To me, what history shows, I will not be able to do that."

Not unless they are playing for the Cardinals.

What followed over the next six weeks were a few public discussions with Bowa and a miserable slump in May and June that turned his .284 April into a .240 average by the end of May. In June, an unnamed teammate reportedly called Rolen a "cancer" and that his status was a distraction to the team.

However, things haven't been all bad for Rolen this season. He started in his first-ever All-Star Game and is on pace to drive in over 100 runs for the second year in a row and third time of his career and belt 25 homers for the fifth season in a row.

But the constant circus around his future was starting to drain him, he told Gammons.

"I think I must have been asked more questions than the rest of the team combined," Rolen said. "It was crazy. In spring training, all the way back to the winter, it was that way. Before the All-Star break, I know I was a little down. I shouldn't have been, but having people leaning on both my shoulders all the time drained me.

"People would tell me that I needed to be more selfish, to play for numbers. But that's not the way I know how to play. I'm not good at playing for numbers, I'm not good at playing for myself. To go from last place to first is more than I ever could have dreamed."

The Future
Even with Polanco in the fold, Wade says the Phillies go into the offseason in a position they haven't been familiar with in almost a decade.

"We go into the offseason for the first time in nine years potentially looking for a third baseman," Wade said.

For now, Wade says his concern is to build for the future and not look into the past that saw superstars Curt Schilling and now Rolen leave amidst acrimony.

"I don't think we did anything to necessarily make the player unhappy,'' Wade said. "We're always trying to do things the right way. We're always trying to make our players comfortable. We're always trying to compensate them fairly. We're always trying to bring teammates around that they are comfortable playing with and gives us a better chance of winning.''

He certainly has given Rolen that chance now ... problem is, it isn't in Philadelphia.

E-mail John R. Finger

Blast from the past

Note: Watching Jeff Suppan win the MVP of the NLCS made me remember the 2003 season when the veteran right-hander almost became a Phillie. Upon some digging through the archives, I unearthed this story from July 31, 2003 about why Suppan ended up in Boston, and then ultimately St. Louis. Anyway, here's a little trip down amnesia lane.

Wade Stands Pat as Trade Deadline Passes
As the trade deadline passed with nary a whisper, general manager Ed Wade sauntered from the batting cage to the Phillies' dugout like a fifth grader asked to come to the board and figure out a math problem in front of the whole class. Sure, he absolutely knows the answer, but he isn't too jazzed about showing everyone his logic.

On Thursday, before the game against the Dodgers at the Vet, Wade had to explain how he thought the Phillies were better by not pulling the trigger on a rumored deal with the Pirates in which starter Jeff Suppan would have come to Philadelphia. Instead, Suppan ended up with the Red Sox, while highly coveted starter Sidney Ponson — who the Phillies never showed an interest in — went from the Orioles to the Giants.

Meanwhile, Wade stuck to his guns. During the past two days, the general manager told reporters that he believed his club was good enough to go to the playoffs without making a deal. With 55 games left in the season, we'll all get a chance to see if Wade's logic fits.

"We assessed our needs and said, 'we like our pitching. We're second in the league in pitching. Our bullpen is second. We went out and added [Mike] Williams because we wanted to add strength to strength and another experienced arm,'" Wade said. "We have the third best record in the league, sixth best record in baseball, second leading ERA, third in defense."

However, it does seem as if Suppan would make the Phillies' rotation better. The right-hander is 10-7 with a 3.57 ERA this season, with three complete games and two shutouts during an ongoing five-game winning streak. He shut out St. Louis, 3-0, on Monday.

Had Wade been able to pull of the deal, Suppan would have supplanted Thursday night's starter Brandon Duckworth in the rotation. With a 3-5 record and a 5.16 ERA, Duckworth's season has been a parade of setbacks and bad outings. Once a promising prospect that flashed stretches of brilliance during his three seasons in the big leagues, Duckworth is obviously the weak link of the team's staff.

Nonetheless, by not making a deal to acquire another starter Wade has given the maligned right-hander a vote of confidence.

"I think that Brandon is the kind of guy that if other teams had him, he wouldn't be the fifth starter," Wade explained. "He wouldn't be the guy that gets skipped in the rotation because of off days. Obviously, we need him to step up and pitch like he did in his last start and that would be more than enough for us."

Wade says the Phillies and the Pirates had been talking since the beginning of the week, but the talks broke off Thursday morning. He also said that Yankees GM Brian Cashman called and offered third baseman Robin Ventura to the Phillies late Wednesday night, but the offer was nothing more than a cursory one.

The same can be said for a rumored deal that would have sent Brian Giles from the Pirates to the Phillies. Ultimately, the asking price was too much and the Pirates had other places they could shop.

"[Pittsburgh GM David Littlefield] indicated that they had another deal that made more sense," Wade said. "People that we were talking to said they had alternatives. It was never just a one-on-one situation where we were the perfect fit."

The problem, it seems, was the asking price. Wade was not willing to part with stud prospects Gavin Floyd and Cole Hamels, or Triple-A pitcher Ryan Madson. According to reports, it would have taken Madson and another minor leaguer to get Suppan, and Wade as well as manager Larry Bowa acknowledge that several teams had called about a deal involving the studs.

"Some teams don't even ask [about Floyd and Hamels] because they know we'll say no," Wade said. "Untouchable is a very strong word, but in the circumstance in which we were dealing here, we weren't going to move them.

"We think that Ryan Madson is going to be a major-league starter for a long time and he's very close. You also have to project time tables of when they're going to arrive and he's very close."

Said Bowa on Floyd and Hamels: "I don't like to use the word untouchable, but it would have been stupid to trade those two guys."

In the clubhouse, Bowa relaxed and joked with reporters while watching the up-to-the-minute deals teams were making around the league. Periodically, Bowa would announce how much time was left before the deadline and was quick to point out that he was not disappointed his GM failed to make a move.

"It's not like someone said, 'hey, you are going to get Joe Schmoe and it's 90 percent going to happen.' And I was all pumped up and Eddie came in and said it didn't go through," Bowa said. "There were never any false pretenses. Eddie has been straight and honest."

Regardless, public outcry has been that the Phillies needed to make a move before the stretch run. Some suggest that if Wade had been able to make a deal, it would have had invigorated the fans and maybe the players.

"I'm sure that sentiment exists. That sentiment may exist with some players in the clubhouse. It's human nature to want to be the best you can be. It's human nature to want the club to turn out to be the '27 Yankees. [But] you can't operate like that," Wade said. "With all due respect to the fans or anybody else, I think we pay as much attention to the composition of our club as anybody."

Not that anyone else will ever get to see.

Injury update
After straining his groin running the bases in the first inning of Wednesday night's victory over the Dodgers, Jim Thome sat out of Thursday's game. He said he was available to pinch hit and should be back in the lineup on Friday.

Meanwhile, David Bell took batting practice for the first time since going on the disabled list with an injured back on July 12.

Reliever Rheal Cormier was unavailable to pitch Wednesday night because of back spasms. He reports that he feels "fine."

Other notes
Hector Mercado cleared waivers after being designated for assignment on July 21 when the Phillies acquired Mike Williams. He has accepted an assignment to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and has 72 hours to report.

Bowa taped a segment for ESPN's "Hot Seat" before Thursday's game. The minute-long appearance features sports figures answering quick questions. Bowa says he was asked to give the first impression that came to his mind when he heard certain names. To "Tug McGraw," Bowa responded with "flake." To "Scott Rolen," Bowa said "the best defensive third baseman I have ever seen."

Insert your own comment here.

E-mail John R. Finger

It's the World Series (Endy Chavez edition)!

When it happened, I thought to myself, “Self, this could go down as the greatest catch ever.”

I was taking in all of the variables – the game, the inning, the circumstance, Game 7, etc. – in making the always over-the-top pronouncement of “greatest of all time.” But, of course, for a catch to go down as the greatest ever the team has to win the game.

The Mets didn’t do that so Endy Chavez just made a really, really dynamic catch.

By now, not even 12 hours after it occurred, most people have seen Endy Chavez’s catch to rob Scott Rolen of a potentially pennant-winning home run. Actually, when the ball left Rolen’s bat I thought a couple of things. One was why did Oliver Perez throw an inside pitch to Rolen? It’s the only thing he can hit.

The thing I thought was look at Rolen doing it in a Game 7 again. First the home run to beat Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the 2004 NLCS, and now this.

Then Endy Chavez did his thing and everything went crazy.

Endy Chavez? Wasn’t he so bad for the Phillies last season that Charlie Manuel simply refused to use him? Wasn’t he the team’s designated pinch runner, a la Herb Washington for the Oakland A’s in the mid-1970s? Didn’t Phillies want the season to end as quickly as possible just so they didn’t have to bother thinking about not putting Chavez on the playoff roster and they could let him become a free agent?

Didn’t Chavez make the Phillies pine for Marlon Byrd to return… well, actually, no. But the point is made. Chavez was not a good player in 2005.

But he was in 2006 where Chavez got off to a hot start during the World Baseball Classic with a couple of big home runs for Venezuela. From there he got a deal with the Mets and filled in very well for a team that came a few outs and a run away from making it to the World Series.

Actually, Chavez was a big part of that in spite of his 5-for-27 in the NLCS. But in Game 7, Billy Wagner was not.

hough manager Willie Randolph used Wagner in the ninth inning of a tie game in Game 2, the closer remained in the bullpen to watch the ninth as Aaron Heilman worked a second inning and gave up the pennant-winning home run to Yadier Molina with one out and one on.

Surely Randolph was asked quite a bit why he chose not to bring in the struggling Wagner for the ninth. That’s fair, especially since it was a move he routinely made all season long. To be sure, Randolph answered it logically and adroitly. But maybe the real reason Randolph didn’t use Wagner in the ninth was because Rolen was due up in the ninth? Rolen doubled off Wagner in his two-run ninth the night before.

"With all the righties coming up, I thought we could get through another inning with him and bring in Billy after that," Randolph said.

Who knows? Maybe Randolph was saving Wagner for the 10th or for when the Mets got a lead. After all, the bullpen was full since it was an all-hands-on-deck Game 7.

"He wanted to go with length there," Wagner said, defending his manager's decision. "He's done it both ways. It's easy to understand, knowing he's done it both ways. Besides, you don't know what you're going to get with me."

But in the end, Wagner found little consolation in how things ended.

"It's all for nothing," he said. "We ain't here to get to the playoffs and play good. We're here to go to the World Series.

"You never know when you're going to get another chance."

That's the trouble. Nothing is ever given. Neither is a lead. Now the Mets are finished and the Cardinals are heading to chilly Detroit in a rematch of the 1968 World Series.

Maybe we’ll see Mickey Lolich there? Denny McLain?

Elias says…
Did you know that Molina’s homer was just the fifth go-ahead home run in the ninth inning or later of a decisive postseason game? (By decisive we mean the seventh game of a best-of-seven series, the fifth of a best-of-five and so on.) The others were hit by Bill Mazeroski (1960 World Series), Chris Chambliss (1976 ALCS), Rick Monday (1981 NLCS) and Aaron Boone (2003 ALCS).

Or that the first-inning squeeze bunt by Ronnie Belliard was the eighth time a Tony La Russa team used such tactics in the playoffs?

Check it out.

World Series predictions
Scott Rolen will get a hit while the announcers will talk about his feud with La Russa. Albert Pujols will hit a home run. It will rain in Detroit. Phillies fans will talk about Jim Leyland and Placido Polanco because the Tigers will win in 5.

Best bets

Last week: 2-0-1
Year-to-date: 6-4-1

If you’re counting (and I know you are), that’s 5-0-1 in two weeks. That’s pretty good. Almost good enough to pack it all in, load up the RV and head out to Vegas. There I can stagger around from sports book to sports book, looking for the friendliest odds and least watered-down drinks as I try to stake my claim.

Until I get my feet under me, I’ll have to subsist on the complimentary drinks and 99-cent shrimp cocktail. I guess that means I’ll have to stop being a vegetarian, too.

Who says the high life doesn’t have its drawbacks?

Anyway, let’s go:

Eagles minus 5 over Tampa Bay
How can go against a home ‘dog? Easy. The Bucs stink. It doesn’t matter that the Eagles are 3-7 against the spread in their last 10 games against a team with a losing record.

Temple plus 34 over Northern Illinois
Yes, we know that this about the worst Temple football season ever… which is really saying something. But if they can’t stay within 34 points of Northern Illinois, maybe it’s time to stop playing football up there on North Broad. Give the football program’s money to the track and cross-country teams. How cool would it be if they built some trails that connect to the loops in Fairmount Park and Kelly Drive?

I say very.

Colts minus 9 over Redskins
And it’s all over in Washington right about… now.

For the degenerate types who like the action, bet on Brian Sell running a sub-2:10 in Sunday’s Chicago Marathon. Sell won’t win, of course, but American Abdi Abdirahman should contend if his 61:07 in the Philly Half is any indication of his fitness.

However, there are four sub-2:07 runners in the field, not including defending Boston champion Robert Cheruiyot (he set the course record in April) is in the race along with 2005 Chicago and 2006 Boston runner-up Benjamin Maiyo. Maiyo likes to front run, but the pace at Chicago will be blistering since the course is pancake flat. In fact, at Chicago a curb on the sidewalk is viewed as a hill.

In this race, Daniel Njenga, 30, is the most intriguing. Unlike most Kenyan runners, he trains in Japan instead of the United States and hasn’t burdened himself with too much racing. Actually, Njenga typically runs just one marathon a year – though he ran two in 2004 – and has alternated between second and third places at Chicago going back to 2002.

With a 2:06:16 PR (2002 Chicago) in tow, look for the mysterious Njenga to finally break through.

New York is quickly approaching, too. Talk about a deep field...

It's Game 7!

What did we learn from Game 6?

How about that the Mets’ bullpen – excluding Billy Wagner – is the perfect anecdote to the Cardinals’ offense. Much has been made in the aftermath of the 5 1/3 innings and two-hit outing by rookie John Maine, but the Mets’ three-headed monster of Chad Bradford, Guillermo Mota and Aaron Heilman gave up two hits 2 2/3 innings before yielding to Wagner in the ninth.

Better yet, much kudos has been heaped on Mets’ skipper Willie Randolph for finding the right mix with his ‘pen. Randolph got Maine out of there at the right time as the rookie teetered on the edge all night long (he walked four and escaped a big jam in the first), and seemed to have learned a lot from Joe Torre during those runs with the Yankees.

Back then, when Randolph was a coach on Torre’s staff, the Yankees did it with their bullpen. Yes, they always had a formidable lineup and strong starting pitching, but those great Yankees’ teams were built from the bullpen forward. Mariano Rivera, obviously, is the focal point, but Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson, Ramiro Mendoza, and Graeme Lloyd were the cogs in the machine.

Plus, it always comes down to pitching. Sorry I can’t be any more insightful than that. Pitching and defense gets it done.

In that regard, I believe we found an ex-Phillie struggling worse than Scott Rolen.

Billy Wagner, come on down…

Wagner allowed two more runs in the ninth inning in Game 6, including a double to right from the slow-swinging Rolen, who may have saved his starting position for Game 7 with the hit. Never mind that Wagner sped up Rolen’s bat so that he could actually pull a fastball, or that the closer was not in a save situation – though he turned the game into one – and was just getting some work in, his playoff performances have been atrocious.

In six outings, Wagner has given up runs in three games for a 9.53 ERA. He’s also allowed 10 hits in 5 2/3 innings, though he has saved three games.

The problem, it seems, is Wagner’s fastball. It just doesn’t seem to have its old velocity or movement, which isn’t too uncommon for this point of the year. Wagner has been in 76 games since April, though his all-important strikeouts-per-nine innings (11.7) was up significantly this season. That’s probably why Tony La Russa believes Wagner will be a different pitcher if he gets into Game 7 with a one-run or two-run lead.

That’s what Wagner’s hoping for. He still wants the ball.

“This is what you dream of,” he told reporters after Game 6. “You want to go out. You dream of pitching the ninth and getting bum-rushed and going to the World Series.

“These are the games that define your year. You want to go out there and get it done.”

Still struggling…
Rolen had a chance in the first inning to knock out Maine and potentially win the game for the Cardinals, but he harmlessly flied out to right field. In fact, Rolen has had a lot of harmless at-bats despite the four-game hitting streak he’s carrying. Though the gold glover hasn’t been striking out much (three in two games during the playoffs), he hasn’t driven in a run, either.

Perhaps La Russa will place Rolen seventh in the batting order for Game 7? Perhaps he will find a spot for Scott Spiezio and So Taguchi in the lineup. The Cardinals could be tougher with Juan Encarnacion and Preston Wilson available for late-game pinch-hitting duty.

And another thing
Those white, pinstripe uniforms the Mets wore in Game 6 look sharp. It’s so 1986.

It's the playoffs!

Prior to the pivotal Game 5 of the NLCS, St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz called out top MVP candidate, Albert Pujols, essentially writing, “Do something to save us, Albert!” in his earnest, polite Midwestern way. After all, the fans in St. Louis don’t stand for any of that negative malarkey. In fact, they are tamer than the Baltimore Orioles fans, who when a player fails to put down a sacrifice bunt, all shout in unison, “Awwww! Rats! OK, good try. Let’s hustle, Birds!”

That’s not what they say in Philadelphia. Or New York. Or Boston. Or Atlanta – because they aren’t there.

Anyway, Bernie (I can’t spell his last name without looking or copy and pasting and I’m drinking my pre-workout coffee and Red Bull right now so I’m typing with one, shaky hand) rightly wrote that if the 83-win Cardinals are going to beat the Mets and go to the World Series, then it’s all going to fall on Pujols’ broad shoulders. Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds, after all, are weakened by surgeries, injuries and a long season. Scott Spiezio can’t continue his torrid pace – someone will figure him out sooner or later.

It’s up to Albert.

So when Pujols smacked that clutch homer off Tom Glavine – the guy who “had nothing” in Game 1 – it looks as if Pujols either read what Bernie wrote, knew how obvious Bernie’s words were since Rolen and Edmonds were being out-hit by Yadier Molina, or was surprised that the Mets and Glavine decided to pitch to him with those stiffs in the lineup behind him.

Nevertheless, the Cardinals are only one more victory at Shea Stadium from going to their second World Series in three season. According to the very astute and blog-reader Jayson Stark, this trip to the World Series would be the most improbable for the Cardinals.

Why? Try 83 victories, pal. That’s just two more than .500 and two fewer than the Phillies. Plus, to get to the Series the Cards would have beaten a 97-victory club in the NLCS. That’s pretty crazy, as Stark writes.

Cards in 6
Let’s do some limb climbing (always fun!) and predict a Cardinals victory in Game 6 tonight. Why? I think Chris Carpenter – the 2005 Cy Young Award winner and strong candidate for the award in 2006 (Brandon Webb will win) – is a little better than the Mets’ John Maine.

Nothing against Maine, who held hitters to a .212 batting average in 90 innings this season, but how much do the Mets wish they had Pedro at even 50 percent right now? Pedro, one of the best six-inning pitchers in baseball history, could do wonders coming out of the ‘pen for a couple of frames.

Meanwhile, Monday’s rainout and the flight back to Shea might be an advantage for the Cardinals. Really? Yeah, well ballplayers are creatures of habit and getting rid of a travel day for a getaway day – or night since Fox has been starting the games close to 8:30 p.m. – the Cardinals can pretend it’s just another routine trip to LaGuardia in mid-June or something.

Hey, play the mind game. Anything for a psychological advantage. After all, the Cards only won 83 games this season.

Good stuff
I’m not sure how many people were able to read the report by Mike Radano, Kevin Roberts and Rowan University since it’s only The Courier-Post, but anyone looking for something good to read about the local baseball club should check out the project.

Here it is:

The Rowan University report (PDF)

Kevin Roberts: Wins help mask PR bungling by Phillies

Mike Radano: Phillies flunk PR 101

Radano: The Phillies want problems to fade away

Radano: Time is a factor with Phillies fans

Radano: Phillies need a plan

Now that's a staff

Let’s go out on a limb here and say Charlie Manuel is on notice. His task for 2007 is to get the Phillies into the playoffs or he can forget about that contract extension for his pact that ends at the end of next year.

At least that’s the way it seemed when the Phillies announced that Davey Lopes, Art Howe and Jimy Williams will be the three new coaches on Manuel’s staff. You see, Lopes, Howe and Williams all have managed in the big leagues, and though only one manager in Phillies history has won more games after his first two seasons as skipper than Manuel, some might argue that a couple of those ex-managers have better credentials than their new boss.

Williams guided Toronto to the AL East title in 1989 and took the Red Sox to the wild card in 1998, 1999 and had six consecutive second-place finishes with the Red Sox and Astros from 1998 to 2003, earning AL manager of the year in ‘99.

Howe went to the playoffs in three straight seasons with the Moneyball Oakland A’s from 2000 to 2002, including back-to-back 100-win seasons in 2001 and 2002.

Lopes, the artful base stealer and Phillies nemesis from his playing days with the Dodgers, was the sacrificial lamb for three years with the Milwaukee Brewers. Nevertheless, the Phillies added 2,283 Major League victories to the coaching staff to go with Manuel’s 393.

Suddenly, the so-called overmatched Manuel has quite a bit of experience to draw upon in the dugout.

“We're going to have a hell of a staff,” he said.

That’s good, because there were a lot of whispers around the league that Manuel’s staff – specifically bench coach Gary Varsho – wasn’t doing him any favors. Varsho, after all, was Manuel’s right-hand man for in-game tactical decisions. But when Varsho was working in the same capacity on Larry Bowa’s staff, he mostly just had to position the outfield, write out the lineup card and his other administrative duties while Bowa called all the shots. But with Manuel, that lack of a heavy hand ultimately worked against him. In fact, one National League manager once told me to “tell Varsho to keep giving Charlie that good advice.”

Yes, it was a joke, but it wasn’t complimentary either.

On the new staff, Williams will be the bench coach and coordinate spring training the way John Vukovich used to. Howe, an infielder with those good Astros teams in the late 1970s and early 1980s, will be the third-base coach and infield instructor. Lopes will be the first-base coach and base running and outfield instructor.

Lopes could have a big influence on Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino on the base paths.

Conversely, if the Phillies struggle out of the gate in 2007, or Manuel, inexplicably, loses the clubhouse, GM Pat Gillick doesn’t have to look far for a replacement manager. In that regard will Charlie be sleeping with one open? Is he going to cast sidelong glances over his shoulder to see what his lieutenants are doing?

Nope. At least that’s what he says.

“Not at all,” Manuel said. “I feel good about it. These guys are going to be helpful to me and our club.

Gillick says – at least publically – that Manuel shouldn’t worry about anything but doing his job.

“More ideas, more imagination,” Gillick said. “These are the type of resources you need on a staff for your manager to draw on.”

Apparently, as stated previously, Manuel didn’t have that during his first two seasons.

He has it now.

“Charlie is the man, and we're going to do everything we can to help him be successful,” said Howe, who has a reputation for being one of the friendliest men in baseball despite the fact that he managed the Mets for two years. For normal folks, that experience is enough to make one turn his back on all of humanity.

Not Howe. Now he’s working for Charlie and the Phillies – the loosest and happiest team in the National League.

Et cetera
Though it’s not exactly a scoop or a well-kept secret, Gillick says he wants to try to deal Pat Burrell again. Apparently, the club had a deal with Baltimore last July but Burrell invoked his no-trade clause to remain in Philadelphia.

Said Gillick: “We're going to have to continue to look for a little more offense. We know that at this point, Pat has had a difficult time protecting [Ryan] Howard. We're going to have to continue to have to make an adjustment in that area. And naturally, we're going to have to continue to improve our pitching.

Gillick says the American League champion Tigers have advanced so quickly because of their pitching.

“I think one thing that's been proven is how well Detroit has pitched. If you look at the seven games they've won, it all goes back to pitching.”

But in order to be a legit player in the free-agent market for the highly coveted Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez, the Phillies will have to figure out what to do with Burrell and the $27 million they owe him for the next two seasons.

Coming up…
Musings from the NLCS and a look ahead to this weekend’s Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii and the Chicago Marathon, which unofficially kicks off the Fall marathoning season.

Plus, the opening game of the World Series is this Saturday in Detroit.

Hey Ho, Let's Go!

As I’ve written in the pages previously, I’m not into sentiment. Things pass, time marches on… that’s just what happens. If we can get some memories and good stories then it was all worth it.

So when a building closes or gets torn down, it’s progress. The cycle of life, I suppose. If something inanimate were still vital and useful then there would be no reason to move on.

Besides, when sentiment is done poorly, it’s just hokey and hackish. When it’s done well, it just makes me sad.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the demise of CBGB on the Bowery on Manhattan’s East Village. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to visit, stroll past and “experience” the whole CB’s trip many, many times. I put it right up there with visiting all historical sites, though like a ballpark, CB’s was interactive.

Like Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park, CBGB was not the best venue for its art in the world. Certainly there are a lot of places that are more modern, comfortable and, well, better. But unlike the old places, the new ones don’t have the vibe yet. They don’t make one feel like they are somewhere.

Important things actually occurred at those places.

Sure, one day something big will happen at the new places, too. After all, it’s not too difficult to make a memory. Making history, on the other hand, is a harder task. I guess that’s why there is so much sentiment for CBGB.

For lack of patience, I’ll leave the dirges and obits to much more skilled writers than me. After all, I have only walked past CB’s a handful of times in the past decade… time and life marches on.

But as a tribute to the old place, which will be vacated at 313 and 315 The Bowery by Oct. 31, I’ll just leave with something more appropriate.

Folks, it doesn’t get much better than this:



Someday I will write about seeing The Ramones for the first time... who says I'm not into sentiment?

It's the playoffs (TV edition)!

I am not a multi-tasker. If I’m going to do one thing well then I have to concentrate and buckle down – that means no distractions or several different interests pulling me in different directions. No, I don’t have an attention-span problem – at least not clinically.

Maybe that’s why I never really pay attention to the announcers in a baseball game. At least that’s the case for a game I’m trying to focus on. To me, the announcers are background fodder or the digitalized musak heard in a doctor’s office or elevator.

I’m not saying the people who have those jobs aren’t valuable or that they don’t work hard, because they do. For the Phillies, Chris Wheeler is one of those first-to-arrive-and-last-to-leave types of guys. He studies the game like crazy and it shows when one chats with him. That said, I just don’t listen. I can’t if I want to understand what’s happening in the game.

Hey, I’m funny that way.

That’s why when I heard Fox fired Steve Lyons I just shrugged. I can’t say I’m too familiar with his work. Oh sure, I know all about Steve Lyons – the first foul ball I ever caught (Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Red Sox vs. Orioles in June ’86) Lyons hit it, and I’ve heard stories about his wacky antics from his playing days. I also know he works with the Dodgers broadcast team with Charlie Steiner and the great Jay Johnstone.

But as far as Lyons’ work on Fox… I missed it.

Nevertheless, I read the story about his ouster and what he said, etc. To me it sounds like Fox was looking for an excuse to run him out, which is fine. They already have Lou Piniella working in the booth for the ALCS – what do they need Lyons for?

Some people ask the same questions about Tim McCarver, and it’s not just the fans either. There are media critics and columnists out there who pay attention to McCarver’s (and others’) analysis and wax on about it.

Really? What a waste of time. If you are a columnist or a so-called sports expert and you need Tim McCarver’s expertise in order to enjoy a baseball game on TV better, maybe baseball isn’t for you. It’s kind of like being assigned to read a great book, but only looking at the Cliff Notes.

So Steve Lyons was fired by Fox, huh? Is that why the Tigers swept the A’s?

Maybe I should clarify something – I do listen to Vin Scully when I tune into a Dodgers’ game. But when I do that, I’m going specifically to listen to Vin, not watch the game. In a different way, I like to listen to Jerry Remy on Red Sox broadcasts, though I’m not interested in what Remy has to say. I just like his New England accent.

That Joe Buck has a nice-sounding voice, too, but I can't not think of Jon Voight when I hear his name.

As for Game 4 of the NLCS, it looks as if the Mets got just what they needed – a innings-eating outing from a starter to give the bullpen a break. They also will get a trip back to Shea, which means the pressure is on the Cardinals for tonight’s Game 5.

The Glavine vs. Weaver on three-days rest match up should be intriguing.

Meanwhile, the Tigers are at Club Med relaxing and waiting to get back to work.

4 weeks to go

Another good one. Still feel the same as last week -- I'm ready for the training to be over, but I wouldn't mind a few more weeks to work on some things. It's a paradox. Anyway:

Monday - 23 miles in 2:36:57
Felt super strong and could have run 20 more miles.

Tuesday - 15.1 miles in 1:43:05
I ran easy 6:45 miles during most of the run.

Wednesday - 17.5 miles in 2:00:40
Didn't expect to do 2 hours when I started, but I really feel strong so I kept going.

Thursday - 16.4 miles in 1:51:24
Strong, strong, strong. I don't know if it's the caffeine or the training, but I feel super strong with the running.

Friday - 15.6 miles in 1:43:17
I ran hard during the back half and did a bunch of hills early. The pace was pretty consistent.

Saturday - 15.1 miles in 1:43:54
Got a late start after getting some ART and taking Michael to the doctor. Before I ran I drank a Red Bull -- pretty good stuff. Anyway, I ran strong again, but didn't try to do too much. The pace lagged a bit at the end.

Sunday - 8 miles in 49:22
Ran 3.3 miles in 17:37. That's 5:20-per mile pace or a 16:34 5k. My goal was to run a sub-17 5k or under 18 minutes for the 3.3 miles. I guess I did it. Perhaps, under better conditions, I can break 16 for 5k. Wouldn't that be something?

110.7 miles for the week.

Haven't we seen this before?

It looks as if Tony La Russa figured out what to do with Scott Rolen, which makes one wonder if he read a few of the previous entries here… hey, it could happen. I know a player or two who said they read this blog.

Then again, I haven't been punched in the face by a player yet, so I guess they were just blowing smoke.

Anyway, Rolen batted sixth and played his typical third base in Saturday’s Game 3 rout which put the Cardinals and their 83-regular season victories just two more wins from the World Series and a rematch of the 1968 Series. Scott Spiezio, Rolen's replacement at third base in two post-season games also started (left field) and contrubted with his second, two-run triple in as many games.

But Rolen snapping his big, post-season slump with a walk and a single mixed in with his Brooks-Robinson-and-Mike-Schmidt-all-rolled-into-one defense isn’t even half the story. Apparently, as I assumed (yeah, there’s that pronoun again. Hey, it’s my blog!) Rolen and La Russa may need some counseling.

Gee, no one saw that coming.

Jim Salisbury, for my money (what there is of it) the most interesting baseball writer out there, rightly analyzed the rift in the Inquirer today and even asked Rolen if he would be interested in a return to Philadelphia. If there is anyone who can offer an astute read on the situation it’s Salisbury since he’s seen it all before. Plus, there are very few writers that I have come across who the players respect more than Salisbury.

But enough of that… let’s get back to Rolen.

Next to Randy Wolf and Doug Glanville, Rolen is the smartest ballplayer I’ve met. However, he’s also the most sensitive. As Salisbury points out, Rolen is high-maintenance. He needs to be kept in the loop and also needs self-assurance and what he deems as fairness. I recall a time where Rolen and Larry Bowa had a long, pre-game meeting because Bowa, looking for a spark, moved Rolen to the No. 2 spot in the batting order. At the same time, Bowa shifted Bobby Abreu over to center field, but with Abreu all the manager did was walk over to his locker and ask him if he was OK with playing center field.

With Rolen, it took a closed-door meeting for a batting order shift.

As one Phillie management type once told me: “Scotty worries about everything. He cares about how the cars are parked in the parking lot… ”

The Phillies, not exactly the most astute in reading situations, placating feelings or being sensitive to others, weren’t too far off here.

Because of that Rolen, like any classic high achieving, high-maintenance person, not only expects a lot out of himself, but he also has high standards for others.

Pardon the dime store psychiatry, but as someone with similar traits – excluding the high achieving part, of course – it’s easy to understand that Rolen needs a lot of understanding. Perhaps that’s why he is the most entertaining player out there. His neurosis is on display constantly from his habits in the batter's box to how he takes the field and his human cannonball style. What makes all that more than shtick is that he can actually play.

I can’t think of a player I’ve ever enjoyed watching more.

But through the neurosis, stubbornness and sensitivity, Rolen has to know he can’t win a battle against La Russa. Come on… he’s smarter than that. It’s not about leverage or public opinion or anything like that. It’s that La Russa is right. Sure, La Russa has an ego as large as every successful baseball man, but he isn’t Larry Bowa. It might be wise for Rolen to get past his natural tendencies and all of that other stuff and try to iron it out with La Russa.

Besides, the Cardinals won both of the playoff games where La Russa benched Rolen.

It's the playoffs!
It may be a knee-jerk reaction, but the Cardinals might have the Mets right where they want them. This series might not be going back to Shea.

Reason? To borrow and paraphrase a political campaign mantra, it’s the pitching, stupid.

When Steve Traschel is your team’s Game 3 starter, there’s trouble. When reliever Darren Oliver gets two (two!) at-bats, there’s trouble. When Oliver is pitching six innings in one game, there’s trouble. When Endy Chavez… well, you get the idea.

The fact of the matter is the Mets’ injuries are just too much to overcome. If they can comeback and win the series, I’ll sing New York’s hosannas, but I just don’t see it happening.

At the same time, I don’t see the Tigers losing the World Series. In that regard, here’s the question I posed a couple of the Phillies writers:

How can the Tigers go from losing 119 games to winning the World Series and the Phillies can only make the playoffs once in the last 23 years?

Anyone?

Apropos...
... of nothing, is it tacky for a media member to dial up other media outlets to "volunteer" his "expertise" on their airwaves? I think so.

Who's at third? Not Polanco

Note: this was written a few innings before Placido Polanco was named MVP of the ALCS.

It’s always unfair to play the “what if” game, but it’s also part of the fun (or agony) of being a baseball fan. No, in this case it isn’t second-guessing or weighing your smarts against those of the manager or players, it pushing ahead the sands of time.

Imagine for a moment if Pat Gillick would have been the Phillies’ general manager during the 2005 season instead of Ed Wade. That was the year when Placido Polanco famously started at second base ahead of Chase Utley on opening day and garnered a bunch of starts – as well as late-inning defensive replacement duty – much to the chagrin to certain segments of the media and the fans.

I believed then as I believe now that Polanco ahead of Utley was the right move. Utley, as some of us recall, was still viewed as a raw free-swinging hitter who also needed work in the field.

That didn’t last too long though.

Polanco then, as he is now, is about as fundamentally sound a ballplayer there is. From a sheer, basic baseball-geek standpoint, Placido Polanco has to be your favorite player. He does everything right.

So imagine that Gillick is in control of the Phillies roster in 2005 when the team had Polanco, Utley and David Bell. Do you think the Phillies would still have Polanco if Gillick were in charge? Do you think Bell would have ended up in Milwaukee or some other baseball port-of-call sooner than July of 2006?

I do. I bet a lot of other people do to.

What if the Phillies had Polanco at third base instead of David Bell in 2005 and Abraham Nunez in 2006? Can you imagine a team with an infield of Polanco, Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard? Polanco in the No. 2 spot in the batting order, with just 43 strikeouts in his last 860-plus plate appearances?

Man… it’s just not fair.

Trust me here: Ed Wade was asked about all of this. So, too, was Charlie Manuel. For some reason they had a unbending loyalty to Bell as the third baseman. Maybe it was the $17 million they were paying him for four years to hit below .200 against righties in 2005? Whatever it was, the common answer we heard was that “Polly is a second baseman … ”

Or something like that.

Well, if that’s true, why has he only committed 15 errors in 322 games at third base during his career, including just a league-leading eight in 131 games during 2002? How come he played five games in left field when Pat Burrell was banged up during ’05?

What kind of pictures did David Bell have of the Phillies’ brass?

Ultimately, Polanco was sent to Detroit on June 8, 2005 for Ugueth Urbina. Since then, Polanco has hit .313 for the Tigers, not including the .412 in the ALDS or .529 in the ALCS with a key, two-out single to bring up Magglio Ordonez in the ninth inning.

All Ordonez did was smack the pennant-clinching homer to send the Tigers to the World Series.

Urbina, on the other hand, remains in a Venezuelan prison for an alleged Pulp Fiction re-enactment gone awry.

At the time, as I recall, many of the scribes hailed the trade as a good deal. The thinking was that since the Phillies weren’t going to use Polanco as an every day player, they might as well get something for him. There were a few others, however, who thought this logic was faulty. Why shouldn’t Polanco play every day in Philadelphia? The goal is to win and go to the playoffs, right? If so, keep Polanco and get rid of Bell.

Who cares if he’s a second baseman?

It's the playoffs!

So, do I get credit for predicting Billy Wagner’s blown game in Game 2 of the NLCS? Well, I didn’t actually predict it, but I admitted that I rooted for Wagner to blow the save it in Game 1. I can’t figure out why, either, since Billy was always fair to me though I know he was annoyed by me asking him about throwing his slider?

I can’t figure out why he won the Philadelphia chapter of the BBWAA’s “Good Guy” award in 2005, either.

Wait… yeah I can. Never mind.

Nevertheless, Wagner entered last night’s game in the ninth with the score tied and promptly gave up the game-winning home run to So Taguchi. Actually, it wasn’t so prompt. Taguchi failed off four pitches before knocking one into the seats to wreck Wagner and the Mets’ evening. Interestingly, I made a note to myself during that at-bat that Taguchi was right on Wagner’s high fastball and that if he could get his bat out a fraction of a fraction of a second quicker, it was bye-bye Billy.

I’m not making that up – I made a note of it.

I wonder if anyone asked Wagner about his slider last night?

Wagner, as mentioned, was brought into the ninth inning of a tie game – a tactic that a lot of managers use with their closer. Larry Bowa used to do it with Wagner, and so did Charlie Manuel. In fact, Manuel says he views a four-run lead as a save situation even though the criteria for a save indicates otherwise.

I’m on the fence about the closer-in-the-ninth-of-a-tie-game theory. It’s hard to say it’s a good idea or a bad one unless every situation is pored over. However, in the layoffs, it’s always all hands on deck. My guess is that manager Willie Randolph would have used Wagner for a second inning if he would have slipped through the ninth unscathed. Instead, he had to get Wagner out of there so he didn’t rack up the pitches with three more games looming in St. Louis.

Plus, with the Mets’ pitching in the shape its in with all of those injuries, Wagner should be ready to go to work. He’s going to be busy with the five-playoff games in five days.

Meanwhile, on the American League side, it looks like Detroit is going to be able to be able to rest up and set their pitching rotation for the World Series while the two beat-up National League clubs beat up on each other some more.

Speaking of beat up, I guess I don’t know what goes on inside of the mind of manager Tony La Russa. Maybe that guy knows a thing or two about baseball?

Previously, I wrote that it would make more sense for La Russa to slide down struggling All-Star Scott Rolen in the batting order, a la Joe Torre and A-Rod, because Rolen’s glove at third base is just too valuable.

Shows you what I know.

La Russa benched Rolen and used him as a late-inning defensive replacement while Scott Spiezio batted fifth and went 2-for-4 with three RBIs, including a clutch, two-run triple.

When Rolen came in the game to play third in the ninth inning, the first hitter smacked one destined for left field until the six-time gold glover dived to his left – on his bum shoulder, no less – to make a spectacular play to get the out.

So who is going to play La Russa in the movie? Didn’t Tim Robbins play Albert Einstein?

Needless to say, Rolen is pretty peeved. Stubborn, sensitive and proud, it’s unlikely he’s going to get over the snub any time soon. I’ve heard of him to hold long-time grudges for less. However, if Rolen was good enough for La Russa to play every day during the stretch run when the third baseman says his shoulder wasn’t as healthy as it is now, maybe the manager should stand by his man.

About the situation, Rolen told the Post-Dispatch: "This isn't the time or the place to have a personal issue between a player and a manager. I'm going to get ready to play tonight, keep an eye on the game and if I get a chance try to make a difference."

La Russa doesn't think it will be a problem, either.

"I'm not going to create a problem. I can't believe he's going to create the problem. So where's the problem, except he's worried about playing?" he said to the St. Louis paper. "I'm just trying to win the game, buddy."

Then again, Spiezio has a history of getting big hits in big playoff games. Ask the Dusty Baker and the Giants about that.

Johnny Callison 1939-2006

For my parents’ generation, Johnny Callison was the man. For those Phillies teams that had one really good year in 1964, but continued the rest of the 1960s struggling for mediocrity, Callison was the team’s second-best player behind Richie Allen. Compared to the sometimes enigmatic and distant Allen, Callison seemed to be the player the fans could relate to.

Perhaps that had to do with the complexion of the issue – I don’t know. The Phillies certainly had problems with race issues during that time, which was documented in surprisingly publicity-shrouded book September Swoon, authored by William C. Kashatus and the very astute Gerald Early.

It’s definitely the book the Phillies don’t want you to read.

Those are issues for a different time, though. Today is for remembering Johnny Callison, the MVP of the 1964 All-Star Game. Callison died at age 67 today in Abington after an illness. Callison was made so at home when playing for the Phillies from 1960 to 1969 that he stayed in the area, living in Glenside.

Callison, though, was not one to hang out at the ballpark after his playing days. I should say he didn’t hang out at the park during the past six years the way old-timers Dick Allen, Greg Luzinski, and Gary Maddox do. Perhaps that’s why all I know about Callison was that he was MVP of the ’64 All-Star Game on the strength of his extra-inning, game-winning home run at Shea Stadium off Dick Radatz, and the fans liked him a lot.

Looking at his statistics show that he had some decent power during five years of his prime, twice driving in more than 100 runs and slugging more than 30 homers. He was an All-Star three times and was second in the MVP voting in 1964. That’s a pretty nice career.

Plus, he must have been doing something right to be such a favorite.

That’s not a bad way to be remembered.

It's the playoffs!

Based on how Game 1 of the NLCS shook out, the series could turn out to be one of those grinding seven-game series where one player could make a difference. Perhaps that player could be Carlos Beltran, who I'm sure the Cardinals are sick of seeing.

Beltran, of course, had that monster series during the 2004 NLCS in which he nearly single-handidly beat the Cardinals when he was playing for the Astros. Counting those seven games from 2004 and last night’s game, Beltran has homered in five of the last eight playoff games against the Cards for seven RBIs and 13 runs. Beltran is 11-for-28 (.393) in those games, which is odd since he is just a .225 hitter with four homers during 40 regular-season career games against St. Louis.

I guess it’s a playoff thing.

Speaking of playoff things, Scott Rolen’s playoff-swoon continued with an 0-for-3 in Game 1. For those counting, that’s one hit in his last 29 playoff at-bats after hitting that home run off Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the 2004 NLCS. Judging from Rolen’s swing from the vantage point of a comfortable chair in my living room (not Shea Stadium), Rolen’s shoulder still isn’t feeling too good despite his comments to the contrary.

Nevertheless, I don’t think manager Tony La Russa will move Rolen out of the starting lineup because his glove at third base is just too valuable.

Meanwhile, it was a rough night all over for the Cardinals' hitters -- obviously. However, the dearth of hitting was only part of the problem, which, obviously again, Mets' starter Tom Glavine had a lot to do with (7 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 2 K). But a couple of base-running gaffes, including Albert Pujols' inexplicable one when getting doubled off first in the fourth inning, were quite costly.

Regardless, something tells me that Pujols will more than make up for his blunder during this series. Call it a hunch.

Other observations
Why was I hoping Billy Wagner would blow the two-run lead in the ninth? I have nothing against Wagner personally or professionally, but for some reason I thought it would have been funny to see him cough one up. Maybe I was thinking about the colorful quotes the scribes would have gleaned from him after the game.

Or maybe I wsa thinking about dozens of writers heading down to the clubhouse doing Wagner impressions...

Based on Glavine and Wagner's work, it looks as if the Mets are trying to come in on a lot of the Cardinals' hitters. I wonder how long that plan will last.

As far as the ALCS goes, will Detroit be able to get the ballpark in shape for the World Series after this weekend? Are the Tigers going to punch their ticket? Is there any way that series goes back to Oakland?

Here's something interesting (and correct) from Buster Olney's blog on ESPN.com:

GM Pat Gillick has yet to make his mark on the Phillies, writes Bill Conlin. I would respectfully disagree: In the last year, the Phillies have dealt Jim Thome and Bobby Abreu and others and shaved an enormous amount of payroll off their roster, and they have turned their clubhouse culture over to Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. There is more work to be done, for sure, as Bill writes, but creating that kind of payroll flexibility is not simple.

Best bets

Last week: 3-0!
Year to date: 4-4

Yeah, well I hate to brag, but in case everyone forgot to notice, I went a perfect 3-0 in my football selections last week. Of course that comes after the 0-3 debacle of the week prior, so it appears as if I’m hit or miss.

Either way, I believe the success has to do with the Minnesota pick and the reasoning behind it (Todd Zolecki and Bob Dylan went there). From what I can gather, that type of logic is how the pros pick ‘em.

Anyway, let’s get busy on this weekend’s slate:

Eagles plus 3 over Saints
I’m going back to the well with the Eagles after they had a strong showing against Dallas last Sunday. Conventional wisdom would indicate that the Eagles are due for a letdown, but I don’t do anything the easy way. I also don’t understand the concept behind conventional wisdom, so take the Birds and the points.

Clemson minus 44 over Temple
If Temple wins this game it will go down as the greatest upset in the history of upsets. But since we all have seen what has happened with Temple over the past three decades, we know there is no chance of that happeining. However, Temple could cover that gigantic, six TD spread.

Don’t count on it.

I heard on the radio while driving home from Starbucks that the BCS releases its first poll this weekend. That means Clemson, ranked No. 12 and already sporting a loss, will have to show-off in order to climb the charts. That means they will have to run it up. That’s bad news for Temple.

Besides, Clemson is 14-3 against the spread in its last 17 night games.

Michigan minus 6 over Penn State
The theme is the local teams this week. Night games, too, since Temple plays on Thursday night on TV. Since this is a prime time game and Michigan is really much, much better than Penn State, call it the lock of the week. If I knew how to do tricky web programming, I’d place a big bolted lock where the bullet is.

Take ‘em to the bank, folks. I’m hot.

Surreal

Needless to say, the past 24 hours have been very surreal. Yes, that sounds like a cliché, but I’m not really sure if there is any other way to describe it.

It was surreal when Matt Yallof called me from the set of the SNY studio ready to go on the air as his role of host for the Mets’ pre-game show before Game 1 of the NLCS. Matt had heard some weird news and wanted to know if I had heard the same thing.

“There’s a report out there that it was Lidle’s plane that went into the building,” Matt said. “Do you know anything?”

As soon he spoke that sentence, my instant messengers, text messages and two telephones erupted simultaneously. Ignoring that cacophony, I immediately hung up with Matt, IM’d Mike Radano, and figured, “forget that, I’ll call him.”

Mike and Cory were pretty tight, to the point that they not only played many rounds of golf together, but also frequently talked to one another about baseball and other things that friends discuss. In fact, it got to the point where if something odd occurred in a game and we couldn’t figure out what was happening from the press box, we’d press Mike into text messaging Cory down in the dugout or clubhouse. That’s how we got the lowdown on why Cory was ejected from a game last June against Tampa Bay.

I got Mike on the way home from the bus stop with his boys and came right out with it.

“What have you heard,” I asked.

“About what?”

He didn’t know.

“I’m not joking around. I’m being very serious. I just got a phone call from Matt Yallof and he said the plane in New York was flown by Cory… ”

“I’m calling,” he said and hung up.

The next time I heard from him he was on CNN with Anderson Cooper.

Then I saw Cory’s picture on CNN with the “1972-2006” beneath it.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

The phone and the computer remained busy until the early hours of the next morning. I turned off the TV just to escape those ominous dates. I had not thought about it until now, but 1972 is a year behind me and the same year my sister was born.

Of course, curiosity got the better of me. I flipped CNN back on and saw Dennis Deitch with Paula Zahn. Then Todd Zolecki with Larry King. And of course, Radano with Anderson Cooper.

Later, I told Radano that I could imagine Cory thinking it was kind of funny that people he knew were on CNN as noted experts. Heck, even I got a few invitations to join the media fray.

Through it all, I couldn’t stop thinking about Cory. I vividly recall the last time I saw him – in the hallway next to the conference room after his trade to the Yankees had been announced. We shook hands, wished each other good luck and then I noticed Jimmy Rollins sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.

Why was he sitting there like that?

Still, I can still see his knowing smirk, and I can see him waiting there at that island in the center of the clubhouse waiting to chat after a game. I remembered his first day in Philadelphia when he drove all night from Cincinnati after he had been traded late in the 2004 season. I remember seeing his little boy dash around the clubhouse with the other kids. I remember him telling me about his outing at Pine Valley and how he sculled a shot that nailed the flagstick on a totally different green than the one he was aiming for. I remember when he indicated that he had read my blog. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or flattered. I remember laughing out loud when he explained the real reason why he was tossed out of that game against the Devil Rays last June.

There are too many things to remember and just not enough time.

Anyway, though I’m sure Cory would get a big kick out of seeing people he knows talk about him on national television, I don’t think the sadness would go over too well. So from now on we’re getting back to our regularly scheduled programming. After all, time is much too short.

Speaking of which, Cory had a wicked sense of humor and I bet he would have found it a bit amusing that Alec Baldwin was a little inconvenienced yesterday... too bad, Alec.

The day Thurman died

Note: this is an essay written in 2003 about my recollections of Thurman Munson, the great Yankee catcher who died in a plane crash in Canton, Ohio in August of 1979. For some reason I thought it was poignant today. Thanks for indulging me.

It's kind of odd, how clearly I remember the day Thurman Munson died. In fact, the moment I heard the news on the radio that late summer night in Laurel, Md. during 1979, is probably one of the most memorable baseball memories I own. And trust me, I have a lot of baseball memories.

Like I said, I heard the news on the radio just before I was going to crawl into bed. I remember it was a Monday night and for some reason ABC wasn't televising a national game that night. For an eight-year-old whose life revolved around baseball, no game on TV meant an early bedtime. Remember, this was 10 years before the proliferation of sports on ESPN and 20 years before news was digitalized and uploaded onto computer screens in every room of the house. Since there was no game on UHF, I had to spin the dial on my crappy AM transistor radio to find any type of baseball talk. My prospects seemed slim since this was a time when Casey Kasem ruled the airwaves, not Mike and the Mad Dog. But there it was on WCAO in Baltimore:

"Reports out of Canton, Ohio are that Thurman Munson, the All-Star catcher and captain of the New York Yankees, died tonight in a plane crash. Munson was attempting to land his single-engine plane when he lost control of the craft at a small airport in his hometown. The Yankees and the O's are scheduled to play tomorrow night at Yankee Stadium. So far, there is no indication that the game will be postponed."

Tears. Waterworks, actually. Big, bearded and burly Thurman was dead. How could that be? He was supposed to play against the Orioles tomorrow night. Sure, was clearly beginning the downside of his career and had seemingly given up his catcher's spot to Jerry Narron so that Billy Martin could keep his bat in the lineup by using him at first and right field, but he was Thurman Munson. Never mind that he looked like Ron Jeremy after an intense work over at the spa, he was the catcher for the Yankees. They had just won the past two World Series. He was the captain. He couldn't be dead. Reggie Jackson, the anti-Thurman, was the one bad things were supposed to happen to. Reggie was the villain, not scrappy Thurman, with his cap flipped upwards beneath his catcher's mask and dirt all over his pinstripes.

Anyway, I remember my dad – always awkward when dealing with any displays of emotion – trying to console me as I cried for the dead ballplayer in my tiny room of our three-bedroom apartment. I never knew of anyone who had ever died before, even though I heard a story about the Angels' Lyman Bostock getting shot. My dog and John Lennon, both killed on the same day, had more than a year left to live, and my grandfather, who taught me everything worth knowing, hadn’t yet been diagnosed with cancer. It was still a full seven years before I learned what real loss felt like. Hey, I wasn't even a Yankees fan, but Thurman was a player. Actually, he was a decent player and that meant he was as good as a member of the family. Why shouldn't I cry for him?

"Thurman's probably playing in heaven with all the great players," dad said. "I bet they have a game going right now."

Hey, give him credit. He never knew what to say to me.

The next day was a blur, but I clearly remember Scott McGregor spinning a six-hit shutout to be the shocked Yanks. The most memorable part, excluding John Lowenstein's homer to left off Luis Tiant in the 1-0 victory for the Orioles, was the stark and austere memorial before the game. Bob Sheppard, in his distinctive monotone, spoke about the dead captain while the camera above home plate focused on tight shot of the deserted catcher's box.

Thurman used to squat there.

Then I think I remember a TV announcer – it may have been Chuck Thompson or Brooks Robinson – mention that Munson had been riding a rough 2-for-24 before his death. Recently, in a case of morbid curiosity, I looked it up, and learned that Thurman really struggled during his last month. Through July, he hit just 23-for-91 with one stinking homer and a handful of RBIs, though Martin never moved him from the top of the order. Though he was coming back from an injury and wasn’t catching like he used to, Thurman still hit second and third in the order.

I think about that day a lot. Last spring I was chatting with Jason Giambi in the visitor's clubhouse at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Fla. not with the thought that Reggie, Mickey, Whitey and all of the other Yankees had used that room, but rather that Thurman Munson probably hung his clothes up in one of those stalls.

Later that June, after spending the day chatting with Scott Rolen before his Cardinals got their heads kicked in by the Yankees in the Bronx, I decided to take a tour of the deserted Stadium. With no one else to see or chase me out of what Yankees fans so arrogantly call The Stadium and into twilight of the South Bronx, I toured the old yard. I stood on the mound, walked out to center field where Joe D. and Mickey patrolled, and walked along the warning track into Death Valley. Next, I went into the double-decked bullpens, pocketed a ball that was left behind and strolled over to the adjacent Monument Park.

All of the greats are memorialized there. I rubbed the Babe Ruth plaque like Roger Clemens did prior to getting his 300th win the night before. I read about Lou Gehrig and Miller Huggins and took in the neatly manicured landscape. But there, on the back wall next to Joe McCarthy, was a plaque for "The Captain." I walked over for a closer look and before I could focus on the words, my thoughts took me back to 1979 and that night without baseball in early August.

There is crying in baseball

They say there is no crying in baseball.

Surely whoever made up that inanity never spent a day in baseball. In the 30-plus years in which baseball has been a part of my consciousness and, truth be told, one of the major focuses of my life, the game has been nothing but crying.

There have been tears of joy, like the time when the Phillies won the World Series, or the celebration of the rare chance that someone will get the game-winning hit.

Then there are tears of defeat, like the 122 other seasons when the Phillies did not win the World Series or the hard-luck losses on center stage for the entire world to see. Mitch Williams, for example, and poor Bill Buckner. Donnie Moore.

Tears of pain, of course. Like the time I bravely stood too close when the big kids were hitting and took a line drive off my shin. Too this day I’ve never felt anything that hurt so bad or saw a bruise turn as purple as Welch’s jelly.

Yes, tears of sadness. Sadness for Donnie Moore. Thurman Munson, of course. Roberto Clemente. Lyman Bostock Tim Crews.

And now this.

There’s no crying in baseball?

That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

Cory Lidle was killed on Wednesday afternoon when the plane he was flying crashed into a 50-story high rise on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Cory was a budding pilot, stellar golfer, smart poker player and a hard-working Major League pitcher. All of those pursuits, which Cory excelled at beyond the simple dabbling of a regular old hobbyist, took guile, wit and grit.

Certainly those traits were on display to Phillies fans who watched Cory pitch for parts of the past three seasons. They saw it on the mound, where the average-looking right-hander with an unexceptional repertoire of pitches somehow figured out a way to win 26 games for the Phillies.

Or they saw it in the papers where Cory’s penchant for expressing himself sometimes set off controversy or criticism, but were never ever boring. In an age of heightened PR sense and political correctness, Cory was nothing as simple as outspoken, but instead was bold. Unpopular decisions or controversial talk were always met with a shrug and a mischievous grin as if to indicate that he planned on getting everyone so riled up all along.

Sure, some teammates didn’t like it – such as Arthur Rhodes or Billy Wagner – but it’s hard to deny how lively Cory was.

That’s what I’ll remember the most about Cory. He was alive. He was engaging. He was aware. He knew what other people did, what they thought, what they wrote and what they were interested in. That’s not just rare behavior for a Major League Baseball player, but also for most people you come across on a daily basis. How many people do you come across who not only show an interest in you, but also give their time?

Isn’t time the most valuable thing we own?

But there Cory was after every game – wearing that ball cap pulled down over his eyes with a t-shirt tucked into jeans and clutching a plastic bag – waiting for the press. He answered every question, asked a few of his own before carrying on a few private, revealing conversations.

Last April he told me he thought he would be traded around the deadline if the Phillies weren’t in the playoff hunt. He didn’t have any insider information; it was just a hunch that proved to be correct. He also appreciated people who liked to tell jokes or stories, which made him a favorite sounding board for the writing corps.

More important than all of that, Cory was a father to a six-year-old boy named Christopher, who liked to run around the clubhouse. In just a short time it was easy to see where little Christopher got that mischievous grin and nature that often caused his dad to tell him to go sit in front of the locker and wait patiently. It was clear as the face on a clock.

He was also a husband to Melanie and a provider and friend for his family. Sometimes Cory’s twin brother Kevin came around when his Independent League team was playing in Camden. He was also especially close with his sister and parents.

So when I hear that saying where there is no crying in baseball, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. There is crying in baseball.

There is crying in baseball when you think of that six-year-old boy who is never going to be able to play catch with his dad again.

Riding the pines

Days have passed and the next series has already put a game in the books, and all of baseball is still talking about the New York Yankees. From the manager, to the owner, the GM and the team’s best player, there certainly is not a dearth of things to talk about with the always-soap operatic ball club in the South Bronx.

Listening to the consensus, it sounds as if most commentators, columnists, etc. believe it would be a bad move for George Steinbrenner to fire Joe Torre as the manager. After all, Torre’s record speaks for itself. Under Torre, the Yankees have gone to the playoffs in 11 straight seasons, which is unprecedented in the hallowed franchise’s history.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t cracks in the armor. After all, with the stars assembled on the current Yankee clubs, and the payroll that equals the GNP of a small country, simply getting to the playoffs doesn’t seem like a difficult task. The tough part, it seems, is getting those superstars to put the egos aside and come together to win.

Kind of how the Tigers did this season.

That seems to be where Torre has had some difficulty over the past few seasons. With Paul O’Neil and Tino Martinez during the beginning of the “dynasty,” Torre never had to worry about the so-called veteran leadership. His players were in charge and that was a good thing.

But, as some Yankees observers have opined, things have not been the same since those players moved on. Coincidentally, though, those departures coincide with Alex Rodriguez’s arrival in the Bronx.

Now whether or not Rodriguez is a divisive force on a team is tough to judge. Certainly, his statistics appear to be of the caliber that should help a team win games. How can they not be? But then again, there have been MVP and Cy Young Award winners on last-place teams. In that same vain, Rodriguez’s former teams always seem to improve after he leaves. That happened in Seattle and Texas.

Will it happen in New York?

General manager Brian Cashman says the Yankees aren’t going to trade Rodriguez. But maybe those words are just a smokescreen? Do they even really need A-Rod? Sure, he’s arguably one of the best players in the game, but when he’s hitting eighth in the lineup in an elimination game, isn’t that the same as saying, “Hey A-Rod, we really don’t want you to get too many at-bats today… ”

If he’s batting eighth, why not just put him on the bench?

Tough to shoulder
Speaking of sitting on the bench, Scott Rolen has deemed himself ready to play in Game 1 of the NLCS tonight after sitting out of the Cardinals’ clincher in Game 4 over the Padres last Sunday.

It appears as if Rolen withheld the severity of his aching shoulder that was surgically repaired last season. Conventional wisdom indicates that it should take at least a year following the surgery for Rolen to be at full strength, though that didn’t appear to be the case based on his 2006 statistics.

At least that didn’t seem to be the case based on Rolen’s season leading up to September. That where the long season took its toll on his injury and also where Rolen, apparently, hid the severity of its weakness from manager Tony La Russa. Rolen, it seemed, felt the Cardinals needed him too much during the stretch run even though the team has Scott Spiezio as a fully capable backup.

According to wire accounts, La Russa was a little peeved when Rolen finally let on how much he was hurt:

La Russa seemed perturbed before Game 4 of the division series that Rolen had not mentioned the shoulder problem until Sunday. At the same time, he said Rolen’s willingness to play hurt was admirable.

“That’s why he didn’t come out and say how sore he was, because you know he wants to play,” La Russa said. “Here’s a guy that’s not fighting for a job, he’s got security, and he just wants to be a part of it.

“I was never and am not now upset with Scott.”

If there is one thing we learned about Rolen when he was in Philadelphia it is that he the proverbial gamer. If it takes running through a brick wall in order to win a game, he'll do it. But we also learned that Rolen is also stubborn and sensitive and always trying to prove himself.

I guess that is what makes him a great athlete.

Either way, Rolen took a shot of cortisone to be ready for Game 1, which makes him the second former Phillie currently in the playoffs to take a shot within the past month (Placido Polanco, the man traded for Rolen in 2002, is the other).

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that since slugging the game-winning home run off Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the 2004 NLCS, Rolen is 1-for-26 with three strikeouts in his last two playoff series.

Not good enough?

New York sure is different than Philadelphia.

Yes, that really is an ambiguous statement, but when comparing the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies, grand, open-ended ambiguity is the safest bet.

For the Phillies, the “Golden Age” of the franchise started in the mid-1970s and lasted until the early 1980s. For about a decade, the Phillies were about as good as a team could be in the Major Leagues. They were so good, in fact, that in 1979 Danny Ozark was fired as the manager of the team because he didn’t win the World Series after winning 101 games in 1976 and 1977 and a 90-win NL East title in 1978.

It wasn’t enough to get it done.

In 1983, general manager Paul Owens bounced Pat Corrales from the managerial seat even though he had the Phillies in first place with 76 games remaining in the season. Owens came down from the front office and kept the Phillies right where Corrales left them before the collapse in the World Series against the Orioles.

Those were the days when it was either the World Series or failure for the Phillies, and it’s safe to say that a similar mentality never really occurred in the team’s 123-season history.

It would be interesting to see what fate would beset Charlie Manuel if he stumbled the way Ozark and the Phillies did in 1979. Or what would happen to Manuel if he were the skipper in 1983 when Corrales’ first-place Phillies were doing something wrong 86 games in to the season.

How can a team fire the manager when his team is in first place?

Make no mistake; there are a lot of people who don’t want Manuel to return to the bench for 2007 after two seasons in which he won more games than all but one manager in team history through this point in his tenure. With the Phillies, 173 victories in two seasons in which the team was eliminated from wild-card playoff contention at game Nos. 162 and 161 is borderline historic. Actually, it’s more than remarkable – it’s unprecedented.

This is a franchise, after all, where only two (two!) managers have taken the team to more than one postseason. It’s a franchise that has been to the playoffs just nine times in 123 seasons. For comparisons sake, look at the Atlanta Braves who… wait, nevermind. It just isn’t fair to compare the Phillies to any other franchise.

Anyway, one of those dynamic duo of managers was Ozark, who won the NL East three years in a row but was axed when he couldn’t do it for a fourth, and the other was Ozark’s replacement, Dallas Green, who delivered the franchise’s only title in 1980 only to lose to Montreal in the 1981 NLDS.

That loss was enough to send Green on his way to Chicago where he thought he could break the Cubs’ losing curse. But Green quickly learned that even he isn’t that good. Sure, historically things are really bad for the Phillies, but even they don’t compare to the futility of the Cubs.

Maybe Joe Torre is the manager the Cubs need to help them end 98 straight seasons without a World Series? After all, it appeared as if Torre was going to be out of a job after 11 seasons as the manager of the New York Yankees.

Torre apparently was headed for the same fate as Danny Ozark in 1979 before general manager Brian Cashman and the Yankees players interceded. But unlike Ozark, Torre didn’t miss the playoffs this year. Actually, Torre made it to the playoffs in every season he was the manager for the Yankees. He averaged close to 100 victories per season, won the World Series four times, including three years in a row, figured out how to charm the fickle New York media and even more erratic, owner George Steinbrenner.

There is no way to categorize Torre’s time with the Yankees as anything other than wildly successful. In fact, there are some of those fickle and hyperbolic New York-media types who have deemed Torre’s Yankees’ career as Hall-of-Fame worthy alongside the all-time greats like Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Miller Huggins. Add Torre to that tribunal and get 21 of the Yankees’ 26 World Series titles, and 30 American League pennants.

In other words, Joe Torre has done a lot better than Charlie Manuel, but only one of them was truly on the proverbial hot seat for returning to the same team in 2007.

One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. Obviously, making it through Game 161 with a fighting chance is not a good season in the South Bronx. Steinbrenner, unlike David Montgomery and the Phillies, does not celebrate moral victories or potential. Because of that, Torre and his failure to deliver a World Series title since 2000, ends the season as a “sad disappointment,” as his boss stated. Those 1,079 victories, not including the 75 more in the playoffs, ring a bit hollow.

Torre, it seems, built expectations so high that anything less than perfection was not good enough. Is it his fault that his hitters picked a really bad time to stop being the best offense in baseball, or that the pitching staff he was handed didn’t live up to its old press clipping s anymore?

Of course not. But Torre made the mistake of having high standards.

We don’t have that problem here.

Instead, Charlie Manuel’s run in Philadelphia is still littered with hope and promise. For the Phillies, 173 victories in two seasons is nothing to sneeze at.

5 weeks to go

Best week yet. Either I'm getting stronger or my loops are getting shorter. Nonetheless, with five weeks to go I'm kind of torn -- I want the race to hurry up and get here so I can be done, yet I also want more time to train.

Anyway:

Monday - 20.4 miles in 2:21:31
Good run. I went without my orthotics because they were stolen, but I felt OK though my left calf was a little achy. If I feel like I did today on marathon day, look out.

Tuesday - 17 miles in 1:56:48
Started out nice and easy at a solid pace and then ran three miles in 18:33 after already running 13. I feel really strong over the distance.

Wednesday - 13.1 miles in 1:31:59
Easy, easy run after two hard ones in a row and a morning on the golf course. I picked it up a tiny bit but nothing better than 6:30 pace. I also sweated a lot because of the humidity.

Thursday - 18 miles in 2:03:00
Didn't plan on running so far, but I was out there, felt good, so what the hell? I ran pretty strong over the final eight miles and took the pace between 6:15 and 6:30. Plus, the weather was nearly perfect aside from the occasional headwind. Lots and lots of fun.

Friday - 15.3 miles in 1:41:17
Felt pretty strong and kept a steady pace the entire time. Could have run harder, too. Just an enjoyable run. It's as simple as that.

Saturday - 14.5 miles in 1:45:29
Just an easy run. Nothing more to tell about this one. I just did the work and tried to stay strong because I had no speed at all.

Sunday - 7 miles in 46:32
I feel strong and smooth. I could have really run today, but I'm not going to skip an easy day.

105.3 miles for the week. 5 weeks to go with 12 straight week at 100 miles or better. That could be my record even though I averaged more than 100 miles a week during 1998.

Detroit Rock City

As you read this sentence, the party should finally be smoldering just south of its apex in Detroit. The Tigers, as it is, still have some work to do and a season to finish. Not that anyone in Philadelphia knows or cares about Detroit and the baseball renaissance that occurred there this season.

It’s a good thing Philadelphia sports fans are so provincial and laser-focused because the sight of Placido Polanco dashing around the field and slapping hands with the fans at Comerica Park with a bottle of champagne in on hand and a smile that spread from ear-to-ear would be enough to make a Philadelphia baseball fan sick.

That’s until the camera panned to Jim Leyland being carried off the field, coupled with the comments that followed from one-time Phillie Todd Jones who told reporters that Leyland was the only manager he played for during his 14-year career that actually made a difference in the standings.

At in the notion that Leyland should he have been carried off the field by Chase Utley and Ryan Howard instead of Sean Casey and Kenny Rogers and it’s enough sickness for some hospitalization.

At least until the playoffs end or the Tigers are eliminated.

For those too wrapped up in the Eagles and Cowboys, the Detroit Tigers, managed by Jim Leyland, sent the vaunted New York Yankees and their considerable offense home for the winter in four games in the ALDS. With just four more victories over the Oakland A’s, the Tigers could go to the World Series.

Not bad for a team that lost 119 games three years ago, averaged more than 96 losses per season for the past decade, and had just two winning seasons since 1988.

How does that team come four victories away from the World Series?

Do I have to say it?

Apparently, Jim Leyland wasn’t good enough to manage the Phillies even though he took the Tigers to 95 wins this season. Apparently the ideas he expressed to president David Montgomery and then GM Ed Wade were just a little too harebrained. Especially the ones about the corner outfielders – remember that? I do. He said the Phillies had too many strikeouts in the corner outfield positions, needed a new center fielder, third baseman and catcher.

Then he went out to the CVS on Broad St. for a pack of smokes only to come back to resume his meeting when Wade told him it would be a good idea to keep his interview date scheduled with the Mets.

Look what happened. The Phillies hired Charlie Manuel, came within a game of the wild card, fired Wade, and hired Pat Gillick. A few months later, Gillick traded right fielder Bobby Abreu, third baseman David Bell, and tried as hard as he could to get left fielder Pat Burrell to waive his no-trade clause. After the World Series, Gillick will allow catcher Mike Lieberthal to limp away as a free agent.

Talk about unoriginal ideas. I wonder if Gillick walked over to the CVS on Broad St. for a pack of smokes.

I may write about baseball and sports for many, many years. Or, Powerball numbers willing, tomorrow could be my last day. Either way, I will never ever forget how hard Leyland campaigned to be the Phillies manager during the winter of 2004. He was as shrewd as any seasoned politician and went above and beyond to the point of kissing babies and returning phone calls. In fact, Leyland wanted the Phillies job so badly that he even returned my phone calls.

Talk about desperate.

Now let’s stop for a minute before this descends into a Leyland-equals-good and Phillies-equals-bad essay. That’s just way too easy and not completely accurate. Surely, Leyland was not the only reason why the Tigers went from 300 losses in three seasons under Alan Trammell to 95-67 and the doorstep of the World Series this year. Actually, there are many reasons why the Tigers were able to turn it around so quickly.

The biggest one? Someone listened to Jim Leyland.

Apparently, Leyland went into his interview with the Tigers and told them what he would do to the team to make it better in very much the same manner he did with Montgomery and Wade. But guess what? The Tigers bought it and look where it got them.

Yes, I will always remember that day sitting in the conference room in Citizens Bank park listening to Leyland talk about what makes a winning baseball team as Wade stood in the doorway privately seething. Leyland, with his resume padded with a World Series title with the Marlins and all of those division titles with the Pirates, acted like a know-it-all questioning him to the very group of people who questioned him for sport in the papers and talk shows, daily. They had turned the fans against the straight-laced GM and here was a potential employee giving them more fodder?

Who did he think he was?

Leyland had a lot of ideas to make the Phillies better on that chilly November afternoon and he didn’t keep too many of them secret. He explained what he thought his job as the manager should be:

“When you have veteran players who buy into your thought process, it eliminates a lot of nitpicking,” he said. “The veterans set the tone. Leadership is production. Putting winning numbers on the board, that's leadership. The manager is supposed to be the leader. That's not ego talking, that's just the way it is. I've said it all my life, you're either the victim or the beneficiary of your players' performance. That's as simple as this job is.”

And what elements make up a good team:

“[It's about] trying to create an atmosphere that's comfortable,” he said. “I'm not as big on chemistry as a lot of other managers. If it works, it's wonderful. I've managed teams that ate together, played together, prayed together, and we got the [crap] kicked out of us, and I managed some that punched each other once in a while and we won. It's getting the best out of talent. They're not all going to like me. Hopefully, they will, but I doubt it. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you're working toward the same goal -- win.”

Perhaps Gillick had similar thoughts going through his head after he traded away Abreu and Bell and when he was ironing out that deal to send Burrell to Baltimore?

Maybe.

More interesting to ponder is if things would have ended differently the past two seasons if Leyland were the manager instead of Manuel? Well, it’s not as easy as simply replacing one guy for another, despite what Todd Jones says. There’s no telling how all of the personalities would have blended if anyone but Manuel were skippering the Phillies. Besides, if Leyland were in Philadelphia it would be unlikely that Pat Gillick would be the GM, too.

Maybe Wade sealed his own fate by not hiring Leyland when he campaigned so hard for the job. But then again we should have all seen the handwriting on the wall when Wade stood at the podium after Leyland’s cleansing tell-all and said:

“Even if you’re polling the 3.2 million people who came to watch us this year, I don’t think you can get hung up on this people’s commanding lead in the votes 320 to 112 or anything like that. We’re going to hire a manager we hope our fans like, but at the same time we’re going to try to hire a manager that is going to get us to the World Series.”

Hindsight being what it is… well, you can fill in the rest.

But make no mistake about one thing – Philadelphia is barely a blip on Leyland’s rear-view mirror now. Actually, it’s hard to look back at anything when champagne is stinging the eyes.

Wait until Sunday...

Meanwhile, some segments of the national media believe that Philadelphia fans are about to spontaneously combust this Sunday. Here's a pretty apt piece of literature from the folks at Deadspin regarding this idea.

For the record, I'm weary of all the people described in the story, especially the Zordich-i.

Seriously, do people still really care that much about Terrell Owens? Based on the emails I get, people chastise me (us) for not ignoring Owens. He's gone, they write. He's in Dallas. Stop writing about him. It's not news.

Yes, people write in to say don't write about Terrell Owens, and no, they don't see the irony in that.

I do, and I think I can get at least 800 words out of it. Stay tuned early next week.

When you are right...

Mark Cuban is, far and away, the most interesting and compelling sports owner. Sure, the are pre-conceived ideas about the Dallas Mavericks' owner from what is distilled in short, out-of-context TV bytes, but forget that silliness. What makes Cuban even more compelling is that he is not only accessible to the media and his players, but also the fans, too. He isn't afraid of his customers or clients -- it seems as if he seeks out their input, comments and criticisms.

There are not many people of Cuban's ilk who do anything remotely close to that.

If one were to drop Cuban an email with a pertinent and well-thought out question, idea, etc. chances are he will respond.

Perhaps he has the luxury of being born at the right time or making his money early in his life so he isn't as out of touch with the changing world and new technology as most sports team owners, but what makes Cuban especially intriguing is that he doesn't dismiss the old media or write-off the changing dichotmy of how news is presented and reported.

The bottom line is Cuban gets it.

No better example of this is an entry in Cuban's blog from today. Better yet, name another owner who even has a blog, let alone one who updates it constantly.

It seems so long ago

Hard to resist posting this from Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS:



And the clincher for the NL East in 1993:



YouTube is the greatest invention on the web.

Best bets

Last week: 0-3
Year-to-date: 1-4

Man, I’m really bad at this game-picking stuff. Maybe instead of selecting the point-spread winners I should see how poorly I can do for an entire season. Oh-for-three? And I’m selecting the games to pick?

Geez!

Then again, who would have thought that Temple would score? Not me. Obviously, I thought Vanderbilt giving the Owls 34 points was a lock. But then to follow that with telling the good folks out there to avoid the Penn State-Northwestern game because the line was too big and I knew a few people who went to school in Evanston even though my wife, sister-in-law are Penn Staters and my father-in-law is a former PSU prof? I’m surrounded by a sea of Penn State-ness yet I can’t take them over Northwestern?

What a jerk.

Oh it gets worse. Mark Brunell stinks? Obviously I stink at picking games. The Dolphins over the Texans? Well… that’s an honest mistake. Who knew the Dolphins were so awful?

Nevertheless, I’m coming back with some more to take to the bank. Here’s what we’re going with this week:

Eagles minus 2 over Cowboys
Generally, I try to avoid the home team, but I like how this is shaping up. The Eagles appear to be focused, ready and can’t suffer another loss to an NFC East team. Then again, Dallas has a history of thriving in seemingly distracting situations and that team is all distraction. There are so many distractions in Dallas that Terry Glenn just kind of blends in.

Still, I’m taking the Eagles and giving up the two points.

Giants minus 4 over Redskins
I have a friend who knows a lot about football. Actually, he might know more about football than anyone I know outside of the business. He has good contacts with the NFLPA, a few former players and front office personnel and never hesitates to call them up to chat about the goings on around the NFL. What makes his information better is that because he isn’t a writer or reporter, his contacts are willing to reveal more. In turn, he sometimes fills me in on what he knows.

With that in mind, my friend says the Giants stink. He doesn’t like their defense and thinks Eli Manning still has a lot to learn. I wonder if that’s his opinion or if he heard that from someone?

I also have another friend (two!) who writes about the Redskins for the biggest newspaper in Washington, D.C. and one of the largest in the country. That newspaper is better at covering politics and the industry town that is Washington, D.C., but they go crazy covering the Redskins because aside from politics, the ‘Skins rule D.C.

That information has nothing to do with anything and neither does my relationship with the football writer because he doesn’t tell me anything about the Redskins, the NFL or anything. However, it seems as if he agrees with me when I email him about how bad Mark Brunell is because he won’t throw the ball to Chris Cooley.

What’s that all about? Take the Giants.

Minnesota minus 3 over Penn State
It’s local week here on the friendly little blog that could. Actually, this line just leapt off the page at me, mostly because I recognize the schools and it appears to be a tightly-contested game.

Looking at the almighty trends, Penn State is 8-1 against the spread in the last nine Big 10 games. Conversely, Minnesota beat Temple, 62-0. That makes it a wash.

The next variable is the players and I can name one – that Morrelli dude. Since everyone is writing that he needs some “seasoning,” he’s a non-factor. That means we go to great writers from each school.

Minnesota has Todd Zolecki, but Penn State has my wife. Call it a tie, though Todd has been writing more lately.

Minnesota has Bob Dylan.

Penn State can’t beat that.

Gophers!

Truth and the rumors

Mostly because there is nothing else to talk about, there has been a lot of chatter regarding Charlie Manuel's job security and the ouster of three of his coaches. One bit of misinformation out there was that there was a chance Manuel would not return for 2007. That was never the case according to Marcus Hayes' story in the Daily News today.

According to Marcus, Gillick said: "The fact is, no matter where we were, four or five games over or eight or nine games under, the players liked playing for Charlie. They play hard for Charlie. That's a factor in this day and age. There were times we played some sloppy baseball. There were times we played fundamentally unsound baseball."

The Phillies like playing for Manuel the same way they despised Larry Bowa when he managed the club. Typically, a player is going to be a lot more excited about his job and doing it well if his boss is someone he likes and respects. In that regard, it's pretty difficult not to like Charlie Manuel.

But someone had to be the scapegoat for the Phillies failure to make the playoffs for the 13th straight October. Those goats were Gary Varsho, Marc Bombard and Bill Dancy. All three are fine men, but sadly had to be sacrificed.

Dancy's ouster is not too surprising considering how many runners were routinely thrown out at the plate during the past two seasons. Neither is Varsho's departure considering that he was largely responsible for helping Manuel strategize ballgames. When Varsho was working with Bowa, he mostly just had to position the outfield, write out the lineup card and his other administrative duties while Bowa called all the shots. But with Manuel, that lack of a heavy hand ultimately worked against him. In fact, one National League manager jokingly to me to "tell Varsho to keep giving Charlie that good advice."

Bombard's non-renewal is tough to figure out. Who knows if it anything to do with Chase Utley's home run in Washington that was ruled foul during the last week of the season. Discussing that call was the angriest I've ever seen Manuel after a game and Bombard should have had a pretty good view of the ball clanging off the pole from the first-base coaching box.

Maybe that one play tipped things over the edge for Bombard.

As far as speculating about new coaches, it seems as if it is either a foregone conclussion, a poorly-kept secret or both. Juan Samuel, a former Phillie with big-league coaching experience, appears to have a job on Manuel's staff if he wants one. In fact, Samuel was rumored to be a potential base coach for the Phillies for 2007 as early as August.

Hiring Sammy would be a masterstroke. Every day would be SammyFest.

John Russell, the manager at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre also seems to be a shoo-in as well as a speculated manager-in-waiting. Hiring Russell makes sense.

As far as the other position goes, I'm curious if John Vukovich is interested in returning to uniform after two seasons in the front office. My guess is he's happy right where he is, but the allure of putting on that uniform everyday still has a strong draw for a lot of people.

Dick Pole's name has also been bandied about, but only because he's good friends with Manuel and his old boss, Dusty Baker, just lost his job in Chicago. I guess that's as good a reason as any to make Pole a candidate.

Either way, Gillick will get the coaching staff in place before he begins working on a plan to strengthen the 2007 Phillies.

Nothing to do (and all day to do it)

The 12:02 pulled out of the station just as my traveling companion and I stepped on to the platform. I wouldn’t have noticed the train heading toward a horizon where the sky seemed to be resting right on top of miles and miles of a treeless green valley until my partner – from the vantage point of my shoulders – pointed and shouted.

“Look! Tommy! Choo-choo!”

Every train to a two-year-old boy is named Tommy or Thomas, but unlike the diesel and electric fueled Amtrak that rockets from city to city, these Tommy trains sound a hard-to-ignore “choo-choo!” To anyone who has ever seen a modern, 21st Century train it is hard to think if they make any noise at all. The only noise is a whoosh of speed as it quickly turns to a blur.

But here in Strasburg, Pa., just 45 miles from Center City, anachronisms reign. Not only do the trains go “choo-choo!” but also they run on coal-powered steam engines along a countryside devoid of strip malls and tacky suburban sprawl. They don’t need a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s here because it’s just as easy to go out in the backyard and dig up all of the organic produce desired.

Nevertheless, we would have to come up with Plan B because we missed that 12:02. Then again, Plan B was the easy part. On the way to the railroad station we had stopped at an Amish roadside stand where we bought a few apples, a bag of pretzels and a couple of drinks. Instead of the ride we parked it on a circular bench under a shady birch tree where we watched the train disappear beneath the inky plume of black smoke on a day so sunny and warm it was almost cartoonish. There, we shared the fruit and the pretzels while he sipped from a small plastic container of juice.

Plan B was perfect. We had nothing to do and all day to do it. There was no ballgame to rush off to watch and write about because the Phillies didn’t make the playoffs again. The Eagles had played the night before, but my companion was in bed long before kickoff. Besides, “Blues Clues” holds much more appeal to him than Andy Reid’s game plan. So instead of talking about sports or work we were going to sit there on that bench, eat those pretzels and feel the sun on a rare quiet day.

There would be time for games later. There always is. That’s the great thing about sports – a game is always there if you need one. Flip through the dial on the TV, or better yet, head out to the field nearby and there is sure to be a game going on. Sometimes the games that are played on those tiny fields in the middle of nowhere are the best ones. After all, it’s not the result that is remembered in the end – it’s the company you kept. No one says, “Remember the score of that game we went to five years ago?” Instead it’s, “Remember when we went to that game five years ago and how much fun we had.”

You know, just being there with your people. That’s what the games are about, right?

My companion pointed out the water tower blooming over a row of old dining cars and cabooses as he scraped the salt off his pretzel. He also pointed out the engineers in their overalls and funny, short-brimmed caps preparing for the next engine to barrel down those tracks. Mostly, though, we just enjoyed the quiet and the company.

It’s hard to imagine anything other than tranquility from our perch on that bench. Miles removed from the tourist traps where folks from New York and Philadelphia came to see the Amish (“are the Amish open on Sunday?”) and the farms while shopping for brand-name fashions in the outlet malls, the fields surrounding the train tracks barely quaked in the gentle breeze that seemed to spread the sunshine as if it were spores from a dandelion.

Yet even then there is quiet tenacity in that energy. To us it’s nothing more than a Rockwellian backdrop to a perfect scene.

Kind of like we are on that bench.

So it’s hard to imagine that just hours before chaos was in command. How could the roads that can barely handle the traffic at roadside stand or a country fair provide access for the fleet of ambulances and emergency vehicles? Forget about the teeming TV satellite trucks rushing to yet another tragedy like flies to manure or the helicopters circling overhead, how are these vehicles going to get where they desperately need to go?

It was a brisk, 20-minute jog from where we were sitting to where the ambulances, helicopters and satellite trucks had rushed. Three miles, tops, which, out here is like a couple of city blocks. Out here miles melt into the horizon like the clouds of smoke into the cloudless sky from that old train.

Sometimes it’s weird how lives intersect – a chance encounter here or there brought about by the ambiguity of geography. Weirder yet is how dreams and hopes haunt each of us. For some of us, all we want is a day in the sun, free from work and responsibility or a respite from the cares that can weigh us down. I’m lucky that I get to live a dream. All my hopes and desires are right here in the country alongside a railroad track. We have pretzels, some apples, a cool drink, great company and nothing else to do.

This could be the greatest day ever.

But for Charles Roberts – who lived just down the road from where we sat – dreams are nightmares. Worse, those little Amish girls who did nothing other than show up at the one-room schoolhouse on the wrong day, dreams go unrealized and unformed.

All we can say is that it isn’t fair.

It’s a shame that Charles Roberts could not find joy in playing soccer with his kids, or inviting his people over to watch a game on television. Why couldn’t he find joy simplicity and the nuance that makes the world spin a create smiles so big that they turn to tears of pure happiness?

Why couldn’t Charles Roberts take a trip up Route 896 to the Strasburg Railroad and sit with his boy at the side of the tracks?

Why?

Almost too fast, the food has been eaten and the drinks sipped dry. We’re starting to get restless from staring out into the miles and miles of fields that just won’t end until they reach the clear, blue sky. The platform is starting to fill up with tourists ready to board the 1 p.m. for a trip through the countryside to Paradise and back.

“Hey Michael,” I said. “Let’s get a couple of tickets and go for a ride.”

This and that

Ever since the baseball season ended, I've been asked by more than a few people what I have planned -- as if I only have to work when the baseball season is in bloom.

I wish.

Seriously, I plan on staying busy with our web site at CSN -- a.k.a. the Little Engine that Could. I also plan on branching out by writing about anything and everything that catches my fancy. Hey, I'm no one-trick pony.

Hopefully, I can complete a few creative projects I've been working on as well as some longer fiction. As far as writing goes, developing those creative ideas and working out new and interesting ideas and concepts is my short and long-term goal.

As far as sports goes, keep checking back here to be updated on my observation and musing on baseball and everything else. I don't plan on closing up shop just because the seasons change. Not at all. The NFL is heating up and another NHL season is underway. Plus, the NBA and Big 5 are just around the corner. Most interestingly -- to me, anyway -- is the Fall marathon season, which will feature a big -time race in new York and Chicago. In fact, the NYC marathon could have its deepest field ever.

Along those lines, the big Harrisburg Marathon is set for Nov. 12. Let's hope for nice temperatures, no rain and a tailwind.

Elsewhere, the Phillies Scribes Football League is heading for the midway point of the season with the Lancaster entry leading in the points category... if only we can string a few more victories in there, too.

Besides, baseball season never really ends anymore. It just enters different phases.

So, yeah, it will be busy around here. A little less rushed, but busy nonetheless.

Etc.
Kenny Moore's biography on legendary Oregon track coach and Nike co-founder, Bill Bowerman, is excellent. So much so that the book is difficult to put down and I haven't even gotten to the deep Nike or Prefontaine parts yet.

I also picked up Bob Woodward's latest on the strength of the reviews and the fact that I really enjoyed his Nixon and Watergate epics. Yes, there was a time when I thought I was going to be a presidential historian.

Someday.

On another note, Jonathan Safran Foer's first two novels still haunt me. Wow, he can write.

Is that really Keith Jones as the analyst for Flyers telecasts? You mean he's watching the entire game? We'll dig deeper into that one soon.

Check this out -- a story about how bad the Philadelphia fans are in The New York Times and not a single mention of Santa Claus.

Looking to the winter

For anyone who has followed the news lately, there doesn't need to be an explaination about what has been happening here in Lancaster County. Though I live a short 25 to 30 minute drive from the so-called Amish Country, my part of Lancaster may as well be on the other side of the earth from there.

But when something happens out there it resonnates throughout our city. More than that, an attack to the Amish way is an assault on all of us.

On to the baseball...

Needless to say the Phillies season ended rather anti-climatically after a month in which it seemed as if the wild-card race was a bottle of soda being shook up in an industrial paint mixer. But before the top could be popped, the Phillies fizzled.

Surprised?

I get the sense that the Phillies will head into this winter more optimistic than they had been during the past failed seasons. Maybe that has something to do with how well the team played after the trade deadline, or that proven GM Pat Gillick is in charge... who knows? Just be sure that the Phillies really think the future is very bright and expect them to market the '07 season accordingly.

Nevertheless, there are a few pressing issues Gillick and the brass have to iron out. The situation with Pat Burrell and the outfield is high on that list, along with shoring up the five spots on the pitching rotation and adding strength to the bullpen.

In regard to the pitching, don't expect both Jamie Moyer or Randy Wolf to return. Wolf is a free agent who would like to return to the Phillies, while Moyer is a 20-year vet who would prefer to pitch for a team that trains in Arizona and plays near his home in Seattle. Interestingly, though, Moyer has an option for '07 that he will likely exercise. Where that leaves him and the Phillies is any one's guess.

Could Moyer be traded for a reliever? Doubtful, but you never know.

Meanwhile, if Jon Lieber and Brett Myers are going to remain at the top of the Phillies' rotation, both pitchers must do something about their fitness... or else. Not only did both pitchers' girth effect their performances -- especially in regard to injuries and athletic nature of the game -- it was also a bit embarrassing. I know Manuel said something to Lieber about his weight in the past, but it has now reached the point where it can't be a dirty, little joke. Lieber and Myers have to get into athletic shape and the Phillies have to make them.

As for the bullpen, I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so about Arthur Rhodes. Go ahead, click here and read the story I wrote when they traded for him. I'm not often correct, but whn I am I like to gloat.

Still, though he pitched well until he was worn down to a little nub, Geoff Geary is not the answer at the back end of the Phillies' bullpen. Maybe the answer is Ryan Madson, who went through something of a lost year this season as he bounced back and forth between the rotation and 'pen. Expect Madson to be back where he belongs for the entire season in 2007.

But the Phillies will still need some horses back there. Gillick definitely knows that championship teams are often built from the back to the front, and, like last year, expect the GM to attempt to strengthen the pitching staff.

Live, from New York...
I must admit that my favorite part about watching the baseball playoffs is watching the former Phillies in action. That's always been the case -- I even have a vague recollection of Jay Johnstone playing first base for the Yankees in the clinching game of the 1978 World Series. It was a day game and we lived in D.C. and Johnstone played for the Phillies earlier that year.

That's about all I remember from that World Series.

However, I remember sitting in a conference room in Citizens Bank Park listening to Ed Wade refuse to talk about Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling and Terry Francona making the run to the World Series in 2004. I think Ed thought we were picking on him.

Anyway, I especially enjoyed Bobby Abreu deliver a clutch, two-run double to open up the scoring for the Yankees in the blowout victory in last night's opener. And there, at third base was Larry Bowa waving those runners in.

Man does Bobby Abreu fit in well with that team.

Former Phillies in the playoffs

Here's a list of the former Phillies in the playoffs. In parenthesis is the number of trips to the playoffs since leaving Philadelphia.

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Athletics
none

Tigers
Todd Jones (1)
Placido Polanco (1)

Twins
Carlos Silva (2)
Nick Punto (2)

Yankees
Cory Lidle (1)
Sal Fasano (1)
Bobby Abreu (1)

NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cardinals
Josh Hancock (1)
Gary Bennett (1)
Scott Rolen (3)

Dodgers
Marlon Anderson (2)
Kenny Lofton (1)

Mets
Roberto Hernandez (1)
Billy Wagner (1)
Julio Franco (7)
Endy Chavez (1)
Ricky Ledee (1)
Michael Tucker (1)

Padres
none

Based on these rosters, it seems as if we’re headed for an Oakland-San Diego World Series.

Most victories by a Phillies manager after two full seasons

1.) Pat Moran (1915-16) - 181
2.) Charlie Manuel (2005-06) - 173
3.) Eddie Sawyer (1949-50) - 172
4.) Bill Shettsline (1899-1900) - 169
5.) Larry Bowa (2001-02) - 166
Billy Murray (1907-08) - 166
7.) John Felske (1985-86) - 161

6 weeks to go

Another one down, six more to go until Harrisburg.

Monday - 20 miles in 2:20:36.
Weird run. I had to make a pit stop and that cost me a half hour after running 3.5 miles, and then my calf and hamstring (mostly my calf) ached a bit and got tired during the second half. I was going at a decent pace, but for some reason I slowed down.

Tuesday - 16.3 miles in 1:49:59.
Had some more problems with my stomach but ran the second half really well. Actually, did the final nine miles in 57:51. My calf/knee/hamstring didn't hurt so much either. Must have been the ibuprofen.

Wednesday - 16.3 miles in 1:48:56.
Couldn't keep the faster pace throughout the final nine miles, but as a whole, I ran better than yesterday. I also went in for some ART on my right calf. Ran the final nine miles in 58:06.

Thursday - 16 miles in 1:50:11.
Just relaxed and ran.

Friday - 5.4 miles in 36:59.
Just a late easy 5 after a long day of tiredness. I didn't get home until 5 a.m. this morning from Washington. The game I was writing about didn't start until 11:30 p.m. and I spent the entire day trying to rest.

Saturday - 2 miles warmup followed by 13.1 miles in 1:23:29.
Wanted to run 6-minite miles the entire time, but the course was extremely difficult. In fact, the downhills were so extreme that I had to walk down them. Lots of twists and turns and there wasn't one half mile without a rise of decline. Nevertheless, it was a good effort.

Sunday - 11.5 miles in 1:22:59.
Calves felt a little tight from running hard over the hills yesterday. My feet were also a little tender from the blisters, too. I didn't run any pickups and pretty much just sat back and ran easy.

100.6 miles for the week. Six weeks to go.