A sort of homecoming

Hola, sports fans. There is a lot happening today from the Tigers arriving in Philadelphia for three games, to Freddy Garcia’s shutdown, to the U.S. Open, to the first reviews of author Floyd Landis’ soon-to-be released memoir, Positively False hitting the ether. Since that’s the case, enough yapping – let’s get into it…

Undoubtedly, Charlie Manuel will face some scrutiny this weekend. The reason, of course, is because the American League champion Detroit Tigers are in town for the weekend and that means Jim Leyland is here. Leyland, as most Phillies fans remember, lost out on the managerial job here when then general manager Ed Wade decided to hire Manuel instead. At the time the thinking (at least by me) was that when Jim Leyland specifically campaigns for your job opening, chances are it’s a slam dunk.

How do you pass on Jim Leyland?

Well…

Manuel is in his third star-crossed season with the Phillies, while Leyland, in just one season, turned the Tigers to a World Series team after 12 straight losing seasons. In 2003 the Tigers lost 113 games. In 2006, with Leyland in charge, the Tigers won 103 games, including the playoffs.

Leyland, in these parts, gets a lot of the credit for turning the Tigers into a force in the American League. To degree Leyland definitely had some influence on making Detroit a winner, though it is much more complicated than that. Yes, a manager has an effect on a baseball team. And it really isn’t a surprise that the Phillies have been better with Charlie Manuel at the helm than they were with Larry Bowa.

Leyland and Manuel are similar in that they make it easy for players to want to come to work and do the job as well as possible, while Bowa’s mission seemed to be one of divide and conquer. As was the adage during Bowa’s time, the Phillies are 0-76, but Bowa is 86-0.

But one thing Leyland did not do was sign and develop the players. The rotation of Jeremy Bonderman, Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson, and Mike Maroth would have been great regardless of the manager. Nor does it hurt that the offense leads the American League in hits, runs, extra-base hits, batting average, slugging percentage and is third in home runs.

Certainly the Phillies will know where they stand amongst baseball’s top teams when the Tigers leave on Sunday afternoon.

But more interesting than Leyland’s arrival is Placido Polanco’s return to Philadelphia. Polanco, as most remember, was the Phillies’ steady second baseman that allowed the team to take its time in bringing along Chase Utley. In fact, even when Utley was ready to play every day, putting Polanco on the bench was a very difficult thing to do. In order to find more playing time for Polanco the Phillies used him in left field for a few games, but not nearly enough at third base.

Third base was the position Polanco played when he was traded to the Phillies as part of the deal for Scott Rolen in 2002. But after playing 131 games at third in 2002, Polanco played just 42 games at the hot corner since then. For some reason the Phillies just weren’t willing to unseat David Bell from that spot. The Phillies definitely would have been a better team with an infield of Ryan Howard, Utley, Polanco and Jimmy Rollins, but sometimes things are as easy as simply sliding around names.

Baseball is complicated like that sometimes.

The “what if” game is the favorite past time of the national past time, and though Utley has solidified himself as the best second baseman in the National League, Polanco has done pretty well since leaving town. Currently he’s third in the league with a .343 batting average, led the Majors in the statistic in 2005 and, most importantly, took home the MVP in last October’s ALCS.

Polanco will gladly let Chase Utley and David Bell have Philadelphia if can play ball in October. The same goes for Charlie Manuel, too. As far as Leyland is concerned, losing out on the Phillies job might have been the best thing that happened.

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Anyway, based on how things were at the time, trading Polanco to the Tigers for Ugeuth Urbina and Ramon Martinez was a pretty good deal. Then, as now, the Phillies were desperate for bullpen help and Polanco was the only real commodity the team had.

To this day I still get emails from readers asking why Wade and the Phillies didn’t trade Bell instead… OK.

Look at it this way – if you don’t want David Bell, what makes you think another team will want him and then give you a relief pitcher like Urbina? The Phillies couldn’t trade Bell for the same reason why they can’t trade Jon Lieber or Pat Burrell…

No one wants them!

Apropos of nothing, it seems as if both Utley and Polanco will be starting in the All-Star Game next month.

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I wasn’t quick enough to think of it at the time, but Freddy Garcia could end up being the “deadline deal” the Phillies need if they are still in the hunt next month… that is, of course, if Garcia can still pitch.

There is no time table for when Garcia will even throw again, so any plans regarding his return are just a silly exercise at this point. But… he might be able to return.

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Through the early going of action in the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in western Pennsylvania, it looked as if Jim Furyk of the Bellair neighborhood in Manheim Township, Lancaster, Pa., was locked in. But then his putter deserted him over the final seven holes. Today Furyk came out and fired a not-so sterling 75 to leave him six-over par.

Despite the score, Furyk still has a shot at winning his second U.S. Open title. Tiger Woods is in it, too, at four-over par, which brings up an interesting point:

Do golf fans want to see the best players in the world struggle to get close to even par as it typically is in the U.S. Open?

Do fans like to see Furyk or Tiger hit a stellar shot near the pin and then have it roll off the green and into the rough?

I’m torn. I don’t like it when a golfer makes a good shot and isn’t rewarded for it, but at the same time I don’t really want to see them take target practice at the pins as if they were at any other course. That’s no fun, either.

Either way, the U.S. Open is the most intriguing of all golf tournaments and it will be even more interesting to see what happens to this little corner of the country when it comes to Merion in Ardmore in 2013.

For one thing, something is going to have to be done about the atrocity that is the Schuylkill Expressway.

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The New York Times ran a review of West Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pa. native Floyd Landis’ new epic that hits bookstores June 26. In the review it is noted that there is very little new information in the book, however, it was noted that there was a contradiction in some of Landis’ statements about the consequences from the infamous testimony from former Tour de France champ Greg LeMond from the USADA arbitration hearings last month.

To wit:

In an epilogue, Landis writes that he witnessed Geoghegan’s phone call and was shocked by his manager’s attempt to intimidate LeMond by bringing up LeMond’s previously undisclosed history of being sexually abused as a child. So shocked, he writes, that he immediately decided Geoghegan should be fired.

“The only thing I knew right away was that Will needed to go,” Landis writes. “I went to his room and helped him pack his things.

Wait, did Floyd get the same guy who wrote Charles Barkley’s memoirs to work on his?

Regardless, an interesting note is that Floyd is releasing a “Wiki” defense e-book on the same day as the memoirs are released.

Also, I read the first chapter that was previewed on Floyd’s site and it’s pretty much the boilerplate jock autobiography except that I drive past a lot of the places described in the book on my way to Philadelphia. In that regard it's more interesting simply because I may have driven past some of the places described. As I've mentioned in past posts, though Landis and I grew up a short bike ride away from one another, our worlds were as different as night and day. Frankly, even though my roots have been planted in Lancaster since I was 10 years old, it is very rare for me to see an Amish buggy motor past. They don't really come to the urban/suburban area where I live and when they do it trips me out.

Come on, Mr. Stoltzfus, turn on a light already.

Nevertheless, it was interesting reading about a rube from Lancaster County travelling across the country with a cheap car and a tent and then to Europe with the simple hope of being a professional mountain bike rider.

Hopefully my fax request for an advance copy will arrive soon so I can tell everyone all about it.

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If they have an NBA Finals and nobody watches it, did it really happen?

Apparently the NBA Finals ended this week. Really? And what ever happened to that fun league called the NHL?