Hey Mickey!

Up first to be honored in Scoring Position's Hall of Fame for Good Phillies Dudes is the dandiest little glove man to ever play the game. The scrappy midfielder with the heart of gold and the glove that never got the Midas touch. The little guy that led the 1993 Phillies World Series lineup with a regular season batting average of a whopping .247. THE GREAT MORANDINI!

Let's observe a moment of silence for Mickey Morandini. Feel free to meditate on the following:

That sweet unassisted triple play he turned against the Pittsburgh Pirates in '92. With Andy Van Slyke on second and a slimmer Barry Bonds on first, Mickey caught Jeff King's line drive, stepped on second, and then tagged out Bonds. Relive the glory of Mickey becoming the first second baseman in NL history to nail a defensive hat trick here. Of course the Phillies went on to lose in extra innings, but all's not fair in love and baseball. Cue Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love". But was it over then?

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

Mickey Morandini earned the nickname "Dandy Little Glove Man" for a reason. Mickey Hands finished in the top two for his position in fielding percentage five times in his career and was even voted to the All-Star team in 1995. Despite this fact, Mickey never won a Gold Glove over other stand-up ballplayers like Jose Lind. Poor Mickey. Hey. Hey. Poor Mickey. Still, what a dude!

So the next time you slide on your mitt for your neighborhood's softball team, think about Mickey the Great Morandini. Think about unrequited love and your own shortcomings, and then think about Mickey turning a double play dressed as a member of All-4-One. Believe you me, Scoring Position's not the only one to want Mickey on their team. Check out this great audio interview on Jimmy Scott's High and Tight in which Mickey says, "At heart, I'm a Philly guy," while smooth saxophones play over crashing waves.

This might be the most love Morandini's gotten since '98. And he runs a stationary store with his wife, Peg!

The Church of Baseball

Like any good lapsed Catholic that now practices in the Church of baseball, the topic of morality in professional sports has been on my brain since they didn't let those beefcakes party at Cooperstown last month.

Juiced up monsters blasting homers aren't what Abner Doubleday intended when he might have been sitting in a cow pasture inventing baseball in 1839. Hoop-and-stick can only be so fun. Running down baseballs after every over-muscled man hits 'em into no man's land would have been less fun.

Every era is embedded in a specific cultural time that plays by and makes its own rules. Spitballs were legal until "the owners greedily sold out to home runs." That's according to Ty Cobb, anyway - you know, that guy with the highest career batting average of all time that should be in the Hall of Fame for violent, racist sociopaths. Instead, he lives on in Cooperstown alongside some of the greatest assholes to pick up a bat. But, man, could they hit!

Is integrity to the game more important than integrity itself? Mind you, that's a game that banned black athletes from playing until 1947. (Here's to you, Mr. Robinson. Happy Belated!) Still, potentially changing the game via gambling or betting seems to rank highest among baseball's mortal sins. Throwing illegal pitches fall into the venial because while a tossing a gooball's still a no-no, it doesn't kill the buzz of a good home run derby or Roger Clemens's comeback (No, I'm not talking the Sugar Land Skeeters). Doesn't it make you wonder how the Ten Commandments of baseball would read?


That brings me to Chooch whose penance is the first 25 games of the season after testing positive for Adderall. I know! Not our Chooch! I don't want to think about it either. I want to think about Game 3 of the 2008 World Series and Roy Halladay falling asleep next to his Chooch pillow in the off-season and Chooch catching R.A. Dickey in a mitt half his size in last year's All-Star game. Let's tune out the fact that he tested positive for an amphetamine the same year that he led the MLB in hitting. Is the only redeeming thing about the 2012 Phillies a sham?

Relax. Put on a Phil Collins record and reread that SI article "Brotherly Glove". It'll make you feel better.

While Adderall's no Andro and Chooch's no juicer, the incident raises a number of interesting questions for baseball's future. What's worse, bulking up or improving focus, if the improvement in performance is the result of a drug? Will cognitive stimulants be the next generation of drugs that keep players out of the Hall of Fame? Is performance enhancement a part of modern day baseball culture that society just needs to accept? The fact that close to 10% of MLB players have ADHD diagnoses must be hinting at something. They can't all be chasing their shadows in the outfield.

Still, the bigger question remains. Why do crimes against sports seem like they're worse than crimes against society?

My brain hurts. Maybe I'm still hungover from eating a stadium made out of deli meats and Cheetos on Super Bowl Sunday. I've heard that Ray Lewis may have murdered some people, but the Ravens won the Super Bowl, so I guess we should let him pass. I mean, tackle. But what do I know? I'm a woman! We're underrepresented when it comes to Hall of Fame votes, and until Betty Spaghetti has a place in the Hall, I'm boycotting!

This February Nadine and I will be paying homage to good dudes from the Phillies past that never made it to Cooperstown. Wait, what's that? The city already has its own Hall of Fame and they even voted in Mike Piazza? Eh, fuck it. We're doing it anyway. Consistent with the standards put forth by the Baseball Hall of Fame, voting will be based on going with one's gut.

Leave all real talk about baseball's past, present, and future as well as which Phillies deserve a Billy Ray Valentine's Day card this February in the comments.