To Dream the Impossible Dream

I've been thinking in numbers for months now. How many games would the Phillies have to win and the rest of the National League have to lose to make the dream of a wild card less impossible?

Thanks to the Marlins gettin' 'dricked  last night (along with errbody that has faced "Ace 38" lately), the Phillies are now five games back from that one-game wild card showdown at dusk. They've improved to 70-71 after taking 13 of the last 17 and winning their last five.

What's next, you ask? Two more games against Nadine's ex-boyfriend Greg Dobbs and the Tired of Fightin' Fish, a four-game series with the already eliminated Astros, and three games versus the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Muts. Then, it's make-or-break, baby, with the Braves at home. Well, maybe. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm so scared.

While the Phillies have no room for error with a current 1.5 percent chance of making the playoffs, that old Phillies magic has been in the air lately. I sang "High Hopes" in the ballpark twice on Sunday. The doubleheader sweep of the Rockies included both a classic John Mayberry Jr. walk-off and the return of Chooch that, with the help of Phil Collins and his 2-for-2 bat, kept an entire stadium on its feet. One more round of beers, please. High fives all around. How could you not get a little high on Phillies hope? Even Scott Franzke was made a believer during last night's radio broadcast, saying to a hopeful LA, "Well, they've not been mathematically eliminated."

It's not over until it is, or something like that. I'm just happy that the Phillies are one away from being at .500 for the first time since June 4. All they need is:

Too little, too late, or is it? Ain't that what baseball's all about?

Radio, Radio

Click on Uncle Wip for
a history of 610 WIP

On my drive into work this morning, I was startled by a loud and crystal clear Angelo Cataldi screaming at me through the FM dial. What followed was a cheesy sound collage, mixing clips of Vance Worley striking out Braves with Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." Rookie Vance Worley strikes out Chipper Jones looking! and Bump... Bump! Bump! Bump! It's the eye of the tiger. While Angelo's raspy voice and Rocky-inspired montages of the Phillies beating the Braves normally make sense with my first cup of coffee, something was missing. Where was the glorious crackling of that AM static?

610 WIP made the move over to the 94.1 FM the day after Labor Day, replacing classic rock station 94 WYSP with sports talk radio 94 WIP, trading the annoying Danny Bonaduce for the annoying Angelo Cataldi. While it's undeniably awesome that WIP's expanding its reach to a bigger and younger audience, I'm glad that it still has a place on the AM dial for old souls like myself. "This just isn't right," my boyfriend turned to me and said as we listened to people call into the soundless void, applauding Vance Worley's greatness. (He is pretty great, now 11-1 after leading the Phillies to their 14th consecutive win with him on the mound last night.)

After switching back and forth between 94 WIP and 610 WIP about ten times, I eventually settled on the imperfect static that was there with me the night the Phillies won the World Series and the morning Cliff Lee was signed. Call me old fashioned, but there's just something comforting about that static.

Tropical Storm Lee to put a damper on Labor Day for Atlanta

It hasn't been the best weekend for the Phils in rainy Florida. Back in April when Greg Dobbs pinch-blogged "Can the Phillies win without Greg Dobbs?", urging the Phillies to get the old band back together, maybe he had this weekend's series in mind. While Greg Dobbs has, in fact, put up pretty good numbers against the Phillies this weekend and this year, homering against Herndon to seal the deal Saturday night and going 0.371 vs. the Phillies and 0.500 vs. Halladay, yesterday's loss cannot be blamed on Greg Dobbs.

That is, unless Greg Dobbs strategically planted those Phillies "fans" in the bleacher seats to interfere with Hunter Pence's hit in the sixth out of spite. Potential double, home run, or caught ball, we'll never really know how yesterday's 14 inning marathon would have ended due to a couple of ignorant fans that reached over into Bryan Peterson's glove. Wasn't that one fan aware of the rule that says that if you choose to use your cap, protector, pocket, or any other part of your uniform, it is not a catch anyway? How about the rule that says you shouldn't interfere with baseball because it might later cause your team to lose by walking a batter with the bases loaded in the 14th? The only marathon that I was more pissed watching while stuck to a couch was the final season of the Sopranos. It produced a similar reaction of "WTF!?!??! Is there something wrong with my television? Seriously? That's it."

I doubt that the Phillies' protest will take back yesterday's loss, but don't stop believing, folks. Plus, we've got another game today and I've read more than once that Tropical Storm Lee is set to put a damper on Labor Day for Atlanta. While he has posted his worst numbers against the Braves this year, 1-3 with a 4.98 ERA, keep in mind that Sir Clifton's coming out of a 5-0 August with a 0.45 ERA, some hits, and a couple of RBIs. He's a true Renaissance man. Let's just hope that today's weather report is right for once.

Replace "El Nino" with "Cliff Lee" and tropical storms with "baseball players", and it all makes sense. The magic number's 18. The Phillies are a comfortable 7.5 games ahead of the Braves. Lee has a chance to make those numbers even better at CBP tonight by bringing all tomahawk chops to a halt as he goes for his 16th win and 200th K.

If You Own the Atlanta Braves...

Tonight the Atlanta Braves come to Philadelphia for a three-game series, which has really got me wondering: how on earth is it still acceptable to have Native American nickname teams in 2011?

Let's do a quick poll. Which is worse (and I'm limiting this to baseball here): the Cleveland Indians and their racist caricature logo (see right) or the Atlanta Braves and their tomahawk chop? Honestly, I'm inclined to vote Indians on the basis of that logo, but it's hard when my hatred of the Braves runs so deep. It was bred into me as a child, when I used to sit in front of the television holding up homemade anti-Braves signs. David Justice was a particular target of my venom. And they had the nerve to call themselves "America's Team" even though their lame, gimmicky cheer is offensive to the people who, like, actually discovered this country in the first place? Not to mention, supposedly stolen from the Floria Seminoles, which just seems way too fitting.

There are plenty of arguments against maintaining Native American nickname teams in this day and age, but I think Philadelphia's own Atom and His Package may have said it best.

Atom and His Package - "If You Own the Washington Redskins, You're A Cock" 

I'm proud to report that I successfully converted my North Carolina-raised, childhood-Braves-fan boyfriend into a Phillies fan (his favorite players are Roy O and John Mayberry Jr.), because you know what they say: if you know a Braves fan who thinks he is your friend, now is the time for your friendship to end.

In other news, I have been too sick to blog (or drink coffee!) for days and a lot has happened. Here's a quick round-up: the Phillies got out the brooms against Jayson Werth and the Nationals, Raul "When It Rains, It Pours" Ibanez broke out of his historic slump (I guess dude finally got around to making some new horcruxes), Cole "2008" Hamels was—in the words of his #1 fan, my mom—great, tremendous, awesome, wonderful, thrilling, and fantastic, moving J-Roll back to the leadoff spot is paying off big-time, Vance Worley continues to impress with both his pitching and his sweet glasses, Roy Halladay has been hugging his Chooch pillow and crying himself to sleep as it looks likely that Carlos Ruiz will head to the DL, and the Philadelphia Phillies are the best team in baseball. (I mean, technically, they're tied with the Cleveland Indians, but that's racist.)