Lights Out Lidge

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008. Was it all a dream? Now that Brad Lidge has officially signed a one-year deal with the Washington Nationals, that final knees-to-the-ground, hands-to-the-sky World Series win against the Rays seems like a distant memory.

In his four seasons with the Phillies, Lidge racked up 100 saves, mostly thanks to that perfect 48-for-48 2008. While Lidge is "disappointed" that the Phillies are not keeping him around for another season, it's almost fitting that out of all of Game 5's strange heroes, he's the last to fade from the sandlot, Citizen's Bank Park, after giving Eric Hinske the slider.

Lidge's fate with Jayson Werth on the Phillies South doesn't seem so bad when you look at who else was partially responsible for that Game 5 win. When the game resumed that Wednesday, tied in the bottom of the sixth, Geoff Jenkins set the tone for paradin' with a lead off double, his only hit of the post-season, and was later scored by Werth. The Rays then quickly retied the game in the top of the seventh only to have Pat Burrell lead off the bottom of the seventh with another double. Eric Bruntlett, pinch-running for Pat the Bat, was then scored on a game-winning single by Pedro Feliz.

Where are they now? Pat Burrell went on to play the role of "The Machine" for Brian Wilson. Eric Bruntlett, whose batting average was often announced on a local radio show whenever it was, give or take 10 minutes, around 2:15 P.M. BST (Bruntlett Standard Time), is now kickin' it as a stay-at-home dad. And Pedro Feliz spent last summer across the bridge playing ball for the Camden Riversharks, a team not affiliated with the MLB, but affiliated with a mascot known as Mr. Trash.

As for Lidge, he's earned himself a certain level of respect/free-drinks-until-you-die in Philadelphia because of 2008 - he and the anxiety that so easily forced another round of drinks on an entire city whenever he put runners on base in the ninth only to strike out the last batter with his slider. Even in Game 5, he quickly gave up a single and a stolen base only to "lights out" Hinske. It makes you wonder if Philly losing Lidge will offset the revenue that's expected to be generated from the proposed plan of keeping bars open one hour later to fund the city's schools. No one gave the city agita like Brad Lidge. He kept us nervous, and it made everything more exciting. On that note, I'd like to end with something I jotted down in an old notebook on "October 16, 2009":

I had my first “Lights Out” Lidge shot last night. A glass of Jim Beam slid down the bar and unexpectedly slowed to a stop in front of me. The guy to my right, covered in Phillies red from head to toe, looked deep into my eyes and shouted, “Lights Out Lidge! C’mon, lady!” We hit our glasses on the bar, cheersed, and Brad Lidge successfully closed out Game 1 of the NLCS against the Dodgers.

Brad Lidge, I will think of you every time that nervous knot forms in the pit of my stomach, the one that's only quieted by one more beer or an end of the night shot with some random stranger who works at the airport.

Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.

Phanatic vs. Machine

Johnny Baseball

No, the Phanatic's not taking on Pat the Bat. I'm talking about Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, Ken Jennings vs. Watson, Dave vs. HAL. Tomorrow, a robot created by Penn’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab will throw out the first pitch against the Phillie Phanatic. According to this article, the robot rides around on a Segway and has a motion-tracking camera "head" that can locate the strike zone on any fat, furry, green creature.

Before this matchup for the ages, former Phillie Randy Wolf will take on the Great Doctor and Cy Young Collector Harry Leroy "Roy" Halladay III, who according to this podcast (talk of "baseball" begins around 16:22) also parties with replicants (not to mention, makes up one quarter of R2C2). Quoting some dude or one of his brothers: "The Phillies. Half robot. Half of their league. Half of their bench is robotic. There's some mixies in there. There's some half and halfs—half robot, half human. Roy Halladay. 100% robot. He's actually a pitching machine."

While this source cannot be trusted since he goes onto call Brian Wilson a "great American hero" that "isn't a robot at all," I do admit that it's hard to watch Doc without wondering about his superhuman abilities. It's like Roy walks into a phone booth dressed to the nines before every game and comes out in a Phillies uniform ready to pitch entire games. I do agree that Brian Wilson isn't a robot, but if not a robot, what is he? Discuss.

Why Don't You Drink F***ing Beer?

My uncle—and lifelong Philly sports fanatic—Mark* has a great strategy for dealing with being bored, which I, incidentally, very often am while I'm at work. A game that never gets old and never goes out of season: Let's Start A Rumor. It is in the spirit of that game that I bring you this post...

It all started when I was browsing the archives of fellow punk Phillies blog The Big Sharkey Show and came upon a reference to the SF Giants' Brian Wilson and the suggestion that the infamous beardo/weirdo was nailed to the X, that is to say, dedicated to the straight edge lifestyle. Really, you ask???? Would you allow this to happen without the aid of alcohol? However, some cursory searching quickly brought a few points to my attention:

Doesn't Wilson look weirdly like Greg Dobbs here?

1) Brian Wilson's crossed arms gesture after every save looks suspiciously like the straight edge X. Wilson explains the gesture as a simultaneous tribute to his late father, a mixed martial arts clothing line, and his Christianity: "when I cross my arms, I have my left hand in the fist and my right hand goes underneath pointing with my finger. What I’ve taken into my own belief is that this finger represents one man. The fist represents the power of the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ... So I basically give respect to the ultimate fighting world and I also give respect to Christ, the audience of one that I play for." I've always suspected that straight edge kids are actually secret Jesus freaks!

2) The same article further explains that Brian Wilson wears a t-shirt bearing the crossed arms/X design under his uniform while he pitches. Win or lose, he's still nailed to the X.

3) Finally, Wilson's Wikipedia page** clears things up: "Wilson ... adheres to a Straight Edge way of life ... As a sign of his choice of being Straight Edge, Wilson has the words "Straight Edge" tattooed along the length of his torso, Japanese characters on his shoulder that read "Poison Free," and "XXX" stitched on his ... glove as a straight edge symbol" !!!!

In conclusion, I have only one thing to the straight edgers of the world, and I will say it in the words of Murphy's Law:

* Other things my uncle Mark is famous for: "inventing" the slogan "the only band that matters" to describe The Clash, a boo so legendarily loud Pete Rose himself tipped his hat from first base, and actually punching me on Christmas when I said I'm not an Eagles fan (sorry!!).

** The Wilson mentioned here may or may not actually be Brian.