Charlie Manuel, Man of Mystery

I was wide awake at 5:30 this morning. I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, and frantically began clicking through site after site hoping to find today's lineup somewhere. No cigar. All Uncle Cholly has revealed to the press - you know, the sports bloggers that matter, is the following:

"We've got a lineup. We have a left fielder, a first baseman, a second baseman, a catcher."

Today's lineup against the Pirates doesn't really matter all that much. It'll probably be John Mayberry Jr. or Ty Wiggington at first, Freddy Galvis (or is it Galveeees?) at second, and either Juan Pierre or Layce Nix in left field if Mayberry's at first. One thing that's certain outside of the Whos, Whats, and I Don't Knows is that Doc will return to the bump at 1:35 PM.

I'm just glad that the part of my brain that gave me fuzzy, nervous Christmas morning feelings as a seven-year-old still works. Baseball's so much easier to believe in.

Happy Opening Day!

This just in:

What The Ph?!!

Too heartbroken to blog: that's how I've been feeling since Friday night. It's taken days just to start thinking about it. Who would've thought it could end this way? Who would've thought that a team like this—once favorites to win the 2011 World Series—would be knocked out in the first round of the playoffs? I'll tell you who: any Philadelphia sports fan. Given Philadelphians' congenital penchant for pessimism in regard to all things (but especially sports), the Phils' steady regression since their magical 2008 championship season (lost the 2009 World Series, 2010 NLCS, and now 2011 NLDS), and the true meaning of "homefield advantage" in division series that go five games (here's a hint: the home teams usually lose), I doubt most of Philly was all that surprised. But that doesn't mean our hearts didn't break.

So what the Ph happened?!! Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt couldn't get it done. Our bullpen (with the exception of Ryan Madson and maybe Brad Lidge) was revealed for the farce it was. After getting our hopes up that his postseason power had returned, Ryan Howard assured us we were mistaken, then ended the season in, quite literally, a crumbled heap. The squirrels of St. Louis put a curse on our bats. Someone really needs to tell the Phillies that there's no honor in playing hurt when "playing hurt" means grounding out to shortstop four times (cough cough, Placido Polanco).

Most of all, Tony La Russa and his hair solidly out-managed Charlie Manuel and his gut. Charlie played game five like he had plenty of time to spare; the Cardinals played every inning like it was their last. Charlie continued to let aging, aching players make fools of themselves at the plate while John Mayberry Jr. stood in the dugout, looking like he was about to burst into tears. As much as we love Charlie, I have to admit it would've been satisfying to wake up Saturday morning and hear he'd been fired.

The four aces may have carried this team to the best record in franchise history, but they couldn't win us a best-of-five series against the hot-hitting, Phillie-killing Cardinals. (Especially when our own pathetic offense couldn't manage to score any runs.) I can't help but think: what if we could just go back in time and lose the last game of the season to Atlanta? Did we do this to ourselves? Did we break our own hearts? And why are we going to do it again next year?


Maybe the postseason—at least in its current structure—is just a bad gauge of the actual abilities of a baseball team. Our 102 wins should be able to speak for themselves. Not that telling ourselves that is going to make our hearts any less broken.

Is That All There Is?

What a long, uncomfortable trip September's been. The Astros. The Cardinals. The Nationals. Outside of clinching the NL East, sealing the deal with Raul's nice-a grand salami, it's been a rough couple of weeks. The Phils dropped their sixth straight and final home game of the season last night to the Nats. They were only able to put a couple of Choochers on the board as the Natty bros broke out the brooms. I know that the Phillies are the best and all, but to quote Charlie Manual quoting Ric Flair, "to be the best you gotta beat the best," which has the built in assumption that you've already beaten the worst. To win against either, you need things like offense, hitting the ball with runners on base, as well as defense, which is the opposite of letting balls roll through your legs, overthrowing third base when's it's a close game, and colliding with fellow teammates and Polish sausages. The Phils even made LA channel his inner Harry Doyle this week as he muttered, "Is this season ever going to end?" on air during Tuesday's day game against the Nationals.


I know, I know. Don't freak out. Charlie hasn't jumped off the Walt Whitman just yet. These games don't mean anything. Better now than later. If we had our regular lineup in, everything would be different. Wait, what? It's not just Bowker and Kratz? The A-Team's not really doing much? Well, who cares? They'll get it back. Wait until the postseason. Yeah, we'll get 'em then. It's only gonna get funner. It has to get funner. I can't wait to go paradin'.

Well, I'm still freaking out. It's just too close to the postseason not to think about what happened to the Phillies last year. I think about it every time runners are on the corners and nothing happens, every time there are two hits on the board, and every time that third strike is called. It's just all too familiar. If we lose to the Muts tonight, I don't even know what!

I just hope we'll be hungry enough to go eat again once this terrible hangover's over. Hey, the Indians won at the end of Major League. They didn't start off their season as the best team in the baseball, but you have to admit that there are a lot of striking similarities to the Phillies of the past two weeks. That is, if you have been listening or watching at all.

Feel free to get it all out in the comments.

Hitters Gonna Hit

The Phillies had a season-high 18 hits to score a season-high 14 runs against Chris Volstad and the Marlins last night. This is only the second time this season the Phillies have scored more than 10 runs in a game. The other time was an 11-0 win against the Mets on April 7th. What made last night's win so beautiful were all those old time Phillies coming through with the bats. J-Roll had four hits and three runs scored. Ryan Howard had four hits including a two run homer in the third. He finished with four RBIs and three runs scored. Seems like old times—am I right? Now is where I finally insert the song "Phillies Fever" by all the Phillies greats from the '70s in high hopes that it will help the Phillies bats stay alive (ah, ha, ha, ha):

Even Michael Martinez came through late in the game with a 3-RBI base-clearing triple. After the game Uncle Cholly said, "We jumped our team batting average some, didn't we? Did we get over .250?" After some basic research, I found that we sure as hell did: the Phillies batted .409 last night. Boom!

And Now for Something Completely Different

The Phillies got their bats back! No, it's just He-Man Charlie Manuel riding a Phanatic like a bat out of hell. The rapture's a-comin', Saturday, May 21 according to a creepy gang of buses that surrounded me on the Jersey Turnpike and the Phillies' four game losing streak, and it'd be nice to go out with my boys on top playing good ball. Isn't that what we all hope for at the end of the world?

Last night marked another "meh" performance for the Phils. While Oswalt pitched surprisingly well after struggling with his velocity down in Clearwater, the offense once again failed to deliver. A terrified Danys Baez once again provided the opposite of relief allowing three straight singles to load the bases for the Cardinals in the bottom of the ninth. I once again was perplexed by the recent demotion of the Great Vance Worley after Vance Worley pitched so darn great.

While you might be saying to yourself that the Phillies lost a few games and it's not the end of the world, just sit in your local park for an hour and some kook will remind you that this Saturday's Judgement Day. What else could also explain the fact the Phillies are dropping like flys? Age? Young buck Michael Stutes might be the most recent addition to our clown car of a disabled list.

Whether the end of the world is indeed this Saturday or another future date predicted by bad math, the Phillies need to start playing like they mean it with whoever they have left. Seriously. I don't want to spend my last days drinking Jersey Turnpikes while cursing my favorite team of ballplayers.

To delay being reduced to such, you can check out more awesome Phillies-inspired comics like He-Man Charlie here!

Put Him In, Coach!

John Mayberry, Jr! What's not to love? That smile, that speed, that walk-off hit on opening day... He's everything a Phillies fan dreams of. And he's smart, too! In 2002, Mayberry was the highest-drafted player to elect to attend a four-year college instead of signing a contract—and that college was Stanford. Now, Mayberry is winning our hearts with a fantastic start to the 2011 season and a solid case for an everyday spot in the outfield.

At 6'6 and 27-years-young (hard to believe, I know—I would've guessed he was about 22), Mayberry has never had much of a chance to prove himself in the big leagues. Once a #19 pick overall, his minor league career was plagued by a high strikeout rate and inability to hit right-handed pitching. But he continued to make his case yesterday with a two-run homer off the right-handed Tim Hudson, plus two walks and a stolen base. In fact, Mayberry's performance was the only highlight of an otherwise lackluster game, a fitting end to a depressing weekend for the Phillies (full disclosure: I turned it off and watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead). Okay, maybe making Mayberry an everyday player is risky, but with the current state of the corner outfielders and pathetic production from the bottom of the line-up, the Phillies don't really have much to lose. At best, he continues his promising beginning to the 2011 season—clutch hits, speed, charisma, and solid play in the outfield—and letting him start pays off big time. At worst, young Mayberry adds a little freshness and life to an aching, aging line-up. He looks hungry for a chance to play, like he's serenading Charlie Manuel with "put me in, coach!" from his spot on the bench.

While Charlie is known for his loyalty to his players (which explains sticking with Raul Ibanez throughout his epic slump this season), has Ben Francisco actually earned any of that loyalty? Francisco only won his job in right field this season because Dom Brown wasn't around and healthy enough to challenge him for it. Why shouldn't John Mayberry Jr. get that same chance? With Shane Victorino hurt, maybe he finally will. This could be his at-bat music:


Put him in, Coach!

Jayson Werthless

There was a time not too long ago when I was sitting with my brother in the bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium listening to chants of "Werthless" directed toward right field. My brother is a Yankee lover despite the fact that he has no problem matching the baseball cap of any AL or NL team to whatever color polo shirt he's wearing. I will never understand this phenomenon in bro fashion, but I have to admit that while morally questionable, his wall of caps is pretty impressive. His bedroom is just like Lids if Lids smelled like Axe and had a bed in the center of it. My brother wisely chose to go with one of his many Yankees caps that day while I donned my beat-up Phillies cap. I felt like Elaine Benes at Yankee Stadium, booed as much as Jayson Werth while returning to my seat with a birthday Bud Lite for my favorite Yankee bro.

While Phillies fans are infamous booers and will probably greet the new Natty beau (heh, see what I did there?) with louder rounds of boos than the Yankees did, they have their reasons. The Yankees fans that surrounded me that day were itching to boo anything that wasn't branded with a Yankee symbol. This included Jayson Werth, me, and could have included my Yankee brother had he chosen a different shirt/hat combo. The bleacher creatures of Yankee Stadium do not discriminate. Their chants of "Werthless" upset me, and not because I was a Phillies fan, but because they were unfocused and followed by chants of "you suck" at all things non-Yankee. That said, I don't think that Werth will be received kindly when Philadelphia takes over Nationals Park today, but at least there will be a method to the Phillies fan's madness.

I used to like Werth. I was sad to see him go. I almost cried when he talked about noticing the change in leaves for the first time after returning from 2010's loss to the Giants in the NLCS, and that whole "this is definitely not the same game I played in my grandparents' backyard as a kid" bit. Then the man chose money over baseball while his buddy Cliff did the opposite, and went on to pout for months about how he was on one of the worst teams in baseball. Werth was then caught swinging a bat while saying, "I hate the fucking Phillies." Of course the fans are going to turn. To quote Nadine's own father: "I have a bounty on Jayson Werth's head. 500 bucks to the first person to hit him with a battery."

Werth's obviously not over us either. In his first game with the Nationals, he chose "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses as his at-bat music:

Cause nothin' lasts forever and we both know hearts can change

It's hard not to read more into that. It's like watching John Cusack hold up a boombox outside a window in Say Anything. Werth's trying to tell us something. "November Rain" is an epic ballad about the misery of a former rock star reminiscing over a past relationship that ends in suicide—a newly married bride's gunshot to the head. In the music video, she kind of reminds you of newly married to the Nationals Werth, but then again, so does the down and out Axl Rose and the lost in the desert Slash wailing on guitar. After all, November was when the Phillies gave Werth an offer that he turned down to become a free agent. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this soap opera plays out. I know that Charlie's ready for Werth, as he was recently quoted saying, "I’ll be on him. I’ll be getting on him. I’ll be getting on J-Dub. I’ll be hollering at him."

As for me, I'm just happy that Ben Francisco's been doing such a great job in right field since we lost Werth, who truly wasn't worthless to the Phillies at all. He played great baseball here—hit home runs, dove for balls, had interesting facial hair. However, one area where Benny excels and is continuing to excel compared to Werth is hitting with runners in scoring position (RISP).

So the real question is, to boo or not to boo Werth in the April rain? It's hard to hate Werth all that much. Maybe Axl Rose is right: "everybody needs some time on their own."

You Know You Love Me XOXO

Happy Valentine's Day to our Baseball Boyfriends!

Love,

The Ladies of Scoring Position

xoxo

It's a beautiful day and the sun is actually sort of shining. It's Valentine's Day, I'm in love with the Phillies and some other people too, and I feel like I'm in Clearwater from 1,200 miles away.

What About Charlie?

Charlie Manuel's contract's up this year. While some people named Angelo think Charlie needs to earn his allowance by bringing another trophy home, I don't think now's the time for greed. Just look at what happened to the Mets! The Phillies can't let Charlie go. He's brought the city the best Phillies team to date, four Division titles, a National League Pennant, one of the Phillies' two World Series Championship, and doggone it, people like him. Now without further ado, I present to you a mixtape for the man that gave us a reason to go paradin' in the first place:

Hearts On Fire, Strong Desire

I miss you, Philadelphia. Since I moved in with you just five short years ago, my childhood bedroom in Connecticut has slowly morphed into a storage room for old perfume bottles, partially rewound VHS tapes, and terrible CDs from the mid to late 90s. It's kind of like the box of stuff you'd return to an ex if you hadn't taken a baseball bat to it first. Someone even tacked up a 1999 World Series pennant in here. The Yanks walloped the Braves in four games that year, while '99 for the Phils went from "promising to disastrous in the blink of an eye" (probably explains why it was also the year those batteries were thrown).

So as I sit here, in the room of my former self, awaiting this week's return to the land of late night pretzels, mummers, and these guys, I'm forced to reconcile with the fact that I once rooted for the team that won the pennant in 1999, the same team that beat the Phils in the 2009 World Series and that Cliff Lee didn't want to play for next season. But, hey. I had no choice. I was born into a Yankees family from central Connecticut, a no mans land for professional sports. (That is, since the Whalers left in 1997, and despite how much Connecticut folks still talk about missing the Whale and their sweet logo, I was always under the impression that they considered UCONN more of a pro team.)

I stopped caring about the Yankees and baseball at some point in the early 2000s when everyone got really into drinking steroid cocktails and bathing themselves in money (here's to you, Jason Giambi). Before that, I saw the Yanks as any kid saw the team they grew up with, as a bunch of good dudes that enjoyed the game - dudes like young Andy Pettitte, acoustic guitarist Bernie Williams, and old man Paul O'Neill that always got up to bat with the biggest smile on to "Baba O'Riley" by the Who. When I moved to Philadelphia in 2005, most of the good dudes were gone and I found myself without a team and no longer able to relate to the Yankees or New York. That's where Philadelphia came in, and shortly after my move, I officially dumped the pretty boy Yanks for the working class Phils, Steff from Pretty in Pink for Rocky.

That's not to say that I grew up not caring about the Phillies or hating the Mets. My family was a bigger fan of baseball than they were of the Yankees, and in '99 we payed close attention to the Phillies because of one player that grew up close to my hometown named Rico Brogna. Check out Rico as a baby.

Rico mysteriously disappeared from baseball two years after what was a pretty good year with the Phils and inexplicably ended up at my high school coaching football. I really want to make a Gerardo joke here, probably because "Rico Suave" would play in my head whenever Brogna and I crossed paths. I imagine that this happens to every girl that crosses paths with a dude lucky enough to be a Rico after 1990. Ah, "the price you pay for being a gigolo", but I digress.

I guess the point in all of this girl talk about dudes that play baseball, the good, the bad, and the suave, is that Rico was the first player that turned me on to Philadelphia. He was kind of like that dude that made you a great mix tape when you were fifteen and too stupid to know good music yet. When I moved to Philadelphia without a team in 2005, the rest was history. I found myself quickly falling in love with another team of good dudes that enjoyed the game. Jimmy and Chase and Ryan and Shane.

Sure, there are other great moments worth mentioning here that made me love the Phillies. Like that time an entire bar erupted into "High Hopes" after the Phillies beat the Reds in Game 2 of the NL Series this year. Or that time I was hanging out of a car on Broad Street screaming my lungs out about baseball and Tastykakes. We all have these moments, but ultimately the strong desire for the Phils that raged within, to paraphrase a song from Rocky IV, stemmed from my love for a bunch of good dudes like Rico.

Like blogging partner and fellow babe, Nadine, I'm a person that does not have any inside information on the Phillies. I'm a transplant to the city for Pete's sake. I'm just glad I didn't get kicked out yet. However, I do find myself constantly reading, posting, and sharing information about the Phillies, and until I figure out how to use my college degree in cognitive neuroscience to better understand why people love baseball as much as I do, I'll be doing this.

I originally wanted to make a Phillies blog titled "My Boyfriend, Charlie Manuel" in which I'd write about the Phillies from the perspective of Charlie Manuel's girlfriend - making him sleep on the couch during losing streaks and cooking him the juiciest of steaks after climbing space mountain to beat the Yankees. This just seemed a lot easier.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Until I see you later this week, Philadelphia, remember to keep checking the mail:

DEAR PHILADELPHIA,

YOU ARE... THIS IS...
I PROMISED MYSELF I WOULDN'T GET CHOKED UP.
I LOVE YOU.

XOXO,

LAUREN