I Love Misery

Do Ex-Phillies Die In Three's?

2006-10-13T14:14:00.000-04:00

I’m gonna bring up something morose and depressing, so turn your heads and watch a repeat of “The View” if you can’t handle it. On second thought, Rosie O’Donnell defines morose and depressing, so maybe you should watch “Sponge Bob” if you can’t handle today’s subject, which is death and dying.

I just found out Johnny Callison kicked the bucket today after 67 years on the planet. That’s nearly double the time Cory Lidle, dead at 34, was assigned by the Great Cosmic Jackoff who, if he exists, has designed this life like John Calvin on LSD, with creations like baseball, airplanes with parachutes and restrictions against masturbating in the daylight during certain 30-day cycles (go ask your local imam about that one) all calculated to fucking drive us out of our childish gourds, fascinated with the wonderment of it all. Nothing is fair or makes sense, thus making nuclear weapons a priority second only to the kim chi stockpile.

Now here I am contemplating The Big Inevitable Nothingness just a few days after I was jumping for joy when the Tigers ate the Yankees for breakfast in the ALDS while the A’s did likewise against the Twinkees, who still use a ballpark with a Hefty bag as an outfield fence as opposed to the more durable airplane parachute that failed to open for poor Cory Lidle.

Lidle sure scared the shit outta people as he traversed this plane of existence into the unknown. What a way to go. New Yorkers, half of whom are born psychotic, were all made justifiably and certifiably insane after 9/11, and when Lidle slammed into that high rise, thousands of underpanties must’ve been soiled seconds after impact. And that came just a few days after Yankee fans shit themselves after getting the old heave-ho from the Tigers.

Unfortunately for Cory, he’s dead now, and so is his flight instructor, not to mention a few innocent victims in the high rise he flew into are seriously injured, one suffering from painful burns.

To top it off, Baskin Robbins lost a damn good client.

Nothing is fair or makes sense, right? Now comes the bad news about Callison two days later.

Godless fuck that I am, a revelation has crept over me pursuant to Callison’s demise after a few long illnesses, including heart disease (he was a smoker who tended bar) and his obstinate decision to live in Philadelphia after his playing career despite his Okie roots and other baseball ties to Chicago and New York.

Ex-Phillies, like movie stars and Jesuits, will begin to die in three's. The Great Cosmic Jackoff has foretold this to me. The off-season will become a cornucopia of close calls, assaults, arrests, manic depression, and finally, death – but only for one more EX-PHILLIE.

We are spared the off-season torment of 40-man roster deaths because each game every season is one quiet, inexorable march to the season’s nihilistic end. We all die a little every day with this team. But as for the others…

Ex-Death Number Three is right around the corner.

Don't Hog The Covers, Harry. I'm Rollin' Over.

2006-09-30T20:04:00.000-04:00

Bend Over, Here It Comes Again

2006-09-29T05:29:00.000-04:00

Do you hate yourself yet? Did you make it to work on time? Maybe you drank yourself to sleep?

You knew as well as I what you were getting yourself into last night…this morning…whatever. Major League Baseball, via its evil proxies, the umpires, decided THE SHOW MUST GO ON so they demanded Team Schizo and the Gnats engage in mortal, splishy-splashy combat for millions of drowsy Philadelphians up past their bedtime watching on cable and the 119 fans still hardy enough to remain unseated and wet on location. They sure as shit weren’t from Washington – they were masochists, performing Phillies flagellation “wit,” assembled at the waterlogged modernist monstrosity named for a murdered Red Sox fan – and, if they held out any hope these choke artists could beat a last-place team, they were as deluded as a jihadi who supposes the world would be a better place if we squatted on prayer rugs and stopped eating hot dogs.

Jesus Fucking Christ. Now there was a name invoked bedside as the glow of plasma televisions were doused throughout Hostile City boudoirs a few clicks beyond 2 a.m. as the Fightless meekly went down in a swampy, foggy city-state with a southern accent that assumed governance from Philly a long, long time ago and tonight made the city’s baseball team their bitch.

Let’s be fair to the Gnats. They won it fair and square – relished it, as a matter of fact.

“It's good to go out and ruin their season," said Ryan Church after the game, savoring his midnight home run that gave the Gnats a 1-0 lead. “Now they've got to get on a plane, take a two-hour flight, then strap it on against a good Florida team tomorrow.”

Tell you what. Any alpha male would file that comment for next season and direct a little high heat toward that guy’s noggin. Do you really think our pansies might insist on a little retribution? Fat fucking chance, considering these boys have been every pitcher’s speed bag this year, getting plunked more than 100 times yet…no fight. No bile. No vim. No vinegar.

Yeah, they’ll strap it on, alright. I’m sure they can afford the finest in dildos.

Jesus Fuckup Phillies. Their opposition tonight on the mound was a rookie mediocrity who owned them, a 26-year-old who has allowed 35 percent of hitters to reach base against him. Tonight, the Pukies succeeded to get three hits and two walks off him. They touched him for a run. Bad? No, that was the good part. The bad part was the Gnats relievers, sensing the desperation of a trapped animal, allowed just two hits the final four innings of the game.

Jesus Fuckup Rollins. Jesus Fuckup Victorino. Jesus Fuckup Utley. Jesus Fuckup Howard. Jesus Fuckup Conine. Jesus Fuckup Burrell. Three hits between the six of them. By the way, congratulations, Conine. You’re a Phillie now!

And don’t give me that shit about Howard being the MVP and I should lay off him. Fuck that. I gave him his “props” as the kids like to say. But now he’s swinging at junk and can’t ignore the adrenaline. As Chollie might say, “he’s like a hedgehog that can’t git out from under the water pail. Stuck, like. Confused, as it were.” Frank Robinson could smell blood Tuesday, and, unlike every other manager this month, had his closer challenge him to end the game. Ryan, I love you like a son, but I feel horrible about your choice of profession: You’re a Phillie now!

Oh, what the fuck. Maybe Chollie can drain a bottle of V.O. and settle back for a few nights on Miami’s South Beach with the teetotaling Jelly Roll, and review the season with somebody who compared himself with Derek Jeter, obviously ignoring his team’s results and his championship season virginity, his maiden’s head as safe for another year as his manager's job.

This Sure Beats "Sex and the City"

2006-09-28T14:48:00.000-04:00

I was tempted to jump in the car and head down to D.C. after Team Vomit won that five-hour torture and turned into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight today. The Old Lady had already missed another tantalizing repeat of “Sex and the City,” and whenever that happens, bedtime just ain’t the same.

The whores on that show are so clever. Imagine some skinny, hideous gash coming up with a nickname like “Mr. Big” for one of her mansluts. Surely, that had Carrie Bradshaw nominated for a Pulitzer in the “Most Creative Name for a Guy with a Large Penis” category. But wouldn’t you know it – I cracked the morning internet open after a little shuteye and there was Chollie going hog wild with the imagery after the game, thirsty reporters gaga over the bizarre material. Even Sarah Jessica Parker’s skeletal mask of a face would have been blushing. She might have even fingered herself.

“We’ll put some glue on his pants or something,” Chollie said of the slippery Michael Bourne, seeing more playing time even after his Tuesday impression of the cocaine-era Lonnie Smith. “Some pine tar. Keep him from sliding past the base.”

Then Old Backwoods had a revealing Carrie Bradshaw moment, suggesting a little sado-masochism when he said maybe he could provide Bourn with “one of those shock collars. That's what I put on Varsh sometimes.”

Whew doggie! Sounds like Chollie hit that moonshine while the game was in progress. I can’t blame him. This shit is a little too much to take at my age. Five fucking hours of push-me pull-you bullshit. Erectile dysfunction with men on base. Throwing the ball around like girls. A rookie pitcher getting a pinch hit. More bad umpiring. A smiling Pat Burrell. Two blown saves.

And then, our beloved Jelly Roll -- he of the do-rag, the Cadillac strut, the two errors that almost cost us the season -- got the big hit, further proof that he is an egomaniac who only responds to pressure in August and September, the rest of the year be damned.

Unfortunately, we may never know how good he is in October until he learns to answer the bell in April and May, when he’s busy uppercutting the ball and popping out – and considering the paucity of walks he receives, handicapping the top of the lineup, undercutting production, and costing the team wins.

Go get ‘em, Mr. September.

End Is Near - Expect The Expected

2006-09-27T12:36:00.000-04:00

The fates sent Philly fans a big giggle after Team Vomit failed to win as expected last night. Terrell Owens tried unsuccessfully to kill himself, which would have never happened if he had stayed an Iggle. If he were still playing here, his girlie man pill suicide would have succeeded. The Iggles would have been instant head cases again, Donovan McNabb would have been blamed, and Andy Reid would have had to strip T.O. of his Latter Day Saint status.

I could hear the press conference now. Chubmeister Mormon would be at the podium, gasping for breath, and start: “Injuries. Terrell Owens. Suicide. On the permanently unable to perform list.”

Man, that sure would have helped us get over the rancid hangover we Phillies fans have today. Even if he had the guts to pull it off, imagine if T.O. had done that as an Iggle! The brother would have been getting round-the-clock, helicopter-injected, swirling, whirling, whoring media attention! The Phils would be relegated again to the usual 15-second summary at the bottom of Action News after the erectile dysfunction feature. That would be an appropriate slot considering last night’s horror show.

It is remarkable how Team Psycho always seems to introduce new Legends of Losing to its pantheon of late season fuck ups. Ladies and gentleman, introducing Michael Bourn, our rookie pinch-running sensation who has managed to get picked off and caught stealing in the rare opportunities, albeit critical ones, Chollie has tossed him into this September.

Last night, he overslid second base with two out in the eighth. Naturally enough, he said that had never happened to him before, so he has saved it for the major league level in the last week of a wild cared race. In a deft, media-savvy move, Bourn paraphrased Chinua Achebe to the assembled inquiring minds after the game.

"I've never had that happen," said Bourn. “I hadn't had a baserunning blunder in two or three years, and I come up here and everything falls apart."

If only Chollie had channeled Earl Weaver, Chase Utley’s plain-as-the-manager’s-English home run off the foul pole might have been correctly called after a managerial rampage inspired one of those down-home umpire conferences, considering most everyone else in cavernous RFK Stadium heard the ball hit the pole, and, for the deaf in the crowd, saw the ball careen the way balls that hit foul poles typically do.

This is one of the reasons teams have first base coaches. In our case, Marc Bombard, who obviously figures he will go to hell upon death if he fudges the truth (as opposed to the umpires, who just count time until their post-game beer), or who needs corrective lenses, held up his thumb and forefinger about four inches apart, indicating, among other things, the distance of the ball from the pole. In sign language, that meant he was telling Chollie either he wasn’t well endowed or the ball was foul.

The umpires refrained from comment on that one like suspected thieves; Chollie seethed after seeing the video the next inning; Utley somehow digested his post-game meal after watching it hit dead center on the pole on the video tape; and Phillie fucker Frank Robinson openly admitted his team was lucky, a sly, wide smile and a wink punctuating the thought.

Bombard showered and dressed in private. And T.O. lives another day to inspire Pat Burrell that, yes, even if you are able to still play the game, life is damn depressing if you are unloved.

Yo Gnats: I Got Your Derailment Right Here!

2006-09-26T12:35:00.000-04:00

I would have shared my lamentations yesterday with you, dear reader, as they were multifarious and horrible, but the monster that hosts this publishing service was about as useful as Baby Girl Burrell. You know what I mean – just when you think it’ll start functioning as expected, it lets you down, then you try again, it frustrates you, until you finally say “Fuck it!” and give it all a rest, hoping that’ll solve the problem. Worse comes to worse, you can always replace it. All things considered, it’s better than Burrell, because it won’t set me back $9 million just to disappoint me. It’s free.

But back to more pressing matters. See, after that Gene Mauch dream, and after watching the Astros beat the Phils yesterday, I’m sorry to say the impending sense of doom is returning. Our next opponent, the Washington Nationals, was involved in a train derailment on the Amtrak last night, and that only forebodes bad things for Team Psycho. You know the old baseball saying: Unlucky on trains, lucky against Philly.

But the Gnats will have to use that advantage without the specter of the Larry Bowa Family egging it on the field. Bowa nephew Nick Johnson is out for the year with a broken leg. You’d think that would be an advantage. That beefy bugger can hit.

Then there’s the pitching matchups. Tonight, Brett Myers faces off – did I just use a hockey analogy? Yeah, I did – faces off against the ever-lasting and brilliant Ramon Ortiz, who has served up 31 homers this year. You’d think that would be an advantage for a team whose top six hitters in the lineup average 26.7 this season.

And if you were a betting man, you’d have to say Cole Hamels and Jon Lieber stack up nicely against Pedro Astacio and Mike O’Connor. You’d think.

But, alas, this is the Phillies. I half expect Frank Robinson to start a beanball war just for old times’ sake. He’s practically out the door. He’s 71. He’s tired. He’s never won a thing as a manager.

But worst of all, he was standing at the plate when Chico Ruiz stole home against the Phillies in the sixth inning of a game on Monday, September 21, 1964. The Reds won, 1-0. For the Phils, it was the first of ten straight losses, the beginning of the Mauch Mens’ historic collapse.

Fuck you, Frank Robinson.

A 42-Year-Old Recurring Nightmare

2006-09-23T15:01:00.000-04:00

I’ve been a little sick the past couple days, and last night the medication drove me to bed early; thus I found myself listening to the conclusion of the Phils’ glorious victory against the Marlins on the radio.

It was not quite a throwback experience for me. I am an AM radio addict, open-eared for any space alien conspiracy theory freak occupying the late night air or any neo-con nut slightly to the left of Hitler by day. And I have a confession: Your host finds kernels of truth in most any agenda posited. Yes, I do believe there are god-infected lunatics who are serious in their threats to commit mass murder, allah inshallah. Yes, I agree it is bizarre to hear even a bad sitting president accused by another of being “the devil” at the United Nations – and even more peculiar to hear applause by his political “peers” supporting his medieval declaration, let alone seeing lost souls like Danny Glover parading around Harlem with him like an unabashed whore.

If Hugo Chavez dropped the sulphur-stinking shtick and stuck with the facts about Bush being an alcoholic, he would have gotten a lot less flack from the godsquad, particularly hard drinkers like the Catholics. Do you have a spot of Jameson, Fadder? I think I need a tightener.

There’s a lot of assholes in the world, and people can vent about them on the radio. That’s what makes it fun. But somewhere after Scott Franzke’s game re-cap and the middle of the UFO show, the Ny-Quil took hold and a vision dream was manifest upon me with all the clarity of a Yuengling piss stream.

“One down, nine to go,” a voice intoned, and as the fog of the subconscious cleared, I beheld the living image of Gene Mauch!

“I’m pitching Hamels again Sunday,” Mauch said to me. “Then Myers, then Hamels again. Gotta go with the hot hand. Gotta clinch this thing now. Lieber’s fat and bad. Wolf has nothing. Hamels and Myers…Lieber once, then Hamels and Myers again.”

I was 15 months old when “The Mauch Men,” the 1964 Phillies, conducted for Hoagie Land’s sporting pleasure probably the biggest collapse in baseball history. I have no memory of my time in diapers. But I heard the stories for years -- about how the Phillies blew a 6 1/2-game lead with twelve games left. About how Mauch insanely and adamantly started Jim Bunning and Chris Short five of the last six games. About how I peed in my Dad’s beer glass during one of the losses. About what a perfectly Philadelphian failure the whole mess was. But what did Mauch mean when he said one down, nine to go? And who was he to fuck with the 2006 pitching staff? Why did he come to me in a dream now? I soon had a few cryptic answers. Visions are like that.

“We need to win all the games,” Mauch said. “Just like the Cardinals did.”

Well, the Cardinals didn’t win their last ten games in ’64 – but they did manage to win eight of their final ten games as the Phils were busy losing ten straight to take the pennant from Mauch's Chokemen. “Mauch – speak to me from the grave,” I implored him. “Mauch, are we going to do it this year?”

The recently-deceased manager seemed to look off at the distance. He squinted and got that trademark “little general” look about him. The conspiracy show’s experts tell me when a person has painful, unresolved issues at death, they leave an electromagnetic impression – a ghost – that remains on earth to find closure.

I always pitied Phillies managers in that regard.

“What’s Richie Allen doin’ with 58 homers?” he asked.

“That’s not Richie Allen, Mauch,” I said. “That’s Ryan Howard.”

“Frank Howard plays for the Senators.”

“Yes, he sure did,” I agreed. “But Ryan Howard plays for the Phillies. Hopefully, for life.”

“For life,” Mauch laughed. “Nothing’s for life.” He looked around in a northeasterly direction and something else caught his attention.

“What’s that sonuvabitch Bowa doin’ at third?”

“He’s the Yankees’ third base coach, Mauch,” I explained. “But at one time, you’ll remember, he had your old job until just before your expiration.”

“He never won anything at the helm while I was still alive,” the little general said with a smile.

“No, he didn’t,” I told him. “I suppose you were his mentor after all. But now we have Chollie Manuel to fuck things up.”

“They made him a manager?”

“Not only that, he’ll probably be back for his third season next year, especially if he wins the wild card,” I informed him. “He finally understood your most famous invention, the double-switch, after a season and a half.”

“I’m tellin’ ya, the two-man rotation is the way to go the last week. Maybe he can do a little crammin’ and learn quick,” Mauch said. “The fans will never appreciate my legacy.”

BEAT L.A.!

2006-09-20T12:04:00.000-04:00

Fucking Los Angeles.

I lived in L.A. for three years, eating pupusas, kim chi, Tommy Burgers and shawarma the whole while and speaking Spanish, Korean, Russian and Armenian because I had no choice.

I had to listen to the English and Spanish speakers tell me how fucking great Vin Scully called a ballgame, how “The Penguin” was a better third baseman than Mike Schmidt, and how Tommy LaSorda’s turds were re-constituted as Dodger Dogs.

I had to listen to the Russian and Armenian speakers tell me how they made their meters run faster in their taxis, and that Americans were “too stupid” to know the difference. I called an ambulance for a pummeled cabdriver who ran into a customer greedy enough to know he was being ripped off.

I had to restrain myself from throttling my Korean landlord after he refused to fix the toilet. I had wondered why another tenant tried to run him over with his truck the day we moved in. I got my answer soon enough.

Fucking Los Angeles.

The local gang in my Koreatown neighborhood was the highly-promoted Mara Salvatrucha-13, a.k.a. MS-13, with chapters in El Salvador, Washington D.C., and for all I know, Shanghai. They wore Dodgers hats and wondered what gang I claimed when I wore my Phillies cap. “OG Carlton y OG Kruk’s set, essay,” I told them. They nodded as if they knew. I might just as well have answered them in Urdu. I’d like to see John Kruk try to put a pistol down his pants. It’d be a tight fit and he might lose his other testicle. Now Carlton…I think he already has a gun collection. Maybe he smokes crack with his wine. Who knows? He might be able to hang with those homies and convince them the bankers, not the police, are the real enemies. But he would need a translator.

Fucking Los Angeles.

I look at the standings and see L.A. a game up on the Phils and the memories come rushing back. Dodger Stadium is a ghetto adjacent to a rapidly hipsterizing ‘hood, Echo Park, that has gone from working class to Latino class and now Hollywood upper class. Sorta like Fishtown with colorful murals and tacos. The Old Lady and I looked at a “two bedroom apartment” there – that was a lie, it was two rooms with a kitchen in the middle – and the owner wanted to charge $1,100 a month. That’s a bargain in L.A., by the way. The view was terrific, if a homeless camp was your inspiration.

Fucking Los Angeles.

Their ballclub somehow attracts quality free agents who ignore the enormous hassle of the incessant traffic crawl, where a simple five-mile drive can turn into a two-hour time vampire without warning. I suppose you can bring a laptop to analyze the day’s starting pitcher, or marry a porn star wife like Kris Benson did and get a hummer on the way, or become a porn star yourself like Jeff Kent and plug in the auto-suck and run the camera to catch the action.

I am so glad to be back in the Holy Land of Philadelphia.

I eat cheesesteaks and speak English. Harry Kalas, for all his errors, still sounds soothing to the ears. Ron Cey is a nobody. Hatfield hot dogs don’t taste like turds; besides, the kielbasa in Bridesburg is sublime. The cabdrivers are less wont to thieve from their customers. And my landlord is grateful to get his check every month on time and fixes things promptly and apologizes if he can’t do it right away. When I wear my Phillies cap, I am not asked if I am a “Blood.” And most of all, when I look at the standings and see my team a game behind the fucking Dodgers, I know I can walk down the street and proudly exhort my fellow miserable, underachieving losers that if they do one thing this season that would be this:

BEAT L.A.!

Iggles To Phils: Choke's On Us

2006-09-18T14:44:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia was on the verge of mass suicide or riot yesterday, and most of the credit for averting this horror can be attributed to Flash Gordon.

Talk about a save. Not that Gordon mowed the Astros down in the ninth – he made it exciting by allowing two base runners – but if he didn’t finish the job at the same time the Giants were finishing off our pathetic, heartless choke artists who call themselves a football team, there would not have been enough room in the morgue for the dead or holding cells for barroom combatants. (Why didn’t the Iggles build a large jail at the Linc? The cinder block cells were charming at the Vet, and rarely empty).

As Tom Gordon’s deep counts paralleled Eli Manning’s long tosses over the suddenly inept Iggles secondary, I involuntarily began making gurgling noises and grabbed my neck with my left hand as I punched the toggle button on the remote. The Old Lady ran into the living room to see what was wrong. I pointed at the television. She had her answer as Gordon went 3-0 to Brad Ausmus. But for some reason, the veteran catcher defied conventional wisdom and swung at the next pitch despite the two runners on base, his team down to its last out, down two runs, and down against the Phillies - their bitch, their property, their submissive visitor who had gone three years without beating them in Houston until this series.

You have to wonder what Ausmus was thinking. This is the kind of game the Phillies were born to lose. But in that regard, our football heroes didn’t disappoint.

Question: Why are the Iggles so loved, so spared the caustic bile projected at Team Vomit? After all, it’s been FORTY SIX YEARS since they last won a championship. The baseball team has kept us waiting a mere twenty-six. In between, both teams have been bridesmaids twice. So what gives? Why all the warm fuzzies for the Iggles? If you look at management, as downright Appalachian as Chollie is, Andy Reid has an air of the bumbling idiot about him as well.

Today at his day-after press conference, Reid looked like a fatter, balder Mike Ditka, hungover without the booze, hoping his Mormon angel Moroni might somehow heal his failure of a team, physically and emotionally. It’s the same old shit with this lobworm: The loss is my responsibility. The team can take something from the loss and learn. The veterans will use the experience and get the kids straightened out. Yeah, right. Have another donut, Andy. I’d rather have an inarticulate hick like Chollie be honest with me than listen to your bullshit.

I’d like to see Reid come down to the local tavern and shoot the shit with the Philly faithful after a game like Sunday's catastrophe. That’s what I did after watching the carnage. The authenticity would have made for good reality television. I went down to the Shamrock 13 bar and Billy the Iggle fanatic was two sheets to the leprechaun wind.

“Let me end it all right now,” he moaned theatrically, a plastic knife denting his wrist.

“It’s okay, Billy,” I counseled. “The Phillies won today.”

“Fuck the Phillies,” he shouted. “They’ll never win anything.”

“It’s been a lot longer since the Iggles won the big one,” I countered.

“The Iggles are different,” he said, pushing a basket of bar munchies toward me. I chewed on a pretzel and indulged him. “We won the division four years runnin’ baby, and last year with the T.O. thing and shit was, howya call it… an apparition! But every fucking year the Phillies are an apparition.”

I ordered up a Ying and began looking for images of Ryan Howard on the potato chips in the basket. I could have sworn I detected Chuck Bednarik on a Ruffle, but I was hungry and ate it.

It was stale.

Outta The Mouths Of Babes

2006-09-16T16:53:00.000-04:00

Behold the innocence of childhood!

“We’re gonna win this game,” my son said in the top of the eighth inning today as the Phils piled on the runs. “And we’re gonna win the playoffs.”

At his age, an uncorrupted nine years, big disappointments consist of parental sugar withholding or video game restrictions. His mother and I have tried our best to shelter him from the foul influences of Phillies baseball, because we know it can lead to harder stuff. But it would be naïve to think the temptation to watch this team doesn’t exist.

Today, little Caesar watched the ball game with your host. Well, kind of. He’s a hyper kid, so Abe Nunez’s at-bats don’t exactly thrill him. Nor does seven innings of one-hit ball by our young ace Cole Hamels. But Ryan Howard? Now you’re talking.

“We’re gonna win the playoffs because Ryan Howard is our secret weapon,” he said as one of his kiddie peers in Houston reached over the outfield wall and stole a homer from The Howitzer. “He’s the best hitter in the league.”

Caesar was not the least bit happy about that kid spoiling Number 57 from our should-be MVP. Here he goes to school every day, our capable school system helping to build the critical foundations necessary for good citizenship. He knows that cheatin’ Texas waif, later seen crying his Astro eyes out, violated a number of societal rules in his misguided effort to catch the ball. And my son had an idea what we Phillies fans should do to exact justice, Hostile City style.

“We should kill him,” he confidently declared.

That’s my boy!

He Can't Be One Of Us

2006-09-15T23:27:00.000-04:00

Hold your horses, Jeff Conine. You’re not a real Phillie just yet. That concrete glove you brought out to left field in Houston tonight let you down. Yeah, you dropped a fly ball any beer leaguer could shag, but it didn’t cost the team a win. What good are ya? At least bleeding-Phillies-red David Bell had the good grace last season against the ‘stros to boot a chopper down to third and set up eternal cheesesteaker Billy Wagner for his eternal moment in the spotlight of misery. It’s a collective effort, here, you know. So why couldn’t you just throw the ball away after you picked it up? If we had Burrell out there, he woulda flung it in the stands. It woulda been perfect after his grand slam. But you ruined the whole scene, doofus.

What the fuck, Conine. This ain’t the Marlins. Learn how to lose the Phillies way or retire.

Fuck off.

Leave me alone.

What time’s the game tomorrow?

Treating Our Head Case

2006-09-14T23:05:00.000-04:00

Dr. Ziegfried Grafenstein boarded the first plane for Atlanta when the call came. It was a desperate plea for help, one that came as no surprise in the heat of a wild card chase. But this case was different. Chollie Manuel was re-inserting Pat Burrell into the lineup.

After de-planing, Herr Grafenstein was hustled by Phillies brass to the Omni Hotel, where the team was staying. It was still morning – 10 a.m. – but by Burrell’s standards, it might as well have been the crack of dawn. Team voodoo doctor Jeff Cooper hustled the famed psychiatrist to the slumping left fielder’s door, and knocked repeatedly until the Baby Girl appeared, disheveled and confused.

“Pat, this is Dr. Grafenstein,” Cooper said. “He’s here to help you.”

Burrell eyed the shrink with disdain. His cheek was puffed by a chaw of tobacco; he used an empty beer can as a spittoon.

“Suck my dick,” Burrell remarked.

“Dat’s a gut start,” Grafenstein rejoined. “Now get some clothes on and get dat girl aus of der room. Schnell!”

From under the sheets of the bed, a full-figured gal emerged giggling and grasping a towel. The doctor politely turned his head as she dressed. With a hearty whack, Burrell slapped his hottie’s ass goodbye, proving to those assembled if he couldn’t hit a baseball for much anymore, at least he could nail larger targets.

The Dixie chick dressed, and under Cooper’s watchful eye, was escorted to the hotel lobby, leaving Der Gut Dokter and Baby Girl Burrell alone to conduct business.

“Herr Burrell – can I call you Pat? – vell, Pat, vee need to verk quickly, see,” the doctor started in.

Burrell was sitting on the edge of the bed nodding off.

“Pat! Pat!” the good doctor yelled. Burrell woke up briefly, but began snoring again. Grafenstein, instructed by the Phillies to use drastic measures if necessary, slapped the flaccid slugger’s face. That got his attention.

“What the fuck!” Burrell groused. Though agitated, he made no move toward the doctor to counter the attack. No man had ever slapped him before. Only a woman could get away with that. Oh, what the hell, he thought. Considering the kind of shape he was in, any new indignity was possible. He lost his stroke, he lost his job, and was on the verge of losing his mind. Maybe the team already thought he had. So he decided to hear what the doctor had to say.

“Okay, Doc, I’m all ears,” he said.

“Gut,” Grafenstein began. “Now, Pat, a question. Have you ever been hypnotized?”

“No,” Burrell said. “And nobody ever will.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.”

In what seemed like an ironic gesture, Grafenstein pulled out a pocket watch on a chain and began to swing it in front of Burrell, who giggled and decided to play along. This was just like the movies, he thought. This guy is a quack!

“Just vatch der vatch,” the doctor said in his thick Teutonic tone, “and relax…relax…you’re not sleeping…just relaxing…relaxing…relaxing.”

Burrell took on the stupified look that he carries back to the dugout after every repeated, numerous and numbing called third strike, a gaze into thousand-yard-nothingness that has come to define the better part of this season and the other season-long monumental funk in 2003: The deer-in-the-headlights look. The I’ve-been-out-all-night-again look. The just-keep-that-check-coming-because-I-can’t-figure-it-out-look. And that was why Grafenstein was trying to hypnotize poor Pat. There had to be a root cause. He began the unraveling.

“Now, Pat, you are in a safe, comfortable place – a place where there is nothing but friendly people who love you, care for you, wish you success and good things.”

“You mean I’m not a Phillie anymore?”

“Nein, idiot, er, I mean, No, Pat! You are still a Phillie. You refused to waive your no-trade clause, remember?”

“I hate Baltimore,” Burrell said.

“You’re not there, either,” said the doctor. “Look, you are home again with your family in San Jose. They love you. You are the Big Man on Campus at your high school. You are worshipped. You are happy…content.”

“Wanna fuck?”

And who are you talking to, Pat?

“Doesn’t matter, I’d fuck a snake.”

“Pat, vee need to talk baseball, not your sex life. You have no problems in that department. You are wealthy. You are gut-looking. You are still young. Let’s talk about baseball.”

“No, I wanna fuck.”

“Pat! There are other things in life than fucking. There are responsibilities. There is duty. There is learning to hit to the opposite field.”

“I’m not gay.”

“No, Pat. Hitting a baseball to the opposite field. Have you forgotten how to do dat?”

“We got Conine to do that now.”

“But the Phillies pay you ridiculous amounts of money to do that – and you promised you would for years. It is in zee contract you signed with Ed Vade.”

“He’s gay.”

“Pat, let’s keep the talk to baseball, bitte! Please! Now, when did you first discover you feared the inside pitch.”

“I have no problems with inside bitches. But once you take ‘em outside, they’re nothing but trouble. Bitches - can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”

Grafenstein leaned back in the comfortable hotel chair and took a look at the mess of the man sitting before him. He was amused this playboy would be wearing a monkey suit and playing a game on national television that evening. After his 30 years of practice, he knew when his efforts would be a waste of time. Some people have one-track minds; some people refuse to change. Some cannot change. There is nothing that will help them. He wondered why a company valued at maybe a half billion dollars could be run by stooges who throw their money away on bad employees and then be stuck paying them millions after they have been fired.

As he called for a limo, left the room and waited in the Omni lobby, the good Dr. Grafenstein wondered if he should be honest with management: Maybe the whole team needed an exorcism instead.

Snake Bitten

2006-09-11T11:54:00.000-04:00

Five years ago today, I awoke in Phoenix, Arizona to my clock radio alarm at 5:30 a.m. and moments later, heard the news about an “airplane” crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers.

Okay, that’s where I was and everybody knows the rest. The baseball season was suspended for a week – one of Bud Selig’s more intelligent decisions. Meanwhile, everyone contemplated exactly why a bunch of murderous lunatics with grievances convinced themselves six dozen virgins were waiting to fuck them in heaven if they wiped out 3,000 innocent people during their suicide. And how many of them we’d have to kill to avert further catastrophes.

It’s depressing, World War III.

That’s why the Phillies give me such great joy. The world may have changed forever that day five years ago, but the Fightin's remain the same. You know, they give me endless chuckles, they really do. But I am not amused when I hit chat rooms or forums about baseball and the inevitable “Off Topic” thread rears its ugly head, because the internet is such a compartmentalized creation; if you want to argue about Israeli foreign policy, or tell the world how much you hate George Bush, or wonder what size burqa is appropriate for that insolent bitch wife of yours, why would you pose those questions on a baseball site, other than to provoke people?

You want a provocative site? Hit Aljazeera’s home page. Eat a pork chop and have a ball.

Which brings us to the 2001 World Series Champion Arizona Diamondbacks. Remember them? If your memory is cloudy, and you’ve been watching the Phillies fumble in September again against the Marlins, let me get your choler up.

The D’backs finished that season 92-70 and won the West Division flag by two games over the Giants, the latter’s steroided monster, Barry Bonds, made moot by Arizona’s twin whirling dervishes, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, both 20-game winners who went on to share MVP honors in the Series after terrorizing the Yankees in seven exciting games. Ably assisting in offensive support was the ridiculously over-pumped Luis Gonzalez, who hit 57 homers that season but finished second in the league to his brother-in-chemistry Bonds, who hit his fraudulent 73 that season.

So, let’s review. The Diamondbacks, a team that had existed for only four years, won the World Series. Gonzalez, their right fielder, who had averaged 13 homers in eight seasons prior to his trade to Arizona in 1999 and discovering muscle-enhancing pixie dust, hit more homers than any other player in National League history – besides Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, the three other “naturals.” And, in the coup de grace, one of the two golden arms on their pitching staff came courtesy of the engineering marvel known as the “Ed Wade Trade” – that would be Herr Schilling. I remember Phoenix went into mourning for a month after having to say goodbye to Travis Lee and Omar Daal to get the Schill.

Meanwhile, in Hostile City, our team has won one championship in 123, and soon, 124 years; has not won 90 or more games in 13, and soon, 14 years, hasn’t had a 20-game winner in 23, and soon, 24 years, and the one true glittering milk-fed star, Ryan Howard, is having his historic season marginalized by the numbers put up in the Steroid Era, which reached its pinnacle in that unforgettably tragic year of 2001.

It’s uncannily coincidental that as the world was “changed forever” by those halal homicidal maniacs who violated every rule of civility, the steroid freaks were simultaneously and silently busy killing the innocent competition of a game that is prescribed by rules that helped make it a meaningful and enduring pastime.

If I were dictator, I’d make the whole bunch of them – Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Gonzalez – wear burqas the rest of their lives and sell hot dogs at the ballpark. If I caught their hands in the till, I’d chop ‘em the fuck off.

Allah Akhbar, motherfuckers.

Every Night Is Masochist Night

2006-09-06T23:24:00.000-04:00

Latino Family Night at the ballpark appears nowhere on the Phillies published schedule the masses pick up at the local WaWa. Neither does Gay Night. But the Phillies “celebrate” these groups on seemingly random dates during the season. For all I fucking know, they have a stealth Pedophile Night when the North American Man-Boy Love Association runs the bases with the kiddies. None of this shit appears on the schedule.

So tonight, your local losers celebrated all things Latino and handed former Phillies disappointment Juan Samuel an award for being Dominican. But let’s get real. Every night is Masochist Night at the ballpark with the Phillies. Need a beating? Watch Baby Girl Burrell whiff with the bases loaded. Want to feel some pain? Watch Ryan Madson throw Lance Berkman a fattie down the pipe tonight to score three runs and kill Team Vomit. Now give us a trophy for taking our punishment.

Ole!

No amount of jiggly senoritas and their lusty vatos could lessen my pain and torment watching these fuck ups wash another season down the drain. Look, I’m not Latino. I’m not gay. I’m not a child molestor. When’s my night, then? Oh, that’s right. Every night. Every season. It’s all for me. I’m the guy who loves misery. And these impotent shits dish it out generously.

Tonight’s cat o’ nine tails lashing featured the usual litany of incompetence with runners in scoring position. The previously sainted Chase Utley, whom the Team Succubus has evidently possessed, gagged up fur balls again tonight, leaving three runners on base. The consistently pathetic Abe Nunez, once again below the Mendoza Line at .194, killed a bases-loaded rally in the second inning with a Latino-style double play for the assembled descendants of Cortez the Conqueror (and who knows how many were gay.)

And then there was Our Baby Girl, rendered a eunuch this season, flailing away like a confused sissy at Andy Petitte’s big league, manly stuff. Every night has been Gay Night this season for Pat – on second thought, the Gayborhood would never have him. Interior designers love money, and he has plenty of that, but what they really want is a big stick who comes through.

Don’t worry. I’m not forgetting anybody. For all his grandiose achievements this season, Ryan Howard has done the least amount of fan bitch-slapping this year. If anything, his numbers point up the deficiencies of Burrell. Things have to be corrected next year. The Howitzer could stand to have a confident hitter in front and behind him. Utley’s plainly slumping, and he’ll likely recover, so we’re halfway there. But Baby Girl better be diapered and shipped to Kansas City before every evening becomes Angry Black Man Night at the ballpark because the brother is getting pitched around for the playboy and he wants out of Philly.

Have another tequila, Pat.

The Brother From Another Planet

2006-09-06T01:48:00.000-04:00

He is a behemoth among men, a country power incarnate, and thirty years ago, if Ryan Howard had already hit 53 homers with 24 games to go in the season – before cable television was as common to households as toasters, ten years before personal computers were brought to market and twenty years before the masses had heard anything about the internet – baseball fans would be listening to most games on the radio and running down to the end of their driveways the next morning for the newspaper to relish the stat in the boxscore that said: HR-Howard(53) rather than read sports writers question whether his historic season was the product of chemical enhancements to his physique.

Instead, thanks to the three guys who shot juice, puffed up like parade floats and proceeded to surpass the Holy Number of 61 homers in a single season, Howard is quickly becoming an innocent victim of their chicanery and the self-styled cynics who make a living spinning shit like this:

“There is no reason, no whisper, no allegation that suggests Howard is cheating. In fact, there is plenty of talk that he is clean. But how can you blindly trust anyone anymore?”

This is what Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports, wrote as what the newsbiz calls his “nut graf” – the distilled message of a story. (Note: Editorial shorthand always struck me as a pretty queer flourish – why not just spell “graph” correctly?). His “nut” shortly followed his “lede” – the first sentence – a fairly direct question:

“Is Ryan Howard juiced?”

Jesus on a popsickle stick, Wetzel, are you married? Do you blindly trust the bitch? Is she juiced?

It seems perfectly ironic that Howard plays in Philly. The mass consciousness here has always tended to believe the rest of the world has been out to get us – they are, I tellya! - and now, the world wants to taint our innocent Howitzer, who points to his chubby gut and big butt as evidence his power was a product of Mom’s home cooking and exercise rather than the lazy, ego-crazed, sinister shortcut of steroids.

You know, playing it “straight” like this chump Wetzel makes me fucking puke. Really, the whole journalism business makes me upchuck with its pretensions to authoritative wisdom. Believe me, his editors are happy he threw this slop on the table for publication. Gets people talking. Stirs the pot. Let the chips fall where they may. Then the booming voiceover: WE LET YOU DECIDE.

I’ll give the news business this: They know a lot of people are suckers. They will believe anything because they know next to nothing. They can name the Three Stooges but not three Supreme Court Justices. As Wetzel writes, how can you blindly trust anyone anymore? Well, dear reader, you can trust me. We suffer the Phillies together, holding hands in misery. So gather ‘round, and I’ll tell you a bedtime story.

It happened one horribly hot and humid summer’s eve during the small hours. As was his custom, young Ryan Howard was sleeping blissfully under the St. Louis stars in a pup tent, his dreams weaving pleasantly through his superego, unconsciously preparing his instincts for his big future in Philadelphia.

At least he thought they were dreams. But they weren’t. He was receiving an implant below his earlobe from the Zeta Reticuli, visitors from another planet who have been trying to manipulate the Phillies’ destiny for 123 years.

The Reticuli were assigned the Phillies as hosts for their experiments. Other alien races, such as the Reptilians and the Grays, were designated to manipulate the destiny of other teams; the Reptilians have met with great success implanting various Yankees, while the Grays have done well with the Cardinals.

As a Phillies fan might guess, the Zeta Reticuli have had a bad track record in its selections -- up until they picked Howard.

In 1918, they surgically implanted a gelatinous device in the pubescent Chuck Klein’s testicle. Ten years later, he was in the big leagues and scorching baseballs over the tin right field fence at the Baker Bowl. But something went terribly wrong with the implant six seasons into Klein’s career. It came oozing out during an all-night whore session after he was traded to Chicago in 1934. Talk about busting a nut. Klein was shipped back to the Phils and never was the same hitter; the aliens assumed he would never be traded, but when the Phils dealt him, he met up with the fateful hooker.

At least Klein got some great seasons in before that disaster and was elected to the Hall of Fame. But other hosts they have manipulated didn’t pan out as well, to say the least.

There was Mike Anderson. Remember him? He was supposed to be the second coming of Klein. But his implant was crushed in the minors after teammate Greg Luzinski (not implanted) rolled over him while both slept on the team bus as it headed back to Eugene, Oregon. The Reticuli also had inserted a modified version of the implant into John Vukovich’s lower back; that was a disaster. His Serbian genetic structure rejected the node after incubating for ten years. Not only did “Vuke” have a worse career batting average than Mario Mendoza, he became so well-liked by the team’s Les Invisibles owners (whose genes have been mutated by The Reptilians) he’s still hanging around the front office fucking things up. It was Vukovich, working with the Reptilians, who orchestrated the Bobby Abreu trade to their Yankee abductees.

So the Zeta Reticuli are involved in a tricky business. They got involved with Philadelphia, after all. And after communicating telekinetically with my hosts, I have on authority they are not the least bit pleased with this steroid talk about their masterpiece, Ryan Howard.

Sleep well and fear to dream, Dan Wetzel.

SIMPLE. SHIT.

2006-09-04T18:20:00.000-04:00

Astros. Uh-oh.
Clemens. Asshole.
Hamels. Savior.
Batters. Plunked.
Payback? None.
One run. No hits.
First hit. Tie game.
Howitzer. BOOM!
Houston. BANG!
Second hit. Tie game.
Here. We. Go. Again.
Howitzer. Walked!
Garner. Chicken!
Burrell. Pathetic.
Thurston? Wrong!
Chollie. Stupid.
Extra. Innings.
Utley. Finally!
Fuck. Houston.
Phils. Win.

Have You Considered Retirement, Arthur?

2006-09-02T18:32:00.000-04:00

Arthur Rhodes might do well to move back to his birthplace in Waco, Texas and make like its most famous resident, David Koresh.

You remember that weirdo. He was the guy who stockpiled enough weaponry for an army at his compound in that horrible, sweaty little city in preparation for the “Battle of Armageddon” -- every Christian’s favorite version of the future -- then built a nearly impenetrable fortification in the hope of keeping the federal government’s lesbian heifer, Janet Reno, from taking his guns away. While Koresh and his misguided Branch Davidian flock got torched to death by that ugly butch bitch, you have to admit, there was no way people were getting inside that place, and if the whole town didn’t know he was armed to the teeth, he likely would have been left alone and very, very safe.

Like they say, God Bless America.

Rhodes might want to consider that kind of sanctuary, because the way he has pissed away ninth inning leads lately, he will soon be washing egg off his local domicile’s door if Team Shook Up misses out on the wild card by a game or two. Well, let’s hope it’s only egg, the weapon of choice employed against Mitch Williams’ house by transgressive fans after his legendary choke in the ’93 Series, because it is unbearable to watch this guy pitch as a closer and I’m afraid various other foodstuffs in Philly remain uneaten or regurgitated after each of his failed efforts.

Garbage in, garbage out. Hostile city, shitty pitcher.

Until Rhodes became part of the rotating “closer by committee” triumvirate after Tom Gordon went down, the Phils were 60-0 in games they led after the 8th inning. Gordon’s absence hadn’t been as glaring with all the runs the team has been scoring, but in tight games, forgetaboutit, this team won’t come close to the playoffs.

The other two excuses for closers, Ryan Madson and Aaron Fultz, shoulder some of the blame for this sick combo’s failings, but it is Rhodes, the alleged wily veteran of the bunch, who is getting burned for the big innings, and it’s been going on all season long. And Chollie keeps trotting him out there. Old Backwoods needs to look at his shockingly pathetic numbers, most of all his putrid rate of 1.68 walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP), the best gauge in my estimation of any pitcher’s effectiveness. Translated in a non-sabermetrical way, this crusty old pro is apt to put two runners on base every inning he pitches, and that’s a fact, Jack, obvious to anyone watching the games. Using that predictor, it’s safe to assume Rhodes flirts with disaster every time he steps on the mound. Contrasted with Gordon’s 1.20 WHIP, the difference is severe. After the first game of today’s doubleheader, the gap widened.

Here’s a radical thought for Chollie: That 21-year-old midget in the bullpen named Fabio Castro has a WHIP as big as a dwarf’s pinky at 0.83. He has allowed six hits and one earned run as a Phillie in 18 1/3 innings. Somehow I think the Braves’ immortal Adam LaRoche might have had less experience facing this secret weapon, and was gratified to see that fat home run ball Rhodes served him to win the game for the hated enemy-in-decline.

Arthur, do us a favor and fake an injury or use your excuse from last year, you know, the “family crisis” alibi, leave town, take the month off, and let Castro dictate in your place. Open a fucking Arthur Treacher’s somewhere in Texas and leave us alone.

We would prefer to use the eggs for breakfast.

Reality Check, Philly Style

2006-08-30T23:58:00.000-04:00

Jinxed. Snake bitten. Star-crossed. Ill-fated. Hapless. Inauspicious. Unpropitious.

Doomed.

When’s it gonna happen? C’mon. You know what I’m talking about: The Collapse. The Fall. Black Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Friday. Take your pick. And don’t give me that claptrap about the easy schedule. Nothing is easy in Philly, or at least it seems that way. Go ask Mike Schmidt.

“I don't know if there's something in the air or something about their upbringing or they have too many hoagies, too much cream cheese, too much W. C. Fields. I don't know what it is. But they're always so pessimistic."

That’s what our Hall of Fame third baseman had to say during the team’s 1989 spring training. Just for the record, it was not a vintage season for which he was preparing. The team went 67-95 and finished in last place. He retired after 42 games. Some have opined he quit too soon; I have it on good authority Von Hayes made sexual advances on good ole Michael Jack after watching his trademark ass wiggle too closely. Whatever the reason, Schmidt could never put his finger on why Philadelphians are so skeptical on success. He still can’t.

You don’t know why? Let me offer a few reasons. I’m about as qualified as they come – I was born on Broad Street in the middle of the 1963 season and was issued an encoded birth certificate dictating the terms of my Phillies fandom. The strictures are severe.

For one, I was barely able to walk and do not remember the infamous 1964 Collapse – but every adult I grew up around did. So as I was becoming a sentient human, the utter disaster of ’64 was fresh on everyone’s minds and lips for years, a catastrophe endemic to a city where the times were changing. People were fleeing Philly fearing civil unrest, what with all those dope-smokin’ hippies in Center City and agitated Uptown black folk. And that would be the ruination of good neighborhoods like Kensington. Hell, even the Mafia in Bella Vista wasn’t the same anymore, and Pat’s was becoming a dump. Occasionally, everyone looked at their encoded birth certificate warning against false optimism, because after “Place of Birth” it said “Philadelphia.” The imprimatur followed them on their driver’s licenses and tax returns. It was everywhere. It’s the Mark of the Beast. Because of this, the glass, as it were, would always be half empty. Life sucked and so did the baseball team. You were from Philly -- be thankful for cheesesteaks and Schmidt’s at least and grow fat.

So, in my formative years, as I followed the exploits of the “Golden Era” team into the late 70s, everything looked peachy keen when they made it to the playoffs. But, as older fans were compelled to remind us younger ones, they’d find a way to blow it, and they did three years running in the post-season. As you can see, a pattern begins to emerge, and the weave and wove is the eternal Philadelphia. You were marked; the team was marked. With one exception.

When that Golden Era team won the only World Series in franchise history in 1980, those of us old enough to know better yet young enough to still hope knew instinctively the next time they’d pull something like that off people would be jetting around in flying cars. Somehow, it just didn’t feel right. It took a year to see the otherworldly conspiracy. The Carpenter family, all in all decent people who really wanted to win, sold the team to the current cabal of bluebloods on October 29, 1981 – the 52nd anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash that led to the Great Depression - and let PR huckster Bill Giles in on their booty to run the show.

Now the half-full glass was about to be emptied.

The carnie who brought you the death-defying Kite Man and Karl Wallenda (if would have been sooooooo Philadelphia if he fell from that high wire over the Vet) sold off the club’s entire future in monumentally moronic trades and other misbegotten adventures that, except for the 1993 fluke, has brought us to our current uncertain juncture. The same inbred fuckers pull the strings, and there is no reason to think that money they off-loaded in the Abreu trade will be spent anywhere but on the Main Line.

While the 2006 team is finishing with a fury and currently tied in the loss column in the wild card chase, don’t buy your playoff tickets just yet. Take a look at your birth certificate. It might be encoded with that hieroglyphic meme “Philadelphia” and you know that means success breeds disaster.

QUICK - SOMEBODY FUCK LoDUCA!

2006-08-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

I’m going to pass on reviewing how Team Shook Up’s bullpen failed them tonight and turned a close game into a disaster in the 7th inning. It hasn’t been a habit lately and the Mets have a potent offense. They didn’t lose ground in the wild card chase and I forgive them.

What I’m curious about is whether Mets catcher Paul LoDuca is still getting himself some of that teen pussy.

In case you missed it, you can read all about his escapades here and here and here, but suffice it to say, this paisano likes ‘em young and likes a lot of it at home and on the road.

Do I have any young sluts out there reading this? Then go hang outside the Mets parking lot at Shea Stadium in September and shake a leg at him. Better yet, flash him a little beaver and turn him on to a little blow. I know what you’re asking. For who? For what? Hey, that’s a familiar Philly question. I understand. Simply put, it’s for the Phillies, that’s who. And here’s what for:

LoDuca has about five weeks to help get the Mets’ pitching staff ready for the playoffs. Their two best hurlers have injury issues; another guy takes three hours to pitch five innings; a fourth is a washed-up old man. The rest are rookies and the bullpen is full of other teams’ rejects. Worse for them, the remaining games aren’t all that important to win. They can mail in the rest of the season in and still be assured of claiming the division. Why should Dukey boy even try? Meanwhile, the Phils could -- shockingly -- roll into the playoffs with reformed and more effective pitching tested until the last game of the regular season. If they win the wild card and get out of the first round, their opponent in the League Championship Series likely will be the LoDuca-softened Mets.

Think LoDuca would rather have his little sausage doodled by a recently-graduated nubile than squat on dirt every night as a beefy umpire hugs him while he catches a Pirates reject like Oliver Perez? Maybe New York made Mike Piazza a little queer, but it’s pretty apparent LoDuca likes to be relieved of his seed by girls. Young ones. Real young.

This guy flames out every year after the All-Star break, and this year should be no exception. He'll lose all focus behind the plate. The batting average will dip in September. Watch the dark circles grow larger under his brown eyes. He will retreat as he usually does into the barely legal wet cubbyhole of abandon. And the Mets won’t have a prayer in the playoffs because he’s going to spend his spare time watching Jessica Simpson videos at his girlfriend’s Mom and Dad’s house out in Long Island or performing some other regressive act with a teenager. It could be with you! He has been known to tele-fuck in Philly!

All whores please report to 12601 Roosevelt Ave., Flushing, NY. Here’s a map. Have fun, girls, and remember to make him use a condom. His wife says he sleeps around.

Jelly Roll Is A Tattletale

2006-08-24T19:55:00.000-04:00

Day games are tough on me. You stay up to the wee hours doing your thing after a night game, hit the sack at the crack of dawn, and even before the Ellen Degenerate Lesbo Show runs, the fucking game is on in Chicago.

It wasn’t much of a contest. Our Lord and Savior Cole Hamels got kicked around early and often, and his opposite number on the mound, Carlos Zambrano, the only healthy pitcher Dusty Baker hasn’t ruined during his tenure as the Cubs’ manager, pitched like an ace. Zambrano might end up winning the Cy Young Award this season for a last-place team, always a neat trick admired by Philly fans who still cherish memories of Steve Carlton, vintage 1972.

With Zambrano collecting the easy victory, 11-2, I surfed the sports sections online and found an interesting thought from our very own Jelly Roll, who has been hot as a red barbeque coal during his annual August resurrection, the modus operandi he favors to fool fans into forgetting his usual first half failures.

Jelly Roll’s comments explaining Team Shook Up’s newfound vigor for winning games borders on the scandalous, really, but the author wrote the column so awkwardly he masked the backhanded slap Rollins served the recently-traded Phils – whose exile he credits for the team’s new optimistic outlook. These are all the quotes, so judge for yourself:

"It's the attitude of the team. We have great players. We also lost some great players. And, you know, it seems funny to say that any bit of it is selfish. But in the way they played the game, they wouldn't expand outside their discipline. In sports, sometimes you have to do something you wouldn't normally do in order to help the team win. Some of the players, they came here, they did their job, and it was in the box. It was never outside the box. Now we have a group of players who are outside the box. They play, scrap, I don't care, let's just win. It's a different attitude. It's definitely been the key to this great run so far."

Let’s see. Who could he be talking about? Everybody but Bobby Abreu technically arrived after his debut with the Phils, so when he says, “some of the players, they came here, they did their job, and it was in the box” does he mean every body but Bobby? And, except for starters David Bell and Abreu, just how important was it for pitchers Rheal Cormier, Ryan Franklin and Cory Lidle to play “outside the box?” Were they supposed to DH in interleague? Braid his natty dreads? Go hunting for the Jersey Devil with him in the Pine Barrens?

So that leaves us with Bell and Abreu, because Sal Fasano will be lucky to find work as a mascot next season, let alone a catching gig. Unfortunately, the author didn’t pursue that angle further, instead preferring to attribute Jelly Roll’s upswing as critical to the team’s ascendance. While that’s not false, it doesn’t tell the whole story, leaving the readers wondering what our shortstop specifically thought about Bell’s pathetic at-bats at crucial times the last few seasons and Abreu’s chronic fear of fly balls – but at least the sportswriter will maintain his sources so he can write more nebulous bullshit.

Staying Away From The Rest Home

2006-08-22T23:41:00.000-04:00

By now, you’ve probably heard that “feel good” story 65 times about Jamie Moyer coming “home” to Philadelphia, even if he grew up closer to Allentown in a bedroom community full of Mennonites as opposed to a block from the El next door to a houseful of meth-crazed bikers.

You have heard over and over again how he is a “crafty” hurler who “knows how to pitch” and is “intelligent and poised” because he is a junkballin’ old dude. How old? Moyer’s so old he exposes the stirrups on his socks. Moyer’s so ancient his Mom and Dad gave him permission to attend the 1980 Phillies Championship parade down Broad Street and gathering at JFK Stadium. Don’t remember that place, kiddo? Well, try this on: When Moyer was born in 1962, JFK still had a year to live and the place was called Municipal Stadium. The Navy Yard down the street was actually occupied by the Navy. The Vet and the Spectrum weren’t even on the drawing boards. Televised baseball games were in black-and-white. Information wasn’t available at your fingertips on Google – you fingered index cards at a library and “surfed” the Dewey Decimal System. If the book wasn’t there, you were up shit’s crick.

It was another world.

Yeah, things were different when Moyer was born, but 43 is far from geriatric. Or at least it better not be – I’m virtually the same age, a mere eight months younger, and though no longer capable of pitching effectively like he did tonight, I’d like to think the rest home is a few decades hence, and only then if I’m oblivious to being there. I spent 17 days re-habbing after a long hospital stay at one of those places (that’s what happens when you have no health insurance) and it was a house of horrors. Body fluids were out of control; death pangs reverberated through the halls; delirious residents wandered in my room for naps; nurses and their aides wondered what bad karma assigned them the task of cleaning bed pans and maintaining order in this assisted-living loony bin.

These uplifting thoughts manifested themselves to me during Moyer’s continent six-inning, three-earned run winning effort tonight against the Cubs. Unlike one of the babies on the Phils’ staff, here is a pitcher not yet in need of adult diapers. The 20-year veteran was supported with six runs and made it look easy, failing to lose his composure after surrendering the three runs, which all crossed the plate with two outs. Clearly, with age comes perspective. So try the following mental exercise.

Take your current age and subtract that figure from the year of your birth. If you’re 43 like Moyer, that takes you back to 1919, a year the vast majority of people on this planet were not alive to remember. The next time somebody tells you about “the good old days,” ask them to perform that simple exercise.

Chances are, if their year takes them back further than 1900, they can explain the Dewey Decimal System to you, but can no longer pitch in the big leagues. There may not be a clock in baseball, but time waits for no one.

Not even you, Julio Franco.

Lighting A Candle For Abe

2006-08-21T23:15:00.000-04:00

The Old Lady struck the match, lit the black candle and began the chant. Abraham Nunez was at .198, and the Mendoza Line was in reach. Maybe this would be the push to lift him over the other side.

As much as I am a godless fuck, the Old Lady is into her religion. She’ll chant Hare Krishna as easily as Hail Mary, wear a sari as comfortably as a burka. Vegetarian? You bet – don’t kill a cow, they’re holy. But get her at a ballgame and ask, “Hot dog, honey?” and she’s all over the pig like white is to rice.

For all you single guys out there: Despite what internet dating services advise, don’t ever marry a chick with similar interests. Your dick stays a lot harder when, say, you’re an atheist like me who marries a nun or a wiccan. And there are fringe benefits. Take Abe Nunez’s struggle to hit .200 this season, for instance.

All year long, I’ve had to answer the Old Lady’s stupid questions about why this guy was on the team. Worse, I had to answer for Nunez and Alex Gonzalez until the latter retired in shame. (Some deep background: She knows little about baseball, but she does know when a guy can’t get on base, that’s bad.) So you can see the quandary I’m in. Or more accurately, the quandary Pat Gillick has put all of us in:

Why has Abe been so bad?

Which brings us back to the match and the black candle. See, tonight was santeria night at the house in Tacony, and seeing that Abe, hitting .198, was teasing the Mendoza Line, what better benefactor of that old black magic than he? So, short of slaughtering a chicken and smearing its blood over our flabby, middle-aged torsos, the Old Lady was content to light one of those black “Good Luck” candles for our Little Third Baseman Who Could to help him along in his efforts against the Cubs this evening.

The results were not entirely disappointing. In the fourth inning, Abe chopped a ball to short for a two-run fielder’s choice, a somewhat rare occasion that no doubt could be attributed to the Old Lady’s charming candle as much as an errant throw to home that kissed Baby Girl Burrell on the back and fluttered toward the Wrigley backstop bricks. While that didn’t hike his average, that at-bat’s result staked the Phils to a 2-0 lead. And Abe was just getting started.

In the eighth inning, our magical benefactor stroked a single to drive in a timely insurance run to make it 6-3, an enjoyable moment insomuch as Cubs reliever Roberto Novoa jumped off the mound in shock, awe and regret as Dusty Baker, his beleaguered manager, swallowed his toothpick and flung his ink pen into his notepad in disgust.

Fuckin’ Abe!

That run turned out to be the game-winner, as Arthur Rhodes, looking more like Arthur Treacher while subbing for Flash Gordon, allowed a two-run dinger in the bottom of the ninth to give the Cubbies hope for a comeback. But Team Shook Up held on for a 6-5 victory and Abe Nunez, our Little Third Baseman Who Could, finally went to sleep this year with a .200 average. The team he stewards kept pace with the Reds in the wild card chase, and with a pitching staff upgraded with the wily 43-year-old veteran Jamie Moyer, one can’t help but wonder if Gillick’s removal of David Bell, Bobby Abreu and the other zombies that had populated the roster reinvigorated the living dead that followed those voodoo dudes’ stultifying lockstep of mediocrity.

Leaving little to chance, the Old Lady and I are stepping out tomorrow to West Kensington and stocking up on live chickens, plantains and candles.

The (Almost) Fightin' Phils

2006-08-19T23:41:00.000-04:00

They’re alive! They have a pulse! They’re ready to fight…well, close but not quite.

In a rare show of good old-fashioned (natural?) testosterone, Team Shook Up collectively considered – gasp – charging the mound and assaulting a pitcher tonight who had plunked the oft-thumped Aaron Rowand after the team ripped him for eight runs in the second inning.

Rowand, who I suppose is used to getting hit by pitches after taking 19 of them this season, started jogging down to first base like a good soldier when Chase Utley – victimized on the thigh by a ball the same inning – came running out of the dugout steps like a fox terrier, yip-barking admonitions to the pitcher.

Utley was but the first almost-Fightin’ Phil out of the dugout. Of all things, there was Baby Girl Burrell, cheeks plump with chaw, making like a lazy bulldog, staring like a guard dog eyein’ up the mailman, tangy drool dribbling down his cheek for added effect.

And there they stood glaring at Washington Nationals pitcher Ramon Ortiz – in foul territory – as home plate umpire Paul Nauert tossed him out of the contest. Utley and Burrell were joined by various beefy Phils and an indignant-looking Chollie as backup. After ten seconds, they went back to their pews, the apostasy answered.

Rowand seemed a little shocked by the whole affair and simply stood on first base, skeptical that Yip-Dog Utley would charge the mound like a little brother spoiling for a fight his big brother decided wasn’t worth his time. Maybe it’s because he’s been hit two more times this season than he has walked and he’s used to it.

Whatever he was thinking, Utley sat down, but the “message” was delivered: The Phillies will fight if you throw at them.

Maybe.

Hey, any signs of life from the 2006 Phillies is a break from the routine. I can’t help but wonder how quickly Bobby Abreu would have bolted from the dugout to join a free-for-all, or if Ryan Franklin would have stayed in the bullpen.

Then again, unlike scab Cory Lidle, at least Franklin would have been watching what was going on from his highchair in the pen as he was developing new pitches in his religious imagination for next season. Lidle would have been back in the clubhouse playing poker online or cruising ice-cream-and-pussy fetish sites.

Now Sal Fasano is someone that would have been good help in a brawl. Fat hairy dudes with garlic breath scare skinny pitchers. So do bald, potbellied relief pitchers who favor the Bluto look like Rick White, and he’s still on the team.

In all seriousness, the Phils should make it a point to continue these pleasantries Sunday. Nats manager Frank Robinson should be more than willing to accommodate. He took his share of balls to the ribs when he was a player (one of the great ones), and just because he’ll be 71 years old in less than two weeks doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.

So here’s the plan, guys. Chollie brings in White when the game’s out of hand tomorrow. The way Team Schizo’s been going, they might even have a big lead. Bluto goes to the mound and starts jawing at Robinson. He’ll take the bait and come out to the field.

Where White hits him with the ball is entirely up to his big ugly self. Then we’ll see what old Frank has left.

PISSED OFF

2006-08-19T00:06:00.000-04:00

Brett Myers' secret came gushing out in private shortly after his confidential life as a wife-beater was exposed in full view of the Boston public.

For three years, clubhouse jock washers the league over wondered who was throwing the adult diapers in the laundry bag; after all, major league ballplayers leave their crack-burned undies in front of their lockers for the little people to fetch and clean, just as they did for their mothers during their extended childhoods.

Every time the Phils hit the road, there was that soaked Depends already in the duffel bag in the clubhouse after games, much to the puzzlement of the help there, who assumed it had to be Chollie or Bill Dancy or one of the other aging coaches with plump prostates. And at Citizens Bank Park, it was no different, except the cleaning guys knew whose diaper it was and kept it discreet. They had witnessed its user’s famous temper, and preferred to keep the teeth they had left in their mouths rather than spill the beans. But they knew all along:

Brett Myers still pisses his pants.

Following his unseemly arrest and after his sessions with Phillies Immaturity Therapist Dickie Noles, the truth was spoken to power – or rather, Myers was honest about the lack of power over his bladder. Noles, who spent most of his playing days in a drunken haze, knew he had found the crux of Myers’ “anger issues,” the excuse drunks usually are given for their alcoholism. If Brett could gain control of his pee-pee, he reasoned, the wife-beating would stop because the anger would disappear. Hell, he might even become the ace the team had long expected him to be.

For two and a half weeks before the All Star break, Myers worked to develop his bladder control and with it, his composure. No longer would he wear the Depends in the dugout or on the mound. He would liberate himself and become a new man -- calm, cool and collected even if the team was going to dump salary and announce it would no longer be a contender.

Initially, Myers came back diaper-free and pitched like a sharpshooter. He shrugged off the few boos the fans hurled his way about the wife-beating and got right back to work. High on life and dry all over, Myers let the bullpen kick back and practically take the day off his first three starts post-Boston. Everything was fine – until the trade deadline.

He had it all under control until the Abreu/Lidle trade. But when he realized that GM Pat Gillick really meant it when he said there were "no untouchables" on the Phils, he literally shit himself in his anxiety, and has not been the same since.

Worse, after Sunday’s drubbing at the hands of the Reds, and tonight’s flummoxing by the Washington Nationals, it has become painfully obvious Myers has had another incontinent relapse. By the time the first inning was done in both games, he was wet all over, not to mention ineffective, confused and lost.

Myers took an early shower after allowing six earned runs in less than four innings of work tonight, applied a cool cream for a rash on his ass, and recited a revised Serenity Prayer in front of his locker.

God grant me the serenity to accept the urine I cannot hold;
courage to serve homeruns when I can;
and wisdom to carry enough diapers.

It will be a long, hard struggle for our hard-throwing and bald would-be ace, but our thoughts are with him and his family. When a grown man wets his pants, we need to hate the act and not the actor.

The Phillies have posted guards at Myers’ residence to ensure that his incontinence does not lead to violence.

FUCKING NEW YORK

2006-08-17T17:39:00.000-04:00

When it comes to New York City, I like the Manhattan architecture a fuck of a lot more than the people inside the buildings. I didn’t always feel that way. I spent a three-year interlude as an eager young adult getting a taste of Times Square and its pornographic splendors amidst the theater district before Sodom and Gomorrah was displaced by Disney’s idea of a G-rated mall lit large by family-friendly neon.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that move by the city’s fat cats was like putting lipstick on a pig, because it did push a lotta whores and their swinging customers away. Who likes walking over wet condoms? But I much prefer the bitches and the sex shops to Niketown or the MTV Store. The garish street walker and the guy buried in the latest edition of “Pulsating Flesh” had a lot more going on upstairs than Kurt Loder ever did. Now there’s somebody that gives me the creeps. Those veejays are vacuous lowlifes.

We all know Mets fans fit that description, too. They were the type of porn shop customer who drove through a tunnel from Queens or some comfy ‘burb in North Jersey or Long Island for the intimacy of jerking off in a booth where a naked lady sat on the other side of the glass.

They didn’t play pinball like Yankees fans. They didn’t read the mags like us social scientists. They jerked off in the booths. They were Mets fans.

And as the same pud whackers abounded in Philly this week to watch their beloved Mutts lose three of four to Team Shook Up, the silence of the hand jobs was deafening at Citizens Bank Park. There was no reason for them to cheer until the second inning of today’s fourth game – a contest they won but doesn’t really count since Scott Mathieson, still in training wheels, was the starter – and even then, there were less of them here than the preceding night games, all easy wins for the Phils, two of them shutouts.

Their 100-mile road trip a disappointment, every night featured mournful, inbred countenances, their obese torsos bedecked in ill-fitting Mets regalia, their mouths shut in resignation as they watched their heroes lose to a team that trimmed six major leaguers from its roster and has been winning with an emerging rookie ace and a third baseman still hitting under .200.

These fuckers need to feel a little more disappointment before they print their playoff tickets – and believe me, my favorite team in October will be any team they face with their aging, injured pitching staff, easily turned away this week by our re-energized Phils.

What really got me thinking this week about the Mets fan base – and hoping bad things happen to them - was the revelation before this series that one of those bungholes sent Ryan Howard a letter saying he intended to shoot and cripple our feared slugger because he was angry he bested Mets third baseman David Wright in this year’s Home Run Derby.

As if having your team leading its division by 15 games isn’t enough, now you want our first baseman in a wheelchair.

New York: The architecture is beautiful; the people, ugly.

Jerk offs.

“It didn’t bother me,” Howard said of the threat. “If he’s writing letters like that, that dude’s got bigger problems than me.”

I’m wondering if the fan is a member of the kooky fundamentalist faith-healing church Wright was shilling for recently in ads that ran during Mets’ telecasts in New York. Church Pastor Jaerock Lee has some, uh, interesting ideas about healing.

“I heard that the liquid of feces was good for recovering my health,” Wright’s endorsee says on his website. “Although its stench was unbearable, I drank it earnestly.”

The good news for Rock is that he gave up the shit-drinking. The bad news is he replaced it with bible study. If you look at his site, maybe you might want to e-mail him and tell him he’d be more convincing if he didn’t contend he had “evidance” (sic) of his curative powers.

Nah, don’t do that. He’s a Mets fan. He can’t spell.

Anyhow, David Wright, went 1-for 13 this series and the well-adjusted legions of Phillies fans allowed him to walk away from the ballpark in peace. No doubt he was meditating comforting thoughts about Jesus and eating shit.

Here’s hoping his team is served up shit sandwiches the rest of the season. They call them “heroes” up there, and they’re twice as expensive as hoagies.

Pat's Hats Froze His Bat

2006-08-13T19:49:00.000-04:00

“You know, this sounds crazy...but I love Philly.”

Coming from Pat Burrell, no, I didn’t think it was crazy. But it was surprising. Maybe he’s finally becoming one of us. Shit, maybe he’ll open a bar in Fishtown.

Baby Girl Burrell, Mr. Tightpants, Pat the Bat, Pat the Flat, Pat the Ass - whatever you wanna call him – has taken a heap of abuse “wid” the works practically since Day One, a familiar treatment for sports stars in Hostile City.

It’s our way of showing we love them.

He has been accused of alcoholism and philandering. He has been considered slothful and greedy. But mostly and most vocally, he is considered an underachieving lout who couldn’t give a damn if the team wins.

That’s why I decided to invite Burrell out to tip a few and ogle the fine poontang out and about Tacony Thursday before the critical series with the Cincinnati Reds. The women really do love the guy. Multiple web pages are devoted to honor his shapely man-ass. It does a man good to relax a little before doing battle, and I figured my neighborhood would offer a little anonymity away from the rich hipsters of Olde City. And while Pat might be shocked at the gritty environs, well, we all know he could stand a little dirt and grime in his life. Good for the soul. Good for the work ethic. Right, Patty?

“That 'gritty' bullshit pisses me off,” Burrell told me after we slid into a booth at Harry’s Hotties, one of my favorites a stone’s throw from the hardscrabble hood’s eponymously-named bridge. “The fans fucking sainted Rowand after he crashed into that fence. Fucking ridiculous. Mediocre hitter; mediocre fielder, really. I’d rather see Victorino out there myself.”

Rowand’s game-winning single in Friday’s marathon aside, Burrell’s estimation of Team Shook Up’s starting centerfielder is hard to counter. To take a look at Rowand’s numbers, it makes a fan pine for the return of his old drinking buddy Jason Michaels. As for his own numbers, Burrell’s are inarguably some of the best among outfielders in either league; not the best, but clearly similar or better than many of the more beloved, cherished and worshipped. In fact, using the sabermetrically-adored measurement of OPS (on-base average plus slugging percentage) our whipping boy ranks ahead of, ahem, Bobby Abreu, Andrew Jones, Jim Edmonds and the reviled J.D. Drew this season.

For some historical perspective, he is ranked by the reputable baseball-reference.com as being on equal footing with Dodger icon Gil Hodges at this stage of his career. Other players on that list include his doppelgangers Jesse Barfield, Nate Colbert and Tony Conigliaro.

This season, Burrell projects to finish with about 34 homers and 118 RBIs – and I know those stats don’t say it all about a player – but they sure seem to be numbers pretty similar to what Mike Schmidt put up every year. Ah, but there’s the rub: Every year. Schmidt did it every year, albeit in a different era, when the power numbers weren’t as outsized. He struck out less and walked more; he did greenies to keep himself interested. Maybe it helped him to ignore all the booing he heard.

So when the Baby Girl has that bat on his shoulders looking at a called third strike – sometimes two or three times a game like he did in today’s 7-5 heartbreaking loss to the Reds – the fans are less likely to remember what he did Friday, which the Phils won in the 14th inning on Crash ‘n’ Gritty Rowand’s single with the defense pulled in and the sacks jammed. Rowand would never have been a hero without Burrell’s homer and game-tying triple late in the game.

Instead, what will be remembered about this series with the Reds are all the opportunities Patty Boy flubbed. And the fans will continue to boo him mercilessly. Pat loves Philly. Philly loves Pat.

At our happy hour Thursday, Burrell anticipated the angry mob's reaction today.

“They’re giving away a gay-looking cap with my number on it Sunday,” he said as he espied a well-endowed dancer named "Star" sliding down a firehouse pole. “Watch – I’ll take the collar. No – a golden sombrero. That’ll be perfect, dude. Four fucking strikeouts.”

Call him a mystic, because Baby Girl damn near pinpointed his rate of failure on his Hat Day, whiffing three of four times he made an out, including one that snuffed a Phils comeback in the ninth and another in the second in which he tried to fudge a walk by jogging to first. Hey, even a psychic can try to change events in real time. But the booing is eternal and unchanging.

“You know, the straight-laced reporters try to make out we believe we can get to the playoffs,” Burrell told me as we got drunker last week. “They’re like little boys wishing their suck-ass team can pull off a miracle so they can fatten up on the post-season buffet at the hotel.”

“How would know about the post-season, Pat?” I queried.

“Don’t be a smart ass,” he said. “I got friends on the Yankees now. They’re asking for their special orders already.”

"And what would you order in the post-season?"

Pat the Bat smiled devilishly and looked at Star shimmering and shaking.

"Two guesses," he guffawed.

Don't Bet The House, Harry

2006-08-13T00:21:00.000-04:00

Chris Michalak last took to the mound in a major league game in 2002. There are reasons for that.

He has kicked around in the minors since 19 fucking 93, and you know how long that has been if you’re a Phillies fan, as we have an incessant and annoyingly palpable measuring stick reaching back to that year, when mullets and steroids and booze and guts and blood and balls last got the team to the post-season.

And while that team rapidly collapsed into itself like light in a black hole – as John Kruk lost a nut, as dope made Darren Daulton delusional and steroids shrunk Dave Hollins’ scrotum – Chris Michalak floundered in the minors.

Since ’93, he has been up to the bigs in parts of three seasons and has been shipped back to the bushes like a defective Chinese import by 12 – count ‘em, TWELVE – different organizations. Somebody must be watching out for this guy. Maybe he gives great massages to owners’ daughters or turns turds into beef, because when you’re 35 years old and still getting shots after allowing upward of five or six earned runs every nine innings in AAA like he has for the last four years, something’s gotta be up.

The Cincinnati Reds, so desperate for pitching they traded for Ryan Franklin, called Michalak up from their farm today and handed the ball to him hours later in the second inning against our beloved Team Schizo with his team trailing 5-4, their starter chased quickly, their bullpen overwrought from the previous day’s 14-inning marathon loss.

And Michalak, a lefthanded junkballer, proceeded to channel Tug McGraw, vintage 1980. His one boo-boo, a Ryan Howard bomb in the eighth inning (his 40th homer), tied the game 6-6 and seemed to make irrelevant his near seven-inning mastery of Team Shook Up as he held the Reds’ one-run lead until then. But as it would turn out, this middle-aged mediocrity won the game.

You can turn your heads now, Ryan and Chase, because it might be better if you didn't read the rest.

In this summer of our discontent -- a summer that has seen the team’s haggard-looking general manager’s pronouncement that his charge will not be too competitive next year -- fans have to wonder why they bother following their sadistic exploits this year unless they are, indeed, masochists like yours truly. After watching Flash Gordon (who wears McGraw’s old number) get blown away in the ninth inning of this game after Howard tied it up, and after watching rookie Scott Mathieson get touched for six earned runs in less than four innings at the start of this debacle, you have to question the sanity of investing time or, worse, money watching this sleight-of-hand trick of a team.

Yeah, it was an entertaining game. And yeah, I know Mathieson is a work-in-progress. But c’mon. He’s a lamb to the slaughter against an offense like that. You’re fooling yourself if you think Team Shook Up is not still shaking down and conducting tryouts. The 25-man roster consists of 13 pitchers, and one of them, Fabio Castro, sits in the bullpen mostly unused because Haggard One Pat Gillick wants to save him for next year and can’t send him to the minors unless he’s offered back to his favorite trading partner, the Texas Rangers. That’s all well and good if you had a few real major league utility players on the bench for late-inning rallies, but, alas, this team doesn’t unless you consider Danny Sandoval or Chris Roberson crusty veterans. Hell, they couldn’t hit a career loser like Michalak, let alone Billy Wagner.

So why expect late-inning victories from this team? After all, Howard came up with two outs and two on in the bottom of the ninth against the Reds’ new fireman, Eddie Guardado. He struck out to seal the loss, 9-7, but another dinger would have won the game. Real excitement, no? And that’s just what they’re hoping will keep you buying the overpriced nachos and cheese or bring your kid for a Pat Burrell baseball cap tomorrow.

But make no mistake: The Phils are not going to be the wild card. They may have loads of games left with allegedly weaker opponents like the Marlins or the Nationals, but if you’re a gambling man, I wouldn’t bet the house on them, Harry.

Ass-Grabbing Is Not For Kids

2006-08-08T00:45:00.000-04:00

I readily admit most of my enjoyment in following the Phillies and baseball in general is the way it reflects the existential absurdity of the human condition.

Here are a bunch of grown men running around in throwback threads barely evolved from the 19th Century, most with a chaw of tobackey or bubble gum in their cheeks, as they engage in a game today’s kids aren’t too interested in playing. Admit it – they’d rather play video games and you know it. But that’s cool. There’s more room in the ballpark for us graying grownups, and we’d rather not pay $7 for a happy meal, especially if that money could be better spent on warm beer.

Naw, fuck the kids. Watching grown men slap each other’s ass isn’t for them. Truth be told, I wonder what the players’ wives make of that demonstration when they know their husbands wouldn’t be caught dead in a gay bar. But I can ignore that kind of shit, because it isn’t the only deliciously ironic thing that happens in baseball, metaphorically speaking.

For instance, I watch baseball for the schadenfreude of savoring a king jackass like Ryan Franklin getting instrumentally raped in his first “relief” appearance for the Phils’ wild card rival, the equally mediocre Cincinnati Reds – and that was just a “highlight” clip. Short on relievers, the Reds made the mistake of trading for him today after Team Schizo wised up and designated him for assignment a week ago. This was after he openly admitted he would continue to serve up gopher balls at the team’s expense as he perfected his repertoire as a starting pitcher for an unknown new team next season. What a whore! Amazingly, the Phils used him one more time after he pissed all over GM Pat Gillick’s good will and trust in bringing in a known steroid freak as a free agent.

Franklin’s not-so-subtle intimation wasn’t so much absurd as it was arrogant, and if Gillick’s sanity was doubted after the Bobby Abreu trade, he made a pre-emptive strike to assuage those fears the same day by giving Franklin his walking papers before announcing The Big One with the Yankees.

And now, he serves up dingers for the Reds, and I am gleeful. Hey Franklin: Here’s to your continued collapse, cunthead.

And speaking of large things, two more items come to mind. For one, the Braves hold on division titles. How sweet it is to see Team Shook Up shake all the young unripened fruit from Atlanta’s tree tonight, notching a 9-6 win as it took advantage of incompetence, Braves style. Talk about gloating over another’s misfortune – Bobby Coxsucker sure has had it coming. For as much as it’s sheer misery watching the Mets dominate all comers, it’s concurrently joyous seeing the Tomahawkers' thin pitching get assaulted by every team in the second division.

Assault is an apt description of what Ryan “Howitzer” Howard is performing on Phillies power records this season. Like I said, baseball is mostly for adults nowadays, and let’s face it, adults love to watch violence – and watching Howitzer launch bombs into a stadium’s nether reaches is a gratifying part of our (former) national pastime.

The Old Lady genuinely looks forward to the brother’s at-bats, and not because of any kind of youthful good looks. (Shane Victorino is her favorite “cutie.”) Howard has elicited her interest as – get this – a baseball fan! What a chick! After Howard’s 39th homer tonight, a two-run shot that gave him 101 RBIs with 51 games to go, my darling wife chippered up for the inevitable adult and erotic display of affection players in every sport lavish upon successful teammates.

“Are they gonna pat each other’s asses?” she asked, leaning closer to the television. “They love to feel each other up after he does that, don’t they?”

Like I’ve been telling her, this is no game for kids.

At Least They Didn't Lose To The Cowboys

2006-08-07T00:08:00.000-04:00

So here I am, watching the final two innings of tonight’s nationally televised slaughter of Team Shook Up, steadfastly hoping that more shake will be shook.

No, it wasn’t because our Curt-Schilling-in-training Scott Mathieson got banged for seven runs in the fourth inning after he did his best imitation of fat pig Jon Lieber and tossed one five feet wide of Ryan Howard.

And it wasn’t because Pat Burrell looked like an ass during all his at-bats, or Jelly Roll is still swingin’ for the fences, or Aaron Rowand is starting to look like a great big mistake with limited talent, what with numbers reminiscent of Ding Dong David Bell.

It’s because my neighbors are screaming like motherfuckers while they’re watching an Iggles pre-season game.

For a lot of Philly sports fanatics, the first Iggles pre-season game – nay, the first day of training camp - is the beacon of light amidst the darkness of another hopeless baseball season. Do not believe otherwise, because this is truth. Today at the local supermarket, the midnight green, black, silver and white was evidenced in abundance. The customers wore the colors and the clerks stocked the merchandise, the aisles filled with Iggles regalia. As if to punctuate this tribal expression, a young buck wearing a Brian Westbrook jersey barked at a diminutive lady in an SUV who had dared to begin reversing her monstrosity ever so slowly as he was walking behind it.

“Open up yer fuckin’ eyes, bitch,” he screamed, running interference as his young son was walking abreast, all ears for his lesson in Philadelphia courtesy. “Can’t ya see I’m fuckin’ behind ya, cunt!”

Behind something is what the Fightless are when it comes to the despised New York Mets – now 13 games behind -- a team already going through rehearsals for its coronation by network vagina ESPN, its labial cameras resplendently splayed tonight for the Big Dick of Queens.

The Phils, accommodating the Mets so perfectly in their righteous 8-1 reaming, showed the rest of the National League wild card candidates just how easy it will be to roll them the final two months, because that perky attitude the team brought to St. Louis after the bloodletting last week has lost its spunk.

While even I thought Team Schizo might have had a chance for redemption after the first game in this series Friday night, a close victory that could have been construed as a statement to a Mutts team unapologetically full of themselves, the Mets handily disposed of the Phils in the final two games after taking advantage of the two boners by Lieber and Mathieson.

No apologies were needed. Both games exposed the Phillies’ glaring weaknesses: Failure to hit when the chips are down (Game Two) and failure to hit, period (Game Three).

I would say the team has defensive weaknesses, but that wouldn’t be fair. The team has defensive PSYCHOSES.

And it goes a long way in explaining why the Phils are clearly a team that does not believe in itself, which wouldn’t be so bad if the non-believers were rookies like Mathieson who needs to sow his oats before he can ride the horsie with confidence. What I’m talking about are the veteran non-believers like Lieber (who doesn’t believe in diets) and Nunez (who doesn’t believe he can hit anymore) and Burrell (who doesn’t believe someone will actually pay him $12.5 million next year) and Rowand (who still can’t believe he ran into that fence for these guys) and Rollins (who can’t believe he’s supposed to swing only at strikes) and Lieberthal (who can’t believe people might think the pitchers suck because of the careless way he calls a game).

And as the rest of the city gears up for football season – even watching pre-season losses like tonight’s 16-10 bore against the Oakland Raiders – the Phils will struggle with their young pitchers (something they need to do) and with their n’er-do-well-when-it-counts roster of chumps, something we’re all used to by now…and something Pat Gillick warns will be the hallmark of the 2007 team.

At that rate, soccer should make some easy inroads next baseball season.

A Dog In Philly, A God In New York

2006-08-04T01:36:00.000-04:00

So I decided to catch a little Yankees action on the tube today, and that’s easy enough, as the only ballgames ESPN chooses to show are those in which either New York or Boston are involved.

The national deification of Bobby Abreu is well underway now that he is no longer a Phillie. And in much the same way his critics understated his abilities, today’s broadcast team overstated his strengths.

Former Mets General Manager Steve Phillips, the “color man” for the game, said when Abreu failed to drive in runners for the Phils, nobody else did, implying that’s why the team has sucked this year. Let that thought wash over you for a second or two. Then take a look at his network’s web page with all the stats under “Ryan Howard” and tell me who picked up the slack for our old three-hole hitter who’d rather take a walk than hit a baseball. It’s remarkable how he could ignore the National League’s second-leading RBI guy. But hey, I know people in Manhattan who think working two jobs just to survive is called “portfolio diversification.”

I don’t expect much from Phillips, a failed turd with a thin portfolio who last year had about the strangest “fantasy” show on television that featured Phillips as Phillips making believe he had his baseball job again. He was a blustery windbag who couldn’t pull that gig off as a fake, either, and he’s worse behind a mike calling a game. But I’m sure his broker has invested his paychecks wisely in index funds.

The Yankees won, 8-1, behind the Greatest Pitcher in the History of the World, Cory Lidle, who probably is too paranoid to be in the clubhouse alone anymore during games after Arthur Rhodes exposed him as an Internet porno and gambling junkie who doesn’t give a fuck what his teammates do between his starts. This revelation came to us miserable fans after Lidle had the gall to complain about the Phillies millionaire club’s legendary apathy after his trade. Funny how he retracted the comment after the larger and angrier Rhodes outed him as a jerk off. Now I’m sorry I ever lauded the asshole after he spoke up about his distaste for Barry Bonds – but as they say, it takes one to know one. And I will say this for Bonds: He never crossed a picket line as a scab to play under a pseudonym like Lidle. So here’s to you, “Fuller Star” or whatever the fuck your name is: There are still lots of Teamsters in the Big Apple who are expert in sabotage.

I didn’t watch the entire Yankees game against the Blue Jays – yes, there are other teams in baseball – because they built up a big lead midway through the game (Comedulce went 3-for-5) and I still had a Phillies game to watch. Or, as it’s starting to look like, a new Phillies team to watch.

Since Les Invisibles gave the go-ahead to Pat Gillick to exorcise the Abreu albatross, the team is 4-1, scoring runs easily, and, for the most part, getting good efforts from the young starters. Last night, Team Shook-Up completed a sweep of the vaunted St. Louis Cardinals. Cole Hamels was masterful, allowing but one run on two hits, striking out 12 in seven innings. The Phils won, 8-1, and their whole vibe just seems…perky.

Maybe getting rid of Abreu is like dumping a chick who’s a great fuck but is wrecking your life – you miss the pussy at first, but in the long run, you’re better off.

Consider:

The offense has hummed since Abreu’s discarding. David Dellucci, seeing the lion’s share of the playing time in right field, entered the game last night with an identical slugging percentage as Ryan Howard, who has been splendid as usual and is on a pace for 144 RBIs. And let’s not jinx Chase Utley’s 35-game hitting streak by talking about it, so let’s contemplate Chris Coste’s seven-gamer. He went 4-for-5 last night, is hitting a robost .375, and with runners in scoring position, has delivered at an otherwordly rate, getting hits more than half the time ducks are on the pond. With his stick batting seventh, he has taken up most of the slack for Baby Girl Burrell or the inconsistent Aaron Rowand. He’s done a steady job calling games behind the plate and has nailed five of 11 runners who have dared to consider stealing on a catcher with healthy knees who gives a damn, as opposed to Mike Lieberthal, who will limp away from us soon and has apparently never given a shit about winning, seeing how he’s unusually perturbed by Lidle’s accusations.

And lo and behold, even bottom-feeders like Jelly Roll have been hitting. But let’s not get into the leadoff thing while the going’s good, because except for fat pig Jon Lieber’s 15-2 thrashing on Monday, things have been so hunky-dory and productive since Abreu, Lidle, David Bell and Rheal Cormier have been traded (not to mention Ryan Franklin’s demotion) that I can’t wait for Lieberthal to disappear or Burrell to be traded for a toothless hooker. I think the Team Succubus left with these guys for different climes, and a hooker is a lot better for morale than watching Burrell do his thing.

Why Murray Chasshole Pays $9 For A Beer

2006-08-02T02:29:00.000-04:00

The Phillies owners have demonstrated by their actions over the years they are closer to the imbecile side of the Bell Curve than the slope indicating the gifted elite. For sure, they have lots of capital -- so does the Ford family -- but that doesn’t mean either group of inbred bluebloods knows how to spend it to secure their future generations’ life of luxury. History has shown repeatedly that fortunes can be lost as quickly as they are accrued, and if you keep on building SUVs after the “liberation” of Iraq, well, you might wind up a little less rich a lot quicker.

In the case of Les Invisibles, they are facing some hefty income problems at the gate of the new playpen after the Bobby Abreu “trade,” which everyone but Pat Gillick has termed a “salary dump.” Petitions have begun to be circulated and boycotts are being organized. Not that the trades of David Bell, Cory Lidle and Rheal Cormier has anything to do with it – this is all about the departure of Comedulce and his total remaining payroll obligation of $21 million. His worshippers are righteously pissed.

All that clattering about is not likely to make them sell the team; other income instruments such as revenue sharing, television rights and merchandising should keep them afloat for a few years, and the thinking is already done for them in that regard. Besides, how many parents are going to tell kids they can’t watch Ryan Howard at the ballpark because the owners suck?

But Bill Giles, Dave Montgomery, Claire Betz and her dog, the Buck Brothers and John Middleton – the ever-intact Les Invisibles roster -- must want to strangle Murray Chass after reading his indictment of their business acumen in yesterday’s New York Times. In case you missed it, the veteran columnist wrote that while the Yankees’ $200 million payroll is an “obscene” disgrace, the playoffs are George Steinbrenner’s “birthright” and the Phillies’ ostensible cheapness in dumping Bobby Abreu’s salary was “more disgraceful than the Yankees” fiscal insanity, as “they play in one of the largest markets in the country, and they act like a small-market team.” Chass pointed out last year’s $95 million payroll last year was whittled down to $88 million this year, and that it demonstrated this mindset.

I will do something now that will surprise and shock. I will defend Les Invisibles’ moves this season and bitch slap this Chasshole, as his reference to Steinbrenner’s inalienable right to win because he is filthy rich is, by inference and extension, an elitist mockery of all things Philadelphian; we know we’re comfortable and corrupt, and we don’t need anybody with a superiority complex telling us that.

Besides, some of us love the misery of it all.

Anyhow, Chasshole, a good hunk of the whittled 2006 payroll can be accounted for by what the Phils pay Jim Thome not to play here anymore -- $5.5 million. Throw in Aaron Rowand $3.25 million they’re on the hook for and all of a sudden, the Phils started the season with a higher payroll – and this was after off-loading Kenny Lofton and Jason Michaels’ combined $5.5 million this season. The Rowand-Shane Victorino tandem makes a million and a half less.

And then there’s the injured and unproductive.

Randy Wolf is “earning” $9.125 million this year. He has started one game, spending the entire season up to now in rehab. I am not here to bury Wolf, but I’m not praising Ed Wade either – this guy would not be worth that money even if he replicated his career-high 16-victory season. But that was in 2003. Since then, he is 11-12 and has cost the team more than $20 million in that span, earning $11 million in 2004 and 2005. Now that’s fucking delivering!

No, I’m not praising Ed Wade – I’m damning him. I’m shredding him a new one. I’m wishing evil thoughts about him. I’m wishing he never lavished those millions and more on the other losers: Mike Lieberthal, Pat Burrell, and yes, even Jelly Roll, a shortstop with a good glove but absolutely no clue at the plate.

Do you think that would put somebody in the mood to risk $8 million on mediocre pitching? Ever hear of Jeff Weaver? As Gillick said after the trades, he’d rather go with the young pitching that’s shown promise. I’m with him on that one. Just take a look at the sweating, obese Jon Lieber. He’s collecting $7.5 million this year. A kid with a future runs you $327,000 and gets better every start if he’s named Cole Hamels. Any questions?

At the very least, the Phils ex-GM’s generosity with Les Invisibles’ cash wasn’t wasted on Billy Wagner, who turned down a few hefty offers and settled for $10.5 this season with the Mets – fully six million more simoleans than what it takes to have Flash Gordon do a better job.

So what does that leave? Our remaining two best position players, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, both of whom, by the way, are having far better seasons than Abreu – historic ones, as a matter of fact -- and both of whom earning a combined $855,000. THAT’S UNDER A MILLION BUCKS TOTAL FOR BOTH.

So, Murray Chasshole, when a team can successfully develop a few minor leaguers, you can save a few dollars. But in a city where a tenement apartment rents for an average of $2,000 a month, that’s probably a little hard to understand. Yankee fans and their owner are like the whores on “Sex and the City.” They need a dick every night, any dick, and at any cost. Then they bitch when the guy can’t hit a homerun. So they go out and buy another one. Philly may be one of the largest markets in the nation, but even a bunch of idiots like Les Invisibles know when they’ve overpaid for mediocrity, and even if they need a dick every night, maybe they know when to step back, take a break, and evaluate their failings.

Here’s hoping Pat Gillick puts whatever money they want to risk to better use than Wade while keeping beer to $6.50 at the ballpark. The Yuengling’s cheaper to drink at home, and the rent is reasonable.

BOBBY'S GONE -- NOW GO KILL YOURSELVES

2006-07-31T20:58:00.000-04:00

I got the e-mail between games of the doubleheader, just after the press conference about the Big Trade. It was my cyberfriend CandyEater53, the unofficial president of the Bobby Abreu Fan Club, and at first I thought he was joking.

“I’m going to kill myself,” he wrote, a sobbing emoticon punctuating the declaration. “You heard, right?”

Yes, I have heard the news, I replied, my joyous thick fingers caressing the keyboard. Our beloved Comedulce has been traded -- with Cory Lidle thrown in for funsies -- for a box of chocolates and four minor leaguers. Think we can buy a pitcher for his $15 million next season? I wrote.

Life goes on – and coincidentally, the Phillies proceeded to sweep a doubleheader to mark the beginning of the A.A. (After Abreu) Era. But before I had a chance to take in Game Two, there was the small matter of stopping a suicide. My lonely friend has a mancrush on Abreu, and he no longer wanted to live.

CandyEater53 (“Fiddy Tree” for short) told me he had just finished swallowing a dozen Diphedryl mini-tabs and washed it down with Scotch and Kool-Aid. He requested I stop at the Rite Aid to get him more pills and deliver them to his house, as he was, like, a little taken out by events. Of course, I wasn’t about to enable his death, so I told him I’d be right over with the little pink pills.

Fiddy’s house is a shrine to Abreu. Posters, jerseys, authographed baseballs, bats, maps of Venezuela, the porno pictures of his ex-fiancee, and other obsessive ephemera are plastered all over the walls. It always gave me the creeps. I felt as if I was in the lair of a child molestor. As George Carlin once joked, when you collect baseball cards as a boy, you’re collecting pictures of your heroes. When you collect baseball cards as an adult, you’re collecting pictures of men.

And when you contemplate suicide over the trade of your favorite Phillie, well…it could be argued you’re collecting evidence of your emotional immaturity.

Fiddy would be alright. He may be a little queer for Bobby, but he likes his Internet chat rooms too much to buy the farm. He’d go back to his job as a systems analyst, collect his fat paycheck and continue to enjoy the single life without the remotest prospect of pussy anytime soon. But as I explained to him, some of your team’s idols need to take their ball and play somewhere else, especially when one of them hits for a lower average than David Bell but are paid three times as much.

“Fiddy,” I began, handing him a container full of candy, “do you remember when you asked your boss for a new contract after you put in five years at the company and he turned you down at first?”

“Yeah,” Fiddy said, “I told him I wanted to make what they offered the other guy before he turned them down and worked for the competition. I thought they would pay me anything I wanted because they’d be afraid I’d walk out, too.”

“And what did they tell you?”

“They told me to pound sand.”

“Right,” I continued. “You asked to be paid what some companies pay their entire staff. A little unreasonable, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, in hindsight, maybe it was,” Fiddy reflected. “They would never be able to pay other talented people to work with me. I understood that. I am compensated comfortably. I have a house that’s paid for. I buy cars with cash. I’m doing alright.”

I ate one of the candies and contemplated the picture of Abreu holding his Gold Glove. I continued with my point.

“Now look what happened with Comedulce,” I said. “He is arguably the best outfielder the Phils ever had. In fact, he’s one of the best players ever to wear the uniform. But you know what? He was one of the most overpaid players ever to put on a uniform anywhere. Ed Wade was mentally ill to offer him that kind of money.”

“How can you say that!” Fiddy screamed. “Get out of my house! What do you know about baseball?!”

I was wondering whether the sedatives he took had had any effect, or if the adrenaline fueling his knee-jerk reaction was overriding it. But this reaction was not to be unexpected. As he recited his marvelous sabermetric figures, I stood pat and contented myself knowing the Phils’ offense wasn’t likely to suffer too much damage in his absence. And what good are all the runs when your starting pitching is the worst in the National League? Even if you are suspicious of the owners’ intentions, it is hard to believe they will simply pocket the savings and barricade the gates when the barbarians like me come calling.

Then again, they are a collectively stupid bunch. They let Ed Wade get themselves into this mess.

Abreu’s deal was an albatross from the beginning, truly emblematic about what’s wrong with baseball finances. But for the Abreu worshippers – some of whom even admit he is not worth the $13.5 million this year or $15 million the next – now that the burden is removed, they are crowing about the return received in the trade, as if having him limiting Pat Gillick’s options to four teams put the aging GM in any position to get anything but four warm bodies and the liberation of his budget.

For fans like Fiddy, they’ll never get past their near homo-erotic attachment to Comedulce. For fans like Tacony Lou, I’ll never get past my attachment to winning, and not only winning, but winning with a little positive hate for the opposition. And face it, a little personality and intensity goes a long way in Philly.

As Fiddy continued reciting the laundry list of Abreu’s career achievements in every esoteric category, I remembered his last at-bat as a Phillie, the slow dribbler to the second basemen that forced the potential tying run out at second and left him standing on first…where he proceeded to get picked off to kill the inning. I tried to imagine what that would look like in Yankee pinstripes. I tried to imagine how much sympathy he would get from fans in the Bronx for a blunder like that.

Meanwhile, I consoled poor Fiddy, and he drifted off to sleep hugging his teddy bear adorned in his wee-wittle Bobby Abreu jersey. This morning, I got home and watched the ballgame. It was a beautiful new beginning.

Marlins 15, Phillies 2. That’s our Fightin’ Phils.

DING DONG, THE BELL IS DEAD!

2006-07-29T01:24:00.000-04:00

And so it has begun.

The flimsy house of cards that Ass Engineer Ed Wade constructed and christened his “ten year plan” – like any good Soviet would - is now being disassembled carefully by the grown up who replaced him.

Goodbye, David Bell. No, let me sing that:

Ding dong, the Bell is dead!
Red Means Go, Giles said!
Ding dong, the wicked Bell is dead!

Bell, traded for Wilfredo Laureano, an anonymous A-ball pitching prospect, had a truly remarkable career in Philly – if mediocrity is your criterion of success. Maybe I’m being too kind, but hey, he leaves our green country town for the suds and brats of Milwaukee WITH A HIGHER BATTING AVERAGE THAN BOBBY ABREU.

Did I say he has a higher batting average than Bobby Abreu? Well, that’s a fact, Jack. After both players’ virtuoso performance last night against the Marlins – Bell flailing wildly at air, Abreu taking a collar and getting picked off base while representing the tying run -- the corpulent Comedulce Abreu has his ever-fattening ass sitting on a .277 average. Bell, hot as dogshit most of July, elevated himself to .278. At one point, he broached .290.

Not half bad considering his replacement for now at third is Abraham Nunez, he of the gargantuan .157 average.

This is the point where the sabermetric Gestapo strap on their dildos and wander away to the nearest gay porno site. So go there if you want to suck on a little Bill James salami and feel an urge to scream batting average is not a relevant number, or that Abreu draws all those walks, has that high on-base percentage, and has led the Phillies to five appearances in the playoffs.

Oh. Sorry. Bobby-boppy doesn’t do the playoffs. And Abreu’s numbers? Well, you may want to masturbate over that centerfold, but here’s something that might spur on a little erectile dysfunction: He is an impotent Number Three hitter. Somewhere in the small print of his mammoth contract (which would make an Enron felon giggle), Wade must have included another Soviet-style idea: A non-aggression pact to remain neutral against major league pitching.

Walks are nice, but I want more for a $13.5 million (and growing) hitter in the three-hole. Now go look up David Ortiz’s RBI totals the last three years. He bats third just like Bobby. See what I mean? He does all that for half the money, is the linchpin of his team’s offense, and would rather swing the bat than waddle to first like a salsa singer on a stroll to the delight of his audience.

I will sing again with joy when Pat Gillick the Grown Up removes Abreu’s card from Wade’s psychotic card house.

Before he announced the Bell trade after the moribund loss, 4-1, against the Marlins, Abreu and the rest of the morose bunch demonstrated the failings of their season in microcosm.

The first thought that washes over me every time Team Puke plays the Marlins is that Abreu makes just half a million bucks less than THE ENTIRE MARLINS PAYROLL. Now, later in the season and with Team Schizo BEHIND THE MARLINS in the standings, I am flush with wonderment at the exhuberance of hungry youth.

This Marlins team, on a slow boat to nowhere the first part of the year, has had a historical turnabout and now has a starting pitching staff which includes three rookies with as many or more wins than ANY Phillies starter and leads the National League in ERA. And of course, as our collection of spoiled, over-sexed millionaires paraded to the plate with their bats on their shoulders, they proceeded to be no-hit for almost seven full innings by Ricky Nolasco.

Haven’t heard of him? Didn’t think so.

Could it get worse? Oh, yeah. You bet.

Up in the eighth comes our last real chance: David Dellucci, Chase Utley, Abreu and Ryan Howard. On paper, you’d think so, at least. But on the field…that’s a whole different story.

Dellucci, choking on his scungilli, ran a 3-0 count and moronically swung at the next offering and ground out. Maybe he was channeling the spirit of Jelly Roll, as he was ineffective in the leadoff spot. But when Utley blooped a single to center to continue his impressive 28-game hitting streak, you would think having your Number Three hitter step up would be nothing short of optimal.

Nope.

After watching Utley almost get picked off by another one of the Marlins’ young arms, Comedulce dribbled a weak grounder to second, and Utley was extinguished at second. Abreu stood on first, the inning still alive. That is, until our champion silver slugger was fooled by the rookie’s deft pickoff move to first about 10 seconds after the ball was thrown back to the pitcher. Inning over, Howard not allowed to swing. And, of course, he proceeded to launch his 33rd homer to the upper deck when he led off the next inning. But it was already over.

Bell’s last hurrah followed Howard’s bomb and Aaron Rowand’s strikeout. It was one of his specialties – the weak fly-out to right field. Shane Victorino lined out to left and the Phillies had the fork stuck in them.

I wonder if Bell knew that was the last game in candy stripes for him. I wonder if he knew he had a higher BA than Abreu. I wonder if he’s snickering about that on the way out the door.

I wonder if any sucker wants to pay the declining Abreu a king’s ransom next year for a .275 average and 150 walks.

THE ADDYTOOD IS IN THE WARDER

2006-07-27T17:56:00.000-04:00

Old Pete the Water Guy usually kept to himself. In a blue collar town, he was the archetypical working man -- out the door at dawn, scrapple and eggs at the diner, an honest eight hours at the plant and then a cold one or twelve at the taproom to watch the Phillies.

Then the misery would begin.

On the surface, he seemed just like the rest of us suffering Philadelphia faithful, who, unable to control place of birth, are hopelessly damned to a life of futility rooting for the losingest sports franchise in human history. But Pete was different. As he watched every pathetic loss unfold, the old man would knowingly shake his head, offering no banter or solution to the team’s woes as his drinking buddies would dissect the Phillies’ manifold vulnerabilities.

As it turns out, Old Pete kept to himself for a reason -- he knew a lot more than he was letting on, and he was scared, terrified that if his secret were ever revealed, he’d be out of house and rowhome. He was a water guy, and he knew the root cause of the fans’ ailments.

But as retirement looms and death becomes a palpable thing, lips are loosened. And as Old Pete told it to me the other night, the Phillies and their fans’ woes start with the water.

“You heard the old saying, ‘Must be something in the warder,’ Pete murmured to me as he emptied a pilsner of Yuengling at Shamrock 13, our favorite Tacony tavern. “Well, in Philadelphia’s case, there is something in the warder.”

Our rotund bartender with the watermelon tits and sunny disposition approached and interrupted our tete-a-tete.

“Ya wanna anudder, hon?” she asked me.

Before I had a chance, Pete ordered for us. “One of what he’s having, a Ying for me, and two ice warders, sweetie,” he instructed the drink-slinging heifer.

I didn’t know quite what to make of his claim. Of course there’s something in the water…or at least there better be, considering it’s drawn from the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers. Wait a minute. There was something other than chlorine and other cleansers in the water? Old Pete mumbled on.

“I started at the Warder Department back in 1964. I was 23, fresh out of the Army, and I should say, happy as hell to get my discharge before Johnson escalated the shit in ‘Nam. Anyway, I had a buddy, Mickey Guerin was his name, get me in at the Department. Good gig, still is.”

Pete took a drag off his Pall Mall straight, coughed up a wad of green phlegm, wiped it on his blue Dickies pant leg, and weaved his tale further.

“I read meters for four years. Then I run into Mickey and he tells me, ‘Petey, I can get you into a better slot right inside the Torresdale plant, and you can work here until the next century if you keep a lid on how we do things here. That’s all there is to it. Are ya innerested?’ And I said, sure, it beats running away from German shepherds in North Philly backyards. So my first day inside the plant, Mickey goes, ‘Let me show ya somethin’. So he takes me to this room adjacent to the filtration works, and shows me these 55-gallon drums. Big deal, I’m thinking – it’s just chlorine or some shit like that. But it wasn’t chlorine. The label says ‘methylphenidate’ – most people know that as ritalin.”

“He had ritalin stashed at the water works?” I asked.

“No,” Pete said. “It wasn’t his stash. It was the city’s. And his job was to put it in the warder.”

When he told me that, I almost dropped my Jack Daniels. This guy’s a crackpot, I thought. No wonder he’s a little anti-social. No, this couldn’t be the truth. But still…

“I know what you’re thinking,” Pete said. “The old man’s off his rocker. Okay. I’m crazy. But let me ask you this: What makes us so hostile here in the City of Brotherly Love?”

“Any number of reasons, Pete,” I countered. “The natives don’t need ritalin to be assholes. We’re born that way.”

“Yeah, you’re born that way and drinking the fuggin’ warder. I’m tellin’ you, the warder supply is tainted. You drink it, I drink it, the Phillies drink it…and the whole while, as the ballclub loses year after year, they reinforce our irritability and depression. It’s an endless circle.”

“You mean endless cycle, Pete?”

“Whatever. It’s a circle of shit, that’s what it is. And I’ll tell ya what else. It ain’t just ritalin in the warder, either.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Look, I’m not shittin’ ya. They put LSD in the warder back in ’72. And how many games did the Phils win that year?”

“Fivety-nine.”

“You are correct. That’s why Carlton won 27 of them – he only drank the wine. And when the team was goin’ good in ’80 and ‘83, they panicked. Thought the chemical balance would be thrown off by success. So they threw in PCP right after the last World Series in ’83 – what, with the Sixers winning it a few months before, something had to be done. And two years later, in ’85, look what happened. Wilson Goode ordered the MOVE house bombed and set Osage Avenue on fire. And what was the Phils’ record that glorious season?”

“Ridiculous, Pete,” I said. “How many of those Yings did you have?”

“Six. I’m not feeling a thing, though. I had a chaser of warder. We put a little morphine in the mix this week at the plant. But mostly, it’s still ritalin, is what it is.”

I looked at the ice water in front of me, and all of a sudden I felt a cramp in the pit of my stomach. Ritalin? That’s what psychiatrists give hyperactive kids to calm them down. If taken by someone with normal brain chemistry, it has just the opposite effect. It’s like a hit of meth. Even with the properly diagnosed patient, it has unsavory side effects. I was starting to see Pete’s point.

“Look at this place,” Pete said. “Philly fans are the most aggressive in the country. We chuck snowballs at Santy Claus and batteries at J.D. Drew. The city had to build a courtroom and jail at the Vet because of all the fights. And not because of the booze. Remember that Dallas Cowboy that got carted off on a stretcher? Wazhisname…Irving? They were cheering that like we just nailed Osammy bin-Laden or somethin’. And remember – the players drink the warder, too.’”

“So how’d this all start,” I asked him.

“Rizzo,” Pete said. “Police Commissioner Rizzo, back in ’68, right about when I started inside the plant. Mickey said he figgered if we doped the warder supply and calmed people down, the hippies and the Black Panthers and all the other radicals would get the stick outta their asses and we wouldn’t have riots like they did in Watts, Detroit or the South. They was different times. People were talkin’ revolution and shit. But as it turned out, the ritalin calmed the freaks down, but made the normal people hyper. We’ve had 40 years of people up all night shootin’ each other and all kinda mayhem. That’s what ritalin does. Rizzo was a good cop and a great mayor, but he wasn’t a chemical engineer, that’s for sure.”

I did my shot and washed it down with the ice water, bracing for the worst. Or maybe it was the dose I needed to even me out. Maybe I’d run screaming down the Boulevard with a machete, screaming at an imaginary Mitch Williams…there was a whole bunch of shit I never considered before. But one thing was certain.

I hate paying for bottled warder.

Okay, Franklin. Give Us The Pictures!

2006-07-26T01:14:00.000-04:00

So over in the fan forums in cyberspace, Phillies fans are fretting about Backwoods Chollie’s decision to cede the game last night against the D-backs by inserting Ryan Franklin in the 11th inning.

It has also been remarked in that contentious world that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. In the Phillies case, fans have watched -- much to their chagrin -- Franklin’s repeated use in close and late situations, and rarely has this career loser shut the door.

If it’s not insanity, it has to be extortion. Somewhere, under lock and key, Franklin must have pictures of Chollie fucking a pig. How else can he justify trotting this guy out unless he’s mopping up a mess?

The plaintive cries in the digital woods were well-founded immediately after the ball game, because there were two other relievers – Geoff Geary and Fabio Castro – who Chollie could have used instead of Franklin. But old bumbling butthole believes in confidence-building through losing, especially if the player grew up as backward as he did. Franklin hails from Oklahoma, which is bad enough, but last week admitted he may not have it in him to be a reliever; that was bad news for the team, because the comment evidently has bought Franklin more innings in Chollie’s estimation.

Considering the club took great pains in maintaining Fabio Castro’s place on the active roster, demoting a veteran pitcher, Clay Condrey to AAA when he was acquired, and more recently, designating catcher Sal Fasano for assignment when it could have just as easily kissed the unused Castro goodbye (as Sally pointed out as he packed his bags), I’m convinced that any of the aforementioned alibis can be deduced from tonight’s bad ending.

In short, Chollie’s insane, extorted, or just plain dumb.

So instead of the highly competent Geary (5-0, 3.29 ERA) or the untapped and dwarfish Castro, both hurlers sat in the bullpen and got a fantastic field-level view of the solo homer the de-steroided Franklin surrendered to the first batter he faced, Carlos Quentin, who debuted as a major leaguer just five days ago and has been permitted to work for his pay.

Castro, acquired June 29 from the Texas Rangers for Daniel Haigwood – one-third of the return the team received for Jim Thome – last appeared to confirm his existence July 6. Aside from that, he pitched the day after the trade. That’s been it. The totals are clean: Four innings, one hit, no runs. Not bad. So what’s wrong with this guy?

Maybe a better question would be what’s so right about Franklin?

Where’s the pictures, asshole?

SELL! SELL! SELL!

2006-07-24T00:07:00.000-04:00

I will say this for Flash Gordon: He’s making a case to stay a Phillie. He sure doesn’t look like good trade bait anymore.

Friday night, he let Tomahawker Jeff Francouer – who has all of eight walks this season and swings at garbage – beat him for a two-run homer in the ninth. No harm there. Gordon had a three-run lead and proceeded to sew that one up. Phils 6, Braves 5.

Last night, old Flash served up a three-run bomb to Francouer, who somehow has 69 RBI despite an on-base percentage of .288. That must tie the sabermetric geeks up in knots. To say the guy gets timely hits goes without saying, and his homer tonight in the ninth won the game for the Braves, 5-1. He may swing at trash, but he hits it.

Atlanta scored five runs on five hits; the Phils had 11 hits, yet could only manage one measly run. They left a collective 13 runners on base. Meanwhile, accused wife-beater Brett Myers’ return to the mound in Philly was a resounding success. He hurled one of his best games of the season and entered the top of the ninth with a three hitter. However, his inept offense had kept the game knotted at 1-1.

Fellow wife-beater Bobby Cox, who made the mistake of of getting beat by keeping the wrong pitcher late in the game Friday, must’ve salivated seeing his criminal peer sweating and laboring in the ninth, because Chollie was making the same mistake tonight. Myers was spent. Before you could say “Mike Tyson was railroaded,” Myers had relinquished the lead and Team Phutile was looking at a 2-1 deficit.

Chollie, his head bobbling like a six-foot figurine, came shuffling out of the dugout and took the ball from Myers, who doffed his cap to applauding fans as he exited. Who says Philly is an unforgiving place?

But Gordon took care of all those good vibes, throwing a fatty to Francouer, the reincarnation of Manny Sanguillen, and it was OVER. Does anyone expect this team to recover from a four-run deficit in the ninth? That’s as likely as Bobby Abreu’s progressively fattening ass hustling up a double in the eighth – which didn’t happen, courtesy of a perfect assist from (guess who?) Jeff Fucking Francouer. Abreu helped Frenchy out, as replays showed him tanking it around the bend at first. Ironically, replays also showed Comedulce to be safe, as the throw beat him, yet he maneuvered his engorged body away from the tag and put his hand on the bag before he was touched. But if he had put more of an effort into it in the first place, he would have beaten the throw and the ump would most likely have given him the call.

Please, let me hear again how the critics are wrong when they say this guy dogs it. Then tell Bill James to invent the stat for that one.

The ESPN telecast had its interesting moments, aside from Joe Morgan’s asserting that Pat Gillick brought Ruben Amaro Jr. with him as an assistant GM. (He’s Ed Wade’s old buttboy). The new rumor has Pat Burrell going to the Cardinals. The last trade the Phils made with Walt Jocketty was when he ass-raped Wade in the Scott Rolen deal. I wait with baited breath.

Maybe the Cards will send a case of Bud over for Burrell; certainly, Francouer is worth more, as he now has NINE more RBIs than our alleged cleanup hitter, this despite being primarily the seventh-hole hitter behind the Joneses, Chipper and Andruw, who take advantage of the ample RBI opportunities in front of them a helluva lot more often than Baby Girl.

Requiem For A Mascot

2006-07-23T01:13:00.000-04:00

In a move as devastating to the region as the summer’s floodwaters, Sal Fasano was designated for assignment by the Phillies yesterday.

No longer will the Citizens Bank Park right field upper deck be populated by Sal’s Pals, the two dozen fans who tried establishing a cult around the career journeyman, now finished with his tenth franchise. The 35-year-old has vowed not to report to the Phils’ Scranton-Wilkes Barre AAA affiliate, which is a real shame. They need a good laugh after the flood.

Maybe it was the fans’ desperation to find a hero that deluded the chubby backstop into thinking he was part of the team’s solution, because to hear Sal tell it, what the Phils did was fucked up and nasty.

"I just didn't think that being outrighted is a reward for going on the DL when you didn't want to,” Sal cried. “Maybe I should have made it a little bit more known then. It just goes to show you they'd rather go with guys they just picked up than guys that were here."

If he was referring to the catchers that remain with the big team, Sal really should do a little research. There is, of course, the veteran albatross Mike Lieberthal, playing his swan song injured as his corpulent contract expires at the end of the season. And then there is Chris Coste.

Coste, a 33-year-old rookie, has been assaulting half the pitches he has seen the last month, cruising along at a .333 clip and providing timely hits in the bottom third of the order – something unheard of this season until Chollie began to give him a shot. And he wasn’t “just picked up,” either. He was signed as a minor league free agent by the Phils in 2004 – a year before Sally signed -- and all he’s done since then is produce in AAA and the majors.

Sal, on the other hand, has produced a funny fan club, 10 RBIs, a .243 average, and has a hand in the pitching staff’s National League-worst ERA. And unlike Coste, he is unable to throw out base stealers from his chronically injured knees.

Insanely, he thought the pox he has laid upon the team would last the remainder of his marginal career.

"It hurts a lot, because I finally found a home," said Fasano. “This is where I thought I might retire.”

The axing of Sally is especially notable insomuch as Team Vomit’s limited partners were recently exposed as meddling in front office affairs for years when “fan favorites” were on the verge of being released or dealt. Surely, Fasano quickly emerged in that category this season, if only because of his cool hair and Fu Manchu moustache. That’s a hell of a reason to keep a guy on a roster when your team’s 13 games behind the fucking Mets. Thankfully, it didn't happen.

Here’s hoping the deluge is coming. Is there a good reason to subject us masochists to Abe Nunez or Ryan Franklin anymore? Can’t some would-be contender be snookered into taking the pathetically ineffective Arthur Rhodes off the team’s hands?

Do it quick, Gillick. These guys don’t have fan clubs yet

A Burrito Full Of Blues

2006-07-18T18:46:00.000-04:00

The sun seared the San Diego skatepark, the SoCal Summer heat no longer just a wisp blown in from the desert mellowed by the surf, but instead an open oven kindled by overpopulation, Al Gore’s flatulence and carne asada burritos.

It was the Mexican version of the cheesesteak that inspired Our Lord and Savior Cole Hamels to visit his old haunt, El Culo del Rico, for some jalapeno-inspired home cooking today after his start last night against his hometown Padres. Not surprisingly, the same old shit happened again. He left with the lead and the bullpen blew the game. His rookie season with Team Schizo so far had left him with a bad taste in his mouth, and El Culo had just the right elixir to cleanse his tainted palate. He met up with an old teacher and brought an appetite.

“Seriously, Tom, Philly is a pit,” Hamels said as he liberally applied salsa and sour cream to the beef delicacy. His pitching mentor, Tom House, listened attentively as the young lefty detailed his woes.

“I mean, like, you know – this team has issues,” the burrito-eater described as he hunkered down and set to work on the fat double-wrapped tortilla tube.

House has handled his share of up-and-coming pitchers from his “school” based in San Diego, the National Pitching Association, most notably Mark Prior, Kevin Brown and Rob Nen -- to be sure, successful pitchers, but nevertheless, consistently injured. House, who has authored three books on pitching mechanics and “BioKinetics,” has a PhD in psychology – but no degrees, not even a bachelor’s, in any of the physical sciences are listed in his biography. He has his critics, not the least of whom is Dr. Mike Marshall, the retired Cy Young Award winner who does, in fact, own a doctorate in physiology. Marshall was known for his durability as a big leaguer and, more recently, what “baseball people” contend are his “unorthodox” methods geared toward avoiding injuries to developing pitchers’ arms. For some reason, “baseball people” think he’s the charlatan, not House.

But so far, the only students with a pattern of injury after instruction have been House’s.

Whether House has already set the stage for Hamels’ ruin is still unknown – Hamels has had arm and back problems, not all pitching-related – but yesterday, he was there just to listen to his student, a convivial, calming spirit; an old “master” with his charge, if you will.

“I made a big mistake with Chollie,” continued Hamels. “After one of my bad starts, I told him I wasn’t motivated, and he, like, freaked out! Told me if I can’t get motivated in the big leagues, there was no point in being here! Can you believe it? I think that shithole of a city is getting to him.”

Young Cole inhaled the last of the burrito and wiped the face that has always inspired big-titted and nitwitted blonde babes to line up for a little beach blanket bingo with him. “Let’s take a walk on the beach, coach, do you mind?” Hamels asked.

“Sure, Cole,” House answered obligingly, “it’ll help clear your mind.”

Once they hit the sand, Hamels reached in his pocket and took a look around.

“Mind if I smoke a bone?” he respectfully inquired.

“Hey, you’re in friendly territory,” House chuckled. Hamels sparked the joint, took a long hit, exhaled, and continued his assessment of Team Schizo.

“Dude, Dubee’s a moron, dude. He is so whack. Do you know he spent most of his career in Double A ball? Never made the majors – and he keeps a flask of hooch in the dugout!”

“You’re kidding me!” said House, who pitched all of 536 innings in the majors, mostly as a reliever in a mop-up role for eight seasons. His most memorable big league moment came when he caught Hank Aaron’s 715th homer in the Braves bullpen. But he never got liquored up in the dugout like Dubee.

“Yeah, can you fucking believe it?” Hamels went on. “And I’m not sure about this, but I think Pat Burrell is doing that trailer trash shit OxyContin, you know, the heroin-like stuff Rush Limbaugh got busted for? I can’t count the times I noticed him nodding off at the plate looking at a called third strike.”

“Holy shit!” House said, feigning flabbergast. After all, his was the era of the greenie, and the team Hamels got drafted into was notorious in the 70s for being crankheads. They all did it. He began to wonder whether Hamels would ever be able to handle Philly, or if the Phillies could handle their drugs.

“Cole, you do realize that team’s going to look completely different next season,” House averred. “I hope they hire my consultant Dusty Baker. He lets pitchers pitch.”

“Whoa, grandmaster dude!” Hamels droned in his native CaliSpeak. “Didn’t the Duster burn out two staffs in San Fran and Chi-town? He, like, isn’t too groovy about pitch counts.”

“Well, he’s not Mike Marshall, either,” House shot back. “That asshole would have you do shit like long toss everyday to strengthen your arm. I’ve laid down the law about that: You don’t need arm strength to throw hard. It’s sequential muscle loading. It’s late torso rotation, it’s…”

“Speaking of torso rotation, check out that chiquita hottie with those hooters, dude! I could stand for a little pinoche. Ee-yah!”

“Ignore the chicks and listen to me, Cole. Thus, I have written: ‘A pitcher must find and keep an upper body spine-to-hip relationship with a constant angle of flex in posting knee at front leg lift, stride and landing -- directing upper body into torso rotation and launch of a baseball.’"

“I never understood all that shit,” Hamels said, gazing at his sensei through reddened eyes. “I gotta get to the ballpark and get ready to watch my team lose again.”

And so the two parted, their relationship fortified by carne asada, ganja and bullshit. They tread similar paths in different eras, pitchers both – and that’s about where the similarities end. For the neophyte Hamels, his road has ended about the sixth inning every quality start, a yanking further irritating his impressionable spirit each time the bullpen blows the lead. Just like last night’s disaster. And things will not change as long as the other pitchers are about as untalented as Tom House.

An Earful From Our Next Manager

2006-07-15T22:07:00.000-04:00

When Pat Gillick ends Chollie’s misery and cuts him loose, he would be well advised to hire Lou Piniella for comedic effect.

Piniella and nepotistic gasbag Thom Brennamen were assigned by Fox Sports to cover today’s Phillies contest against the Giants from beautiful, kooky and gay San Francisco. They came armed with every bad baseball cliché and then some, spouting soporific syllogisms and misguided malaprops galore.

To be honest, Team Schizo would give any broadcaster ample opportunity for clever commentary, as they were a veritable Keystone Cops when it came to playing ball before the All Star break. After last night’s boner-filled 5-3 loss, it was clear the hijinks are to continue, and Cory Lidle today honored the proud tradition of starting pitchers digging an early hole for themselves. Before Piniella could mention the lust in his heart for Marge Schott, the Fightless were behind, 2-0.

Although he told Buttboy Brennamen – who clearly is channeling a Muppet in an alternate dimension - he has “more time to watch baseball” since quitting as the Devil Rays’ manager, Piniella evidently has had the volume turned down in his luxury suite or home entertainment center. Somebody needs to hand this guy a player pronunciation guide; surely he has not heard these names before today:

Lidle became “Lie-DELL.” Pat Burrell transformed into “Burr-ELL.” Aaron Rowand got another letter as in “ROW-land.” The manager in the Giants’ dugout, after all these years, would have cringed to hear “Fah-LEEPY.” And, of course, there was the man he would replace, now known as Chollie “MAN-yew-ah.”

But Piniella didn’t limit himself to baseball. As we all know, for the Bay Area’s wealthy fans, it is a social occasion, a chance to fire up what he described as a “High-BOTCH-ee” on the boat in the bay and enjoy some barbeque. And when Fox flashed some video with 38-year-old San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom unveiling the promotional sign outside AT & T Park for next year’s All Star game, Sweet Lou commented he was “a young-lookin’ mayor.” Maybe a few days in the Gay Area had Lou noticing the plentiful young men?

(Just as an aside – what is this bit with the all the gay guys harassing the Jamaican shopkeepers in Massachusetts, growling “breeder” right in their faces because some reggae musicians are freaked out by anal sex? Are they supposed to wire the old country and demand they change their lyrics? And the magazine publisher confronting a hetero woman and shouting “breeder” at her in front of her church? Or the other faceless fags stealthily smearing shit on properties owned by known heterosexuals because they don’t support gay marriage? Sounds like the fairies up there are out to one-up the Klan. If you didn’t hear about it, the publisher’s being charged with a hate crime for that one, and if you ask me, he deserves all the hassle he gets. I never understood Queer Nation’s disgust with people who follow their instincts and have children. Here they want people to at least tolerate their lifestyle – no problem there – but then they act as if receiving big wads of jism squirts up their colon is natural, and the “breeders” who continue the species (and, coincidentally, that would include unborn gay people) are doing something wrong. Can somebody send Ozzie Guillen up to Red Sox Nation to counsel these people?)

Anyhow, the Phils wound up putting on a good show for their would-be future whipcracker, winning 14-6, the most runs they have posted this lame season. And in between all the shit the tandem spewed, there were some telling thoughts bandied about regarding strategy between Brennamen, son of a Reds broadcaster who never played the game nor worked a real job in his life, and Piniella, who played and managed for 37 years.

Most baseball fans are aware Piniella displayed an on-field disposition akin to Larry Bowa – but unlike the Phillies’ cock robin, who never won more than 88 games in a season, he won 90 games or more seven times as a skipper. Moreover, Piniella worked under Gillick in Seattle (where he won a mind-boggling 116 games in 2001), so it’s only natural his name is at the top of any list to replace managers at the helm of failing teams, and especially managers who request prayers for help with the job.

Aside from the on-field pyrotechnics, Piniella has hinted what to expect from him if he gets the gig. For one, he’s not a fan of “Moneyball,” the sabermetrically-driven philosophy of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane and his minions, as well as millions of geeky fantasy league “owners” who insist the game has passed old-timers by, that the stolen base and hit-and-run are overrated if not useless devices, and that Joe Morgan is the anti-Christ for not agreeing with them, despite his own supersaber career numbers.

“How many World Series has Moneyball won?” Piniella jabbed rhetorically at Brennamen, who was reciting Beane’s reasons why the Phillies should not be bunting with a four-run lead in the late innings with speedburner Shane Victorino at the plate.

Strangely, Thommy Boy retreated to the safe womb of the Red Sox – not surprising as both Fox and ESPN have obsessed over Boston like a teenager jerking off to a Hustler spread – saying that the Sox won the World Series with a payroll of $120 million.

Right, Brennamen. Now that’s Moneyball. Unfortunately, it’s not what Piniella was talking about when you started to recite the Scripture according to Bill James.

“Baseball teams that advance runners consistently win a lot more than they lose,” the aging manager said in pointing out the obvious. “You use your bunt as much as an offensive weapon as a defensive weapon.”

That’s a good thought, as defensive metrics have not been as easy to come by with the sabermetric maniacs. It’s also an idea expressed ad nauseum by Phillies color man Larry Anderson, mostly in his regular indictments regarding Team Vomit’s futility in their rare excursions into the Lost World of Bunting.

Better, Piniella demonstrated he likes to go for the kill to goad the opponent into surrender, saying, “You need to keep on moving runners and piling on runs.…Remind the other team it’s not their day today.”

Not exactly the most intellectually advanced baseball thought, but still, for a guy who has trouble pronouncing English like Chollie, it seems he has more going on upstairs. And as the Phils tied their previous season-high run total at 12, he tellingly added, “You would think they would have scored more than 12 in a ballgame.”

Team Schizo finished with 14 runs today. Knowing full well their starting pitching woes nearly eradicate the efforts of four hitters with more than 50 RBIs – as he pointed out at length – Piniella summarized the demolition with one of the most shop-worn assessments of a mediocre team.

“A game like this can really jump start you,” he said, reading from his dog-eared Old School Manual (or would that be the “Man-yew-AH”?). “Hitting is contagious.”

Here’s hoping whatever afflicts Brett Myers doesn’t spread tomorrow.

Of Pigs And Gladiators

2006-07-12T16:24:00.000-04:00

For some reason, I found myself watching “Gladiator” the other night, the day before Phillies Unlimited Idiot General Partner Bill Giles, returning from Italy, the setting of the movie, said the team’s alleged wife-beating pitcher was “trying to help her get back to the hotel.”

The whole thing was a big misunderstanding, he said, implying what Brett Myer’s victimized wife and four eyewitnesses told the police was a pack of lies.

No need to replay the whole back-and-forth, hem-and-haw and regurgitation Team Puke Managing General Moron Dave Montgomery tried in spinning what Giles said into a big misunderstanding, too. Just assume both these guys take the fans as stooges.

It would be fair to assume Les Invisibles -- the inbred group of bluebloods that own the rest of the franchise – view the fan base as Commodus thought the Roman mob at the Coliseum: Crazy, bloodthirsty hedonists looking for a daily bacchanal to enliven and amuse their base instincts. For our modern masters, certainly only an unclean, uncouth brood descended from enslaved barbarians would be sucker enough to fund a stadium for their profit.

Alas, their richly-compensated gladiators have failed miserably this year, and the year before, and the year before that since the new Coliseum was erected. Now the barbarians, to the owners' shock, are screaming for heads. Their heads.

As they see it, the modern forum for the "crazy" loudmouthed masses to vent their bile is talk radio and other mass media. Giles said as much in his fateful interview with reporters before the All-Star game Monday. He must view the Internet as the work of the devil. There’s no seven-second delay here, and better, no “owner” telling you to assume your readers are chowder-eating grannies.

Many years ago, I wrote a story for a “family” newspaper about one of the slaughterhouses that make scrapple, the inimitably Philadelphian breakfast delicacy with ingredients of pig heart, pig liver, pig tail, pig lip and pig snout, among other viscera. The plant is not a sight for the faint of heart. The pictures accompanying the story were gruesome.

They did, however, depict the truth. And the words wrapped around the hanging, gutted pigs succinctly described their fate.

It took about a day to get all the approvals needed from On High to run the pictures, and the photos were critical, because this was a cover story for a tabloid insertion in the broadsheet newspaper to which the aforementioned chowder-eaters subscribed.

Would people never know how scrapple was made if the story never ran? Of course not. Anybody could find out if they wanted to see for themselves. But the story took people to a place they might have never have thought to have gone, or had the time to do so.

The Brett Myers public wife-beating arrest has involuntarily exposed the public face of the ownership – Montgomery and Giles -- innards and all. Like scrapple or hot dog lovers, Phillies fans might not have ever wanted to see how the cooks made the product. Now for our mid-summer’s pleasure, there are Monty and Giles, hanging with all the dignity of a slaughtered swine on a meat hook.

Now the hungry hordes want more flesh to hang - or at the very least, somebody from Les Invisibles to disown their idiot stepchildren who interface with the customers.

Here’s a heads up, Billy boy. When you call fans “crazy” for expressing their displeasure with your suckass joke of a team, and then deny violent criminal charges “never happened” with the clear certainty of a true believer, you should fear the masses and stay out of the Coliseum. Bullshit smells the same in Villanova as it does in Tacony. When you say -- at age 71 -- you will never sell your share of the team as long as you are alive, you should hope the other shareholders or creditors don’t end your run with the modern day equivalents of assassination, the hostile takeover or cash call. If that doesn’t happen, here’s hoping your heirs hate baseball and sell.

If anything, old man, you should be grateful that you can take the pulse of your customers anytime of the day and take the good advice of people who know a helluva lot more about baseball – as opposed to generating millions in borrowed wealth – than you do. Boycotts are already being arranged, Billy boy, as if the second half of this season didn’t portend empty seats a-plenty. Judging from what all the “crazy” fans are saying, there are legions more who have decided to stay away after your idiocy this week.

Unlike a good hunk of scrapple, your product is indigestible.

Chollie's Paranoid Evangel: Let Us Pray

2006-07-08T14:15:00.000-04:00

Whenever somebody starts saying prayers are needed to help him, you can be assured the white flag of surrender has been raised.

Worse, when somebody starts saying that somebody must be out to get him when there is no articulated or demonstrable threat, anti-psychotic medicine should be considered, as the rest of the sane population might need to control the deluded party before he hurts the innocent.

Read this and tell me if it isn’t the rambling of an unsound mind:

“I don't know if it's you guys or the players or what, but somebody out there has got something against us. Or somebody's not living right. If you guys are very religious, please go to church. Pray for us."

That was Phillies Manager Backwoods Chollie, the imbecile son of a preacher, after last night’s 3-2 loss to the Pirates. The “you guys” to whom he was referring were the reporters surrounding him armed, as he implies, with deadly pen weapons and tape recorder bombs. “The players” were the shizophrenic, coddled millionaires he attempts to “manage,” yet now, as he speciously contends, they got something against themselves.

Somehow, I can’t imagine these narcissists hating themselves.

As far as the somebodies that are “not living right,” I won’t get started on that one in detail, but suffice it to say beating the shit out of your wife would define the term. Not to mention the team brass that let unmellowed angry boy Brett Myers pitch his next turn, thus setting up the blackening of the collective eye of a city the rest of the country takes great schadenfreude in bashing as regularly as Todd Jones’ morning dump.

No, Chollie, Jesus ain’t gonna help you or this collection of slugs. As Sister Mary of Lesbos reminds us heathens, your so-called Lord said, “When I was hungry, you gave me to eat,” and we miserable fans of this 123-year atrocity are starving. The owners, Les Invisibles, have offered us crumbs from their kingly table of plenty (Chase Utley, Ryan Howard), but the nourishment they offer has been soaked in the vomit and piss of the team’s ineptitude. More worrisome, the kids seem to be picking up the bad habits of the other career losers, as prophesied by naysayers who revel in the team’s ineptitude. Billy Wagner can’t keep his mouth shut about his old team, but it turns out he is correct in his assessment.

And now, you say, “Pray for us?” I don’t know if you noticed this lately, dummy, but you’re wearing the monkey suit of a baseball manager, not the cassock or turban of a fairy tale salesman. Maybe you should ask the assembled interviewers after the game to “play for us.” Maybe they can manage more than three hits and a run against a starting pitcher for the Pirates, the worst team in the National League. Did you or the players watch the game video from Ian Snell’s last stellar start against your team, or were you too busy reading your “Strong’s Concordance?”

Did the Apostles in heaven conduct fielding practice or was it you who permitted your All-Star second baseman to become the third-worst fielder in the league? Did Jelly Roll speak in tongues and come up with that lineup card every day that has him leading off? Was Baby Girl Burrell fucking Mary Magdalene every night before looking like a leper at the plate?

There are libraries filled with descriptions of the “variety of religious experience.” Without a doubt, the next real-world epiphany in this town will be when Chollie is cast into the hell of unemployment, where his idol hands, already the devil’s playthings, will be far away from Philadelphia.

Korean Missile Finds Target, Hits Phillies

2006-07-07T13:22:00.000-04:00

Did somebody serve up a heaping bowl of Castor Avenue kimchi with steroids to Chan Ho Park before last night’s game, or is this failure just too good for Team Vomit?

Park could have fed the starving mass of estranged relatives he has in North Korea for life or bought a few more missiles for its psychotic “Guardian Deity of the Planet” after he took advantage of Texas Rangers GM John Hart’s latent retardation and signed a contract worth $65 MILLION for five years in 2001, one of the costliest busts in baseball free agent history. He was perpetually injured and won a sparkling 26 games in four years. A seasoned cuttlefish in your local Korean grocery could have done better than that, and probably wouldn’t have demanded the same money as Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson, which is what Park’s agent, the Satanic Scott Boras, snookered the Rangers into doing.

Talk about fucking stupid.

But the Padres, starved for good pitching and no doubt seeking to engender the good will of SoCal’s large population of emigres from the Land of the Rising Sun, took an enormous chance on Park and dealt away Phil Nevins for him, a certified asshole, but a cheaper one. Park is collecting the last segment of Hart’s charity by proxy --$15.3 million – this season. But in contrast to Kim Il Jung, Park has weapons that really still work – at least against Philadelphia.

Park has been pedestrian this season, six wins, four losses and an ERA in the mid 4's -- but against the The Fightless, he was Tom Seaver. It was astounding he made it out of the first inning. I was listening to the game as I was driving back from the Shore, and the opening frame lasted until I passed through Hammonton on the White Horse Pike. Certainly the Padres would be trotting out as many pitchers as there are blueberries for sale at Jersey farmers markets. Or so I thought. Maybe I was having a flashback to my Shore trips in the late 70s, when the team I heard on the radio on the way home had a killer instinct in the early innings. As it turned out, Park would last as long as Lucy the Elephant. He pitched seven innings, threw 119 pitches, and allowed three earned runs. That’s about par this season against our alleged vaunted lineup. They were dead ducks against the Pod’s bullpen, and the final, boring result was a 5-3 loss.

Ryan Madson, who has come to epitomize the schizophrenic character of the Phils’ collection of uninspired losers, pitched the requisite shoddy performance five days after a winning effort, a maddening, alternating sequence that has left him with a deceiving 8-6 record but an outrageous 5.91 ERA. Ever the charmer, after his impressive win Sunday he refused to speak with reporters, one of the favorite scapegoats for the team’s dickless labors. He probably didn’t know how to explain his success anyhow. Last night, he spoke, clueless as to why he got battered. “I don’t know what it is,” said the pitcher. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.

Hey Ryan? Fuck you. At least Silent Steve Carlton was a weirdo who knew how to pitch. Your butt buddy Brett Myers is so outta here. Maybe you should “out” yourself and go, too.

Amazingly, Madson is going to be permitted to stay in the rotation instead of up-and-comer Scott Mathieson, who flung eight innings of three-run ball the previous night, an effort wasted by the Phils insipid, clutchless offense and rapidly deteriorating bullpen – where Madson plainly is more suited to pitch. So many homers, so few timely RBIs, so many dollars for Arthur Rhodes to fuck up a lead. Sigh.

So let’s summarize where this rant is going: The Phillies lose their EIGHTH STRAIGHT SERIES, yank Cole Hamels out of the first game after a rain delay for a team effort by the bullpen (the only game they won), demote Mathieson, who merely had the team’s best starting effort in a week, and cleared a spot for fat Jon Lieber, who was raked in his rehab starts by Single A hitters.

Meanwhile, 21-year-old Fabio Castro, by all appearances fathered by a dwarf and who speaks only Espanol, will remain with the big club to be tutored by pitching coach Rich Dubee, who speaks a hillbilly English and whose Spanish is limited to asking for shots of tequila during spring training.

Now we’re getting places.

Sister Mary's Midterm Phillies Report Card

2006-07-02T16:32:00.000-04:00

I told you before I am a godless fuck. I didn’t tell you why.

The seeds of my devilment were sewn by the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Considering the clergy’s recent collective arrest record, and the scores of other “men of the collar” who never have been or never will be indicted for their crimes against humanity, it’s easy to understand the impact this gang of sadists and pederasts can have on impressionable youth.

No, this ain’t a sexual abuse story – I would have slugged any priest who tried to diddle my dinkus. Besides, they stunk of church wine, so I was never inclined to be an altar boy. As for the nuns, who reeked of stale panties and insisted they were married to Jesus, it was easy to see he preferred old maids and homely dykes.

Protected by their spouse, whom they daily cannibalized by a magical bread and wine proxy, the nuns got away with murder when it came to beating on pre-pubescent boys for the smallest infractions. Unlike Brett Myers, I was taught by my Kensington-bred father boys aren’t allowed to hit girls. So when the blue penguin came at you with a ruler and made hay, you more or less had to take your punishment. It was their way of giving your folks their tuition’s worth.

I was reminiscing about my joyful childhood in The Church of Perpetual Sorrows Parish School when it struck me there would be no better assessor of the Phillies at mid-term than my beloved seventh-grade teacher, Sister Mary of Lesbos, I.H.M., who is still alive and residing at Immaculata Rest Home For Old Closeted Diesels. She is still married to Jesus. She is still a Phillies fan. And she is not one bit happy. What follows is our conversation and the Phillies report card.

Tacony Lou: Hey there, bulldog. You don’t look a day older than 108.

Sister Mary of Lesbos: Well, if it isn’t the Son of Satan himself. Did they finally parole you?

TL: Never spent a day in jail, you old hag. By the way, I still got the scar from that crucifix you imbedded into my arm.

SM: That’s lovely. Blessed be the transfiguration. That’ll teach you to keep your hands folded when I tell you.

TL: My hands are perpetually folded, Sister. Are you still a Phillies fan?

SM: Those losers.

TL: So you’ve been watching?

SM: Do I have a choice?

TL: Now don’t get me into that pre-determinism versus free will argument again. Of course you have a choice. You could be offering up indulgences or incanting ejaculations from The Baltimore Catechism.

SM: I’ve never made anyone ejaculate!

TL: I’m sure you haven’t. I’m talking about a shout-out to Jesus.

SM: What in the name of our Blessed Mother are you here for?

TL: I’m trying to tell you. I’m here to get your grades on the Phillies.

SM: Those losers.

TL: You’ve established that. Let’s get more specific. You’ve been watching. Let’s go through the roster position by position. You may have been a terror in the classroom, but you sure knew how to critique a performance. Shall we?

SM: Well alright. I’ll start with pitching. They all get a red F.

TL: Go ahead, Sister. Get more specific.

SM: Lieber is guilty of the cardinal sins of sloth and gluttony. Look at the baby fat around his middle. No wonder he’s injured.

TL: He’s 37.

SM: Then it’s a beer gut. Who else is on that staff?

TL: I’m not sure the manager even knows.

SM: Oh, that man is a moron. Do you ever hear his press conferences? You can tell he never went to Catholic school. And the language of that man! He said team meetings were a bunch of “crap!” He gets a red F minus! And he is more gluttonous than Lieber.

TL: He is indeed fat. And he may never have gone to school, judging by his command of English.

SM: That’s not English he’s speaking. It is the forked tongue of Appalachian devil worshippers! Those families have a long history of incest, you know. My word! What is the world coming to? I much preferred Larry Bowa. He was Catholic.

TK: Let’s get back to the pitching. How about Brett Myers?

SM: Oh, the wife-beater. How lovely. He is slothful and angry. His soul is eternally corrupted by envy. He is headed to hell. He gets an F.

TL: Go on. The others?

SM: What others? Cory Lidle and the rookies? That’s not a pitching staff. It’s stand-up comedy. Whatever happened to Johnny Carson? They all get an F.

TL: Carson’s dead, Sister Mary. But let’s move along. Catcher?

SM: I like Sal Fasano. He gets an A. Good Italian Catholic boy.

TL: I see you’re still partial to your fellow cannibals. What about Lieberthal and Coste?

SM: Lieberthal is Jewish. Go ask his rabbi. Does he even play anymore?

TL: For $7.5 million this season. But he’s been injured.

SM: Well, he’s Jewish. So I suppose he doesn’t appreciate how Christ suffered his injuries carrying his cross. Maybe some of his relatives sentenced him to death.

TL: Well, for all we know, that’s a fairy tale.

SM: Regardless. He gets an F. All that money and he can’t play? Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

TL: Moving right along, then. How about Ryan Howard?

SM: He can hit the ball far but he can’t catch it. I noticed he has had a child out of wedlock. He’s a fornicator. Big deduction there. B at the best.

TL: I’m sure you’re a Chase Utley fan. Almost everyone is.

SM: I have my informers still. He’s Protestant. And I’m sure he committed sins venial and mortal as a youth in Babylon, California. B at the best.

TL: Now comes some rough spots. David Bell.

SM: His bad back are the wages of sin upon his flesh. I would say he has wasted the talent God has given him, but he has none. Could you give him one of my laxatives to get that pained look off his face? A red F for Mr. Bell. His bell has already tolled.

TL: And Jimmy Rollins, the Jelly Roll?

SM: A pathetic excuse for a hitter who will never learn to hit leadoff and who gives nothing but pathetic excuses for his blunders on the basepaths on the rare occasions he gets on base. And he listens to that evil rap music. He is prideful and greedy. He will burn in hell. A red F.

TL: Well, that leaves the outfielders, the bench and the bullpen.

SM: What’s there to like? The team is a failure. One big red F.

TL: Well, would you trade Abreu or Burrell?

SM: I’d keep them in detention for a year. I’d like to tan their biscuits, that’s what I’d like to do. Abreu reminds me of you. Good grades, bad conduct. He looks bored and his very presence on the team causes trouble. He truly is a manifestation of Satan. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He is ruinous to the franchise. He has baseball fans acting like homosexuals in their praise of his numbers. Well, how about these three numbers: 666. He is the beast, and like Satan, he needs to be cast into hell.

TL: You would cast one of the greatest Phillies hitters ever into hell?

SM: That’s just what I mean. As the Lord God Almighty will intone to the fallen, “Depart from me, ye wicked.” He’s like pornography for a married man. He ignores his wife and loses sight of his obligations to her. Sex is a sacred gift from God, yet he masturbates over dirty filth and drops his seed as Onan did. This is sin. Filthy, disgusting sin.

TL: What you really mean is that he takes too many walks, right?

SM: In the temporal world, yes. In the spiritual world, he is Mystery Babylon, the Whore.

TL: You sound like a television evangelist.

SM: Then this is my evangel: Trade Abreu and Burrell. They are two sides of the same coin. One is quietly evil, the other a drunken reveler and adept of buggery!

TL: And on what authority do you make that judgment?

SM: The Revered James J. Pederast.

TL: He’s out of the clink?

SM: Not only that, he’s drinking again. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

TL: You mean he’s still light in the loafers, right?

SM: Well, I suppose a man can find a man anywhere these days. Suffice it to say Burrell earns his red F. A womanizer. An alcoholic. A whore. Father James plays in Olde City, you know. Burrell is headed to jail – then hell.

TL: That leaves the bench, and I can guess what your assessment is of that bunch.

SM: A perverted aberration!

TL: Hail Mary, full of grease, the load is with me.

SM: You always liked that obscene Irishman James Joyce, didn’t you?

TL: He’s an inspiration for any heretic.

SM: That’s just it. Abraham Nunez has lost his faith. What else explains an average that drops from .285 to .146? He is a perverted aberration. An exorcism might be in order. Could you pass me that bedpan?

TL: Wait, sister. Squeeze the old cheeks for a minute. How about the ownership. What do they get?

SM: You remember what Father James was put away for, don’t you?

TL: He buggered an altar boy.

SM: And the owners treat the fans no differently. I would say God should send them to hell to be with Satan, but there is no greater hell than the one they have created for the fans. They are the valedictorians of the bunch. A sparkling, hold-it-on-high A for their efforts. Make that an A minus. They should be kissing us as they fuck us. Oh, my. I can’t believe I said that!

TL: Don’t worry yourself, you old heifer. Philadelphia has lost its faith already. Join the club.

SM: I have half a mind to give you detention for the rest of the year.

TL: I’ve been detained since 1980 with the Phillies. I can do the rest of the season standing on my head.

Play "How We're Going to Lose Today"

2006-06-29T15:56:00.000-04:00

(Introduction)

It’s time to play “How We’re Going to Lose Today” with your masters of deprivation, the Philadelphia Phillies. The objective is simple. Each player predicts who will be most responsible for the next loss, and what kind of fundamental lapse or failure that player commits.

It seems easy, as baseball, especially for hitters, is a game of failure. But the 2006 Phillies, our beloved Team Vomit, have exceeded all expectations of futility. The fatal flaw in every loss can be committed by anyone with stunning regularity! When they said “Red Means Go,” they weren’t kidding! So let’s begin. Our emcee today will be our beloved hillbilly manager Backwoods Chollie. So without further ado, Heeeeeeeeeeeeere’s IDIOT!

Chollie: Evenin’ Phillies fans, an’ it’s time to play, “How We Gonna Lose Today.” The startin’ eight is lined up in order an’ the pitcha is warmin’ up in da pen. Lookin’ like we headed t’ward anotha staggerin’ defeat. Leadin’ off is Jelly Roll. Let’s hear it fer da Fly Boy!

(Loud and prolonged booing).

Jelly Roll: Thank you, thank you very much. I’d like to get things going right away, so I’ll start swinging from the get-go. (Loud laughter). Ah, I say that Ryan Madson will get shelled for six runs in the second inning after serving up slow fatties down the center of the plate.

(Raucous guffaws).

Chollie: That’s purdy good, Jelly Roll. Dat dare pitchin’ – Uh dunno what to do about dat dang staff. Dat could be the winner. Or would dat be da loser? (Laughter). Chase, yer up next.

Chase Ugly: Hmm. Seems like Jelly Roll has a hand in a lot of our 42 losses. He’s hardly innocent. I mean, it’s like I’m the leadoff hitter after he gets his two swings and pops up. So I say…Jelly Roll runs us out of a big inning because he’s not paying attention on the basepaths!

(Loud applause).

Jelly Roll: Who the fuck anointed you a saint, Utley! Candy-ass mothafucka is the fans’ darling. Shit! Pasadena pussy boy!

Utley: I’m from Long Beach, you Oakland slum prick!

Chollie: Now settle down, boys. Settle down. We haven’t even gotten to da meat of da orduh. Comedulce, Bobby Abreu, put yer two South American centavos into dis here game.

Abreu: Well, my numbers speak for themselves. I lead the league in On Base Percentage. I walk more than Barry Bonds. And I…

(Aaron Rowand approaches from the middle of the panel).

Rowand: And you got a fucking brick glove, Gordo. How many games has that cost us? Jesus Fuck. You cost me an error the other day you’re so scrambled out there.

Abreu: Eso si que es!

Chollie: Tarnation, Co-may-duce-eh. Speak youself da King’s English like yers truly.

Abreu: Okay. I say Scarface in centerfield will puss out near the wall and let the winning hit drop in. There you go, culo!

Rowand (to no one in particular): Why me? Why did the Sox ship me to this asylum?

(Baby Girl Pat Burrell, next in line, jumps in the fray).

Burrell: Because you got “grit,” Crash.

(Laughter)

Chollie: Awright, awright. Y’all next anywho, Burrell. By da way, ya sittin’ tonight.

Burrell: But I want to play.

Rowand: Then go diddle yourself in the dugout.

Burrell: Look, dickwad. I’m the only right-handed threat in this lineup. You hit like that whore I picked up in Boston.

Rowand: If only Myers was slapping a whore instead of his wife.

Burrell: I don’t touch bitches. I just get my dick wet every night. I have a reputation to uphold.

Rowand: Yeah, just like Jason Michaels. When’s your arrest coming?

Burrell: Shut up and let me say my piece. I know what’s fucked up with this team. And it’s spelled H-O-W-A-R-D.

(Ryan Howard stands up and glares at Burrell.)

Howard: You got a problem with 27 homers and 68 RBIs? You got a problem with me?

Burrell: I got a problem with your baseball-best 11 errors, Mr. Sophomore. Why don’t you subtract that from 27 dingers, butterfingers?

Howard: Coach, I think it’s my turn.

Chollie: Well, I dunno know ‘bout dat, Ryan. Remembuh, I had ya battin’ ’hind Bell in da seven hole to start the season, y’all.”

Howard: Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. What was that about?

Chollie: Well, y’all were proteckin’ Bell. He’s from a baseball family an' such. He gives his all ever’ day. An' look at da results.

Howard: Results? He’s played in 70 games and has 83 total bases. He boots balls at just the wrong moment. He grounds into more double plays than almost anyone else in the big leagues. Results?

Chollie: Now looky here. He has an On Base Percentage higher than Jelly Roll’s.

(Silence ).

Howard: So I guess the motherfucka should bat leadoff, then, huh?

Chollie: Say…I haven’ thought o’ dat.

David Bell: Anything for the team, Chollie.

Howard: Now wait a minute. I haven’t made my pick. I wanna win something this year, and it might as well be this game.

Chollie: Sorry, son. We was gittin’ ahead of ourselves.

Howard: Alright, look. In a few years, I’ll be in Phat City with a multi-million dollar contract. But before I sign with St. Louis, I need to put up big numbers. So losing makes it harder to put up those numbers. Why should I play this game? We should be playing “How Are We Going To Win Today!”

Chollie: That’s an interessin’ idear, Ryan, but I jus’ dunno how to win. Any sujessuns?

Howard: That’s your job, coach. Damn, how’d you ever get this job?

Chollie: I’s applied fer it.

Howard: Well, they gonna unapply you pretty quick if we don’t start winning.

Chollie: Winnin’? Who said anythin’ ‘bout winnin’? Da goal here is to be com-pet-tuh-tive. Now, play da game. How we gonna lose tonight?

Howard: Fuck this.

Bell: I know, coach!

Chollie: Alrighty, David – shoot!

Bell: Here’s the winner. We get involved in one of those 18-inning marathons. You’ve used the entire pitching staff and bench, except for that old, fat shit Rick Wright. Old Double Zero Wright comes into the game. He collapses after his third inning of work from exhaustion. Because you can’t count, or think, or make provisions for a disaster like that, we no longer can put nine men on the field. FORFEIT!

(Chollie smiles and his patented “Aw Shucks” look is painted across his face).

Chollie: You know, Dingdong, I sure is gonna miss yer ass after ya sign to play with yer Daddy in Kansas City. You da losin’ winna.

(Sal Fasano storms up to Chollie’s podium and demands to be heard).

Fasano: But I didn’t get a chance! I wanna play! I wanna play!

Chollie: Shut yer trap, paisano, you’re nothing but a mascot here. We just keepin’ ya to sell tickets to Sal’s Pals. But don’ get yer ganda up. You always be a loser to me.

(Chollie leaves the podium and approaches rookie hurler Cole Hamels, fresh off his latest failed outing. Hamels addresses the manager).

Hamels: Seriously, I suck. I suck more today than yesterday.

Chollie: Now don’t ya worry yer skinny ass, son. Aftuh a season up here wid da Phils, y’all er git yer feet wet and be a career loser ‘for ya know it.

BROKEBACK MOUNDMEN

2006-06-27T01:15:00.000-04:00

“You know, buddy, I really blew it this time.”

Brett Myers unbuckled his seatbelt and tightly squeezed the recline button on the armrest. He mashed the back of his waxed, bald head against the headrest. He fidgeted. He squirmed. Then he screamed.

“Why couldn’t the bitch just listen to me, Ryan! She just can never stop sucking from a bottle when we step out. Yackety-yackety-yackin’ with every guy in the bar. Making me look like a goddamn fucking fool.”

Poor Ryan Madson. He’d never seen his best friend this despondent. He thought everything was fine between Brett and Kim after four years and two kids, just as he and his beau were blissful. Appearances sure can be deceiving. And pity the poor woman who is a Phillies wife this year. But even at that, it’s only unhappiness about the job. This…this was a criminal ordeal. And the whole world now had mentally convicted Myers as a wife-beater. A dirty little secret revealed could hardly be worse.

Backwoods Chollie -- fresh from the four-day, three-game torture in Boston that not only saw the team swept again but unexpectedly forced them to switch hotels – lumbered over to the pair of seats where his two hulking hurlers were sitting. This was manager’s work.

“Brett,” the hillbilly started, “Now looky here. Bad things happen to all of us…then ‘fore y’all know it, things get set straight and narrah, and, hell, that’s jus’ life, is what it is.”

Myers shot a laser beam gaze into Chollie’s eyes with the same raging madman gusto he visited upon his darling wife on Friday morning. Chollie, befuddled as usual, stood silent.

“You obese pig farmer,” Myers said, “If I wanted your opinion about anything, I’d do just as well to ask the little faggot serving the drinks on this flight.”

That turned Chollie’s face a hue of magenta. He was a porker, for sure, and he had a healthy respect for the American farmer. But to have his manhood questioned by his wife-beating ace was downright humiliating – and within full earshot of the team, it made a mockery of his job’s inherent dignity.

“Why, you bald-headed asshole,” Chollie said, “I’ll tell y’all what. A faggot wouldn’t hit himself a woman. Those homos got more class than dat. Ya gots no class. And ya gots no brains. A real man walks away from a fight.”

A voice from the back of the plane pierced the tension.

“Hit ‘em coach! Hit ‘em!”

It was the inimitable Jelly Roll, fresh off his 3-for-6 performance yesterday. “Clock that cracker motherfucker!”

Chollie was taken aback by the invective being hurled up the aisle.

“Now who y’all callin’ a cracker, Mr. Hip Hop,” Chollie shouted back. He got his answer in short order.

“The motherfuckin’ wife-beater, that’s who, coach,” Jelly Roll informed.

Shouts filled the plane and little bags of peanuts littered the floor. Bruce, the steward, ran toward the cockpit to escape the fray. Peace needed to be restored, but on this loser team without leaders, there was nary a voice of reason to be found. The din in the coach became unbearable, and from the front of the plane a large figure began making his way down the aisle. It was General Manager Pat Gillick. He put his two pinkies in his mouth and let loose a shrill whistle. Then he spoke.

“Settle down, boys, or I’ll have the pilot take this jet to Kansas City.”

Silence.

“Now listen up. I am almost 69 years old and value my nap time, so I’ll say this just once. We’re going to try our best to make believe this whole nightmare of a weekend never happened. We’re going to go to Baltimore and play competitive baseball. Nothing more. All the wives are back in Philadelphia, or at least not where we are. We need to focus on baseball between the lines. The wild card is still attainable. You are professionals. Behave accordingly.”

A gentle voice rose up with a question. It was Bobby Abreu.

“Can you trade me to Detroit, boss?” the Candy Eater asked Gillick.

“No, I will not trade you to Detroit,” Gillick said without hesitation. “You will play in Philadelphia for the term of your contract, just as Brett will remain in his marriage with Kim till death do them part. And remember everyone, he is innocent until proven guilty.”

“He’s about as innocent as Barry Bonds,” Abreu said. “Did you see that mean look he gave me last week after I dropped a fly ball?”

“No,” Gillick said. “And nobody else did. The fans are stupid. Bobby – everybody – you guys need to understand this. Life is not perfect. You have to take your lumps and move on. The important thing is to keep a lid on things. What people don’t know won’t hurt them. Now Brett – make nice with Chollie or I’m shipping you out.”

Myers, Chollie, Jelly Roll and the Candy Eater all calmed down, and the serene, muffled silence of a night flight quickly flushed over the plane. Chollie stuck a chaw in his cheek. Jelly Roll slept rhythmically to R. Kelly, and Abreu, of course, sucked on a lollipop.

The important thing was to keep a lid on things. Sage advice, Ryan Madson thought, as he reached for Myers’ hand and whispered, “I can’t quit you.”

BITCH SLAPPING THE FANS

2006-06-25T01:09:00.000-04:00

Joe Krakowski heard the latest bad news about the Phillies and decided somebody had to step up. This shit has got to stop, he concluded, so he bought a ticket at the Greyhound Bus and headed to Boston Saturday morning.

Krakowski was guilt-ridden. It was his fault, as he saw it: He had booed Mike Schmidt for years and was now hurling invective nightly at Bobby Abreu. When Brett Myers got clocked for those six runs against the Mets, he was there at the ballyard in Section 304 and was sure he heard him when he yelled “Pussy” as he trudged back to the dugout.

It was all his fault. The reporter said so. He unfolded his Friday Inquirer and there it was, in black and white:

“The fault, dear Phillies fans, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

It's not just lousy pitching, sloppy defense and boneheaded strategy that have caused this and other Phillies teams to underachieve.

It's us.”

That’s all Krakowski needed after he heard how Brett Myers clocked his girlfriend outside a Boston bar with a right cross. It was his fault. Worse, he kept telling himself, he had fucked up Myers’ marriage. The line from the story kept running through his head:

“We can make players' lives - and, though most of us will never recognize the link, our own lives - miserable.”

Yes, Joe thought, he was miserable. Had he forgotten his own humanity? Or Myers’ own human frailty? What had he done? If Myers were just another guy at the Rohm & Haas plant, he’d never be a wife-beater. He’d work his shift, huff his chemicals and punch a time card instead of his wife. He’d have the good life. Fragile psyche? He wouldn’t have a psyche to worry about. He would be free. But no. Now he would become a wreck like Corky Abreu. Just like the story said.

“Look at what we've done to Abreu.

His psyche is as messed up as his swing. We've stripped him of his aggressiveness. Right now, he's a shell of the player he has been throughout his career.”

Well, Joe had had enough. He was seeing the Boston District Attorney and ending this madness. “If the Phils ever want to make the playoffs,” he said to himself, “Brett Myers cannot be stripped of his aggressiveness.”

The bus pulled into the station in Bean Town and hissed to a stop. Joe slung his pink Mother’s Day Phillies knapsack over his back and asked a cop for the address to the courthouse. After he overcame the local language barrier, he hailed a cab and was on his way.

“District attorney’s office!” the told the cabdriver with the raw authority of a kielbasa butcher.

The hack gazed at Joe’s pink bag with the Phillies logo and thought he’d give himself an interesting ride. His local boys shellacked the Phils, 10-2, the previous evening and a series sweep looked promising with a bailed-out wife-beater taking the hill against Schilling.

“Are you gonna plead no contest on behalf of your Phillies?” the cabbie deadpanned.

“As a matter of fact,” Joe said, “I’m gonna beg the court’s mercy to drop the charges against Brett Myers.”

“You mean the wife-beater?”

“No, he’s a victim, and I’m responsible.”

“What – you got him drunk last night?” the driver said, trying to follow Joe’s logic, if any was to be found with that reasoning.

“No, but I booed him and called him a 'pussy' last week, and damaged his frail psyche.”

The cabbie let out a long laugh, content in the knowledge that Phillies fans had to be damaged goods. “Damaged his frail psyche? Booing damages a player’s psyche? I’d trade a damaged psyche for what they make any day of the week.”

Joe sat and listened. He was in enemy territory, and the enemy was driving.

“C’mon, pal,” the driver continued. “That’s weak. We’ve booed some of the greats here in Boston, and we was cursed, besides. Ted Williams? He got booed. He never won nothin’. Carl Yastrzemski? Same thing. Loser who never won nothin'. But a Red Sox for life. Carlton Fisk? Loser and turncoat. Roger Clemens? Shithead Yankee traitor. And our latest Judas, Johnny Damon. Same shit. Cunt Yankee cocksucker. And we booed him when he was here, too.”

“But the media says it’s our fault in Philly the team can’t win,” Joe said. “Now I’m convinced they’re right. Even worse, dude, is now it’s making them beat their wives. The D.A. needs to understand this. It’s a Philly thing.”

“A Philly thing?” the cabbie said. “It’s an American thing. Nobody likes a loser. Do you know what it feels like to wait 85 years to win a World Series again?”

The cabbie made the same error of omission baseball fans continue to chronically commit. And it’s comedic – Philadelphia can’t even get proper credit for being the worst at something, let alone the best.

“Do you know what it’s like to wait 98 years for your team to win their first one?” said Joe, referring to the Phils’ monumental run of futility. Both men, of course, were not alive for the entire course of each team’s dry spells. Pain is measurable only among the living, however, and the longest alive and still-suffering fans could only be those of the Cubs and that's pushing it. It’s been 98 years since their last one, but they have won one more than the Phils.

“Yeah, alright, the Phils are the suckingest team of all-time,” the hack said. “But you don’t have the market cornered on booing or heckling. And you sure as shit aren’t responsible for that pitcher beating his wife. Believe me, he's a head case all on his own. That’s fucking ridiculous. Do yourself a favor and don’t bother with the D.A. He’ll laugh you out of the building.”

“You think so?” Joe said.

“I know so. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“Ozzie Guillen was right about that Jay Mariotti character. He is a fag.”

Madman Off His Record

2006-06-21T13:50:00.000-04:00

“Off the record? I think the Phillies are a bunch of Bush League pussies.”

Larry Bowa stirred his gin and tonic and bit on the thin red straw. He hadn’t been back to this familiar crime scene in a couple years. The Holiday Inn had been the setting for many a post-game ho-down during his playing days. The lounge inside the hotel, just a short walk from the sports complex, was and still is like a home away from home -- and away from the wife -- for many an athlete in Philly. For the aging madman, it was like a renegade professor returning to his collegiate frat house for a kegger.

Sure, there still are the hookers, the benders, the wagers. Ballplayers have always been whores for a good time. But as Bowa tells it, the oldtimers from his era were different. They knew more than just how to play the game. They played to win.

“We covered each other’s backs back in my playing days,” Bowa continued. “If Pete (Rose) hit the trifecta, the bartender would hold his money for him, not because he was his bookie, but he was a friend. If Lefty needed a little speed, somebody in the kitchen here would hand-deliver it, not because he was a dealer, but he was a friend. You needed to get laid after a game? One phone call and the girl was there with a driver. That’s what I call teamwork. You don’t see that anymore.”

It was an ethos Bowa tried to instill during his tenure as Phillies manager, but his attempt at indoctrination failed.

“It wasn’t my fault those teams never jelled,” Bowa said. “I tried. Believe me, I tried. But I couldn’t get them to do infield practice together, let alone bringing them here after the game. It was the players’ lack of desire. I never liked any of them. Jimmy Rollins is a bad joke as a leadoff hitter and has no balls. And he looked more fly with the dreadlocks. Burrell is a playboy who’d rather get his dick sucked than play ball. Don’t get me wrong – I like a good hummer as much as the next guy. But why does he waste his time in Olde City nightclubs? The skank is good enough right here; it’s Grade A Gambino gash. And Abreu would rather pad his stats with walks than drive in runs. When he’s done with the game, he has a good time with Jesus and his sweet tooth. He’s a real barrel of monkeys.”

So why’s he wearing Abreu’s Number 53 as a Yankee?

“Just to fuck with his mind,” the old shortstop explained. “And when The Boss trades for him, I’m not giving it up, just like Daulton wouldn’t give me my Number 10 when I came back to Philly as a coach. Fuck these guys.”

Longtime Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas walked through the lounge door and gazed at the gassed Bowa. He waived, then tucked into a booth and sat alone. Time for his post-game Jack Daniels.

“And that shithead Kalas,” Bowa said in a hushed tone. “You know I kicked his ass in the runway at the Vet back in ’75. Last time he ever asked me what I thought about Dave Concepcion. For that, he gets a goddamn bar named after him at the new park.”

A rotund figure walked toward us. It was The Bull, Greg Luzinski. He had a wet, greasy paper bag with him.

“Bull! Missed any meals lately?” Bowa jibed.

“Look, Larry,” the meaty outfielder-turned-barbeque-chef began. “All I ask is that you eat a little before you take these.”

Luzinski passed Bowa a handful of pills, a grab bag of Xanax, Zoloft, Amphetamine and Viagra. Losing hurts, and the Yankees have done their share of that lately. The old shortstop downed the tablets and washed it down with the gin and tonic.

“That’s the ticket,” he said, the relief written all over his weathered mug. “I’ll be happy and hard in no time.”

Frowning, Luzinski began to eat from the bag. Things never change between friends.

THE BIG EUNUCH

2006-06-20T10:38:00.000-04:00

John Vukovich cracked open the door to Ruben Amaro Jr.’s office and peered inside.

“Did you find one?” he asked the assistant general manager.

“Yeah, I just got back from Kensington,” Amaro said. “Here she is.”

A petite, haggard figure emerged from behind a desk. She wore a tube top and flashed a toothless smile. Like always, she was ready to work.

“Meet Consuela!”

Vukovich took a gander at the hooker and shot a look back at the other ex-Phillies utility player. Then he hung his head.

“What’s up?” Amaro asked. “She’s not good enough?”

Vukovich grabbed Amaro by the arm and pulled him closer to the door. Consuela, sensing opportunity, lifted a gold memento from Amaro’s desk.

“Maybe for Larry Bowa,” Vuke said. “But Randy Johnson? Don’t you think she’s a bit…short?”

“What the fuck difference does it make? She’s gonna work, you know, manually.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Vukovich grabbed Consuela by the wrist and leaned down close to her scabby face. “Look. Just do exactly what I tell you. And don’t act like a freak. Here, take this.”

He pulled a glassine envelope from his pocket filled with beige powder and handed it to Consuela.

“Now you’re talking, boss,” she said, relieved.

“Now let’s go, and keep your mouth shut,” Vukovich sternly advised.

They made their way stealthily to the visitor’s clubhouse, hoping to avoid the media horde in town for the Yankees series. But no such luck. New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick was standing in front of the closed door.

“Hey, Vuke!” he said, eyeing the whore. “How’s the triplets? Think any of ‘em can exceed your career .161 average?”

“There’s triple trouble all around,” he replied, laughing nervously. “And how’s your wife and kids?”

“Couldn’t be better. Say, who’s the, uh, lady?”

“Old friend of Randy’s,” Vuke stammered. “Matter of fact, we’re gonna see him right now.”

“I don’t know about that,” the scribe said. “He’s in one of those moods. He’s always in one of those moods. You guys sure pulled a rabbit out of the hat tonight.”

Vukovich had been secretly hoping Johnson would have beaten the Phils last night, or at least left the game with a lead. No such luck. The only consolation was that he pitched well enough to win, but Brett Myers pitched better. Now, the locker room was silent after a 4-2 loss to Team Vomit. Quiet, that is, except for one Yankee.

Vukovich looked inside and espied the gigantic Johnson sitting in front of his locker still in his scivvies and unshowered. He rocked back and forth, shouting “Fuck” in a rhythmic rage. The other players, undoubtedly used to his post-game ritual, left him alone in his misery.

“Man, I thought Jim Eisenreich was bad,” Vuke said under his breath, referring to the former Phil who suffered from Tourette’s syndrome. “This is downright psychotic.”

“What’s that about The Third Reich?” Mushnick asked.

“Never mind,” Vuke told him, and tiptoed inside toward The Big Unit.

“Who the fuck are you!?” Johnson screamed.

“Hi, Randy. It’s me – John Vukovich. We’ve crossed paths before from my old home in the coach’s box, and now I’m in the front office here.”

“Yeah, and the oldtimers tell me you were a worse hitter than Mario Mendoza. You’re a real baseball man. You sure must have kissed some asses to get where you are,” Johnson said. “Fuck! What the fuck do you want anyhow?”

“Well, Randy, Mr. Unit, I have a business proposition for you.”

Johnson scowled at Vukovich’s Croatian countenance as if he were Slobodan Milosevic’s Minister of Ethnic Cleansing. He considered the level of his temerity to dare talk business – let alone to even talk to him – after a loss to his team of mediocrities. Still, he was curious, and, after all, baseball is a business, and he listened to any and all propositions to make more money. Even if this guy were the devil in a Balkan disguise, he could be no worse than the Satanic Steinbrenner.

“Okay, cocksucker, talk.”

Vuckovich considered the irony of that expression in light of his mission. Phillies GM Pat Gillick had just seeded five young heifers with the spunk of Steve Carlton, but he wanted some breeders in the bullpen in case the progeny turned to the bottle or joined an Idaho militia. Lefty was cooked by the time he was 40; Johnson, on the other hand, was pitching effectively at 42, and from all accounts, was only a madman on the mound and in the locker room. A more diversified stock was desirable. And Vukovich was selected to collect the seed.

“Well, Randy,” Vuke started, “how would like to make $10 million in two minutes?”

Johnson was sure this had to be a joke. It will take him all season to make $16 million – and it took him a whole career to make $140 mill -- and here was this jester with his skanky paramour insulting him at his locker. And why was the woman with him, he thought? He decided to let Vuke make his pitch.

“I’m listening.”

“We just want a sperm sample…that’s all,” Vuke said nervously. “And we’ve brought along a real pro to extract it any way you prefer. Take two minutes or two hours, it’s up to you. But after she gives me the cup o’ cum, I have a cashier’s check with your name on it.”

Johnson got that Serbian look about him again, and asked, “And what, may I inquire, do you plan to do with my semen?”

“That’s obvious. We’re trying to build a pitching staff.”

Johnson stood up, all six feet and ten inches of him, and burst in an almost epileptic laughter. Vukovich smiled apprehensively and Consuela, who had been twitching, began to rub her biceps in self-admiration.

It took Johnson a few minutes to stop cackling in mirth. Then he gave his answer.

“You want my jism!? For the Phillies!? Here, come and get it.”

He dropped his jock and stood naked before all in the locker room. The players always wondered why he showered alone, and now they knew. It was gone. There was nothing there. Johnson had no balls. Johnson had no johnson. He was No-Rod. The Big Eunuch!

“Damn! I’ve never seen that shit before!” Consuela said in awe.

Vuckovich’s jaw remained dropped as he gathered the hooker up and hustled out of the locker room. This had to be a bad dream, he thought. He should have known better.

As he made haste, The Eunuch shouted euphorically, “The Boss beat you to it, dickwads!”

Vuckovich just wanted to lose the bitch, get in his car, go home, have a warm milk and latke, and suck his thumb. How could he have been snookered into doing this?

“Hey, slick,” Consuela said. “This ain’t no heroin you gave me. You guys dragged me all the way down to South Philly, and I need the real deal, asshole.”

“It’s human growth hormone, bitch,” Vuke informed. “Now go home and grow something.”

JISM OF LEFTY

2006-06-19T00:56:00.000-04:00

Exclusive…

Hamstrung by budget constraints and seeing nothing but a black hole of mediocrity in the future, Phillies General Manager Pat Gillick revealed today the “limited partners” have approved a bold, new strategy to reinvigorate their historically ineffective pitching once and for all.

Codenamed “Jism of Lefty,” the plan calls for seeding tall, left-handed, right-thinking farm girls from Red States with the sperm of Hall of Fame southpaw Steve Carlton. The hope is to produce as many kooky, hard-throwing pitchers as possible just as the limited partners shrivel up and become too aged to count their shrinking millions – a charitable legacy to Philadelphia, if you will.

Like their father, these test tube Cy Young Award winners are guaranteed to be competitive and injury-free, according to Gillick. Sure to be wine connoisseurs with a penchant for wild conspiracy theories, these young hurlers, who are a mere 20 years away from their collective debut, will also be naturally allergic to the media – the root cause of all the Phillies problems, as the partners see it.

“When I hired Pat, I told you scum in the press we have a proven winner with a vision for making Phillies baseball competitive for years to come,” said Dave Montgomery, who, beside Bill Giles, is the owners’ only visible face. “I think Pat’s idea of mating Lefty’s spunk with stock descended from milk-fed veal-eaters is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we need to ascend to the next level. It’s all the more better they won’t be saying a word to you guys.”

Carlton, who these days tends to his ranch in Durango, Colorado and shamelessly sells his legacy over the internet, was one of the most dominant pitchers of his era, and surely one of the greatest hurlers to grace the mound for the Phillies.

One other Phillies great was considered for the project.

“We tried to convince Robin Roberts to donate to the cause, as it were,” Gillick said, “but he was, uh, shall we say, a little stiff from overuse. The bullpen was not an option, so we went for Lefty.”

For his part, Carlton was no easy sell himself. He spends his days in deep study of political philosophy, and tearing him away from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The Unabomber Manifesto was a hard task. But Gillick wouldn’t take “No” for an answer.

“Look,” Gillick explained, “the guy does nothing but yank his pud up in the mountains anyhow. He never wanted to retire, really. So here’s a chance to contribute again.”

At what cost?

“Lefty is a donor,” Gillick said. “Go ask the sperm bank what they offer for a lefthander these days.”

Montgomery tried to allay fears that the clubhouse would one day be populated with a pitching staff harboring bizarre ideas between starts. After all, the current roster has perfected the art of ignorance on the field -- not off. It’s baseball the Phillies way.

“You know, Lefty regrets breaking down years ago and talking to that shit from Philadelphia Magazine about the so-called ‘international Jewish banking conspiracy’,” Montgomery said. “It’s nothing but a bunch of nonsense. Everybody knows the Red Chinese are really running the show, anyhow. They hold most of the notes that cover the national debt. Now the Unabomber stuff, that’s a little more innocent. Back-to-nature stuff, really. Did you know that guy fertilized his vegetable garden in Montana with his own caca?”

But getting back to earth: How can we expect these new Lefties will do? And when can we buy tickets for the 2026 season?

“Well, the fans know how to be patient,” Gillick said. “By the time the staff is rounded out with five Numbers 32s, I’ll be in my late eighties. So will the limited partners. But baseball is a kid’s game. If you have an eight-year-old son, he’ll have a winner by the time he’s 35, 40. We’re looking at maybe 50, 55 years since the last championship. Sure, you guys might be dead, but how many fans croaked while it took us 98 years to win the first one? What a legacy we’re leaving the kids!”

Lunching With Les Invisibles

2006-06-18T08:41:00.000-04:00

It was a shade past noon, and I was late for my lunch with the Phillies “limited partnership” at the Union League. I stumbled on the way up the S-curved steps and tore a hole in the knee of my trousers. It was a bad start to my big day on Mt. Olympus.

I was ushered in by a gay waiter who cast a sideward glance at my crumpled attire and harumphed his way with me over to the awaiting table. There they were! The limited partnership! But…only two were visible. There was Dave Montgomery and Bill Giles alright, but…where were the others? What about Claire S. Betz? Where were the Buck Brothers, Alexander, J. Mahlon and William? And what of the bluest blood of all, John Middleton? Wait…a glass of water was being lifted – by what? There was no hand, no wire. What kind of trickery was at work here?

What had I gotten myself into?

“Sit down,” Montgomery told me – commanded me, really. He didn’t seem too chipper. Giles sat there, silent, and stared at me like an old Soviet KBG chief. Then he spoke.

“Hello there, asshole. I love misery, too.”

Uh-oh.

“Mr. Tacony Lou – or shall we call you Tacony?” Montgomery asked.

“Well, Giles prefers ‘asshole.’ Just go with that.”

“Okay, asshole,” Monty said. “I think that’s fitting, too. After all, Mr. Giles and I are one and the same person, after all.”

A loud cackle of laughter broke out around the table. That’s an eerie sound coming from invisible owners, let me tell you, but it’s more than most people have heard from them. I could see one of them was working on a Waldorf salad. Maybe one of the Bucks.

“Asshole,” Monty started in, “we feel your pain. Believe me, we do. But you’re a little out of hand with this blog thing. Where do you get off saying we’re bottom-feeders? We all have Ivy League degrees except for Mr. Giles - and he’s a baseball pedigree. Did you know his father was the President of the National League and the General Manager of the Reds?”

I was about to remind him what a resounding failure the Reds were during his ’46-’51 tenure, but it was clear it’d be difficult to get a word in edgewise during our little confab. I waived the waiter over to place my order.

“Separate checks,” Monty told the servant.

“Gimme a cheesesteak wid,” I said.

Again, laughter around the table.

“A what?” the waiter asked.

“Oh. Let me clarify that. I’ll have a steak sandwich with provolone cheese and fried onions. Put some hot peppers in a monkey dish on the side.”

“Sir, we take orders in French. This is the Union League. When placing your order, please speak French.”

It was obvious Joe Vento was not a member of this club.

“Sure,” I said. “Un sandwich à la viande avec du fromage de provolone et les oignons frits.”

I couldn’t tell whether it was one of the Bucks or Middleton – maybe it was Betz -- but one of Les Invisibles gasped and spilled his water over the linen.

“Right away, sir,” the waiter replied, and bounced away from the table.

“Look,” Giles started in, “what do you expect from us? A miracle? We provide entertainment. Baseball is a business. Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don’t make. My job is to put fannies in the seats. We sign players who are popular with the fans. In this age of free agency, we are a small market club. Red means go. Green means stop. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery…”

“Stop,” I told him. “You’re going to hurt yourself – wait a minute, that’s what you want, right?

“No. That’s what you want.”

“I want to hurt you?”

“No. You’re the one who says he’s a masochist.”

“But how else do you explain my willingness to root for the horseshit team you put out there, year after year?”

“You’re a fan. A fan doesn’t criticize – he accepts his fate.”

“But our fate is and always has been, with few notable exceptions, mediocrity.”

“That’s the media’s fault, the way you think.”

At that point, Giles lost me and the argument at the same time. It’s the media’s fault. That’s news to me. I’ve known my fair share of sports writers and television hacks, and if anything, they prefer to cover a winner. The second best subject to report on is an awful team, if only for the comedy and rebuilding storylines. But a mediocre team like the Phillies is banishment to purgatory, and even a nun would agree that waiting to be uplifted to heaven can be worse than hell. And, in terms of dollars and cents, newspapers sell more copies and get more clicks when the local team is a winner. That’s a fact as publicly available as the Phils' current 33-35 record.

“Let me ask you something,” I said to the two visible members of the limited partnership. “Do you take the fan base here to be idiots?”

“Yes,” the chorus came back from all.

“Why?”

The chorus returned, as if rehearsed: “Because we make more money than they do.”

“So you’re laughing all the way to the bank, then?”

“Well, we get a good chuckle watching the team play at the ballpark, if that’s “The Bank” you mean,” said Betz.

The waiter came with my cheesesteak and the check. It was $65 for the sandwich. “Eat up and get out,” he instructed.

“Sixty-five bucks for a cheesesteak?” I moaned.

“They’re a steal for $10 at the ballpark,” Giles said. “And you can order in English there.”

Abandoning All Hope

2006-06-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

Despite my deeply irreligious nature, I do harbor superstitions and believe in magical gnomes and space aliens.

With that in mind, and my Little Red Phillies Book tucked in the back pocket of my People’s Revolutionary Army trousers, I headed to My Corner Bar to change the Phillies’ run of bad luck.

Maybe I should never have renounced The Baltimore Catechism, because Team Vomit got ass-raped again last night, 10-4, the dynastic Devil Rays playing the parish priest to these altar boys. Again, the details were the same – get behind early, surrender soon thereafter – as Cole Hamels, the alleged Savior, played the part of the Anti-Christ for the fans.

It had been a month since I had watched a game at the bar, and it was revelatory. There are some hardcore Phillies fans that are evidently there every night. They sounded as if they had lost their faith.

“There goes the game in the first inning again,” I said to an ambivalently friendly, old leprechaun sitting next to me.

“I’m a Mets fan,” he said, an obvious change in his allegiance from weeks ago. “The Phillies suck.”

By the time it was 7-0 in the 5th inning, The Stat Man came in. He’s a virtual walking baseball encyclopedia, and goes back far enough to remember the Whiz Kids.

“So what’s wrong with the Phils?” I asked him, fully expecting a statistical evaluation and historical comparison. But it wasn’t forthcoming.

“Fuck the Phillies,” he said. “When do the Iggles start training?”

And, of course, there was My Bartender, who attended his first game at Yankee Stadium in April. As the Rays piled up the runs, he just shook his head and cranked up the jukebox. The good news for him is that he’s probably slinging more drinks to assuage the pain – baseball and otherwise.

But the worst news for Dave Montgomery and the rest of the intellectual bottom-feeders that own and run this team is that after their sold-out Yankees and Red Sox series, there’s going to be a lot of empty blue seats. This is not a guess. I know enough people who attend on a regular basis to accurately gauge interest is descending quickly in watching this roster of failures flail away and flounder in the standings.

Father’s Day is tomorrow, and I will be watching from the easy chair in my living room. My Co-Defendant will be at the game. It will be the last he attends this season. Wrote my old friend in an e-mail:

What a mess this Phillies team is, eh? For fuck’s sake, they get swept by the fucking Mets. They are truly pathetic. Unfortunately, my Mom bought tickets for Sunday so my brother and I could go to the game with my Dad. Not that I don't want to hang with my Dad, it's having to be at a Phillies game while doing so that ain't so appealing. At least they're giving hats away. That should be the last game I see at CBP this year.

If Pat Gillick isn’t already reading this – and why wouldn’t he? He’s got to be a masochist, too – maybe I’ll forward that message to him. I’m sure I’ll get a chuckle from the canned response.

LET'S FIGHT!

2006-06-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

About a dozen years ago, the Gallup Pollsters had a vision of clarity when they described Philadelphia as “Hostile City, U.S.A.”

It was a fitting appellation, and it stuck. Psychotic writers and punk rockers celebrated it in prose and song. New Yorkers sneered in jealousy. Californians shrugged their shoulders and passed the joint.

Back then, the baseball team’s roster handled their environment well. They had responded to the relentless Philly pressure to win, and, by hook or by crook, landed in the World Series in 1993. That came out of nowhere, and the fans were delighted, even if Mitch Williams blew it all in the end – they fought to the finish, and this is undeniably a city of fighters. The Fightin’ Phils were back. But not for long.

It has been a 13-year funeral dirge of deathly boring baseball since the days of Dykstra, Daulton and Kruk. Worse, the latest version, even when they manage to go on a winning run, play with all the enthusiasm of an office softball team. They lost again today, 5-4, for the same uninspired reasons. I don’t need to go into the details today. I have another agenda. I have the medicine for what ails them.

We need more brawls.

When’s the last time this team had a good beanball war? This is Philly, man. The fans would love it – the fans need it. Why do you think this city was rated the best hockey city in North America? The fights. Why do you think this city is honored every time a boxer is described a “Philly Fighter?” Because we love to fight.

Aggression reigns from cradle to grave here like no other place. Infants scream louder and oldtimers are crankier. In between, the kids fight in grade school and the adults fight at bars. I’m not talking about gunplay – I’m talking about a “Put your dukes up and let’s go at it, motherfucker” life aesthetic. Who you callin’ an asshole? Fuck you. BAM!

A few months back, I was driving down a side street in Mayfair, a stable, low-crime neighborhood favored as home by police and firefighters. Outside a small pizza shop, I saw a tussle between two dudes over – what else – a chick. It was good enough to keep watching, and I’d say it was a draw. No guns. No shanks. Just fists. Then they walked their separate ways. They probably both had shiners the next day; I wonder who got the girl.

I wonder how many women are trapped inside Team Vomit’s bodies. Who do you think would fight? Brett Myers was a boxer. Ryan Howard almost got into it with Josh Beckett in spring training. But really, can you imagine Corky Abreu or Baby Girl Burrell in fisticuffs? Shit, Burrell would be too busy protecting his drinking elbow. And “Comedulce” Abreu would fear losing his sweet tooth.

The players like to say they’re in the business of entertainment. I won’t argue with that one. But considering the low grade of amusement they provide playing the game, they might want to consider a side show. They don’t need to worry about offending us. In a city of fighters, it’s the pussies who get no respect.

So Many Ways To Be Annihilated

2006-06-15T00:07:00.000-04:00

Volcanoes. Tsunamis. Space aliens. Global warming. Thermonuclear war. Rain delays sure are fun.

Before the next disaster at the ballpark tonight, somehow I landed on the Sci-Fi channel for a heaping dose of apocalypse. “The Day After,” an eschatological classic from 1983, started about an hour before tonight’s telecast, and I have to admit, I was tempted to skip the game and wax nostalgic about the good old Cold War’s last days.

What an interesting time! Ronnie Reagan was rattling his old bones and sword at the crumbling Evil Empire. Anita Bryant was pitching orange juice and condemning gay people to hell. Jerry Falwell was in his heyday, sent to Earth as in a fairytale to straighten the rest of us heathens out. The nuclear arsenal was cocked and ready to go. And the Phillies made it to the World Series for the second time in four years.

Then the game started midway through the movie and all hell broke loose with as much immediacy as Mutually Assured Destruction – except in this case, only one side got bombed. Brett Myers, The Man Who Would Be Ace, melted down as quickly as you can say “Three Mile Island,” and the Mets were up 6-0. Chollie pulled our once and future king after 2 2/3 innings. Myers’ ERA in his last two starts is 17.46.

At that point, I asked myself what would be a better use of my masochistic time: Agonize with Jason Robards over the nuclear winter and mentally help him pick his radiation scabs or continue to flog myself with the cat o’ nine tails Comcast was providing courtesy of Team Vomit? The rain delay made that decision for me.

I have to say the movie gave me some irradiated food for thought. Here it was, 1983, and the characters’ hometown team, the Kansas City Royals, had yet to win a World Series. Even the nuked Philly fans could say they saw the Fightins’ win one before they croaked their untimely death back then. At least that’s what I thought the first time I saw the flick – that and how easy it would be to fuck all the surviving women possible, considering we were all going to die anyway and nobody would be scared off by Falwell anymore. Yee-hah!

The movie ended, and the rain delay continued for an hour, so I watched the next feature, “Countdown to Doomsday.” Suffice it to say Matt Lauer was the host of the alleged documentary detailing all the various ways humanity can be annihilated. Of course, there was always death by mediocre baseball, and for that, I thankfully clicked back to the game and gainfully accepted the rest of tonight’s punishment, a 9-3 shellacking at the hands of the hated Mutts, fully resplendent in their mastery of Team Schizo at their second home in Philly.

The usual suspects emerged. Suffering flashbacks from his previous seasons of immaturity, Myers stormed off the mound repeatedly after disagreeing with the nitpicking umpire’s calls on balls and strikes. His agitation had to be egged along by the geometrically-increasing incompetence of Dingdong David Bell in the field, who racked up another run-scoring error tonight. And then there was our beloved Gold-Gloved rightfielder, the legendary Corky Abreu, who misplayed two more balls over his head, an ongoing deficiency his apologists write off as a mere annoyance, considering his potent offensive skills. Ironically, he was charged with his first error tonight; it seems he’s committed a dozen or more, and no doubt has benefited from charitable scoring. His glove, if golden, is a cake of cement.

And so it goes for the bumbling Phils, a ragtag bunch of nouveau rich n’er-do-wells who can rest assured that while Doomsday may not come courtesy of the Soviet Union, it’s more likely to happen when they are shipped to an underfunded, hopelessly lost baseball outpost like Kansas City, where those vacant missile silos can be rented as domiciles and make for impenetrable protection against hostile fans.

Reaping What You Begat

2006-06-14T02:05:00.000-04:00

Ryan Madson strode to the mound to take on the Mets last night. He was there because the Phils are short on starting pitching. Anything could happen, and everybody knew that. But what I didn’t expect was the acid flashback I had as the game started.

The current crisis became crystal clear after an imp appeared dressed in candy stripes and sat on the sofa. He began to shake and dance. There was nothing I could do, so I turned inward and contemplated the inter-connectedness of it all.

They are short on starting pitching because two of last year’s hurlers are injured and another was shipped to Texas. His name was Vicente Padilla.

In exchange for Padilla, new general manager Pat Gillick received Ricardo Rodriguez, a complete failure who was released before the season started. The reason the Phils had Padilla was because Curt Schilling demanded a trade. That exorcism was performed in July, 2000. There are no players remaining from that trade on the team.

The imp chuckled, shaked and danced. The lead changed hands a couple times. It was 4-4 in the sixth inning…

Despite the looming shortage of pitchers this season, no additions with any notable tenure in the major leagues were made to the rotation. Gavin Floyd, scared shitless, tried and failed comprehensively. Ryan Madson, a proven middle reliever with one start in the bigs, was tried, failed, and put back in the pen. He was reinstated as a starter after Floyd fucked a tree and another rookie, Cole Hamels, was briefly disabled. Then Jon Lieber got injured. Madson made two serviceable starts after that and got to stay in the rotation. Tonight, he failed again, looking more lost than ever.

As usual, there are reasons for the specific ineptitude of tonight’s 9-7 loss. Madson got clocked because he served up too many plum pickins’ to the best-hitting team in the National League, and the Phils’ defense did everything they’ve been doing wrong all season again in the sixth inning.

As David Wright homered to left to start the inning, a kaleidoscope of colors spun around my living room as I envisioned how nice it must be to have a third baseman for the future, because the Fightless sure don’t. He’s there because their team had the foresight to draft a third baseman instead of relying on free-agent mediocrity like the Phils did when they signed Dingdong David Bell. They will need to find another team’s reject next season; there are no third baggers anywhere near close to being ready in the entire minor league system. The worst part about that is that Dingdong might be the Fightless’ best option.

Dingdong committed his tenth error last night in that five-run inning, and for a little psychedelic perspective, I was just thinking what could have been from a multitude of angles. He was at third base because the Phils needed somebody after Scott Rolen demanded a trade and was dealt in 2002. Rolen wanted out because the team looked as if they weren’t serious about winning – especially after the Schilling trade. Rolen was soon a Cardinal, and still is. There are no players remaining from that trade on the team, either. The last one, Placido Polanco, was able to play both second and third base, and was traded for the madman with a machete, Uggie Urbina, who had taken up residence in a Venezuelan jail in the offseason. He's still there. Maybe forever. Polanco’s replacement at second, Chase Utley, made his sixth error in the fateful sixth tonight after he threw a ball he caught off Julio Franco’s bat ten feet wide of first base attempting to perform a double play.

Julio Franco is a Met because there is a Fountain of Youth in his backyard in the Dominican Republic. He was once a Phillie, too. After 29 major league at-bats, he was traded with four other players for Von Hayes in 1982. Hayes retired in 1992 after 12 seasons at 34-years-old. Franco is in his 25th professional season and will turn 48 in August. He plans to play next year, too.

Von Hayes was billed as the next Ted Williams. If you ask me, he was the next Elton John. The guy who was deluded into thinking such disordered thoughts was Bill Giles, who had begun disassembling the team’s future in 1982 by sending Larry Bowa and future Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg to the Cubs for the incomparable Ivan DeJesus. Sandberg was the throw-in.

Giles is like the Owsley of this whole, bad acid trip also known as being a Phillies fan – his retarded baseball sense has been awesome and far-reaching in its impact. His father used to be the president of the National League. In traditional nepotistic fashion, he set Billy up in baseball, and after apprenticing in Houston, the young idiot became a Phillies “vice-president” public relations flack responsible for such bread and circuses at the ballpark like Kiteman, the World’s Highest-Jumping Easter Bunny and the Phillie Phanatic.

The man will do anything for a buck. Why else would he have Karl Wallenda perform a high-wire act from one end of Veterans Stadium to the other without a safety net between games of a doubleheader? I was one of the 65,000 who went to see him do that. I remembered asking my father if they would play the second game if they had to clean his splattered guts off the Astroturf.

“Hope he didn’t drink too many Schmidts before he got on that wire,” some guy in the row in front of us said.

“Hell, if he makes it, he should down a case,” my Dad joked nervously.

Giles begat Giles, for sure, and Junior begat all the horseshit that has been Phillies baseball since he somehow cobbled together an alliance of filthy rich bluebloods to buy the club from Ruly Carpenter and install himself as GM by default in 1981. The Phils fate has been sealed and par-boiled in failure since.

Giles gave up the GM title but never the duties. After a thorough reaming of the fans in the early 80s – imagine a middle infield of Franco and Sandberg -- he brought in Woody Woodward to be his front man. Then he brought in Lee Thomas. And, in a move as stunningly idiotic as risking Wallenda’s life above a packed stadium – the guy eventually fell to his death in Puerto Rico – he hired Ed Wade, who, with Uncle Bill’s assent, proferred all those big, fat multi-year contracts for players that can’t beat the Mets this year, couldn’t beat the Braves the last three, and whose presence precludes the acquisition of pitchers that might give fans a reason to go to the games and not be swallowed by a sea of orange-and-blue jerseys inhabited by smirking fans with New York accents.

What a bummer Wallenda fell off his wire.

Be They Ever So Humbled

2006-06-11T18:39:00.000-04:00

I question whether the Fightless consider Philadelphia home sweet home. Here they are, coming off a 20-game run with no rest, a stretch that yielded ten wins and ten losses, culminating in an 11-game transcontinental road trip. Do you think they must be bone-tired and longing for the familiar clime of Hostile City?

Yeah, right. Granted, it’s good to come home and play hide the salami with the wife or paramour, but then they have to head back out into the June jungle when they leave the manses. The cholesterol-fed, blue-collar bred fans will stare at them and point. They will not be able to order a Geno’s cheesesteak in Spanish (not to mention whatever language Chollie speaks). They will click on the car radio and, in the spirit of the megalopolis dweller, will listen to the maladroit musings of New York sports talk show hosts seeking ways to trade them to the Yankees, or worse, tune into the local version and hear how much we want Dontrelle Willis and who should be exiled to the Marlins to get him in a trade.

That must be painful.

When they have finished collecting themselves tomorrow on their off day and ponder how they managed to get shut out in Washington, 6-0, on only three hits against an also-ran with a reconstructed shoulder, I’m sure they’ll attribute it to the drain of the road. But let’s face it. The locals here are harder on this team than any Angelino or Phoenician are on theirs, and with damn good reason.

They are consistently, frustratingly, teasingly, tragically fucking MEDIOCRE.

Let’s hope they find the right elixir in Philly, because Team Vomit goes right back to work against the Mets and Tom Glavine Tuesday. The ongoing experiment that is Ryan Madson squares off against an old master who has seemed to respond to the Mets’ reinvigorated offense with a 9-2 record. Matter of fact, he’s hitting .300 himself.

Meanwhile, the clock – or maybe the time bomb – is ticking.

After the Mets series, a three-game sequence that, if they are swept, could find the Phils in a deep ten-game hole in the loss column, they are slated to play six of the next nine games against the Yanks and the Red Sox. The Devil Rays offer (hopefully) comic relief after the Mets series, but with this team, nothing is a gimme.

And that’s just the problem when you have bad starting pitching. Today against the Gnats, Cole Hamels had his worst start of the year, surrendering a few ill-timed walks which put runners on for the top of the not D.C. lineup, which proceeded to score them with two doubles. Hamels is a rookie and I’ll write it off to experience, but it’s a shutout loss nonetheless against a nobody pitcher and a shaky bullpen. Of course, it didn’t help having Baby Girl Burrell misjudge a liner that screamed over his glove.

Which leads us back to the burning question this season: Would you trade one of the outfielders for a pitcher?

Welcome home, guys. Now say “Cheesesteak wid” or leave town.

Lasorda Probes Anus; Myers Unwitting Victim

2006-06-10T01:52:00.000-04:00

I am a godless fuck, but while I was subjected to a full inning’s worth of Tommy Lasorda during the game telecast tonight, something preternatural crept over me, and I knew Brett Myers was doomed to failure against the Nationals.

It’s a good thing the loquacious Lasorda is not a made member of La Cosa Nostra, because he can’t keep his mouth shut -- rarely is omerta observed when there’s a microphone or an audience to be had near him.

The rotund Slim Fast shill blathered on about himself and his opaque accomplishments: About how an asteroid and a heart institute were named after him; about how six honorary doctorates were bestowed upon him; about how he’d pitch Ryan Howard nothing but curveballs; and, just for a little old-fashioned ethnic tension, about how the kosher Sandy Koufax told him if Dodger manager Walter Alston wanted to win Game 7 of the 1965 World Series, he had “better give the ball to a Jew.”

Did I tell you how happy I am being a godless fuck?

Meanwhile, just as Howard banged a fastball for another opposite field homer in the third frame to tie what turned out to be a 12-inning, 9-8 marathon loss, Lasorda continued to praise convicted racketeer and Junk Bond King Michael Milken (crime pays – he’s still worth $2 billion) about his work fundraising on behalf of curing prostate cancer. After that ass kiss, I half expected him to say the glatt-fed Milken shared Koufax’s sentiments about who should get the ball on that one.

My thoughts drifted away from the game, as I’m certain countless thousands of viewers’ eyes glazed over during this unfortunate lecture and interlude about our mortality. Sure, it’s a worthwhile cause, curing cancer. But do we need to be reminded of disease during the ballgame when for two years between innings we’ve been subjected to that old lady’s asshole cancer story as she’s passing the plate around her dinner table? I’m thinking about cancer, I am! I am! Honest! Now let me enjoy the fucking baseball game!

The Phils’ half of the third inning ended, but fans no doubt were distressed to learn Old Meatball would be back for a second helping of grief in the bottom half. That’s when I knew Myers was doomed and a loss was imminent. Of all things, Lasorda began talking about the game. He confirmed his assumed supernatural abilities when he claimed the ball Corky Abreu misplayed in right the previous inning caused Myers to lose his head and melt down for six earned runs the next inning. Sorry, Tommy. No matter how many informercials you do, even the housewives aren’t buying your telekinetic powers. That’s not this season’s version of Myers, anyhow. You were up in the booth the whole time putting one of those Sicilian curses on Team Psycho, weren’t you? How else do you explain his shortest outing in a year and a half? And after all that, you want me to send Milken money?

The fat fuck’s vexing hex lasted until the seventh inning, when the Fightless got back on their feet and fought back to get the lead in the seventh, keyed by two taters from Chase Utley and Pat Burrell.

Just to make it interesting, the Gnats came back to tie in the bottom half, because what the hell, why not have a few extra innings to clear Lasorda’s garlic-infused hot air out of the place so the Team Succubus can get her groove back on with Team Schizo?

Predictably, in a rare night in which Myers had a bad outing, the Phils lost. But the seventh inning comeback was admirable, if only to get my mind off a bladder problem that still seems to require a probing finger up the poop shoot to verify.

I’m sure Lasorda has had ample opportunities to perfect the technique.

Another Washington Charity Case

2006-06-09T14:16:00.000-04:00

The Old Lady and I stepped out on the town last night and had to leave the house before the official end of the game.

It usually devastates me to miss the sadistic exploits of Team Psycho, as I am a sick man and enjoy the regular beatings they inflict upon my corrupted, punishable being. But Eude Brito was pitching, and I was ravaged swiftly and severely.

Brito, you may recall, awoke with a boner the day of his last failed effort in Los Angeles Saturday, and after a hooker relieved him of his tension, he proceeded to spurt gobs of dead-center strikes to the Dodgers, who deposited his love into the alleys at their decrepit home in a ravine.

Brito found himself in a D.C. chasm last night. In a town where charity is dispensed for a price to benefactors the world over, Brito spent Philly fans’ emotional capital generously on the Nationals, an East Division rival that was glad to take all the help it could get. Like any other Washington whore, the Gnats accepted his contributions in exchange for party favors and a House intern keen on fellating someone important.

Brito will not be important too much longer. Not after these two sick showings.

He was done after 4 2/3 innings, and so were the Phils, who bitched and moaned about how the devastating five-hour flight from the West Coast affected their game disposition. Funny. Didn’t Chollie rest three of the regulars in the rubber game at Arizona?

Flight or no flight, Brito allowed the Gnats to reclaim the lead, 4-2, in the fifth inning, and it was done as quick as you can say “Clay Condrey.” The Fightless could manage only four hits against the immortal Mike O’Conner, and, for comic effect, brought in Ryan Franklin to relieve Condrey to start the bottom of the seventh.

As Mrs. Tacony Lou and I saddled up in Olde City for a drinky-poo, we watched in misery as Franklin faced his first batter, Alfonso Soriano, who smacked asshole’s third pitch far away through the cavernous park and over the outfield wall, his 23rd homer - and another reason this guy should be an All-Star despite his reluctance to play left field.

Soriano was a shit-disturber all night. He had the kind of boxscore line that you’d see Rickey Henderson or Tony Gwynn compile – one official at-bat, FOUR RUNS SCORED, and one hit, the homer. He walked twice and was hit by a pitch. He scored every time he stepped to the plate. I'd say that's called "production."

When’s the last time Jelly Roll did that?

Aside from Franklin, the bullpen fared well once again. Condrey permitted but two hits in relief of Brito, and Aaron Fultz was perfect in the eighth in relief of asshole.

Brito and Franklin: The stiff and the asshole. How much longer, Pat Gillick?

D-Backs Lose Snake Oil Salesman, Then Game

2006-06-07T21:21:00.000-04:00

Could it be a coincidence that the Diamondbacks can’t win after Jason Grimsley, their veteran reliever, had his home raided yesterday by federal agents looking for all traces of the “human growth hormone” he confessed to abusing?

Worse for the Snakes, who released Grimsley after that embarrassment, he ratted out unnamed ex-teammates he’s had since 1989 as he slid down the abyss that likely will end his unremarkable career.

Don’t mind my schadenfreude, because this couldn’t happen to a scummier bunch of ninnies. Any organization that holds up Luis Gonzalez as the exemplar of the franchise’s early accomplishments should have its collective head examined as well as a mass blood-testing.

Gonzalez, you may recall, was a solid outfielder who got better results after he adjusted his batting stance and learned how to pull the ball. In eight seasons before being traded to Arizona for the forgettable Karim Garcia, he averaged just over 13 homers and hit about .275. But the next three seasons with the Snakes, he slugged 26, 31 and 57 – FIFTY SEVEN – homers, an unnatural accomplishment for somebody who once was a skinny kid from Florida. He’s listed as 6’ 2” and 180, but to look at his photo celebrating his lucky hit that won the 2001 World Series, his arms looked like he was injecting some kind of dope.

That’s why it was laughable to see “Gonzo” flailing away this series against Team Psycho. He hasn’t homered in more than 150 ABs this season, and covers his damaged pumps with that homo-erotic purple team tee-shirt. Against Cole Hamels, he looked washed up. Today against Ryan Madson, he got two meaningless singles – in fact, all but one of the eight against Madson were singles, and the Phils cruised to a 7-3 victory, sweeping the D-backs and flying happily back East to D.C. to face the Nationals tomorrow.

Madson looks as if that seven-inning extra-inning effort against the Mets last month might have straightened his shit out. Like Hamels the night before, Madson was in command until he was lifted after 7 2/3 innings. If Myers, Hamels and Madson can become the staff horses, the Fightless might have a shot at the playoffs, because the old-timers on the Mets’ roster are beginning to break down. Wonder who their dealer is?

The Phils must have friends in the federal government beside Supreme Court Justice Alito (an admitted fan), because the timing of the raid on Grimsley’s house couldn’t have come at a better time. Despite splitting the series in Los Angeles, they could have begun swooning again in the desert. The D-backs had just swept the Braves in Atlanta, and their staff ace awaited the Fightless in Phoenix.

Instead, there were 25 players waiting and wondering if their digs in Scottsdale would be the site of the next raid, and maybe edgy about the date of their last injection to recover from those nagging injuries. By the time they play their series in Philly, their asses might be sagging as badly as Chollie’s.

De-Fanging Da D-Backs

2006-06-07T12:25:00.000-04:00

Cole Hamels stepped on the mound last night at the airplane hanger they call a ballpark in Phoenix.

It’s a hill of dirt that had been called home by two of the best pitchers of the last 20 years, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, after the nascent Diamondbacks franchise opened up its checkbook for Johnson and convinced the Phillies to spread their buttcheeks as they stole Schilling in a one-for-four-losers trade.

Signing Johnson, the ugliest motherfucker in baseball history, was some of the best free agent money ever spent, especially considering that Kevin Brown was the other “prize” dangling on the open market in 1999 and the D-backs pursued him as hard as Johnson. But the Dodgers left Johnson on the market after they signed Brown, and Johnson opened up space on his shelf in Paradise Valley for four Cy Young Awards he earned in Arizona.

Schilling, on the other hand, was highway robbery courtesy of dumbshit Phillies GM Ed Wade. How can Miserable fans in Philly forget that one? He traded him in July, 2000 for the hapless quartet of Omar Daal, Nelson Figueroa, Travis Lee and Vicente Padilla.

The results were not surprising. The D-backs brought Arizona its first sports championship in 2001 behind the two aces, again proving that while good pitching wins games, it helps to have an unexposed steroid freak like Luis Gonzalez hit 57 homers. As for the Phils, who proceeded to trade Scott Rolen in 2002 to assure the Cardinals' still-bright future, there is not a single player acquired from the two trades remaining on their major- or minor-league rosters.

The idiots who live in the hell that is Phoenix got lots of giggles over that deal. Who wouldn’t? In a city where most of the residents come from somewhere else, and where it seems the natives come from both financial and intellectual poverty, the World Series victory galvanized the city and bonded together its residents for…about a week. But it was a nice way to forget about 9/11 a month after it happened.

I’m sure Hamels, a Southern Californian, had none of this on his mind when he started the game last night. He should keep his head that way. With the roof at the stadium now called “Chase Field” closed, he pitched his best game of the three he’s hurled in the majors, commanding his pitches to befuddle the hot-hitting Snakes into a 10-1 submission, a sterling performance at the site of many masterful efforts in the stadium’s short history. It was his first of hopefully 300 victories in the bigs.

The game was over in the first inning. Baby Girl Burrell homered to stake the Fightless to a 2-0 lead, and that’s all Hamels needed. He threw 5 2/3 innings of one-run, three-hit ball and left with a 6-1 lead. The bullpen shut Arizona down, as it had in the previous victory against the D-backs' new ace, Brandon Webb.

Last night’s win came against Russ Ortiz, a shamefully fat remnant of his former self who should call it a career. He threw 41 pitches in the first inning alone, and even after he settled in, he had written his own warrant for an early removal from the game.

For the Fightless to fly in to Phoenix and take the first two games is no small feat. They looked their old schizo selves in Los Angeles, and miraculously came away with a 2-2 split in that series.

Arizona has rebuilt itself after Johnson and Schilling requested trades to escape the deep hole the team dug for itself by shelling out wasted millions on multi-year contracts for washed-up veterans who had one good fuck left in them. Fans were fooled into believing Matt Williams, Jay Bell, Mark Grace and Tony Womack, who were “generous” enough to take deferred payments on their outsize contracts, would last more than three seasons. None of them did, and the team is still paying. That’s the cost of instant gratification.

What the D-backs need is about 98 years of going without to appreciate a losing franchise; somehow it doesn’t seem fair they’re competitive again. But the novelty has worn off in Phoenix, and the fans have shown their true colors, barely able to assemble 25,000-strong most nights in their air-conditioned playpen.

Google's Blogger Boner

2006-06-06T14:52:00.000-04:00

If you’re wondering or care in the least bit, anyone who’s been trying to post in Blogger has had about the same results as Gavin Floyd on the mound.

Yeah, you can get a post up – if you try 40 times. Pictures? Forget about it. You running ads? You don’t need no stinking ads.

At first, I thought the bigwigs at Google were bloviating about the Brito Boner story, but after checking a help group, whether you were posting horrible pictures of naked goth kids like a MySpace whore or writing satire about a pitcher’s erection problem, you were screwed a google different ways trying to post it.

So hang in there, fellow Miserables. I used to live in Phoenix, and my contacts have clued me in on what the Fightless did in celebration of their come-from-behind win last night.

When its 105 degrees, that’s a cool day in the Valley of the Sun.

Brito's Boner

2006-06-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

Eude Brito woke up at the Pasadena Ritz-Carlton this morning with a little friend. He picked up the phone on the nightstand and called Chollie the Manager.

“Hefe,” he said, flush with excitement. “Come up to my room! There’s something I want you to see. Andele! Andele!”

When you’re 62-years-old and hungover, that’s not any easy trick, but Chollie threw some trousers on and hurried to his starting pitcher’s room.

“Just what I needed,” Old Backwoods huffed as he shoved $400 in his Armenian hooker’s hand and hustled her out to the hot East Valley air. “It’s not like I don’t already sing lullabies to Jelly Roll every night. Now I’s gotta burp my Brito.”

Little did Chollie know what was in store for his gentile West Virginny eyes. There in his bed lied Brito, naked, with an erection that looked like a shiitake mushroom cap.

“Look, hefe, look! I’m ready to pitch.”

“Oh, no you ain’t,” Chollie said, knowing full well that boners are best handled long before game time. “Now do something about that damn stiffy before I do.”

Chollie scrunched his face and thought for a moment about what he had just encouraged.

“Wait one Dominican minute,” he told Brito. “Git some clothes on and y’all come with me…uh, I mean go with me in a cab to Dodge-a Stadium”

The cabdrivers outside the Ritz-Carlton are a lively lot, so Chollie was sure he could pull this one off – or have his driver find someone who could. They approached a garish Crown Victoria outside the lobby door and tapped on the shaded window. It rolled down to reveal the happy countenance of Park-soon Kim. Despite playing six seasons in Japan, Chollie still couldn’t tell the difference between a Japanese and Korean.

“Ko-nazi wah,” he stammered, trying to recall the few words he learned as a Yakult Swallow.

“I speak English, you dumb fucking hick,” the driver answered, a little annoyed to have his morning kim-chi and ginseng break interrupted by a hairy barbarian. “What the fuck you want? I only go to the airport. And I don’t haul fags.”

Chollie, realizing his politically incorrect boo-boo, figured a little diplomacy was in order. He took two hundred dollar bills out of his pocket and threw them in the front seat.

“Good morning, sir,” Kim said. “And what may I do for you today?”

“Find me a hooker,” Chollie told him.

Old Backwoods pushed Brito into the back seat and jumped in beside him. The clanky cab busted down the 110 Freeway south to downtown Los Angeles. At 5th and Main, in the heart of Skid Row, they found their tonic. There, standing in front of a portable toilet, was a Senorita plying her wares in the hot morning sun.

“How much?” Chollie asked. No answer.

“Hefe, this is L.A.,” Brito said. “Nobody speaks English. Let me try.”

Brito turned to the skinny sperm depository with the doorag on her head.

“Cuando cuesta?” he asked. That did the trick.

“Well what she say, Bright-O?” Chollie asked his pitcher.

“Twenty bucks and a rock,” Brito explained.

“Gaw-dang!” Chollie blurted. “For what I paid last night, I coulda had twenty a her!” he said, peeling off a twenty.

“I need ten for the rock, hefe,” Brito said to Chollie’s consternation. “Fuck, Ew-day. You better not smoke that shit. Do you?”

“Only Cuban cigars, on occasion,” the rookie replied. “Now let me do my trabajo.”

Brito and the Senorita entered the Johnny-On-The-Spot and closed the door. After about a minute, Brito re-emerged, smiling and no longer hard.

“Now let’s go to the game,” Chollie said. “Kimmy-san – take us to the ballpark.”

Once there, the manager headed for Rick Dubee's bottle and Brito to his locker stall. He pulled on his uniform, then became aghast after he noticed a cumstain had bled through his jockstrap. His teammates refused to switch trousers with him. (Worse, after the game began, they refused to hit for him). Despite his sartorial faux pas, the Dominican set to get going with his warmups. Sans erection, and a little buzzed from the second-hand smoke in the Johnny, he told Chollie he was ready to go.

Brito took to the mound and proceeded to get shredded: four innings, six runs on nine hits and two walks to boot. Needless to say, Team Vomit lost the game, and could muster only two hits against Brad Penny and two unremarkable relievers. It was 4-0 by the end of the first inning, and it was effectively over. By the end of seven, it was 8-0 and a downright embarrassment beamed regionally by national television.

Brito was seen leaving the clubhouse and walking toward a taxi in the parking lot. It wasn’t headed toward the hotel.

Phils Win, Conduct Post-Game Gang Bang

2006-06-03T12:34:00.000-04:00

Scared Shitless was exiled to Scranton yesterday, and just to tempt his own fate, Ryan Madson regressed into his peckerwood routine.

The former reliever cum starter cum reliever cum starter fucked the Phils with fives last night, as in five innings, five earned runs, five hits and five walks. He was pulled with the Fightless behind, 5-3. He sat on the bench in a confused sweat, wondering how long he’d last as the fifth starter.

As the heavens opened and a hard rain fell back in Philly, things looked as ominous in the sun-ravaged ravine in Los Angeles for Team Vomit. After knocking out former Mets’ nemesis Jae Seo after the fourth inning for a 3-0 lead, the Phils faced Dodger basket case Odalis Perez. The demoted starter worked out of a jam in the fifth, and yielded to Fatboy Jonathan Broxton, who chewed through the bottom of the lineup the next inning. It wasn’t pretty, as the Psychotic Candystripers looked as if they were about to call it a night. Bar denizens here in Hostile City were clamoring for a Friday Night Fight in a mud puddle, considering that the local baseball team seemed incapable of punching its way out of LaLa Land.

But the Dodgers made the mistake of sending Danys Baez to the mound to face the top of the order in the seventh. Knowing full well that the chicks at White Lotus in Hollywood only fuck you after a win – well, at least on Fridays - Team Psycho mounted a rare comeback to insure they would likewise ride saddle on a blonde Valley whore by the insanely early 2 a.m. last call mandated at L.A. hotspots. With these drinking restrictions, I have to say Larry Flynt had a lotta nerve comparing the place to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Surprisingly, Jelly Roll started the whole thing with a single to center, the ball taking an uncharacteristic hop up the middle, as opposed to the usual in-air trajectory which his swing demands. A walk to Chase Utley (who had four hits), then a single by Corky Abreu, and all of a sudden, the bases were loaded for Baby Girl Burrell, exactly what a cleanup hitter craves – and in Burrell’s case, almost as much as all that poontang out there.

As Voice of God Harry Kalas likes to describe it, Baby Girl “fisted” a ball (!) to center, scoring two runs. All of a sudden, the game was tied, and Burrell was smiling at first, tripping the light fantastic with Nomar Garciaparra. Just as he asked him if chicks dig Latino vatos with reversed names, Ryan The Howitzer, who earlier had hit his 19th homer, walked to load the bases. That brought Crash Rowand to the batter’s box.

Team Psycho has had a magnificently pathetic track record with the bases loaded, but in all fairness to Crash, he has not been part of the cancer afflicting this club. Further cementing his keeper status, he scored two more runs with a double down the line. After Dingdong David Bell – one of the few hitters batting well with baserunners - scored Howard with a sacrifice fly, it was 8-5 Phillies, and the game was essentially over. As expected, mediocre setup man Arthur Rhodes allowed a run to cross during his inning of relief, but Flash Gordon shut them down in the ninth.

No thanks to Madson, the team won only because it scored all those runs, a rarity because the lineup has imposed too much pressure on itself to compensate for the pitching weaknesses that pockmark this staff like an incurable disease.

So inconsistent are four of five starters that the injured Jon Lieber’s replacement, lefthander Eude Brito, should offer a better competitve balance, if only that Team Vomit has started only two games with a lefty – Cole Hamels – and the jury is still out on whether Our Personal Jesus can hack a season without a debilitating injury.

The Dodgers, by the way, are opposing our 27-year-old rookie with Brad Penny, a hard thrower who drew some interest on the Phils’ trade front in the off-season. If that bad shoulder is troubling him, his 5-1 record and 2.87 ERA sure belies that point.

Scared Shitless' Mexican Standoff

2006-06-02T14:46:00.000-04:00

Old Backwoods Chollie sucked in the stew of pollutants in the Los Angeles, Mexico air and declared an impossible expectation for the 11-game road trip, their longest of the season.

“We gotta play .500 ball,” he said, demonstrating not only his ignorance of mathematics, but his inability to accept his team’s numerous frailties, not the least of which was Gavin Floyd’s disaster of a season.

Chollie trotted out Scared Shitless to the mound in Chavez Latrine, an aging, derelict pit populated by rich whores in the box seats, tattooed gangbangers in the mezzanine and illegal aliens surrounding them from all sides. As this Aztlan polyglot of misguided leftist idiots chomped on foul Dodger Dogs and shitty sushi, their ballclub, a reconstituted alphabet soup of oft-injured veterans and unproven newcomers, feasted on the terrified Floyd’s undercooked offerings and turned Team Vomit’s night into a regurgitated upchuck.

Scared Shitless, who has a league-worst 7.29 ERA, just might have punched his ticket back to the minors after his clueless showing last night. He was done before the clock struck midnight in Philly and certainly most fans kissed their wife goodnight after watching enough after four innings. Why lose sleep in the hope of watching the Fightless climb out of a 7-0 hole?

Well, I did, and they didn’t. But I saw enough after Clueless surrendered three homers, the first a three-run shot to rookie Matt Kemp in his twelfth major league at-bat. It was worth three runs because Floyd continued this year’s team obligation to allow the opposing pitcher fat pitches to get hits. After Derek Lowe, his opposite number, smacked a double off the blue center-field wall for a two-out double, he walked Rafael Furcal and characteristically lost his mind to Kemp, the next hitter.

The Dodgers smelled blood, and they jumped on Floyd again in the fourth. He allowed a solo shot to rookie Russell Martin before recording two outs to set up the coup de grace – a three-run dinger to the hated J.D. Drew to seal the deal. It was 7-0, and I began searching the drawers for a large battery to throw – not at Drew, at Floyd.

This kid needs to be sent away NOW. Enough is enough. And Team Psycho has plenty of SoCal connections – Utley, Lieberthal and Rowand in the starting lineup and tonight’s starting pitcher, Ryan Madson, to name a few – so maybe somebody’s mother can take them to her tit and wet nurse them. Or maybe Chollie can hail an Armenian cab from the hotel to tour Skid Row and drink a pint with a bum. Something, anything to focus their sorry asses.

Scared Shitless' Mexican Standoff

2006-06-02T13:57:00.000-04:00

Too Bad He's Not Our Asshole

2006-05-31T18:16:00.000-04:00

Alfonso Soriano is one insolent cocksucker I’d take on my team any day.

His accused woman-beating drunk-driver of a general manager, Jim Bowden, rescued him from the two-pronged shrieking hell of playing in Texas and anywhere near Buck Showalter. But all Bowden got until the beginning of spring training was a bucket of tears from Senor Culo de Dominicana – no way he was gonna play the outfield for $10 million this season. Not him.

¡Bebé pobre!

All that changed when hard-ass Nationals manager Frank Robinson told him to take the field or take a seat. Bowden and Robinson had put their heads together and decided it would be just fine with them if he sat out the season, considering they could dock his pay. That got Soriano’s attention, and baseball fans were anxious to see if he would earn his keep or dog it.

That question has been emphatically answered.

Not only has the All-Star outfielder (nee second baseman) earned his pay (well, maybe not $10 million smackers), he has accepted a leadoff spot in the lineup and still put up big numbers. And today, he demonstrated in boldface how handicapped Team Psycho is with Jelly Roll at the top of the order.

Soriano single-handedly propelled the offense and accounted for all three of the Gnat’s runs, just enough behind the black magic of Livan Hernandez’s beguiling array of off-speed pitchers. They won 3-2, and considering how unable the Phils have been to “manufacture” runs, the game was over after Soriano’s go-ahead single in the seventh. In the top of the third, he hit his 19th homer with his pitcher on base to give D.C. a 2-1 advantage. Now he has more homers than Ryan Howard. In fact, this leadoff hitter is second in the National League in the dinger department.

Just a few numbers, because they demonstrate results rather than psychosis, the latter Jelly Roll’s biggest flaw: Soriano was moved to the leadoff spot after 72 at-bats in the third and fifth position. He had six homers, 12 RBIs, a .236 batting average and a so-so .328 on-base percentage. Batting first for 143 ABs, before today he had an on-base percentage of .389 with a .336 batting average. Throw in 13 homers and 26 RBIs, and…well, you get the idea.

I don’t need to review Jelly Roll’s sick numbers – suffice it to say they took another dive today. Today’s ass-rape included grounding into a double play to kill a damn good run-scoring opportunity in the fifth. In the seventh, he popped out weakly to strand another two – that’s four runners left with their cocks in their hands.

Soriano, meanwhile, was aided by Hernandez, a pitcher who can hit and lay down a bunt, something most Phillies hurlers are inept at executing. Even if they could hit .400, that doesn’t solve the Jelly Roll problem. There is one hillbilly who can, though.

After the game, Backwoods Chollie reached for an assessment of the flaccid effort and came up as empty as Jelly Roll. A reporter asked him if this is what we should expect the rest of the year – implying a team that can’t produce in key situations.

“What we are we haven’t gotten there yet,” he said. “I don’t have an answer right yet.”

Then he reflected on his own career riding the pines in explaining his choice of ninth inning pinch hitters, Baby Girl Burrell and Dingdong David Bell, both given the hot day off, and both of whom yielded nothing with two runners fondling their genitalia.

“I think a guy’s been playin’ is a lot more sharper than the guy’s been settin’,” he philosphized. “I know ‘cause I did that job.”

One day, and it might be sooner or later, he will refer to the job he has now in the past tense unless he gets the stugots to rectify the lineup’s rigged deficiencies.

Banging A Buffalo

2006-05-30T23:20:00.000-04:00

It was the one day of five that is the sure thing in Team Psycho’s rotation, a quality start from Brett Myers. He didn’t disappoint.

How nice it is to get a day off from the torment of pathetically inconsistent pitching, the hallmark of the team’s misbegotten start. So relaxing was Myer’s road to the 4-2 win, your host drifted off to sleep, and if I were a Mormon, I’d say I had a revelatory dream.

Shortly after Corky Abreu’s three-run homer, a buffalo appeared, or rather, a buffalo’s brown ass backed into me and showed me its vagina. Then, with some otherworldly pearly white spunk, I impregnated the beast. I don’t remember if I washed my hands.

The next thing I know, Bobby Knight (yes, the college basketball coach), appeared and was standing in a wainscoted café drinking an espresso. He didn’t say a word to me, but something told me to keep my distance, as he was more dangerous than the buffalo.

Finally, my Old Lady materialized, and to allay any fears about what I had done to the buffalo, she proffered a pile of gleaming ebony mussel shells, which she had been offering for sale. Then the next thing I knew, I was awake and saw Brett Myers work a walk to force in a run in the seventh.

What does it all mean? Beats the hell out of me. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s all the dead animals I’ve been eating. All I know is that I’m perfectly willing to manually inseminate a buffalo every day if it means an end to this torture at the hands of the Phillies

Barbequed Gnats

2006-05-30T01:37:00.000-04:00

The barbeque was still flaring at the rowhome in Tacony as Team Psycho took the field. It was as hot a day as the team is cold, and chubster Jon Lieber waddled to the mound in a sweat to face the Washington Nationals.

Is it me or does it look like the guy can’t turn down a second helping? Whatever it was that caused his pulled groin, Lieber was done after the second inning, returning to the locker room for a rubdown and a short rack as he perused the Dow Jones.

By the time the houseguests, My Co-Defendant and The Jackal, had gnawed their chicken to the bone, Lieber had already ceded the required homerun to Ryan Zimmerman and one of our three Ryans, The Howitzer, had already committed his perfunctory throwing error, this one allowing madman Larry Bowa’s nephew, Nick Johnson, to score a run.

Backwoods Chollie was giggling all over that one.

“Check er out!” he said on the phone to me. “Their Ryan smacks a homer and my Ryan throws the ball like a smack! Gawdang!”

“Calm down, Chollie,” I told him. “You put Clay Condrey in there – he’ll shut ‘em down.”

And as sure as cows have udders, that’s what happened. As The Jackal - an old pal from my anarchist days who used to serve drinks at Harry The K’s - was recounting how hard it was to get customers to tip him after they paid $6.25 for a beer, Condrey settled in and pitched four solid innings in relief.

The Howitzer redeemed himself, firing a ball over the opposite-field fence to stake Team Wussy to a 4-2 lead. After that, to paraphrase a French king, came the deluge.

By the time all the chicken, pork and cow were consumed in Tacony, the Phils finally – finally – conducted a slaughter of their own, an 11-2 laugher at the hands of the relatively hapless Gnats. Everybody in the starting lineup except for the pitcher had a hit, most notably the suicidal Jelly Roll (two of ‘em) The Fasano Italian Sausage (two) and Dingdong David Bell, who had two RBIs to go with his three hits.

Considering what a ninny Abraham Nunez has been at the plate (down to .161 and sinking), Dingdong has to be beside himself with joy not to have the nagging specter of a viable replacement right now.

For me, it was gratifying to see The Jackal leave happy. His hardcore band, YDI, is still going strong after all these years, and their signature song is “I Killed My Family.” If only all those customers who stiffed him at the ballpark knew…

Chollie The Chessmaster

2006-05-28T18:41:00.000-04:00

I played chess since I was a child, but really learned how to win years later from some opponents with masterful skills at a café during my self-imprisonment in Buttfuck Tucson.

Speed chess was the game of choice, and I regularly got whooped. But I kept coming back for more, knowing full well if I could win a few games at their playing level, the more pedestrian players would always be my bitch.

Just as Ryan Madson was lifted after a solid five-inning outing in which he surrendered only the obligatory two-run handicap to the Brewers, my son got a hankering for a game. Caesar has some real possibilities as a chessman, so whenever he wants a game, I give him my best.

I was reluctant to be distracted from a game in which the Fightless had come back to claim a lead, 4-2, as the floodgates were being unlocked – the bullpen door opened, that is - and the always-impending disaster loomed. Would Chollie let Ryan Franklin fuck this one up, too?

As my queen raped various pawns, clergy and horsies on the chessboard at home, the foursome of Jeff Geary, Rheal Cormer, Arthur Rhodes and Flash Gordon likewise put the Brew Crew down, shutting them out for the final four innings, allowing no run damage on four hits. Better, the offense squeezed two more runs out of the Brews’ reformed bong-smoking reliever named Joe Winkelsas, last employed as a trash collector in Buffalo. Really.

The victory almost seemed routine. Could Chollie be…gulp…employing a workable strategy?

“That whole bit with Ben Franklin was a setup for the Brewers,” the Appalachian Bobby Fisher explained, identifying the wrong stiff as he gnawed on a barbequed tripe sandwich. “I figgered we let ‘em get cozy the first five times we faced ‘em, then pull a quick one on ‘em.”

Still, Chollie said he was tempted to use Franklin.

“That woulda been somethin’ to see, three Ryans in one game, huh?” he said, intestines dripping down his cheek. “They wouldn’t know which pocket they stashed their balls in!”

That seven-inning relief effort last week against the Mets might have straightened out Madson’s confused head, as he not only gathered himself after permitting a second inning two-run homer, but clocked a two-run double to tie the game in bottom of the fourth after Dingdong David Bell and Italian Sausage Sal Fasano failed to consummate with runners eager to score. Madson is hitting .357 on the year, and Chollie might be well advised to trot him out as a pinch hitter in lieu of Abraham Nunez, now hitting a horrendous .164, the Team Succubus now nursing on his man-spunk.

Ryan Howitzer continues to terrorize pitchers this month, as he stroked his 17th homer to give Team Psycho the lead for good, 4-2. His numbers are Ruthian – or Pujolistan, if you will – considering the pace he is on would yield 51 homers and 132 RBIs by season’s end. He’s a .307 hitter right now and a lot of the production has come against lefties, which some skeptics said he couldn’t hit. The numbers are all the more impressive because it’s 100 percent country strength, fueled by Mom’s home cookin’ as a youth and not from the end of a needle in his ass by a steroid salesman.

The Memorial Day festivities continue tomorrow in South Philly, as the vaunted Washington Nationals throw their murderers row up against Jon Lieber’s teflon 5.83 ERA. He is sure to be fattened by the gift barbeque pig air-mailed by the retired Alex Gonzalez to his "comrades" from his hacienda in Florida. It is a holiday, after all.

The Essence Of Mediocrity

2006-05-28T00:32:00.000-04:00

Half and half. One out of two. Six of one, a half dozen of another. So-so. Mezza-mezza. Patchy. Uneven.

Say it anyway you want, the Phillies are a mediocre team. The record stands at 24 wins against 24 losses. Worse, they are truly a schizophrenic bunch – a streaky group that can put up 12 wins in 13 games, yet follow that up by losing nine of the next 11 games, which is what they have to show for May.

Tonight’s loss against the Brewers was typical Team Psycho, as they dug another hole early from which they could not climb out. The Brew Crew has a strong lineup and is winning despite injuries to its two best pitchers, scoring eight of its nine runs with two outs. They displayed a tenacity lost on the Fightless, who are missing none of their starters - a group that stands some closer scrutiny.

In all fairness to the team’s hitters, the Phils are a .500 team mostly because their starting pitching has sucked except on Brett Myers’ turn. Whether Our Savior Cole Hamels can redeem this staff is still to be seen, but as it is, every four of five games has been helter-skelter, a disordered mess of misplaced pitches, loss of concentration, rookie mistakes and, sad to say, a staff “ace” named Jon Lieber who should be happy his mutual fund portfolio will provide a secure retirement soon.

Tonight’s category was the rookie mistake, as Scared Shitless Gavin Floyd took to the mound and proceeded to surrender a two-run homer to Carlos Lee with two outs in the first inning, so the hole began to be dug immediately. To its credit, Team Vomit countered with a run in its half.

Not to be outdone, the Brewers tallied another two the next inning on a homer by the immortal Bill Hall – again with two outs. Team Vomit countered with a run of its own in the third, after Jelly Roll, back to batting leadoff, got his swerve on with his second double and got knocked in on a double by Corky Abreu.

Terrified as usual, losing his concentration and acting like a teenager who got caught masturbating, Floyd didn’t last the fifth inning, allowing five of six runs with two outs. It was 6-2, and the Fightless needed to mount the usual comeback when he’s out there. Jelly Roll, uppercutting at the ball all night, got the homerun he was looking for and all of a sudden it was 6-4. When Ryan Howard stroked his 16th homer to tie it in the seventh, it was a brand new ballgame.

Tacony Lou at that point was contemplating how nice it would have been to have a quality major league pitcher hurling this game. The team can score runs. But the starting pitching is essentially untalented – mediocre, like the team record. True hope lied with the relief corps, which also has been scattershot, but not as consistently bad as the starters. As these thoughts were dancing about, Ryan Franklin, the fan’s favorite gopher ball pitcher, unfortunately took to the mound in the eighth and it quickly became a lost cause.

The Gopher allowed three runs to score on two homers with two outs, hardly an unusual effort lately by our reformed steroid abuser. It’s becoming his pattern, and despite his lack of success in close games recently, Chollie keeps on sending him out there to fuck up leads. His fat 5.32 ERA might cause some managers pause, but not Old Backwoods.

“There’s an ol’ sayin’ at the pig farm,” Chollie snorted after the game. “You gotta keep trying to grab a greased pig if y’all ever wanna eat. But even if ya can’t eat it, ya can still pork that hunky mother.”

Chollie grabbed a tube of Ben-Gay and cracked a smile.

Scary thoughts are already beginning to intrude the temperate Philadelphia night: Ryan Madson, back in the rotation until Our Savior resurrects, brings his 5.98 ERA to the mound tomorrow. Let’s see if he has any gas left after pitching those seven innings of relief last week against the Mets.

BOBBLEHEAD VOODOO

2006-05-27T01:23:00.000-04:00

In the multi-tasking milieu of today’s New World Order, a ballplayer can get easily distracted having to work holiday weekends like this one.

Those oldtimers had it easy: Lots of days off riding in cramped, smoky trains. Cool-looking wool uniforms to keep the Summer heat close and comfy. They got to pee in outhouses. And they had no global warming, no terrorism, no SUVs. Hell, gas was a quarter a gallon!

But the biggest bitch about playing baseball on Memorial Day in the 21st Century is when the public relation flacks entice fans with a Bobblehead Night at the ballpark. Talk about a distraction.

Here are 30,000 people rattling a player’s figurine likeness every time he comes to the plate. What can be worse than that? It’s like a voodoo doll – and there’s not a single ballplayer that is not superstitious.

“It looks like their jiggling little dickies,” the Old Lady giggled during the Phils ill-fated tenth inning rally last night against the Brewers. The fans, forsaking an early start down the shore to collect their free prizes, were frantically shaking the loose-headed, springy icon, trying desperately to invoke animistic aid upon the bobblehead honoree, Chase Utley.

He was up with two outs in the tenth and looking at Shane Victorino standing on first after legging out an infield single. Utley was hexed so far. He was hitless on the night. It was 6-5. Defeat loomed, and it should not have come too this.

Maybe Milwaukee brought their own tikis of Bob Uecker, because they play Team Psycho as if they were the ’27 Yankees.

But Utley came through in the clutch, thanks to Satan or whatever, stroking a double to left and setting up the game’s eventual ultimate confrontation … with Chris Roberson at the bat.

Just what the bobblehead ordered, eh?

Rookie Roberson was standing there with the bases loaded and the game on the line because Corky Abreu follows Utley in the lineup, and there was no way the Brewers were pitching to him. After two wide pitches, they issued him a free ticket to first to load the bases.

Further rewinding the chain of unlikely causation, Rookie Roberson was there because he had pinch-ran for Baby Girl Burrell. The Fightless needed to mount a ninth-inning comeback to tie the game 5-5 in the ninth, the entire lineup failing to get a hit after the fourth inning and until the ninth except for Burrell. Chollie’s move worked, as Roberson raced in from second on a Ryan Howard double. Burrell has bad wheels, and if Old Backwoods didn’t send in Roberson and Burrell got nailed after The Howitzer’s shot, the possum pie just wouldn’t taste right.

Lastly, Roberson – who flew out to center to end the game – was standing there because Jimmy Rollins was distracted and was caught like a stag in headlights between second and third base after a base hit scored the Phils’ first run in the second. Without that fart, it would have been two men on with none out. The whole comeback might not have been necessary if Rollins didn’t kill the inning. The devil is in that detail.

There was another queer lapse:

All those springy bobbleheads must’ve obstructed the ENTIRE TEAM’S attention or eyesight when Brewers’ baserunner Ricky Weeks, stationed on second, took off like an impala to third base on what he thought was a hit to the outfield. But the ball was caught, so he had to beat a retreat, and fast. Nobody noticed he failed to re-tag third base after he passed it. You’re not allowed to do that. The rule is familiar to baseball men, even if they don’t worship at the bobblehead altar.

Nobody noticed that faux pas, notably Dingdong David Bell, who was standing there…not paying attention. If somebody – anybody – would have thought to appeal, Weeks would have been the third out of the inning. Instead, Weeks scored on a single by the subsequent hitter, Phillie-killer Geoff Jenkins. That gave the Brewers a 5-3 lead.

Those two distractions cost Team Bobblehead the game, plain and simple. The worse of the two, for my money, was Rollins flub. After six years of running the bases that was a bush league fuck up.

And it wasn’t even his Bobblehead Night.

Maui Wowie Is Top Shelf

2006-05-25T17:53:00.000-04:00

Pigs flew, snowballs froze in hell and Pat Robertson submitted to Islam as Backwoods Chollie dropped Jelly Roll out of the leadoff spot today.

How long this lasts only his moonshiner knows for sure, but if Chollie is confident his troubled shortstop has lost the extortion pictures depicting him performing unnatural acts down on the farm, this move should stick. If results are what you’re looking for, it worked.

Maui Wowie Shane Victorino was inserted in the top spot and, while getting just an infield single, made an acrobatic flying catch at the warning track and worked a crucial walk to lead off the top of the seventh inning. That set the table for Chase Utley, who stroked his fourth hit of the day to deep right for a double and the Phils quickly plated the go-ahead run.

Add another quality start from Brett Myers and an insurance run courtesy of a Ryan The Howitzer RBI single, and the Phils had an efficient 5-3 win.

Meanwhile Jelly Roll, who was put on suicide watch, did his same ole same ole, uppercutting the ball with his nagging, seemingly unrepairable looping swing. It’s been a problem since he was a rookie, a mechanical malfunction madman manager Larry Bowa harped on him to change. But like a crackhead who can’t put the glass dick down, Rollins is beyond hope to reform unless he acknowledges his problem.

Even if he did I wouldn’t give him his old job back.

The emergence of Victorino has not been missed by the Miserable Legions devoted to Team Masochism. The dude can hit. He hit all last season in AAA and earned the league MVP. He hit last year after being called up for the September Wild Card race, delivering timely hits and baserunning speed repeatedly off the bench. Now he has hit over .400 while subbing for Aaron “Crash” Rowand, who will always have a job and free beer for life in Philly. So what do we do about this pleasant problem?

Some fans won’t like my proposal – but it’s an idea floated by more and more esteemed analysts after careful contemplation: Gillick should try again to trade Bobby Abreu for a front-line, high-salaried pitcher. It would free up right field for The Flyin’ Hawaiian, who not only would bat first everyday, but catch the shots Corky flubs regularly. Keep Rollins’ glove at short, but relegate him to the bottom of the batting order where he belongs. I have seen enough. Stop the torment!

Now Tacony Lou knows that is easier said than done. But imagine for a moment this lineup:

Victorino
Utley
Burrell
Howard
Rowand
Bell
Rollins
Lieberthal
Barry Zito

Burrell bats third for now because it breaks up the left-handed batters. The only break in the alternating sequence would be at the catcher and pitcher at the bottom. But considering that Howard is showing he hits both righties and lefties for average, he’d be the long term three-hole hitter. Just like Babe Ruth.

Utley would be a good Number Three as well, but he’s a better one-two punch with Victorino. He has turned himself into an offensive force. And with The Maui Wowie getting on base more often, he’ll still be driving in 100 runs or more. Just watch.

I have been duly impressed by the big numbers Abreu has put up – and that high on-base percentage, gosh golly gee, how do you argue against that? But his adamant refusal to field his position and complete unwillingess to bat anywhere else but third destroys a lineup’s flexibility. His speed is diminishing. And we have enough power hitters. What we lack is a leadoff hitter and a stopper on the mound

An ace can win 20 games. A maladjusted leadoff hitter and a brick glove in rightfield can lose more than that.

The sticky part of the equation is the contract status of the pitcher acquired. He can’t be a rent-a-player if Abreu is bid adios. We’d be trading a secured player and we need one back. Could we sign Zito? Could Oakland sign and trade him? Who else is out there? This is a true quandary, but that’s for Gillick to figure out.

All I know is this: Holding on to Abreu is like having a wife who doesn’t stiffen your piston anymore, but you stick with her because she’s inheriting a fortune. How many years of suffering is it worth?

Getting Alay

2006-05-24T23:29:00.000-04:00

Knowing full well that the Fightless would rather get a lay than win a pennant, the Mets gave them their wish last night.

The New Yorkers threw Alay Soler at them, and it wasn’t because the Phils are fond of chubby Cuban dudes in the sack…well, maybe they are, but more likely they know Team Psycho can’t handle hurlers who have never pitched in the major leagues.

After all, if someone paid you between $7 and $14 million a year to play a game you’ve allegedly become skilled at playing, you can’t expect success against rookie pitchers, especially when he walks the bases loaded with no outs to start the game, which is exactly what the sly, plucky Cuban defector did.

Our hometown Losers weren’t about to fall for that trick – no way, no how - even after lucking into a three-run first inning. They knew it was a dirty communist trick he picked up from Castro. That single he surrendered to Pat Burrell led the optimists among us (are there any left?) to suspect this guy would get yanked before the rest of the crowd made the walk from the No. 7 train and claimed their seats. But our inept heroes were left to wonder: Could it be an act of tomfoolery straight from the Cold War playbook?

Their fate was sealed after second baseman Chris Woodward’s boner on a Ryan Howard grounder allowed two more runs to score, making it 3-0, because Team Psycho knew for sure it was just an act of scandalous subterfuge undertaken by the Mets to lead them into thinking they could win the game.

So they relaxed, as they are wont to do, baseball being such an arduous task, what with all the strength needed to judge and chase fly balls (Does Mommy’s little mango have a boo-boo, Bobby Abreu?) the intellectual calisthenics required to refrain from swinging at the first pitch (You should go poopy before the game, Jelly Roll) and the intestinal fortitude to mount a late-inning with our select group of pinch-hitters (Don’t worry Abraham Nunez, your namesake was also a noted failure before becoming President.)

Showing the effects of a 5 ½-hour workday the previous night, like a construction laborer with a hangover, the team dutifully reported to work. It’s just that they imitated the Mafia slobs working “no show” gigs on “The Sopranos.” Specifically, they did a Vito Spatafore, who, when it came to really doing some work while he was on the lam – with fellating his lover on his mind – he couldn’t handle it. He had to go back to his old milieu, and consequently, he was whacked.

The Mets hitman was David Wright, who got the big hit at the right time, and was 3-for-4 with two RBIs. He homered to center in the third inning to bring New York within one run, 3-2, then got a workman-like single to left to drive in the go-ahead run in the seventh, making it 5-4. It was to stay that way. In détente, you could say.

The Phils last real chance was in the top of the eighth, as Shane Victorino singled, was bunted over to second by freshly-sheered Dingdong David Bell (there goes his superhuman powers) and the rest was left to Nunez and David Dellucci. In other words, it was nearly hopeless, as Nunez has been a disaster akin to the “retired” Gonzo, and The Succubus has obviously parked her ass next to him. How else do you explain a first-pitch foul-out to the catcher? Dellucci, who has showed scattered signs of life this season, ended the inning with a groundout.

With Hillybilly Alpaca Fucker Wagner closing the ninth against the Fightless’ top of the lineup, and considering Jelly Roll is still trying to hit homers, Utley has never faced him, and Abreu plays like he’s on Hugo Chavez’s payroll, you knew it was over, the team’s chances as dead as the fictional Vito, their swings made out-of-whack by Cuban muscle and his Hillbilly accomplice.

A Prolonged Agony

2006-05-24T03:26:00.000-04:00

The Team Succubus sat next to Chollie last night and sucked out what was left of his countrified pea brain.

Fans watching this 5 ½-hour New York agony were left to wonder why he left the de-steroided Ryan Franklin in to piss away a three-run lead with four outs to go against the Mets, no slouches on offense. But your miserable host here knows it was that bitch with the horns and tail, it had to have been, because even the kids in Little League know when to bring in Flash Gordon.

“Good thing the bars stay open until four in the morning,” Chollie told me after the 16-inning marathon, a true exercise in masochism. “Can you believe it? I mean, I could go to a private club after and keep on drinkin’ ‘til tomorrey’s battin’ practice.”

Old Backwoods probably wasn’t the only member of Team Fightless to need a tightener or twelve after the game, a devastating 9-8 loss. After forging a four-run lead in the top of the fifth, two disgustingly lazy fielding mistakes in the bottom of the next frame by our beloved corner outfielders set up the Mets’ first resurgence, capped by AARP member Julio Franco’s two-out double. The lead was shaved to a run, and it was 6-5 at the end of the inning. Scared Shitless Gavin Floyd had been lifted, and the rest was up to the bullpen. But the Phils were still ahead, and I was contemplating all the angry phone calls to be made the next day to the Burger King on WIP calling for a trade of our two miscreant outfielders, Baby Girl Burrell and Corky Abreu. But again, the Phils were still ahead and I banished those thoughts.

Things were looking up again after Dingdong David Bell hit a two-run double, and coupled with an earlier three-run homer, I was all set to disavow any accusations that Tacony Lou thinks he’s washed up and should be put out to pasture where he could impregnate young horsies and make more Baby Bells. He drove in five tonight, but he left six stranded. The double made it 8-5, and those were “big time” runs as the Voice of God, Harry Kalas, intoned, and I banished those nasty thoughts again.

The butchery in the eighth inning ended all those misplaced good feelings. I should have known better. Endy Chavez, who couldn't button his uniform when he was with the Phils last year – let alone hit – stepped up to the plate against Franklin with a .290 average. Two outs, nobody on.

The devastation began. Ryan “Howitzer” Howard, who’s been shaky all season in the field, fielded a Chavez chip shot to his right, hesitated, and Franklin took the stuttered toss and dropped it. The fastest Mets baserunner was at first, and the next batter naturally doubled to left and the fleet Chavez ripped around the bases to score. The hitter, Chris Woodward stood on second, and still, Chollie just leaned into the dugout's padded railing and stared like a farm boy contemplating bestiality.

The next batter, Jose Reyes, looked like a drunk swatting at mosquitoes against Floyd in his previous at-bars. Against Franklin, he looked like Babe Ruth, swatting an ankle-high pitch toward the No. 7 train platform past right field.

“I truly thought this game was in the bag,” Kalas lamentably cried.

Little did Harry know, but this baby was another eight innings – and two hours -- from being over.

The 16-inning contest was the longest in the majors this season and, thanks to Sludgemaster Steve Trachsel, the Mets starter (see previous post) it would have been an easy 3 ½-hour endurance test if it had lasted nine innings.

Ryan Madson shouldn’t worry about playing with a hangover tomorrow. He worked seven innings of four-hit relief, the longest stint out of the pen for a Phillie since 1991. If only he had pitched as well when he was a starter. He lost the game on a Carlos Beltran homerun – technically, that is, because what lost the game for the Phillies was Chollie’s refraining to use Flash Gordon, and all those hitters who left runners on base before the game got to that point.

The defense has been shaky at best, with Abreu and Burrell seemingly knee-high in pig slop. They cost the team runs, and their hooker quota needs to be reduced. Maybe the Team Succubus can see to that.

Molasses With A Side Of Sludge

2006-05-23T18:47:00.000-04:00

When I lived in Buttfuck Tucson, Arizona, one of the few quality entertainment options for those of us who didn’t get our kicks blowing our meager pay at one of the local Indian casinos or up our noses on cartel cocaine was spring training baseball.

When I arrived there for my self-imposed desert imprisonment, the Cleveland Indians – no relation to the Tohono O’Odham -- were the only team to call The Baked Apple home. They were fun. I saw Jim Thome play third base in his prime, Omar Vizquel boot grounders and Albert Belle beat autograph seekers in the parking lot.

But my most enduring memory was sweltering in the mid-March heat (Summer begins on St. Patty’s day in southern Arizona) as I watched Steve Trachsel, the slowest worker in major league history, pitch against the Rockies, the team that the city took on after the Indians wised up and moved their training camp to Florida.

The memory came rushing back as I contemplated tonight’s game between the Phils and the Mets. Trachsel is back again like a bad dream, and I am resigned to accept tonight’s post will come after a marathon contest; Trachsel hasn’t changed one bit from that day a decade ago.

Trachsel fidgeted, fucking around with his hat, his crotch, his resin bag, his shoes and all the fans who paid to watch the torment of his dementia on the mound. Two hours easily elapsed before the fifth inning, and the heavy-drinking Tucson crowd (the population is 85 percent alcoholic) were six beers deep by the time his relief came in to their joy.

But the damage was done. The stands emptied out after watching Sammy Sosa’s opposite-field homer to right field (this was the year after he started dosing on the steroids), and, since the games don’t really count, all they missed was the debut of Todd Helton at first base, already anointed Andres Gallaraga’s eventual successor.

I stayed for the whole ordeal – I never leave before the game is over – slid myself into some shady seats behind the plate, and promised myself never, ever, ever again attend a game that motherfucker pitched.

Ode To A Latin Burn

2006-05-21T17:43:00.000-04:00

Much to the relief of Phillies fans, Bozo Gonzalez retired today, and the team began to win again.

Coincidence? Not when you get rid of the Team Succubus, the female demon who set up shop on the bench next to Bozo and sucked the sperm and any ability he had left out of him. The rest of the players like their pussy, that’s for sure, but they sure know a South Philly bar slut from a bitch with horns, hooves and a tail:

The succubus doesn’t diddle your dick for drinks.

Phils General Manager Pat Gillick had to feel a little better after getting rimmed for a quarter-season by Bozo. Now the idiot owners don’t have to shell out most of the $750,000 contract he negotiated in exchange for his four hits every two months. But a succubus can do that to you.

"This is a guy that has had a lot of success at the major league level as an everyday player," Gillick said after his signing in February. “He's a professional who will add some much-needed depth to our infield and provide a strong right-handed bat off our bench."

The “strong bat” hit .111. A “professional” would have spent more time working through his struggles; David Dellucci sure did. Then again, he didn’t lose interest in playing, which Bozo so much admitted in his retirement statement, saying he had “other interests” to pursue. No family problems. No injury problems. No drug problems – “other interests.” Wow. Adios, asshole.

Meanwhile, a joyful Chris Coste was called up from the minors to replace this zombie. Coste deserved the job anyhow after clobbering pitchers in spring training and proving his versatility in the field. Interestingly enough, he is as old as Bozo, has no desire to retire, and is getting his first chance in The Bigs as a 33-year-old rookie. I’m sure he’s seen “Rocky” three dozen times. Even if he hasn’t, his ethic is appreciated here in Philly, because unlike his predecessor, he hasn’t given up.

The Fightless became the Fightins’ again today in celebration of the roster improvement, pounding Red Sox youngsters Lenny DiNardo and “One Eye” Abe Alavarez (so he’s blind in one eye – who cares?) into submission for eight runs in five innings.

Bobby Abreu, who The Old Lady had nicknamed “Corky” a few years back because of his resemblance to Sammy Sosa (don’t forget he used corked bats as well as steroids) finally had a big day, knocking in five runs with a single, double and homer, the kind of day a third-hole hitter should have more often.

Incredibly, Corky hadn’t homered in more than a month – that’s 81 at-bats – and the five RBIs matched the second-best total of his career. The first six hitters in the lineup had two or more hits except Baby Girl Burrell, and even his ground single to the hole came in the middle of a five-hit run that plated four runs in the third inning.

Corey Lidle had a solid six-inning showing, and after Abreu’s three-run homer made it 8-3, even the bullpen couldn’t fuck it up entirely. Ryan Franklin, Arthur Rhodes and Flash Gordon finished it up, and only Rhodes allowed the Sox to score. It ended 10-5.

Chollie refrained from using Ryan Madson, and you got to think maybe Gillick has told him it wouldn’t be a bad idea to retire the misguided mop-up man to the minors. After all, Bedtime for Bozo sure inspired a win. Team Psycho plays better when they’re a little scared.

Beat Into Submission By Bean-Eating Marlins

2006-05-21T00:10:00.000-04:00

In case you missed watching Florida dominate your Phillies like an inmate terrifying his bitch during lockdown, Major League Baseball brings you interleague play against the Red Sox, a club in which three former Marlins now ply their craft, crack their whip and beat the Fightless into submission.

Most Willing Supplicant Jimmy “Jelly Roll” Rollins, a measly 1-for-5 tonight featuring three one-pitch at-bats, supplemented those premature ejaculations with two lazy errors that led to six Boston runs, almost single-handedly accounting for the 8-4 loss with his ineptitude.

Contributing to his own demise was Brett Myers, easily suffering from attention deficit disorder, because after Jelly Roll’s first miscue he lost his mind and forgot he was pitching well through five innings, matching Beantown starter and ex-Marlin Josh Beckett pitch-for-pitch. Without the error, he would have needed to retire Beckett to keep his good run going. Instead, he wound up facing ten hitters after Beckett flared a single to right, scoring the lucky runner from second. Clearly rattled, he unraveled and was trailing 4-1 entering the seventh inning.

In that inning, Myers coaxed a ground ball out against ex-Marlin Alex Gonzalez (the one with a pulse), but the mighty Beckett stepped to the plate next and homered, the first dinger by a Boston pitcher since 1972. After Myers tossed up a triple to leadoff hitter Kevin Youkilis, Chollie had seen enough, so he brought in Ryan Madson to fuck up again. Madson got out of the inning, but he had allowed the runner on third to score. Success!

Further accentuating that players named Alex Gonzalez can, in fact, hit balls out of the infield, Boston’s version clocked a two-run long ball off Aaron Fultz in the top of the eighth. He had been hitless in his last 17 at-bats. In the bottom of the inning, as Myers scrunched up his thick Leonid Brezhnev eyebrows watching the game’s conclusion, Ryan Howard smacked a three-run homer to offer a flicker of hope. Beckett was lifted for lunatic Julian Tavarez. It was 8-4, and anything could happen.

After striking out Baby Girl Burrell, Tavarez allowed Shane Victorino and Dingdong David Bell to reach on singles. After David Dellucci flied out to advance the fleet-footed Victorino to third, Chollie played his ass-in-the-hole, deciding to send up our Bozo Gonzalez with two outs and runners on the corners, proving he had lost interest in winning the game. He bounced a weak grounder to third on a 2-0 pitch to end the threat, and a loud chorus of boos rained down upon the clueless “Gonzo,” the fans no doubt tortured at the sight of a .111 hitter still considered a competent major leaguer – and the late-inning “threat” off the bench at that.

A Brief Intermission

2006-05-20T18:27:00.000-04:00

Last night I decided to watch the game at the corner tap room. Shortly after the game began, there was a shooting across the street. I checked to see if any of the Phillies had come up to Tacony to suidice.

No such luck.

My Bartender was happy to see me, as I rarely go out, but when I do, I go all out, an approach the Fightins' should contemplate. Lately, I've been pondering staying in bed the whole day to help the Phillies get out of their slump. Maybe I shoud have tried that last night. It was another underwhelming loss against the overexposed Red Sox, boring to watch, and I was thankful the Old Lady came to check up on me after she heard the gunshots.

She was "bringing her A game," as the euphemism goes, and she proved a far more entertaining option than watching Team Psycho continue their slide. Before I knew it, it was time to go home, where she told me she wants a Shane Victorino shirt because he's cute.

It's so much easier for chicks to be fans.

Failure To Consummate

2006-05-18T17:39:00.000-04:00

Well, Ryan Madson is now 2-for-2 when it comes to fucking up Cole Hamels’ starts.

I’m wondering how long Chollie’s going to stick with the formerly reliable reliever, considering he hasn’t pitched well in a year and a half. Even if the torment was adjudged to continue, why send him in today to get smoked by the Brewers’ high-octane lineup with a recent history of late-inning charges?

Madson ain’t the only one with an inability to close. Team Psycho was back to its routine of erectile dysfunction, leaving 17 runners on base and batting a pathetic 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position, rallies killed by such luminaries as the limp-wristed Alex Gonzalez, who left FIVE – count ‘em, FIVE – runners stranded in today’s rubber game in Beer City. Hopefully, his balls aren’t shrinking as quickly as his .088 batting average. It’s as revolting to watch this guy try to hit as it might be watching one of those obese Milwaukee women in the stands lift a hanging flank to reveal her fuzzpocket.

We saw this lame fuck start in today's 5-4 loss because Jelly Roll has been hitting .191 since April 13. Chollie figures he needs more at-bats to work out of this ungodly funk, but so does Rollins – better near the bottom of the lineup where he slotted Bozo Gonzo. I’ll take a .241 hitter over Bozo’s insanely deteriorating skills any day. Come to think of it, I’ll take the third-best regular hitter for average on this team over either of them. His name is David Fucking Bell, and he went 3-for-3 today with an RBI to lift his number to .279. It’s nice to see Dingdong hit so capably, but check back in a month or so when he’s resting his achy-breaky back.

The Second Coming of Christ continued well today, though. Hamels, while not turning water into wine yet, had a good aura about him through five full innings. He worked out of trouble in the fifth inning when Chase Utley saved two runs with a diving stop of a sharp grounder up the middle. With one out in the sixth and a runner on, he allowed a homer to the immortal Chad Moeller, bringing the Brewers to within one, 4-3. After Hamels issued a sloppy walk, Chollie brought in his Judas to betray him, losing the lead without getting his pieces of silver.

Jelly Roll entered the game in the eighth after Dingdong’s third hit and meekly popped out foul on the fourth pitch. It was over before bong-smoking reliever Derrick Turnbow, a reincarnation of a cigar store Indian, put Team Unconsummated on a bus to the airport, flying back to Philly to face the Red Sox with 25 sacks of blue balls.

Ain't Nobody Gonna Steal This Jelly Roll

2006-05-18T00:31:00.000-04:00

Jelly Roll has been congealing for a month like the brown tacky blood on a bed sheet stained with an old mother’s menses.

They prefer to call him “JRoll,” of course, but our leadoff hitter’s bat has been about as useful as the familiar confection after that distracting 38-game hitting streak ended. You know it’s bad when his numbers are nearly identical to Sal Fasano’s.

Coming into last night’s game against the Brewers, the gelatinous JRoll was hitting .242 with a .306 on base percentage so far. When you consider The Italian Sausage has a better batting average (a catcherish .245) and an accompanying .302 OBP, somebody here ain’t earning the keys to his Bentley.

So as our intrepid, gooey Jelly Roll -- who never saw a first pitch he didn’t like, and walks about as often as the streets get cleaned in Calcutta – dug in tonight to face somebody named Dave Bush, how could you expect anything less than the ordinary disappointment?

We got the regular treatment from Jelly Roll. He didn’t work deep counts. He couldn’t get a runner in scoring position home with two outs. He had a quick at-bat that barely allowed Scared Shitless Gavin Floyd to sit down. The Phils already had left ten runners on who were ready and able to score before JRoll got his chance for redemption in the ninth. He succeeded in keeping an impressive comeback going after a David Fucking Bell walk – yes, Jelly Smelly, they still issue walks - cueballing a hit past Milwaukee’s defensively-challenged second baseman. And he did score a run as part of the three-run inning in which the Phils tied the game, 7-7, before Arthur Rhodes fell apart in the bottom of the inning and lost it.

But dear fans, commiserate with me, would you? Imagine if our sticky shortstop hadn’t taken an 0-for-4 collar before the fifth at-bat? You’d have to say if the leadoff man gets on base, things happen. Runs score. Pitchers pitch from the stretch. But do we get that from Jelly Roll? Shit, Rollins, for all his “speed,” has managed only six steals this season because you can’t steal first. And, as I pointed out, The Italian Sausage sees that base on a more frequent basis per at-bat than our shortstop. Fat Prince Fielder, who looks as if he will eat himself out of the league like his obese Pops, has three thefts himself. And, oh my faithful Philly legions, have you noticed that the guy who’s supposed to get on base has but 13 walks – one-third the amount as Bobby “Corky” Abreu, who refuses to bat leadoff?

One theory for his hitting hard-headedness is the wasted time he spent with MC Hammer, who was the Oakland A’s batboy who parlayed his wood-fetching skills into a vaguely successful hip-hop career. Maybe something is still making him jumpy. I don’t care what the fuck it is, but Chollie the Manager would be advised to take Hammer’s lyrics to heart and bust a move on Jelly Roll to the eighth slot in the lineup. He’s reminding me more of the puny Larry Bowa years of the early 70s, a slick-fielding gnat who had no stick until he met Dave Cash. I’ll tell you one thing he could do: Bunt. Yet the good ole boys in the booth laugh it off every time Smelly Jelly swings away, another at-bat down the drain, and quickly.

They know it. I know it. And so does the blind lady holding this on her scales: Fasano .269, Jelly Roll .241.

Shot And A Beer

2006-05-16T23:58:00.000-04:00

Drunk on beer, Ryan Franklin served up fat pitches to The Brew Crew tonight in the ninth inning, threw the ball in a staggered direction beyond third base after fielding a hard-hit bunt, and allowed the game-winning run to score. For an encore, he ran into the clubhouse to wash down his butchery, swilling the rest of Rich Dubee’s moonshine.

It’s not anticipated he’ll make curfew.

Franklin, denuded of his steroid power after getting busted injecting the junk last season, hasn’t been all that bad this season. That is, until he saw all those breweries.

Tacony Lou was worried about the Phils in Milwaukee. Not that the team used to be owned (at least on paper) by the Man Who Stole the World Series, Bud Selig, but because The Fightins’ have a bunch of players with the drinking gene. Led by Baby Girl Burrell, who never saw a nightclub he didn’t like, the party boys looked like they were swinging at the “middle ball” tonight (to paraphrase Mickey Mantle). The difference is Mantle hit the middle ball.

Chris Capuano, a lefthanded late-bloomer who has recovered from Tommy John surgery to become a pitcher with a plan, held the offensively struggling Phils to six hits and two runs through seven innings. His bravo performance was matched by Corey Lidle, who recovered from the hangover and red cheeks of an ass-whipping by the Mets last Wednesday and allowed two runs and one less hit than his counterpart.

There have been heroic comebacks lately, and Phillies faithful had to have been believin’ again after watching Baby Girl nail a runner at the plate in the bottom of the eighth, with a little help by a roadblock named Sal Fasano. The burly catcher, who is seeing more time crouching and fingering his genitalia behind the plate, was inspired by The Italian Sausage’s seventh inning victory in The Sausage Race, which used to be the highlight of a game at the Brewer's home until they stopped sucking as bad as their alleged previous owner.

“I’m so proud of Italian Sausage,” Fasano moaned after the game as he dried a tear and sucked on a beer. “People think it’s a silly piece of fucking meat, but it’s more than that to me.”

How’s that Sal?

“It’s how my wife calls me, you know, when she’s hungry.”

Sentimentalities aside, Chollie wasn’t too jovial about a 3-2 loss which saw David Dellucci strand Shane Victorino at third base after a two-out triple in the ninth inning against Brewer closer Derrick Turnbow, an obvious bong-smoker. Not only would a hit have given the Phils the lead, it would have meant a pinch-hitter for Franklin, the next scheduled batter. So the question remains: Why wasn’t Franklin lifted anyhow?

“Hot Dog should have won the damn race,” Chollie told me after the game. “Arthur Rhodes is a hot dog eater, and that wudda been a sign from da sperits. That Eye-talian Link, he’s a greaseball, evil-smellin’ and such.”

One Sick Mother

2006-05-14T18:44:00.000-04:00

Team Vomit upchucked their way to another delightful victory today, thanks to illin’ Ryan Howard’s two long homers to center, his Mother’s Day gift to a team that couldn’t find any other way to score against the Reds, a barnyard of bastards raised on a jackal’s teat.

Howard, who loaded up on a pre-game plate of poisoned spaghetti and chili sauce, a Cincinnati favorite, showed Backwoods Chollie the pink puke he had disgorged on his uniform just before game time, and the manager decided he wasn’t sick enough.

“I’ll make ya sick,” Chollie told our young phenom. “You’re gonna be watching Alex Gonzalez replace you. If that doesn’t turn yer stomach, ain’t nothing will.”

“Gonzo” didn’t disappoint those expecting failure, going 0-for-3 to lower his sickening batting average to .103. After watching the rest of the team get shut out on three hits by the queasily-talented Brandon Claussen, Howard wiped the chunks off the pink ribbon on his shirt and declared he was ready to end this nonsense in the top of the eighth inning. The Phils were behind, 1-0, and he pinch hit for hurler Brett Myers, who was looking at a loss after allowing just one run and four hits, an ailing proposition.

Howard, unlike the rest of the fairies who were swinging pink bats for their Mommies, waggled his black stick and unloaded with the first of his two dingers to tie the game. The Reds threatened in the bottom half of the inning, and Ken Griffey jerked himself off in front of all the Mothers after lofting a long fly ball to right, watching the ball arc as he did last night, but again, it stayed in the park. Surely, the more observant of the Cincinnati faithful wished he had saved the masturbation for the trainer’s room, because his antics fooled his teammates on the basepaths, who strayed far from their respective stations expecting a homer. The ball was caught by rightfielder Chris Roberson, who nearly doubled up the closest Reds runner on first.

Howard was the one who got to admire his next hit, as he single-handedly won the game with his second shot over Griffey’s head and beyond the center field wall. Maybe Junior will go blind one day admiring his own spunk, but he got a good look at The Howitzer’s power before he finally turned his team's lights out.

The icing on his Mother’s Day cake of crow came when Griffey lined out to Howard to end the game. He watched all of that one from the batter’s box as well, because it was in Our Hero’s glove in a millisecond, and the Fightins’ celebration was not a bit premature.

Ach Du Lieber!

2006-05-13T22:05:00.000-04:00

Jon Lieber puked on the plane to Cincinnati, and all I know is that somebody better keep him sick.

Poison his chicken with salmonella, inject a virus into his wienerschnitzel – anything to keep him pitching like he did tonight against the Reds. He may have been hurling chunks today, but what he was throwing at the Reds was perfect for nearly seven innings, allowing only two hits before being lifted with one out to go in the ninth.

“I got sick off Mama’s possum pie when I was a boy and hit three homers with throw-up down my jersey,” said Backwoods Chollie after the 2-0 shutout. “Gettin’ sick ain’t nothing. When I played in Japan, I ate fish sperm and chucked ‘fore everah game.”

Gastronomic memories aside, Chollie had to be delighted with Herr Lieber’s masterpiece, as the sinkerballer goosestepped through the Reds’ vaunted lineup like a Kruppstahl tank through the Polish cavalry. With pinpoint precision, he set down the first 20 batters before Ubermensch Adam Dunn shot a ball through the middle for a single. The other hit should never have happened. Ninth-inning defensive replacement David Dellucci fucked up a fly ball to left field off the bat of Ken Griffey, allowing it to ride over his glove like an errant meatball. Fortunately, Griffey was so self-consumed he thought he was watching a homerun. Because of his masturbatory blunder, he was held to a single.

Lieber was done, and Arthur Rhodes came in to allow another hit to make it slightly interesting, but the threat was futile. The Phils posted their second shutout of the week, and continue their impressive resurrection in the NL East, heaving and leaving vomit all the while.

Chollie Fucks With Jesus

2006-05-12T23:51:00.000-04:00

Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

His name is Cole Hamels, and Our Savior of the Pitching Staff made his debut against a hard-hitting Reds lineup and allowed but one hit – begging the question why Chollie yanked him after five innings, his evangel incomplete, his lead quickly squandered by Ryan Madson, his predecessor in the rotation.

While he did allow five walks, the Reds couldn’t do much with his preternaturally mature repertoire, which tonight consisted mostly of fastballs and changeups. He made superstar Ken Griffey look like silly-swinging Endy Chavez, and worked out of the small trouble the walks created. Griffey accounted for two of Hamels’ seven strikeouts. But he was pulled with a 2-0 lead.

So why Chollie? Why take the kid out after 92 pitches?

“He’s too skinny and queer-looking,” ole Backwoods told me after the game. “And I kinda feel guilty about Madson. I figgered that boy needed another whuppin’ to feel loved. My plan worked.”

Fortunately, the two instant taters Madson served up didn’t cost us the game – but did cost Hamels credit for the win - otherwise, Rich Dubee’s moonshine jug in the clubhouse would have been drained before the road trip got into the second game. The Fightins’ rebounded, and keyed by Shane Victorino’s four-hit night, the Phils put the game away after Madson’s butchery to win 8-4.

Madson wasn’t alone in the slaughterhouse. Blabbing Idiot Chris Wheeler massacred the language like an axe murderer, describing Reds second baseman Ryan Freel as “a dirtball-type player,” obviously a remark directed at his hygiene and general comportment.

Philosophizing as only he can, Wheeler and Ninny Foil Scott Graham bandied niceties about like Mr. Rogers and his Mongoloid Concubine.

“Every pitch makes someone happy and someone sad,” Wheeler crooned, to which Graham remarked that he should begin copyrighting such witticisms. Wheeler would have none of that, insisting, “I’m not much for sayings here getting published.”

Guess again, moron.

With the volume lowered, the Phils mounted their comeback in the later innings, and after impressive efforts by Ryan Franklin and Arthur Rhodes, the table was set for…Julio Santana?

Santana, looking fattened for the feast, proceeded to yield three walks, which led to two runs. Flash Gordon, who should show Santana how to lose the 30 pounds of blubber around his waist, was called in to preserve the 8-4 victory.

Hamels performed true to his billing. The Phils have a long history of fucking things up, but hopefully with Pat Gillick calling the shots, he’ll stay around long enough to buy a mansion in Gladwyne and put a half dozen Cy Young Awards on the mantelpiece despite Chollie forcing him to carry the cross of his mismanaging ways as he evokes the Second Coming of Steve Carlton.

A Bucket Of Blood For Pretty Boy Floyd

2006-05-11T23:42:00.000-04:00

Every time Gavin Floyd takes a look at the long scar on Aaron Rowand’s face, or his crooked nose, he should remember how lucky he was tonight to get credit for a rain-shortened two-hit shutout win.

Without Rowand’s kamikazee act into the metal fence in center, he’d have dug a three-run hole in the first inning -- certain to have fucked up his scrambled psyche, since he’s been acting like a pussy most of his career and I would expect nothing less after he walked the bases loaded.

While Floyd can breathe easy tonight without tasting his own blood, his centerfielder will no doubt be fitted for a protective mask so he can play tomorrow in Cole Hamel’s debut. Rowand, whose body type evokes Ron “The Penguin” Cey yet plays baseball as if it were hockey, was brought to Philly to show our pretty boys exactly what playing to win means.

If our young wimps didn’t get the message tonight, Rowand should break their noses.

“Hardnosed” is a tired expression in sports, and in Rowand’s case, his snout would be broken even if it were made of diamond after robbing Xavier Nady of extra bases with that catch. Blood gushed from his beak like water out of a faucet. I’m surprised a team owner didn’t try to bottle it for ten bucks a pop at the concessions. Better, somebody should have gotten a bucket and made the rest of the roster drink it.

In all fairness, it seemed to galvanize the team. As Voice of God Harry Kalas said, the proboscis-smashing catch “really had to give Gavin Floyd a lift,” and judging by his next four innings of work, it did. He went on to allow only two doubles, worked out of those minor threats, and better, worked a perfect and quick fifth inning before the flood gates opened up as he walked back to the dugout. A home run by Chase Utley in the bottom of the first was all the Phils really needed, and after a lengthy rain delay, the game was declared officially over, and the Fightins’ won their second of the three-game series, 2-0.

They are a mere three games behind the enemy after their gutless start, and our new personal Jesus Christ turns water into wine tomorrow night.

At Least They Lost The Fight

2006-05-11T13:21:00.000-04:00

My wretched habit of timing my ballpark visits to coincide with magnanimous losses continued yesterday, my desolation so yawning it prohibited a more timely entry. I had to sleep this one off.

It is the Day After a 13-4 thrashing at the hands of the Mets; after three $25 tickets; one $10 parking pass; two $6.50 beers (the Old Lady had one); one $4.50 nachos and cheese; one $20 powder blue throwback hat (again, the Old Lady); and two $3.50 BOTTLED WATERS for fuck’s sake. Oh, I forgot the $10 media guide, easily the most useful and concretely enduring purchase of the night. Now I have Chris Wheeler’s career statistics.

There were intangibles. I furthered my son’s Education in Philadelphia Fandom, instructing him in the proper booing technique, which he had ample opportunity to practice. Accompanying the Family Tacony were two old friends, My Co-Defendant and The Promoter, experts in the aforementioned art, as well as such arcane practices as creating clever chants to charm the crowd.

The Promoter was particularly clever, intoning a sarcastic “Bring in Ham-els” sing-song that elicited guffaws from Phillies fans (they were charmed) and Mets leeches (smelly and repugnant) who were in the process of watching the New Yorkers put the game away early, scoring ten runs in three innings, the six-run third frame taking a gargantuan 32 minutes.

The Promoter wasn’t exactly kidding about his invocation. Cole Hamels, the newly-promoted pitcher he references, likely would not be as horrid as Corey Lidle and Geoff Geary were last night. Probably would have played a better first base, too, as Ryan Howard got busy putting on a display of defensive incompetence, letting one ball roll through his legs (Bill Buckner, were you there in spirit?) and blowing a sure double play by errantly tossing the ball over Jimmy Rollins head as if it were covered in lye.

Team Psycho was back.

Meanwhile, the Family and I got to watch future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine settle in and no-hit the Phils before Pat Burrell hit a two-run homer in the fourth to shrink the lead to 10-2. But it was already over. By then, the true entertainment value of our $136 outing was re-directed to Section 304 in the upper deck, as young hooligans wearing Mets merchandise unwisely had puffed out their feathers and challenged the angry Phillies faithful. All attention turned to this inter-city conflict, and from what I can tell, Philly out-hit New York by a 3-1 ratio. It was a pyrrhic victory, but a win nonetheless.

All of us stayed for the entire nine-inning debacle – true fans never leave a game before it’s finished – and vaguely hoped that alpaca fucker Billy Wagner would get a little work. Not a chance.

We're Your Daddy, Mets Fans

2006-05-09T23:22:00.000-04:00

It must be tough living in New Brunswick and being a Mets fan.

There you are, stuck between Philly and New York, and there’s no Number 7 train to take you to Queens. You have to pump your SUV with $75 worth of gas, drive through the sludgy turnpike traffic, pay two tolls, then go through Manhattan just to get stuck in another traffic jam all the way to Flushing. For all that hassle, you get to sit in Shea’s concrete shit circle full of other Mets fans.

What a drag.

You know what’s gotta be worse, though? Trudging all the way down the turnpike to Philly (I’m sure most of Metsdom don’t know the shortcut) just to watch your team blow a come-from-behind tie with no baserunners on and two outs in the ninth inning tonight.

That must be fucking miserable!

This is the first of nine parties slated for the season in Philly, which is a fuck of a lot easier to deal with than the Tower of Babel that Queens has become. Maybe that's why so many New Yorkers are moving here, yet continue to wear the enemy's regalia. Like an unwanted fraternity student at a dive bar, Mets fans – the definition of front-runners -- come to wreak havoc inside our ballpark, and have for years (they’re the ones who left the urine stink at the Vet), especially when their team is on top. More often than not, their team is on top as ours is bottoming out. This year is different. It will be a fight to the finish with them, and, making it even more interesting, Billy Wagner is their fireman. (More on him tomorrow.)

An infusion of cable cash has allowed the team to buy a contender at the same time that the Phils are still competitive but, not unlike a drunk frat boy, our Fightins’ have trouble consummating. This problem afflicts the Mets, too, but the fans are obnoxious, arrogant assholes anyhow. They have an entitled air about them that makes you want to puke your Yeungling down their backs. They also feel they have a license to come to South Philly, piss in the parking lot and start fights, which sometimes are more entertaining than the games when the combatants all have the same haircut.

This game itself was worth the price of admission. Future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez, who will never have to work a day in his life when he’s through thanks to New York Money, pitched well but was touched for three runs in the bottom of the second inning, and that’s all most thought the Phils would need considering Brett Myers was better. He allowed but a two-run homer in the eighth to Xavier Nady, then recovered to retire the side and leave it to Flash Gordon in the ninth after the Phils tagged on an insurance run to make it 4-2.

Flash almost cost us the game, surrendering a two-run homer to Carlos Delgado, who the Mets scooped up in the Marlins fire sale because they shit gold bricks and Jeffrey Loria is anal retentive.

Tied in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and diminishing expectations, David Dellucci tripled to keep hope alive. The Fish Lady of 9th Street evidently was smiling upon our paisano yesterday. Then, the energy vortex opened up, as a walk and a hit batter loaded them up for Bobby Abreu. The Home Run Derby champ, fraught with insecurity during a week-long slump, hit a little dribbler to Mets pitcher Aaron Heilman, who made a complete ass out of himself throwing it away at first.

The Phils won, 5-4, and that’s nine straight and counting. The cars with the Jersey license plates took the long way home. Hopefully, they didn't buy any real estate before they left the city.

Baseball Breaks Out On Bond's TV Show

2006-05-08T03:49:00.000-04:00

If you think that a baseball game televised by ESPN that includes Barry Bonds transforms into anything less than a remorseless lovefest about Barry Bonds you are not paying attention. I did, I took good notes, and it’s all Bonds, all the time.

And why not? Besides carrying Shithead’s bucket-of-tears reality show, ESPN employs corpulent play-by-play blob Jon Miller, the Giants radio broadcaster, so he’s given to gab about His Cattle Fattener ceaselessly. Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, a Bay Area native, sits dutifully at his side and needs no egging on to effuse about The Shrunken Scrotum.

“Anybody (pursuing time-honored records) is going to be treated like this,” Morgan said of the high-decibel heckling the nasty cheater gets in every city except San Francisco. “It’s not a lot of joy, and that’s a shame,” he continued, soiling the memory of the un-enhanced abilities of Henry Aaron and Roger Maris.

Morgan further articulated his Bonds Apologia in response to the not obscene and family-friendly sign directly above the top edge of the outfield wall close to where he plays left field. It read: “Ruth Did It With Hot Dogs And Beer, Aaron Did It With Class, How Did You Do It?” Morgan, clearly not able to think rationally, opined, “Beer was illegal back then, wasn’t it?” Miller, never wanting to offend Little Joe’s feelings – the hallmark of our cowardly, pussy age – mumbled something about Prohibition, and how he couldn’t remember that far back, and thanks for telling him, a-hem, a-hem.

The Phillies could pile on 90 runs and win 19 straight before these guys would report upon the game, because The Barry Game was the feature show, pimpled and all. And when he hit Number 713 tonight in the sixth inning, they spent the rest of the game replaying it, leaving the replay of the homer Aaron Rowand hit waiting until after the next message from ESPN’s Suzy Kolber, who looks more like an impala than the namesake car she hawks for Chevy. (Does she ever wear a dress?)

The homer was just one of four the Phils laid on the Giants tonight, and again they started early, posting an early 3-0 lead on a Bobby Abreu RBI single and a Pat Burrell two-run shot to dead centerfield. It was 5-1 by the end of the second frame, and the ball game was effectively over. Jon Lieber was mostly in control through seven innings, and, besides yielding 713 to Bonds, was charged with three other runs on five other hits. The final score was 9-5.

The Phils’ eight-game winning streak is the team’s longest since 1991. Pumpkin Head was still a relatively-svelte veteran in his sixth season. By the end of that year, he had only 142 homers. After 20 seasons, at that rate, he’d have had only 472 for his career. Then Bob Dylan turned him on to marijuana, and the music changed forever.

Speaking of smoking dope, Miller sure has uttered some confused and just plain wrong things in his time. As the Orioles were about to put down the Phils in the 1983 World Series, he described the stadium as being in “muted silence,” as in “Can you mute that silence, please!” Tonight, he tried to convince the outside world that the ball Bonds hit in the stands “would have went over the hat of Billy Penn in downtown Philly at the end of Broad Street.” I get the hyperbole, Miller. And I’ll even forgive the omission that Billy Penn’s hat is atop City Hall (outsiders aren’t expected to know where the Mayor’s Office is – why would they want to visit a crime scene?) But the bit about Broad Street ending there makes me want to give him a tour of North Philly, treat him to the barbeque at Erie Avenue, then make him walk back to John Street’s bugged office so we can see who won the pool on how many times he got rolled.

Bonds had a chance to tie Ruth in the eighth inning, but thankfully, it wasn’t going to happen in Philly. I wish Aaron Fultz could be loaned to every Giants’ opponent this season when Bonds bats. He struck him out for the second time in the series, and made him look like a woman – not that his genitalia doesn’t already.

He was through for the night, and through in Philly forever, because these teams will not meet in the playoffs, and Bonds will never get that World Series victory. The Giants aren’t good enough. Maybe knowing this, he sat in the dugout, poking his shaven head like a schizophrenic vagrant.

“He seems to be berating himself,” Miller answered, as the fans left early. The game was over for all of them except the real baseball players.