This Year is Different

Usually around this time of year I'm sulking. The Phillies normally end their season miserably... then the hope that I've put in the Eagles gets crushed by their disappointing finish.

This year is different.

As usual, the Eagles blew it. They lost a game they were supposed to win... which was typical of their play this season. In fact, I chose to stay home to watch the game instead of joining the 200+ Philly fans that congregate at a local bar downtown because I knew the Eagles were gonna lose. All season they won the games there were supposed to lose [like last week against the Giants] and lost or tied the games they were supposed to win. I'm pretty sure McNabb gets lazy when he thinks he's gonna win. It's horrible.

Another year... another NFC Championship game... and another loss. In the past 8 years, the Eagles have made that far 5 times... winning only ONCE before losing in the Super Bowl. 5/8. That's roughly 63% of the time. And they lost 4/5 times. Pitiful.

Anyway... the point. This year is different... because the Phillies won the World Series. No one was singing the Eagles' fight song at the end of the Phil's season this year. The stadium didn't empty early the last month of the season. I wasn't depressed. And no one was saying, "But they looked so good on paper!" or "I guess there's always next season." The Phillies... unlike the Eagles... finally lived up to their potential.

It's January 19th... and we've got a long way to go before Pitchers and Catchers Reporting Day...

Curt Schilling

I was just watching the MLB network for the first time ever. They had a program about the 2004 World Series. I don't see how anyone could watch that or any other 2004 postseason highlight reel and deny that Curt Schilling is a Hall Of Famer. Just based on what he did and which team he did it for, who he did it against and where he did it. Phenominal.

Merry Christmas, Indeed!

This year, my family and I not only celebrated Christmas together... we almost ceremoniously celebrated the World Series VICTORY by our beloved Philadelphia Phillies.

We wore our team shirts.

We discussed intricate details of the Series.

We played with the confetti picked up by my aunt and uncle from the parade down Broad Street as we watched the parade on DVD.

We watched Part II of Game 5... with Harry Kalas's radio broadcast of the pitch-by-pitch.

And... we stepped back in time to watch the last several innings of a game we went to in 1989. September 17th, to be exact. We've watched the VHS taped version of the game dozens of times since then and we still talk about that game amongst each other. We were along the 3rd base line for the first game of a double-header against the Cardinals. The Phils had a ton of hits, but couldn't put them together to score runs... so with a 5-5 tie game, we went into extra innings. The Eagles were playing the Redskins at the same time [in Washington] and the Vet aired the game on the stadium TVs. The crowd erupted as the Eagles did something miraculous and pulled off a win. Minutes [and maybe even seconds] later, John Kruk stepped up to the plate and blasted a 12th inning walk-off home run.

That small window of time is memorialized in my brain forever as one of my all-time favorite sports memories. Well... it was my very favorite... until the whole winning a World Series thing came along. The '89 game isn't irrelevant to my life... but it certainly plays second fiddle now to October 2008.

So now we're World Champs. Philly fans have been let down for eons, it seems... so to finally have something to REALLY cheer about for our city is still a little bit surreal. Getting to celebrate with my family certainly helped... but it's still hard to believe that they actually did it.

The Philadelphia Phillies actually won a World Series. A team from Philly actually won a championship!

Merry Christmas to me!!

Red Sox Uniforms

I was gonna write about free agents, so I'll do that quickly. The Yankees are trying to sign Manny. They couldn't beat him. Might as well sign him I guess to go with Sabathia and Burnett. The Red Sox, on the other hand are trying to sign Teixeira. Talk on the radio is what will happen to Mike Lowell, who would be the odd man out with Youk moving over to third. I guess you'd have to trade him (while obviously eating a HUGE portion of his contract). I'll keep you posted.

Now, I've been very busy with finals and grading, so I just went to redsox.com for the first time in I don't remember how long. I almost threw up cause I read on the Sox are introducing new uniforms next year. New away, new alternate home, new alternate away. Thankfully they're keeping the home jerseys.

Here's what I think of each, and I'm looking at them for the first time as I type. These are my first impressions.
Road Jersey
The new road jersey. This is ok. I calmed down a lot after seeing it. I thought It harkens back to the days of my youth, if you consider preschool and earlier to be youth. They look similiar to the jerseys the team wore in the 80s. The major differences are the new jerseys have a font similiar to what they used the past 15 years or so, whereas the 80s jerseys looked like they were done in time new Roman. Also, the old 80s jerseys never had names on the back. These ones do. Reviewing it more, the color scheme reminds me of the New York road jerseys. That's not a good thing. I miss the old (new? 1990s version) ones already. I don't mind the red sox they have on the sleave. Can we comprimise and just put that on the road uniforms from last year?

Alternate Road Jersey
First of all, since when do the Red Sox do alternate road jerseys? That's something crappy teams like Seattle do to get more revinue. Oh yeah...revinue. That's what this is all about. Second of all, this is atricious. It's like one of those kids you see dressed up as a ball player on Halloween wearing nothing that comes close to resembling the actual uniform. In all honesty, I don't mind the jersey that much. I kind of like it better than the red alternates they've been wearing. Those things kind of hurt your eyes to look at. If that were the only change, I'd be quite happy. But the hat. That's disgusting. When I was a young boy, around 8 or 9, I use to think other teams like the Marlins had hats that were so much cooler than the Red Sox. I can't find an old Marlin hat online, but it was teal with a black bill and had the F and the fish and it looked awesome. So anyway, I spent many an hour trying to design an awesome Red Sox hat, and came to the realization, this is as good as it gets. This hat was worn by all the great Red Sox, and all their fans. This has all the history and tradition. Look at that beautiful B. Just look at it. No other way to describe it. It's beautiful. Now look at the alternate hat. It's hideous. It looks like something a little kid would wear. I'm 100% against it.

New Alternate Home Jersey.
I don't know why I wasted time looking for an image of the old alternate, cause this "new" alternate looks the same to me at first glance.

New Logo
They're also changing the logo. I miss the old one, with the Sox insider the baseball and "BOSTON" up top and "RED SOX" down bottom. The new logo is the hanging Sox on the hat. Not much of a change, I agree, but still, what I grew up with was better.

Off Season Stuff Part 1

10 minutes ago (plus or minus), the Red Sox traded Coco Crisp. The fact he was traded probably surprises no one. The fact it took this long after the 2007 World Series probably surprises quite a few of us.

Crisp wasn't happy when Ellsbury took his job in October 2007 and didn't like the idea of the roles reversing this past season, which they pretty much did. Interestingly enough, Ellsbury lost his job to Crisp in the post season this year. I guess that was just a two week thing though and Ellsbury, unquestionably the centerfielder of the future, is also the centerfielder of right now.

The Red Sox sent Crisp to the 1985 World Champions, getting reliever Ramon Ramirez in exchange. I've never heard of him, but I like that at first glance he seems reliable with a 2.64 ERA in 71 appearences.

Also, according to redsox.com, the Sox and the Yankees are fighting over A.J. Burnett. Why? He's been in the division 3 years and pretty much did nothing substantial. He won 18 games this year, which I notice is the only the third time in his career. The Second was 2005, another free agent year for him. The 1st was 2002. I don't know if he was up for arbitration at the end of that season, but I wouldn't be surprised. Curt Schilling once said Burnett might have the best stuff of anyone in the American League. That might be true, he's just never healthy enough to prove it.

The Yankees want Lowe, Sabathia, and Burnett, the Red Sox only apparently are going after Burnett.

Aside from questioning Burnett, I'd also question why the Yanks would want D-Lowe. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything he did, getting a save in the clincher of the 2003 ALDS and winning the clinching games of the 2004 ALDS, 2004 ALCS, and 2004 World Series.
But 2004 was in a contract year when he pitched so crappily he was removed from the rotation for the post season. He got the ALDS win cause the game went to extras and he was the long man. He got the ALCS win cause Wakefield volunteered to pitch as a long reliever in the game 3 blow out and gave up his game 4 start, which the team gave to Lowe. Wakefield also volunteered to pitch long relief in game 5 if necessary (it was) and gave up his possible game 7 start, which Lowe got. Based on the ALCS, Francona let him start in the World Series. Did he pitch well in the post season? Yeah. I give him all the credit in the world for it, but I wouldn't want him back. I think physically, Lowe's a great pitcher. He's got talent. But as soon as anything goes wrong, be it an error by the second baseman, or the umpire making a bad call he loses it mentally and immediately gives up 3 runs. I haven't seen him much as a Dodger (if at all...) so maybe he's fixed that. Perhaps someone who watches the NL with regularity could comment.

Lastly, Dustin Pedroia won the AL MVP. Congratulations to him. Mo Vaughn was the last Red Sox in 1995, and that helped heal the wounds I had as a 10 year old after watching the Red Sox get swept by Cleveland out of the first round of the playoffs that year. No offense to Dustin, but that trick doesn't do it for me anymore.

Congratulations Phillies

The Phillies are World Champions.  Cory Matthews would be proud! 

In all seriousness, congratulations Laura.  Enjoy the title.

This is now the third year in a row one of our teams won the World Series.  You know what that means?  

Pittsburgh Pirates: 2009 World Series Champions.  

You heard it here first.

Pitching Strategy

So what do you do tonight?  Do you go with a brand new starter to pitch 3 or 4 innings?  Or do you use your bullpen like you would  in any other World Series game in the late innings.

I think Tampa Bay's gotta start with Balfour, cause otherwise they lose him for the night.  After that, I guess it depends on situation.  Philly on the other hand has more options.  For all intensive purposes, Hamels is on 2 days rest, and he's also leading off the inning.  I haven't seen him play too often, but looking at his stats it doesn't seem like he's a great hitter.  I might just go with a starter for the whole game...however long that lasts.  Moyer pitched well in game four.  You think he could give you three or four shut out innings tonight Laura?

!!!!!!

I have SO many things to say... but no time to write. Here's a reminder for myself:

Mad River
horrible officiating
Bud Selig
rain delay and game suspension
Joe Buck
Cole Hamels
Joe Blanton
cow bells
RISP
home wins vs away wins
home field advantage
instant replay
the lack of Manny
my baseball
late nights
the real deal

I can't wait to write about this stuff... soon...

2008 World Series: Game One

PHILS!!!!!!!!!!!

The pitching was absolutely outstanding... with Hamels, Madson, and Lidge performing brilliantly.

Utley... what can I say... the offensive man of the game.

Sexy Werth... dreamy as ever with his run scored and two doubles. [Sorry... that's just what I call him.]

The Flying Hawaiian... the new Mr. October?

Pedro and Ruiz... filling in for Rollins and Howard who're doing squat.

My concern: something needs to be done about these stranded runners. Guys are getting on base only to get left there. With Cole pitching it was okay cuz he's gonna keep the other team from scoring... but what about the rest of the week...

Overall... GREAT start Phillies!!!!!!!!

The Tampa Bay Rays are American League Champions

I just wrote the title of this post.  There are a lot of thoughts running through my mind.  Francona shoulda pinched hit for Varitek in the seventh with two runners on and in the ninth when he was the tying run.  Coco Crisp should have slid right at the bag instead of trying to take out Bartlett.  The umpire shouldn't have called J.D. Drew out on the worst check swing call I've ever seen.  But it doesn't matter what should have happened.  It matters what did.

There are lots of people in Tampa Bay right now.  I've seen hundreds of games there on television, and in the games I see, it's usually 50% of capacity and 95% of those people are wearing Red Sox gear.  Now the place is packed with people wearing Rays gear crying and hugging each other like they've waited 95 years to see this.  Congratulations to the four or five hundred diehards.  You deserve something like this and I hope you got to see it along with the tens of thousands of people there who couldn't name a Devil Ray to save their life.  Though to their credit they've been pretty supportive the past 2 months or so when they finally figured out they had a baseball team.  Maybe they've been confused the past 10 years.  I've never been down there, but I hear the stadium is in St. Petersburg, not Tampa Bay.  Maybe they've been searching and just found the place.  Hopefully this will be the start of something there.  That would be good for baseball.  And who knows... maybe next year these people will come back and they'll actually sell out a regular season game or two.

Last year I posted that the Cleveland Indians became irrelevant the night they lost game 7.  I stand by that.  The 2008 Boston Red Sox are now irrelevant.  If I've counted right, the Red Sox have been in playoff series deciding games 8 times in my life.  They're 5-3.  All three loses were on the road, and in all three loses the Red Sox scored first.  Nothing's sweeter than winning those games.  Nothing hurt more then losing the first 2.  This one stings a lot less.  I guess two World Series titles lessens the blow. 

 

I really thought the Sox were gonna win as Pedroia's homer cleared the wall.  He had a great post season.  A lot like Todd Walker in 2003.  No one remembers that though, cause the Red Sox lost in the ALCS.  No one will remember Pedroia's heroics this year either.  Oh well.  You can't win them all.

So that means it's Tampa Bay vs Philadelphia in the World Series.  I haven't decided who I'm rooting for yet.  I probably won't decide till it actually starts and I see it.  I can't watch a game without rooting for someone.  Teams I wanted to win in the LCS went 0-2, so I don't expect either team to start lobbying for my support any time soon.  

I don't know anymore

I watched game 5 at Jose's house. Funny story. He has cable but no TV. I have a TV but no cable, so for the entire month of October my television's been at his house. We both thought the Rays were American League Champions last night. I was complaining about Manny not being there, couting down the defensive outs Tampa needed. Jose was complaining about Varitek being worthless and about Ortiz not bunting down the third base line even though he was 1 for the series and Tampa's third baseman was playing within an arm's reach of secondbase the entire time. He also began wondering about offseason moves, getting rid of Varitek, Timlin and Byrd. We disagreed about Wakefield. I said he's done, Jose said he's too valuable as a fifth starter. I guess when you put the 5th starter label on him he still has value, but that's besides the point. Around this time Tampa score two runs off Papelbon to make it 7-0. They were inherited runners so they don't count against his ERA. But that doesn't matter. They still got to Papelbon. I was debating going home, cause I have lots of work I could be doing. But I stuck it out, figuring it'd be the last I saw the Sox till 2009.

In the home half of the 7th seventh Lowrie hit a fly ball we thought was gone but instead hit off the wall in right. We agreed it was irrelevant, though it would have been nice to get rid of the shut out. Down 7-0 in the seventh inning to a team that has beaten you badly in your own ball park 2 nights in a row, when your entire offense is more or less in a slump, you don't usually come back. Then they came back to tie it. And J.D. Drew, who had a monster game 6 against Cleveland last year, won the game in the 9th on a single. He also hit a two run homer in the comeback.

Beckett's going in game 6. I'm against this. I'd have Lester pitch 6 and then the entire team in 7. Beckett's been mediocre to put it nicely, so I have a feeling he's gonna need all the help he can get. But then what do I know? I thought this series was over when Tampa Bay took a 2 run lead before a defensive out had been recorded.

It's been 15 years...

... and my favorite team is finally going back to the World Series.

The last several years have been particularly difficult for Philadelphia fans. For YEARS... the team would come up just a few games short of getting into the playoffs. Last year they finally broke it open and got in... only to get swept in the NLDS.

They'd been building a team... but just couldn't pull it together. It looks like they finally did it. [At least to be called the best in the NL... which... as we all know, is perpetually not quite as good as the AL... so we'll see what happens next week. More on that later.]

I was two the last time the Phillies won the World Series in 1980... so I obviously don't remember that. I was five in 1983 when the Phils lost to the Orioles... so I don't remember that, either.

But I remember 1993 like it was yesterday. I loved that group of guys... long hair and all: Darren [the hottie] "Dutch" Daulton, John Kurk, Dave Hollins, Mickey Morandini, Kevin Stocker, Milt Thompson, Jim Eisenreich, Mariano Duncan, Wes Chamberlin, Pete "Inky" Incaviglia, Curt Schilling, Terry Mulholland, Tommy Greene, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, and of course... my all-time favorite baseball player... #4... centerfielder Lenny "Nails" Dykstra.

I remember the Hollins home run and the last out of the game where we finally beat the loatheable Atlanta Braves for the NL pennant. I remember the champagne spraying and watching all the interviews. I remember the elation.

And I remember the game 6 9th inning 3-run home run by Joe Carter off of the Wild Thing that broke my heart and crushed my dreams.

The Phils had a chance to come back the following year... except for the dumb strike that halted the season. Oh- and then Dykstra and Daulton got into a car wreck that for all intents and purposes ended their careers. For the next decade, Philadelphia fans became accustomed to singing the Eagles fight song at the end of Phillies games... showing their displeasure with the Phils and that they might as well move on to football.

Since the days of Jim Fregosi, the Phillies suffered through the leadership of Terry Francona and Larry "Anger Management" Bowa before acquiring Charlie Manual in 2005. Uncle Chollie, as he's known affectionately. Whoever would've thought that HE would be the guy to pull the players together and take them to a championship series? I giggle every time he "runs" out to mound. It makes me happy. : )

So that brings us to today. The losing-est team in sports... the Philadelphia Phillies... back in the World Series.

I cried.

Like I said... I don't have great expectations for the series... regardless of who we're playing. [At this point, Dice-K just gave up a 2-run home run in the top of the 1st.] Of course, I didn't think we'd beat the Dodgers, either since they entered the NLCS so hot. But they found ways to win... and when the top of the order wasn't doing it... Brett Myers got three hits... Matt Stairs came in and blasted a monster homer. There were heroes like Cole Hamels and Shane Victorino... but everyone contributed in some way on some day. It was a team-effort.

Can they do it again? Can they take the next five days off and come back and be up to par to compete for the title? I guess we'll see.

For the time being... I'm just gonna soak up being a Philadelphia Phillies fan.