Philadelphia Phillies’ Best Chance of Winning: Keeping It Together

If a team ever needed a break from a sport, the Philadelphia Phillies are right up there in first position. This disastrous half season of woeful injuries and substandard play have many fans wanting to rebuild and drop the All-Stars that helped build the pennant-winning machine. After the heartbreak of last October, coupled with the poor performances at home, I understand the sentiment. But we can’t. We just can’t give up that easily.

We cannot let the All-Star break be the end of Charlie Manuel and Cole Hamels’ tenures with the Phillies. The Phillies in the past few years have prided themselves on having one of the strongest starting rotations. Regardless of how this year plays out, all the pitchers will still be pitching for the next three years. Cole will be pitching for the next 10 years. It is imperative that the only move the Phillies make is to sign Cole Hamels and restore the faith that the organization is dedicated to winning championships through pitching.

The boos for Charlie Manuel down at the stadium are classless. The manager has had little to work with in the bullpen and it might be a slight miracle that this team actually won 37 games. According to the USA Today’s list of team salaries, the Phillies have sat around $65 million due to injuries to Halladay, Lee, Utley and Howard.

Looking at the list, that would put them right next to the St. Louis Cardinals at about 10^th on the list. The relief pitching has hurt the Phillies bad in April and June, and in May, the bats went silent. The luck and pluck of the past years has seem to run dry, but changing Manuel would say they are giving up on this nucleus of a winner. A winner he brought to this town.

The Phillies have some time before they have to rebuild. The players are in their early 30s and Halladay is their oldest pitcher. All the talk about the Phillies’ age and being past their prime is ridiculous. The oldest player is Placido Polanco at 36. He may have to be replaced, but if the rest of the team comes back healthy, the Phillies still have a chance to win another World Series in the next three years.

The Phillies are playing with a lack of confidence. They are a winning team and for the past few years they’ve carried that winning strut along with the belief that they could win. Losing the last nine of 11 games shows how confidence can slip so quickly. If the front office decided to sell an essential piece, like Victorino or Hamels, then the whole team will fold like a house of cards. Play out the season and give the team a chance.

I am not ready to give up the dream of walking down Broad Street with the Phillies in the next three years. I waited 28 years for 2008 and I am not ready to rebuild. This team is solid in every position except for left field. They have the freedom to experiment. If everyone stays healthy, this team is good enough to get back into the wild-card race and end up 10 games above .500.

All we need is a little faith in the team that made this city a winner again. Cole must stay. Manuel must stay. Victorino, Lee and Holiday must stay. The team needs to begin again in Colorado on Friday. They will need to play great ball together to get to next year. If not, the house will fall and we will have no hope for a parade soon.

You can follow James Dugan on facebook and on Twitter @jamesduganlb. Purchase his new book through Amazon What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into 2008 Season of the World Champions Philadelphia Phillies

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What Baseball Teaches: Pat “The Bat” Burrell Comes Home to Stay

Pat Burrell will officially retire as a Philadelphia Phillie. The Phillies made it official last week and I am ambivalent about it, just as I was to Pat the Bat during his long tenure with the team.

He was here during the best of our times. Some may say he brought the championship to us with his hit in the second half of the ultimate game. He was here doing our lowest times, even chasing the rats at the old Vet stadium, 28 games behind first place.

No player has seen more venom, and some adulation, than Burrell, and no player withstood the psychotic nature of Philadelphia’s passionate fans with as much stoicism.

In this collection of poems in What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into the 2008 Season of the World Champions Philadelphia Phillies, Pat Burrell is celebrated and maligned, but always treated with the respect earned by a player who has become an adopted son of the city.

What baseball teaches is that if you stay long enough and swing hard enough, regardless of the failures, we will be family. It does not hurt that he was at his best against the Mets. Welcome back, Pat, but only for one day.

This poem is for you.

 

Game 153

Phillies at Atlanta

 

He has been here.

Been booed.

Been cheered.

Been booed some more.

 

He swings

in giant sweeps—

A magician with wand and hat.

All or nothing relationship

with the ball.

 

Few could hit a homer

with such grace

and certainty—

As if he, long ago,

fell for the music

of the collision

between ball and bat.

 

His air was detachment—

as if he knew it was a game

and liked playing

even when he struggled.

 

Games upon games

he swings

in great sweeps and stayed.

 

He is the player I know the best,

killer against the Mets,

and connected tonight for the win.

 

You can follow James Dugan on Facebook and on Twitter @jamesduganlb. Purchase his new book through Amazon What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into 2008 Season of the World Champions Philadelphia Phillies

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The Phillies Demise: On an Almost Perfect Autumn Night for Baseball

 

I waited all season for last night’s game. It was a game that was almost perfect. I know Phillies fans are disappointed, but baseball is a game of slightness.  The baseball gods decreed that this was not the time for this gargantuan pitching staff and mammoth batting power to lift the level of the game to Olympian status.

But it was almost perfect, and if any Phillies game had a more unsatisfied ending, for the players and fans, it happened on an almost perfect Autumn night.

Baseball has as many visages as Vishnu. It is a complex game of pressured nuances in a simple format of pastoral delight. Last night, it was my game. It had the pitching that was impressive. It had the pressure of time being counted down. It had the hopeful swings of all might that would that would shake faiths.

It had the tragic ending of Goliath falling while Israelites jumped in unreal victory. It was nothing short of what I expect in baseball: dramatic tragedy played on the stage.

The pitching was stellar. Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter displayed their skills of control and attack in making batters and runners disappear. Roy Halladay’s bravado torn open in the first and his unwillingness to concede in the eighth. Carpenter’s smile in the ninth. It had shortstop Rafael Furcal’s diving play erasing certain hope.

It had Chase Utley running freely only to be magically slung out with a rock. It had a shot off the pitcher that unluckily danced to Nick Punto. It had long drive off the bat of Raul Ibanez with two men on that floated high in the air with every hope of reclamation falling just short of the fence. It had a pitch that Chase Utley crushed to a foot away from ninth-inning ecstasy.

Finally, it had Ryan Howard swinging for the fences at 3-0 because walks do not create legends and his crippling collapse at the end. The drama of 27 outs played out in nine scenes that ended the immortal run of a divine season, revealing only the pain and tears of human actors.

The game was a palpable drama of unreality created by bad luck, a quick strike, and ennui of frustrated batmen who could find no more holes for dreams. The team that would do anything to win, did. The team that could win everything, lost.

There is nothing but unrest until the smells of Spring return and our bats are exhumed from a premature slumber. The ballpark stands silent; there are no more actors on the stage. We want one more inning of Summer. We are left with an adage: no matter how hard you swing, gravity will bring all human endeavors back to earth.

Howard’s Achilles’ tendon will heal, but he will always be Achilles, as men are who swing so hard. It is not easy to accept Winter’s coming especially when Fall was cut so short and the harvest is enough to survive and hope for next year, but not abundant joy like we had hoped. But we are human and understand loss.

On an almost perfect Autumn night, we learned that endings are always tragic and Winter is when our Gods come crashing down to earth revealing they were nothing more than humans after all.

Now we wait for Spring.          

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Jimmy Rollins’ Moral Dilemma: Win the World Series or Stay in Philadelphia

As the rain falls in New York, there is time to think about the team that will actually win the World Series: the Philadelphia Phillies. With 7-to-4 odds to win the ring, the champagne is already popping on Broad Street. But all is not roses in this city just 2,400 miles from Pasadena, especially for the native Californian and the beloved shortstop Jimmy Rollins.

He is probably being tortured tonight before the playoffs begin with a moral dilemma: if the Phillies win the World Series he will probably be gone from the only professional team he’s ever suited up for, and if the Phillies lose, he will probably be asked to stay on with an extended contract.

The Phillies are built to win, and Jimmy Rollins was the first piece to this championship team that has become a Goliath in MLB. During his reign in between second and third, the Phillies have gone from being known as the first team to lose 10,000 games to the team who has become a perennial favorite to contend for the Series.

With already five straight division titles and World Series appearances in two out of the last three, the best team may still be in the next couple of years, especially with the emerging John Mayberry and the coming of Hunter Pence. But the all-encompassing question is: Will Jimmy be around for the rest of the good times?

Jimmy Rollins’ stats belie his role as the leader and catalyst of this team. Though his playoff batting average is about 50 points under his regular season, his on-base percentage and slugging is stellar for the pressure of October. Not only that, but an avid Phillies fan has seldom been disappointed by Jimmy’s big hits in crucial moments in the playoffs.

You do remember the 2009 hit against Jonathan Broxton at home. It has been written correctly and ad infinitum that the Phillies will go as far as the pitching, but if any hitter is as important to a parade come November, it will be No. 11.

And there is the crux—Jimmy’s batting average of .270 is just not enough to warrant the long-term deal that he deserves. The Phillies are going to have to feel desperate, and losing the World Series will do just that.

There is no leader on the team like Jimmy Rollins. His experience and bravado to challenge and express his emotions propel the team to reach its potential. The Phillies will be forced to keep this dynamic and quixotic piece of the lineup for continuity, as the fear of getting a new shortstop and lead-off hitter will take time the organization feels it just doesn’t have.

Jimmy Rollins could suffer the same fate as Pat Burrell of the 2008 championship team. Without a whimper, the Phillies parted ways after they won because they had created some breathing room. Jimmy’s moral dilemma is, if he wins the World Series, he will to lose his position on the most desired team in baseball. For Jimmy, if the Phillies win the last game of the year, it will be his last game for the organization he made a winner.

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