Phillies Spring Training: News and Notes Live from Clearwater

The Phillies headed into the home stretch of spring training Sunday with a tough 7-6 loss to the Boston Red Sox in Clearwater, Fla.  While the result wasn’t what fans would have wanted, the Fightin’s showed some grit in coming back from a 6-0 deficit to tie the game in the eighth before giving up the winning run in the ninth.

How did the Phillies’ key players fare Sunday?  Here is a firsthand account of how the game shaped up at Bright House Field, and how some players with a lot on the line fared.

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Domonic Brown: A Firsthand Look at the Turnaround from Clearwater

Domonic Brown has been tantalizing Phillies fans for several years now.  No one ever denied that he had talent in spades.  He could hit; he had power; and boy, could he run.

But the years would go on, and Brown’s huge potential just wasn’t being realized.  He was called up in 2010 after Shane Victorino was placed on the disabled list, and remained with the team afterwards as a left-handed batter on the bench.

Ruben Amaro admitted several years later that his staying on the bench that season stunted his development.  The next year Brown was favored to win the starting slot vacated by the departing Jayson Werth, but broke his hand in spring training and started the year on the disabled list.  When he came back, he wasn’t able to impress, compelling Amaro to deal a few prospects and start the brief but much-loved Hunter Pence era.

After Pence was traded in last season’s house cleaning, Brown was called up and, with the team not expecting to contend, given a fairly regular place in the lineup.  He didn’t put up numbers, but something about the way he played had caught my eye.  He just seemed to look more like a major leaguer than he had in the previous two seasons.

Still, this spring was going to be huge for Brown.  With the corner outfield spots wide open and presumptive starter Delmon Young out for at least the first two weeks of the season, 2013 seemed to be the last chance for Dom Brown to show the Phillies that he was the player topping so many lists of prospects three years ago.

The results have been delighting fans who once despaired.  Brown is hitting .389 through Saturday’s 13-4 victory against Baltimore at Sarasota, along with seven homers—tied for the MLB spring lead—and 16 RBI.  The transformation in his look that started last year has been completed, and now it just looks like he belongs.

Some Phillies fans are, understandably, a bit skeptical.  Brown has had great springs before and then failed to carry it over into the regular season.  But this year, I think things will be different.

My reasons for this belief are based on two things that I’ve seen about his mechanics that are markedly different than in years past.  First off, his hands are lower and closer to his body this year. This fixes one of the long-time flaws in his hitting: The length of his swing.

Brown’s swing in seasons past has been extraordinarily long, which gave him little margin for error when he committed to a pitch.  He had little ability to adjust mid-swing, leaving him flailing at breaking pitches, while the swing’s length also saw him unable to catch up to good fastballs.

In attendance at Saturday’s game at Orioles camp, I noticed just how different Brown’s swing was this year in the third inning.  With runners on the corners and two outs, Brown was facing Wei-Yin Chen.  Chen threw Brown a good breaking ball, and as Brown loaded up it looked like he was going to be way out in front of the pitch and miss it completely.  Instead, he adjusted mid-swing and shot a grounder up the middle, bringing Jimmy Rollins in to score.

His second big contribution Saturday showed the other big change in his mechanics.  This is partially a product of his hands not having to move as much, but Brown’s lower body is now far more anchored when he is batting.  Gone is the sway and movement that accompanied Brown’s swing in previous years.  This has helped with getting his bat through the hitting zone quicker and has given him a more stable base with which to drive the ball.

And drive the ball he did in the fourth.  With Ryan Howard and Michael Young on base, Brown took a pitch from reliever Jim Johnson deep into left-center field.  There was absolutely no doubt that he had hit his seventh homer of the spring.

I think that Dom Brown has finally taken the steps necessary to break out.  Milt Thompson and Greg Gross have for the last three seasons tried to get the mechanical adjustments Brown needed to become the player he could be to take, but neither were able to do so.  Steve Henderson and Wally Joyner seem to have finally gotten him to take those tweaks to heart, and he looks primed for a breakout year right at the time that the Phillies, strapped for youth and offense, need him to.  There is obviously a season to play, but it looks like 2013 will finally be Brown’s year to shine.

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Phillies Spring Training: An Eye-Witness Take from Clearwater

A lot of questions confronted the Philadelphia Phillies as they headed into spring training.  Would their aging stars bounce back from long stints on the disabled list and regain their effectiveness?  Would those who had avoided the DL be able to avoid Father Time for one more year?  Would youngsters come up and fill voids left by core players departing?

With Opening Day less than two weeks away, the answers to those questions are going to finally start being answered.  Some are already sharpening into focus.

This weekend, my girlfriend and I have jetted down from the New York Metro area to Clearwater, Florida, to soak in some spring matchups.  Here are some eyewitness takes on some of the team’s biggest issues after Friday’s win against the Braves, from the health of men like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley to general news and notes.

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John Mayberry vs. Juan Pierre: Why Big John Must Start for the Phillies

Many people, including myself, looked at John Mayberry Jr this year and saw Jayson Werth circa 2008: the right side of a platoon that would play so well Charlie Manuel would have no choice but to play him every day.

Needless to say, that hasn’t happened—yet. So far this season, he’s hit .226 with no homers and only two RBI. Accompanying those numbers are a whopping 18 strikeouts in 53 at-bats.

On the other hand, his main competition for the starting left field job, Juan Pierre, is hitting .313 with four RBI. Ty Wigginton’s sterling early-season form has also meant fewer starts for Mayberry at first base than originally thought.

As Ryan Howard’s comeback tour finally starts swinging into gear, Mayberry’s best place for playing time will undoubtedly be left. However, manager Charlie Manuel has fallen in love with Pierre and is denying Mayberry the playing time he desperately needs to round into form.

Don’t let the numbers fool you. The Phillies are better served with Mayberry getting the lion’s share of playing time in left. Here are some good reasons why.

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Harry Kalas: A Young Boy’s Version of a Philadelphia Story

Three years ago today, a significant number of Philadelphians cried themselves to sleep.  Ninety-nine miles up I-95, I cried right along with them.

I was born and raised in New York City.  But my father was born and raised on Morris Park Road in the Overbrook section of Philly, and from a very young age, he instilled in me a love of Philadelphia sports.

Of all those sports, baseball—and the Phillies—were my true love.  

The parallels between his love of baseball and my own are fun.  The first ballgame my grandfather took him to was at Connie Mack Stadium, between the Phillies and the Brooklyn Dodgers.  The first game I went to was between the Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium during my family’s brief move to the L.A. area.

As my love of the Phillies grew, so too did my consciousness of the voice that went with them.  The deep baritone of Harry Kalas was something I could only hear when I visited my grandparents in Philly, which, for me, elevated it beyond even the level of reverence it received in Philly.  

It was a precious commodity to me, something to be treasured when I heard it.

I distinctly remember a day in Philly when Kalas was either ill or on some other business and wasn’t calling the Phillies game that day.  My grandfather—who had been crippled by a stroke when I was five and would spend most of his day in the armchair in the living room at his home—looked up at my grandmother, demanding that she put on the game.  

When Nana responded that she just had, he looked at her incredulously and said, “But that’s not Harry Kalas!”  It was a sentiment that was likely shared by many Philadelphians: if it wasn’t Harry, it wasn’t real.

When I was 10 years old, I did a research report in school about baseball (at least, as much of a “research report” as could be expected of a fifth-grader; you know how it was back then).  It was a pretty darn good piece of fifth-grade writing, if I do say so myself.  

In it, it had a brief segment about the time I met Richie Ashburn at Shea Stadium while I was autograph hunting after the game, back when you could do that sort of thing without security guards descending on you.  

It was a great moment.  I’d gotten his autograph, and my dad, who had idolized Richie growing up, had a five-minute conversation with him that was probably one of the most thrilling moments of his life.

Richie died later on that season, and we Phans all know the effect that Whitey’s death had on Kalas.  Ashburn had been his best friend, and he was never truly the same after he passed.  My father, conscious of the relationship between the two, sent Harry a copy of my report, thinking that he’d enjoy the bit about his friend.

A few weeks later, we came home from a family night out and saw a message on our answering machine.  Of all the things we could have been expecting as we hit the playback button, we were certainly not expecting to hear that voice leaving my father a message.

“Tony, this is Harry Kalas…”

We were stunned.  I don’t remember the message exactly, but the gist of it was that he had loved my report, and that he’d love to meet me the next time the Phillies were at Shea.

We were over the moon.  

Several weeks later, we had seats in the Loge level of Shea Stadium.  During the sixth inning—Harry’s inning off—we made our way to the old Diamond Club and were ushered to the corridor leading to the broadcast booths.  

Harry was waiting for us.

After presenting me a ball signed by the entire 2000 team (which I still have, safely in a ball case), he ushered me into the radio booth, where Scott Graham was doing play-by-play for the top of the sixth.  A few batters in, a rookie named Pat Burrell crushed a long home run to left field, the first of many, many home runs he would hit in that ballpark against that team.  

Harry turned to me with a huge smile on his face and said, “Looks like you’re our good luck charm, Sam!”

I stayed in the booth for the rest of the inning before taking a few pictures and saying goodbye.  Burrell hit another homer—a grand slam off Armando Benitez, which started the feud between those two—in the ninth inning, and my dad and I watched the Phillies win in person for the first time in a while.  

It remains one of the best days of my life.

I met Harry several more times over the years.  The next year, he greeted me with a ball signed by rookie and All-Star Jimmy Rollins.  In 2003, when I entered a guest broadcaster contest held by the Mets, I sent him my audition tape, and he sent me a letter back with a wonderful critique.  

Over the years, it got more and more difficult to see him, because of his advancing age, my workload as I went through school and the heightened security at the New York ballparks that accompanied the post-9/11 era.  

The last time I saw him was in the summer of 2007, the year I graduated from high school.  A few months later, we all got to hear him call the Phillies’ remarkable division title—the first time that I could remember the Phils in the playoffs.  A year later, we got to hear something we’d all wanted to hear: Harry calling a Phillies world championship.  

My father and I cried tears of joy that night, and for days afterward, we replayed those words on our computers…

The 0-2 pitch…SWING AND A MISS!  STRUCK HIM OUT!!!  THE PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES ARE 2008 WORLD CHAMPIONS OF BASEBALL!  Brad Lidge does it again, 48 for 48 in save opportunities, and let the city celebrate!!

No one in Philly knew on that cold October night just how bad Harry’s health truly was.  A week into the 2009 season, while he was preparing in the booth for the Phillies’ next game against Washington at Nationals Park, he had a heart attack and passed away.  

It wasn’t just a broadcaster who died that day.  It was the Voice, the beating heart of a city with a long baseball history.

But more important, losing Harry was like each one of us losing one of our best friends.  A friend who would come into our living rooms every night for more than 30 years, bringing with him the greatest gift he could possibly bring—the gift of a night at the ballpark.

I’m sure there are hundreds of stories similar to mine.  But on this anniversary of his death—the first since I’ve been a writer for this site—I felt compelled to share mine.

Please do the same in the comments if you wish.  And let us remember this man we all loved—a man who may be gone, but will never be ‘outta here.

Long live the K.

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Phillies Opening Day Review

After months of having the last image of the Phillies playing competitive baseball being Ryan Howard crumpling to the ground after rupturing his Achilles tendon on the last play of the NLDS loss to St. Louis, the Phillies finally played a game that means something and gave the Phans a chance to create new memories to replace that painful, painful one.

What did today’s 1-0 Opening Day win tell us?  Let’s begin promptly, shall we?

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