Cliff diving, Philly style

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Mike Shortall

Roy Halladay

Back in December I poked a bit of fun at the hysterics surrounding the fiscal cliff federal budget scenario. It was fun because anyone with a pulse could readily assume that the horrors predicted would be more limited and less painful than predicted by the politicians and media pundits.

But when you start to talk about the ill fortunes of Philadelphia sports teams …

Well, it’s only “fun” until the losses pile up so high that the fans start turning on the hometown stars. Then it gets ugly fast.

The latest bit of Philadelphia Phillies bad news – Roy Halladay‘s shoulder – sent a good number of fans, prodded along by the vultures of local talk radio, searching their basements for the torches and pitchforks.

“It’s Amaro’s fault for bringing in a bunch of old guys!”

“Charlie let them pitch too long into games!”

“Dubee couldn’t coach a Little League pitcher!”

Picture Halladay Phillies road jersey
and hair on fire

Cliff diving for the Philadelphia sports fan usually includes a running start, a full-throated scream, and the lighting afire of whatever hair they have yet to pull out watching Jimmy Rollins’ first-pitch swings or Ryan Howards’ bewilderment with left-handed breaking balls.

Hence there has been talk about a “fire sale” and which players would be the best trade bait ; which potential free agents should be signed or allowed to walk; and whether the team should fire Manuel now or wait until the official funeral in October.

Spare me the drama, please!

In the NL East standings, the Phlailin’s are 5 games out of 1st Place (prior to the San Francisco series) with ONLY 129 games remaining!

A lot can happen in 30 games, let alone 4 times that many. And no team should be in a position at this point of the season where the loss of one pitcher – even a multiple Cy Young Award winner (Halladay: 2003, 2010) – spells doom for a team’s season.

One possibility many fans are missing is the very real prospect that the Phightin’s pitching rotation could actually be STRONGER without the every-five-game struggles of present-day Roy Halladay. With the emergence of Jonathan Pettibone as a promising contributor (at least in the early stages of his first cycle through the National League), it’s not hard to consider the chances that a Tyler Cloyd or an Adam Morgan (Jesse Biddle is not ready.) … could step up and at the very least, improve on the typical 2013 Halladay outing.

Kendrick has a gun!

Certainly one can argue that Kyle Kendrick has demonstrated his credentials for moving up to #3 in the rotational pecking order and contributing significantly. On most MLB teams those 4 and 5-slot rotation pitchers are a toss-up and a prayer. Just how much worse – or better – could a pair of young arms out of the Phillies farm system do?

I’m willing to keep a smile on my face and give the kids a chance!

The real problem, the real frustration is who’s hitting at the plate, not who’s throwing to it. A decent offense can mask a host of pitching problems. The American League makes a living of going “all softball” in its lineups, leaving worries about pitching a distant second … or third.

The Phillies are currently hitting .239 (12th of 15 in NL) with 28 homeruns (9th), an OPS of .675 (14th) and 119 runs (12th). Michael Young is the only regular hitting over .300 (.333). After that, only Ryan Howard is batting over .270 (.272). And despite his less-then-impressive batting average (.250), Domonic Brown is still tied with Chase Utley for the team lead in homeruns (6).

The crux of just how bad the offense is the fact that a team built to hit homeruns is neither hitting homeruns nor hitting for average.

That’s what scares me the most about this season, not the pitching.

Worried? Yes … Ready to give up on the season? That could hardly be further from my mind!

There are still 129 games left … or four times the number of games already played. That’s a long climb for the rest of the National League, just as it will be for the Phils. A lot can happen …

It’s more than enough time for the Phillies’ bats to get their act together; the pitching rotation figured out; and to make a move into the thick of the NL East race.

Or not …

But I’d give second thoughts to launching yourself over the edge of the cliff this soon.

Murder at Citizens Bank Park

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Mike Shortall

The Phillies are killing me! They’re killing a lot of things lately … except of course opposing pitchers.

It’s bad enough the Philadelphia Phillies on most nights look like they couldn’t hit their way out of a wet paper bag. The pain I feel when they make the call to the bullpen at Citizens Bank Park and Chad Durbin answers the phone is becoming unbearable. My angst when men are in scoring position with Ben Revere in the on-deck circle brings on fits of nausea.

I’m might still be a long way from giving up on this season. But the early going has been difficult and frustrating. And yet all of this early season negativity would be manageable if the Phillies would just do one thing for me …

Stop killing The Schmitter!!

What little joy I get from sitting in the freezing cold; watching the Phillies bats make #5 starting pitchers look like Cy Young Award candidates are those two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame …

Oops … Wrong sandwich …

Yes, yes, yes … I get it! At 800+ calories, The Schmitter is only a step away from shooting up an IV bag of pure cholesterol! Any Nanny State Mayor – a la Mr. Nutter or NYC’s Michael Bloomberg – would be tempted to forego their campaigns to outlaw oversized soft drinks if they had a shot of putting a sandwich like The Schmitter out of business.

Perhaps in a fit of civic service, The Phillies have decided to do their dirty work for them.

The McNally’s Tavern creation of steak, fried salami, cheese, onions, tomato and special sauce (There’s ALWAYS special sauce!) stuffed into a kaiser roll is your typical ballpark bacchanal. Yep … 800+ calories posing as The Key to Good Living. It will just be a few less years of living it.

But I’m OK with that, because to me it’s Comfort Food!

Most importantly Comfort Food is crucial when very little of what’s going on in between the white lines on the field is making anyone feel comfortable! I indulge but a few times a year, knowing a steady diet of such bacchanalia is not a recipe for long life.

Went to our first game in our plan last Saturday night (April 20). It was cold. Cliff Lee couldn’t find the plate without hitting a Cardinals’ bat. The Phillies -on the other hand – left their bats in the clubhouse. The spousal unit was cocooned in a Phillies snuggie; and just looking for a reason to bail out for the warmth of the car ride home.

At least my beers weren’t going warm!

When I walk into the Citizens Bank Park, I walk right past the new Schmitter concession and almost threw an aneurism when I saw what had replaced the McNally’s concession beneath the left field escalator. Donuts and fried chicken?!?

When I found out The Schmitter had simply been moved to another concession, a weight the size of Cole Hamels‘ ERA was lifted from my chest!

So after three rather cold and disheartening innings I decide … It’s time! I wander over to see The Schmitter’s new locale and grab a little in-game meal.

My introduction to The Mistake by the Gate!

First off, that smoky flavor that lingers in the air like a wet ashtray is … well … a wet ashtray. The concession gods actually placed one of the best ballpark food concessions right next to the Corral of the Damned! The place where lungs go to die, whether you’re intentionally inhaling or just standing nearby trying to get your Schmitter fix.

Nice move, Phils. I guess an EPA Superfund site wasn’t available?!?

And it gets worse … The new locale appears to lack the work space and productive capacity needed for the Supply Side to meet the Demand Side of the Happiness Equation!

The line was long. It moved way too slowly, especially when the process and its participants seemed disjointed and barely interested. The counter movements were so slow, by the time you were lucky enough to have that $9 sandwich handed over, it was barely warm enough to register as cooked food.

I know by now – after 57 years – that all things change, whether you want them to or not, with no regard for how said change will affect you. Yet you would think ONE THING that by most non-medical measures was good – if not good for you – would remain as reliable as Chase Utley on the base paths.

OK … Bad comparison …

Those damn chicken-stuffed donuts better be good!

Premature evaluation of 2013 Phillies …

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Mike Shortall

Cliff Lee, Master of Plate-tonics in two starts

Written before Monday’s game vs. Cincinnati Reds …

Twelve games … just 12.

The sample size might be too small to draw any significant conclusions; yet the nature of baseball, as the ultimate sport for over-indulgent spectators, demands we over-analyze at every possible moment.

Besides, I was always of the opinion that the first 10 games of the season will give you a sense of what a team looks like in the very early stages, and provides the absolute minimum for filling one’s irresistible desire to play the analyst and per chance sound like a fool. Regardless, here we go …

6-6 … and 4th in the NL East Division … a troubling 5 games out of 1st place already, mainly the result of a very hot start by the re-tooled Atlanta Braves. The Braves have had their way with everyone they have faced this season except for Cliff Lee. The good news is they just smacked around the Washington Nationals, the one team the Phightin’s no doubt also want to knock down a peg or two.

So long as they do so without losing sight of the Braves.

Speaking of Cliff Lee … What a difference a year makes! In 2012, Lee did not see his first W until July! That was partly the result of too many gopherballs (26 HRs in 211 IP) and an ERA north of 6.00 in June, but a general lack of run support was also an issue.

In this early season, Lee has been back to his usual rock-steady self, with 2 Ws in two starts, 14 strikeouts without a single base-on-balls, and a spry 1.08 ERA.

Kendrick with hot Survivor wife, Stephanie

The part of the rotation not named Cole Hamels or Roy Halladay has been without major cause for concern. Lee, Kyle Kendrick and John Lannan have combined for 2.83 ERA (41.3 IP, 13 ER), giving up only 5 walks over 30 strikeouts. Halladay’s struggles are well documented; but Hamels’ starts had been unexpected stressors until his most recent outing against the offense-challenged Miami Marlins. Cole did not get a win despite a good effort because – once again – the Phillies bats were disturbingly quiet. Hopefully Hamels will shed that unsightly 7.56 ERA as the Spring season progresses.

The bullpen has been a Jekyll & Hyde issue altogether. The back-end of the bullpen, including Antonio Bastardo and Phillippe Aumont has been more than adequate. The middle relievers have been anything but relieving, unless you consider relieving the bases of inherited runners somehow a positive trait.

Just wishing Chad Durbin was still with Atlanta …

One suspects the middle relief roles will flesh out in the weeks to come, with Rueben Amaro Jr.‘s unhealthy fascination with Chad Durbin falling by the wayside should the once-again Phillie not get his act together. There are plenty of young, energetic arms at Lehigh Valley and Reading that could do at least as bad a job as Durbin and Raul Valdes should the two be unable to right their respective ships.

The offense’s output has been the biggest source of frustration, especially with men in run scoring position. Michael Young is the only starter hitting over .300 (.347), although Chase Utley has been looking more and more like his old self, leading the team in RBIs and homeruns.

Ben Revere has done a very good job of looking like Jimmy Rollins in the leadoff spot without J.Ro’s homeruns. But he has been stealing bases when he does get on, and his defense has been stellar, even spectacular on occasion.

Domonic Brown has shown his promise, but can he fulfill it this year?

Ryan Howard has been doing a good job of imitating Ben Revere without the speed, as he has yet to homer this season when the games started counting! Domonic Brown and Laynce Nix have picked up some of the slack, but the Big Piece is going to have to start “driving for show” for this team to have any hope of competing into the long, hot days of the upcoming Summer.

With the Braves off to a hot start and the Nationals looking – on paper at least – like a better team than even the Braves, 6-6 might be OK for now; but significant improvement is needed for this season to continue to be worth watching.

Thankfully it’s way, way too early for any knucklehead with a blog to draw any conclusions!

Go, Phillies!

Suing Greg Dobbs

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Mike Shortall

Greg Dobbs launching another assault attempt

Gregory Stuart Dobbs, former Philadelphia Phillies and current Miami Marlin should keep an eye on his mailbox over the next couple of weeks. He will undoubtedly find an unpleasant surprise awaiting him. But before I get into that …

I am proud to announce the end of a personal drought that has run for roughly 48 years! It began when I was about 8. (Might have been 6. It was a LONG time ago …)

That’s when I attended my first Philadelphia Phillies game at venerable Connie Mack Stadium! In all those years, I had NEVER caught a batted ball during game play … or during batting practice … or even as a casual flip by a player into the stands.

You get my drift. Never the chance to smell the processed leather scent of a new ball, to feel the slightly raised stitches or the slick whiteness of the MLB sphere. There was a hole in life … a small hole, but nonetheless …

Connie Mack Stadium: Where it all began

It’s one of those silly things guys who like their sports, who adore the Game of Baseball, are driven to “accomplish”. Just one of those experiences you want to check off the Minor Bucket List.

Most of us pursue our quarry willy-nilly on those occasions when we go to a ballgame and get the chance to sit in The Good Seats … in just the right place in the stadium where the fouls balls will most assuredly fall like manna from the heavens throughout the entire game. Those of us who cherish this quest will deliberately study potential ball flight paths, homeplate proximity, and immediately calculate the odds of a catch as soon as we get to our seats.

Yes, we are a sorry breed.

My personal drought ended on a Saturday evening, June 23, 2012 in the fourth inning of a game at Citizens Bank Park between the hometown Phils and the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Catch will forever go down in Family Lore as a diving, one-hand snag of a screaming line drive into the seats. At least that will be the story I plan to pass down to every one of my grandchildren … eventually. I will have to redefine the meaning of “catch” to include “gaining possession of an object that’s barely moving”. And I might throw in a small child or grandmother saved from a potential cataclysmic head injury.

Me and my elusive quarry, finally captured

But today will be the only time the true story will be told. But first back to my potential lawsuit against Greg Dobbs …

Since the World Championship season of 2008, we have held good ball-potential seats. Section 135 at Citizens Bank Park, just behind third base, halfway down the left field line, 21 rows from the field. We’ve had our share of close calls, including one in 2009 off the bat of the soon-to-be-lighter-in-the-wallet Gregory Stuart Dobbs.

In a game which has faded from memory, Mr. Dobbs assaulted us in our Section 135 seats. His weapon was a screaming line drive foul ball.

As soon as I saw it off the bat, I said to no one in particular, “Uh oh!” (no, not one of my more eloquent observations) The round missile was traveling at roughly the speed of sound and right at my bride’s delicate noggin.

To this day, she insists she would have caught it, had I not stuck my mitt-less mitt in front of her face. But by my calculation, she would still be in a head cast, sipping dinner through a straw.

So I did the gentlemanly thing and knocked her out of the way – gently … kinda – and bravely stuck my hand out to protect my woman … and of course, to see if I could grab that elusive sphere. When the dust settled, the ball was in the possession of a regular Section 135 resident who sits right behind us; I had a knot the size of Placido Polanco’s head growing on my thumb; and the spousal unit was in a tiff because I ruined HER CHANCE to catch one in the teeth!

For years I have lived with the humiliation of missing that Impossible Catch, the shame of ruining Carol’s “big chance” at a Grade III concussion, and the taunts of a coworker who sits a row ahead of us on the same 17-game ticket plan.

The torment finally ended that Saturday night!

Future Hall-of-Fame shortstop, Elliot Johnson (OK, so he’s off to a slow start.) swung at a Kyle Kendrick offering as I sat next to Carol and sipped my chosen adult beverage, a Flying Fish Extra Pale Ale.

As the ball arced tightly toward the population of Section 135, I received a mental text message from that compartment of the brain in charge of Semi-Athletic Endeavors … PUT THE BEER DOWN. As I complied, I thought “Why am I bothering? That ball’s not getting here.”

Sure enough the ball hits three rows ahead of us and about 6 seats to our right. I had stood up just before the ball hit flailing flesh, keenly abiding the next two intra-brain text messages … STAND UP, STUPID and LOOK FOR A REBOUND …

Several people lunged for the possession prized by so many, though it means so little. The ball got through outstretched arms and struck the back of a seat a row or two in front of us, still off to our right.

As I searched for a ricochet, I was stunned to see the ball bounding down our row; seat-back high, clanking off grabbing hands, bouncing off cowering women folk. It struck someone or something and plopped into a seat a row in front and just to the right of my Android-distracted spousal unit. (Later, she would insist she would have had the ball had she not been playing with her phone. Well, at least this time she wouldn’t have needed all that dental work.)

Since I was obediently standing up already, I was in the perfect position to plunge down and grab the valueless trinket. Yet for some reason, I waited for the next rather frantic, emotion-filled brain text that screamed GET IT, YA DOPE!!!

As I swooped down (dismiss all pre-existing concepts of what “swooping” looks like), another gentleman equidistant from the seat on the other side of Carol also lunged down and flailed at the elusive prize. My cat-like movements (consisting of me clawing at the still bouncing ball like a large, slow-moving cat) simply knocked the ball around the seat some more, as I and my competition continued to swat and grab. Finally, I cornered the ball and plucked it from the seat!

I rose triumphant and exhilarated! Displaying my trophy for all The World to see, including that smart ass from work who predicted I would NEVER get my first in-game ball! I was King of the World!

Then Kendrick threw another pitch, and I was just a middle-aged doofus making too much out of corralling a worthless, slightly used baseball.

And that leads me back to Gregory Stuart Dobbs.

I heard that Elizabeth Lloyd and her husband are suing an 11-year-old Little League player in Manchester Township, NJ for $300,000 after allegedly plunking her in the face with a baseball … that might have been traveling 10 miles an hour … while she sat completely oblivious to what was going on around her at a baseball game with pre-teens swinging metal bats and throwing rock hard objects.

I don’t really buy this – that you can hold an 11-year-old accountable for your own lack of attention – but it was inspiring on a much higher financial level! Afterall, if Ms. Lloyd is successful, imagine what I could get from a grown man and well-paid ballplayer – Mr. Dobbs – who was “engaging in inappropriate physical and/or sporting activity” in the presence of 45,000 people!!

In addition, I also lost the “services, society and consortium” of my wife. This was the indisputable result of my thumb injury, which prevented me from completing my “move”, as I prefer The Pinch over The Swirl. For weeks I was reduced to using The Knuckle. It was HORRIBLE! The loss was devastating, insufferable, humiliating, and completely fabricated.

But hey, get me a good lawyer, and I could ~~make~~ take me a fortune!

Greg Dobbs, the bell tolls for thee!