I'm Not Gonna Let Bruntlett Take the Brunt of Anti-fans' Wrath

On August 23, Philadelphia Phillies reserve 2nd-baseman Eric Bruntlett executed an unassisted triple play. The fifteenth unassisted triple play in Major League history, this was only the second such defensive lightning bolt to end a game (the other instance occurring in 1927). With the Phils leading the New York Mets 9-6 in the bottom of the 9th, Angel Pagan and Luis Castillo both reached base on errors (including one by Bruntlett, himself, whose miscue cut Philadelphia's lead to 9-7). Then an infield single by Daniel Murphy put runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. With the winning run at the plate, Jeff Francouer ripped a line drive up the middle. But with both runners going on the pitch, Bruntlett, who was dashing to cover 2nd base, found himself in perfect position to snare the sure hit. He quickly stepped on 2nd to double off Castillo, then lunged at the backpedaling Murphy to end the game, leaving a raucous New York crowd in stunned silence.

Two days ago, Mount Drinkmore's Pat directed me to an "Eric Bruntlett Sucks" anti-fan forum that he stumbled upon (http://www.talk-sports.net/mlb/sucks.aspx/Eric_Bruntlett). Although all of the posts predate Bruntlett's unassisted triple play, some are particularly cruel and leave no doubt as to how low these anti-fans regard him.

Sure, in seven seasons as a utility player, Bruntlett has hit a paltry .231. Sure, his fielding percentages at the middle-infield positions are below league norms. Sure, he's barely cracked .200 in two seasons as a Phillie, and fans—rabid for another World Series run—have no tolerance for a player who literally can't hit his weight this year.

Yet the fact remains, Eric Bruntlett anti-fans: Eric Bruntlett is now only one unassisted triple play away from becoming the all-time leader in unassisted triple plays.

Don't you think he's earned a name-change to the "Eric Bruntlett Doesn't Suck That Much" forum?

(Photo of triple play copyright Associated Press.)

Yo! Pedro! Philly's What Your Plaque Should Show

With three Cy Young Awards, five ERA titles, and the highest winning percentage of any 200-game winner of the modern era, Pedro Martinez is a mortal lock for the Hall of Fame. He dominated batters in a Koufaxian run from 1997 to 2003 with a combination of power and finesse that decimated opponents' batting averages. And after a decade of mediocrity, the Boston Red Sox finally began their ascendancy when they acquired Pedro in 1998, culminating in the 2004 World Series championship, the franchise's first in 86 years.

Sure, Martinez's greatest years were spent in Beantown, where he tossed more than half of his career victories and won a bewildering 76% of his decisions. A Red Sox cap is the logical choice for Pedro's Hall of Fame plaque. And yes, Pedro initially achieved superstardom in Montreal, where he snared his first Cy Young Award, set numerous franchise records, and pitched a perfect game for nine innings before surrendering a hit in the 10th. Hence, perhaps a sentimental case can be made for immortalizing him as an Expo. So, although the Baseball Hall of Fame selects the induction plaque's logo "based on where that player makes his most indelible mark," I urge Martinez to choose—and the Hall of Fame to permit—Pedro's plaque to feature a Philadelphia Phillies cap.

After all, for a pitcher whose lowest career winning percentage with a franchise is .582, Martinez now sports a perfect 1.000 for the Fightin' Phils. But more than mere statistics, Martinez should go into the Hall of Fame as a Phillie—even if he never wins another game—because baseball needs to ensure the continuation of scandal and controversy. Our national pastime has seen plenty of ignominy in the last few decades—from the Pete Rose imbroglio to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series to the continuing steroid fiasco. Major League baseball has taken a bigger black eye than Tony Conigliaro thanks to the sordid doings of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Raphael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Miguel Tejada, Jason Giambi, Jose Canseco, Kirk Radomski, Brian McNamee, Bud Selig, and many others.

But these disgraces won't last forever. Baseball has taken steps that have virtually rid the sport of current steroid use, and although steroids has irrevocably distorted the record book, fans seem to have forgiven and forgotten. Baseball needs scandal and controversy—each successive generation thrives on its layer of sludge that sullies baseball's history: the Black Sox, Steve Bartman and Jeffrey Maier, Hall of Fame cronyism, cocaine and amphetamines, the designated hitter, the spitter, interleague play, the 1951 Giants' sign-stealing, 1992's The Babe, and on and on...

What would we fans do without scandal? Take scandal out of baseball and what have you got? A bunch of guys running after a ball hit with a stick—an act dangerously close to that borefest known as golf. So if Pedro Martinez's plaque is mounted in the Hall of Fame Gallery displaying a Phillies cap, a juicy brouhaha is guaranteed circa 2016. And it won't come a moment too soon, sandwiched between the inevitable uproar over robot pinch-runners and the discovery that 600-HR slugger Manny Ramirez had been corking his dreadlocks.

I further suggest that the official language of Pedro's plaque read:

PEDRO JAIME MARTINEZ
Los Angeles, N.L., 1992-1993
Montreal, N.L., 1994-1997
Boston, A.L., 1998-2004
New York, N.L., 2005-2008
Philadelphia, N.L., 2009

A promising pitcher who reached peak late in career, winning a seven-run blowout in Phillies debut. Debut victory for Philadelphia saw him achieve ERA 0.07 less than 46-year-old teammate he replaced. Garnered several major awards and a World Series title earlier in career, but most of the opposing batters had stayed out late the night before or had flu. Brilliant tenure with Phils vaulted team from 1st place to 1st place and made him one of the most beloved figures in Phillies history to wear No. 45. Made as many hits in first game with Philadelphia as he had in seven years with Boston. Debut victory gave Philadelphia 63rd win of season, enabling team to later achieve 64th—a feat impossible without his victory.

(Graphics wizardry courtesy of Mount Drinkmore's Dave.)

Take Me Out to the Cold Rain

Mother Nature spoiled Game 5 of the World Series last night with a chilly downpour from an early nor'easter. Commissioner Bud Selig suspended the game after 5½ innings—marking the first time a World Series contest has ever been suspended. Heavy snow fell in parts of the Philadelphia metropolitan area this morning, and tonight's continuation of Game 5 has already been rescheduled for tomorrow evening.

Whereas Commissioner Selig has seen fit to preserve what little is left of Major League Baseball's integrity—as well as make Philadelphians wait agonizingly for their first major-sports championship in a quarter-century—by not permitting adverse weather to influence a World Series game's outcome, we should remind ourselves that baseball used to be played and administrated by real men. Just look at the photo above: Opening Day, 1911, in Detroit. Blizzard conditions. The White Sox catcher eschews a squat, lest he be buried in drifting snow. Leadoff man Davy Jones' hands are stuck to the bat.* And the umpire needed two days stuffed inside a hot dog cart to be thawed out. Yet the wintry assault couldn't keep Ty Cobb from going 3-for-4 and spiking a vociferous spectator with a flying drop-kick in near-whiteout conditions.

*This is not the Davy Jones of The Monkees—although this Davy Jones did live long enough to hear "Daydream Believer" and subsequently drive himself to the morgue.

Sure, last night's inclement weather caused atrocious playing conditions and perhaps even posed a minor health hazard to thousands of fans stuck in steady, cold rain. I'll admit—I felt awful for the Phillie Phanatic, its fur soaked and matted (and as seen here, too weak to move). As far as I know, the Phanatic is cold-blooded. It may not have survived the rain delay. Has anyone looked into that?

Still, harsh April and October weather was far more common in the old days, before global warming shortened winter's grasp, and the Fall Classic has been no stranger to adverse conditions—such as in the inaugural World Series of 1903, when a snowbound Cy Young of the Boston Americans (a/k/a Red Sox) battled the elements as well as the Pittsburgh Pirates in Game 7 long after heavy snow had chased away most fans. Seen below (with 3rd-baseman Jimmy Collins guarding against the bunt), Young called this "my coldest day in baseball" but still stifled the Pirates for a 7-3 victory.

Bud Selig has to suck it up and let these guys play ball. And I mean literally suck it up—get down on his hands and knees and suck up all the water on the basepaths and mound so that the Phils can bring our city a championship with no more delay. Selig has been highly culpable in Major League Baseball's recent black eyes (ignoring the rise of steroids, ineffectually presiding over the strike that canceled the 1994 World Series, declaring a tie in the 2002 All-Star Game), so the least he can do to clean up baseball is to clean up the baseball diamond.

Assume the position, Bud.

Pretzel's Honor

Before the start of the NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers wrote an article that went beyond poking good-natured fun at the opponent city and took cheap shots at Philadelphia, its culture, and its citizens. An excerpt:

ANGRYVILLE—You spend any time in this dingy city and around these folks, and pit bulls running wild come to mind.

Fine when leashed, but set them free, put a beer in their grubby paws and it's only a matter of time before they're going to go on the attack—both the home team and its opponent feeling the bite.

For Dodgers, it will be handle with care... Dodgers bullpen might not include...It's an angry place, all right, everything old here in Philadelphia, crumbling and in ruin. Even the city's main attraction has a crack in it.

So the prevailing opinion around here is you have to be an obstinate pug to make it in Philly, the football team tough, the hockey team a bunch of bullies and the Phillies rugged competitors like Larry Bowa.

This is supposed to make Philly an intimidating place to play, Bowa telling the media Wednesday that if the Dodgers thought Chicago was bad, "they're going to be in for a rude awakening" playing here.

"It was like a West Coast crowd in Chicago," said Bowa, the Philly in him unable to keep himself from slapping Dodgers fans, and apparently discounting the manner in which Nancy Bea Hefley can whip a Dodgers crowd into a frenzy.

But if a Philly crowd is so intimidating, as Bowa suggests, why do the Phillies lose here so often? A year ago, the Phillies became the first pro sports franchise in North American history to lose 10,000 games.

Philly has always been more bark than championship bite, so why should the Dodgers give a hoot about folks who paint their faces and then have to drive home looking like sad clowns?

The Dodgers have the better team, a destiny date in Boston, and while that might make the folks in Philly miserable, they don't know how to act any differently here.

Simers' article was soon reprinted on a Philadelphia Web site (digphilly.com), whereupon it drew the ire of many locals. It was brought to my attention by a friend, who "commissioned" me to post a suitable response to Simers' boorish snobbery:

T.J. Simers proved as astute a baseball expert as an appreciator of American culture. But that’s to be expected from a resident of a city so uninventive that it essentially named one of its baseball teams the “City of Angels Angels.” Through L.A. smog, he foresaw victory for a squad that won a powderpuff division with a puny 84 wins—and won it solely because the Boston Red Sox virtually gave away Manny Ramirez. Without Boston’s gift, the Dodgers are pipe-dreaming of a .500 season. Even with Manny, they could only eke out a lone win in the NLCS—but that’ll happen when the opponent’s #2 starting pitcher out-RBI’s your catcher and right-fielder combined.

Yes, everything is “old here in Philadelphia, crumbling and in ruin.” We’re practically living in rubble. To hell with the history of the United States—we should raze historical and architectural landmarks like Independence Hall, the Museum of Art, Walnut Street Theater, the marvelously ornate City Hall, and start afresh. Who needs the colonial sublimity of Elfreth’s Alley when we could instead erect soulless abominations like Walt Disney Concert Hall and stare agog at how shiny they are? (Note to Los Angeles City Council: Keep Donald Duck away from the blueprints next time.)

Still, we’re quite proud of our city’s main attraction, crack and all. In the town that gave the New World democracy, our Liberty Bell is the foremost symbol of freedom—the same freedom enjoyed for the last fourteen years by the unending Los Angeles embarrassment known as O.J.

Yes, the Phillies were the first North American team to 10,000 losses. It’s easy to stay off that list when your city doesn’t even have a professional sports team until after World War II. (Our long-departed A’s gave us five World Series titles before Hollywood even started shooting in Technicolor.) And how does the second-largest city in the nation allow not one—but two—NFL teams to abandon it? That’s some fan base Apathenos have there. But then, you can’t spell “blasé” without “LA.” Granted, the Lakers own a glorious history (even if their best player of the last decade is a Philadelphian), but those triumphs are cruelly balanced by the woeful Clippers, one of the poorest-run franchises in American sport.

And why do the Kings even bother?

“Angryville,” as Simers has less-than-cleverly dubbed Philadelphia (conjure that one in six-lane traffic on the way to work, T.J.?), doesn’t require Hollywood glitterati at its games. We’re content living without the starstruck sycophantism of La La Land. And if our favorite sons are as glamour-less as Benjamin Franklin and W.C. Fields, that still beats the Bloods, Crips, and the omni-obnoxious Jack Nicholson. (By the way, six decades after his death, Fields’ films are still more entertaining than ninety-five percent of the drek Hollywood churns out.)

Philadelphians are passionate fans, alright—occasionally too much so—but it was Dodgers fans guilty of acting like classless buffoons in this series, reported in the media and caught on Youtube throwing food, viciously berating, and even spitting at isolated Phillies fans.

You might want to reset the coordinates of Angryville in your GPS, T.J.

Three Ryans a-Vyin'

As of this morning, the top three National League leaders in home runs comprised a trio of Ryans: Philadelphia's Ryan Howard leading the league (and tied with Adam Dunn), followed closely by Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers and Ryan Ludwick of the St. Louis Cardinals.

There were 400 players on the National League's 2008 Opening Day rosters. Of those 400, 16 were named Ryan—and of those 16, six were pitchers. Thus, there are only 10 Ryans realistically capable of leading the league in home runs. Excluding Howard, Braun, and Ludwick, the remaining seven Ryans have, as of this morning, hit a collective total of 40 homers, with no player hitting more than Ryan Doumit's 13—hardly making any of these Ryans a threat to win the home-run crown.

Furthermore, Ryan Howard is the only Ryan ever to win a home-run title (2006) since the inception of the first professional league, in 1871, which illustrates the futility of a Ryan competing with the Hanks, Willies, and Gavvys of the baseball world.

According to namestatistics.com, whose data are derived from the US Census, Ryan is the 49th most common male name in the United States, with only 0.328% of the American male population possessing it. And Ryan currently is near its peak of popularity as a name for newborn American males—it has never appeared anywhere near the top ten most popular names since baseball's inception. Thus, the odds of three Ryans simultaneously leading the league in such a butch category as home runs is—well, my abacus is missing a few pegs, but it's gotta be in the zillions. Statistically, the chances of such an occurrence must be about as infinitesimal as Saving Private Ryan, Saving Ryan's Privates, and Shaving Ryan's Privates finishing 1-2-3 for an Oscar as Best Picture.

Which might have happened had Tom Hanks trumpeted comical war wounds and erotic hair removal as much as he did World War II veterans...

(Graphic wizardry courtesy of Mount Drinkmore's Dave.)

Philadelphia: The City That Loves You to Look Back

We Philadelphians are tortured sports souls. We haven’t known the thrill of a major sports championship since the 76ers won the NBA title in 1983 (and even that is difficult to savor because, well, it’s basketball…). We bemoan our fate whenever our Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, and Sixers break our hearts in their annual ritual of defeat. So desperate for a champion are Philadelphians that we grasp at any homegrown straw—human or animal—in hopes of salving our collective self-esteem: Bernard Hopkins, the 2004 Saint Joseph’s Hawks, Smarty Jones. We are forced to revisit past glory because we enjoy none in the present, our media endlessly regurgitating the long-gone triumphs of the 1980 Phillies, the Broad Street Bullies, and Chuck Bednarik’s 1960 Eagles. Many Philadelphia fans weren’t yet born the last time one of our major sports teams won a title, and most of us exist in a state of perpetual nostalgia to cope with the frustration over today’s teams.

To ease Philadelphians’ suffering, I propose combining our insatiable penchant for living in the past with the in-vogue marketing ploy of “throwback” uniforms and hold a throwback parade for one of our past championship teams. Instead of incessantly booing our athletes and badmouthing them on local call-in radio shows, let’s get the entire city lining Broad Street for the yesteryear glory we haven’t experienced in decades. The city could hold a parade for, say, the pennant-winning 1915 Phillies. Fly in some distant relatives of the original team and dress them in those vintage woolen uniforms. A column of cars parading Grover Cleveland Alexander’s 5th cousin, thrice removed, and a bunch of other anonymous yokels down Broad Street as they wave to two million adoring fans while wondering what the hell they’re doing there is just the shot in the arm Philadelphians need. At City Hall, a descendant of manager Pat Moran can thank the town for its passionate support and then urge continued isolationism in the wake of the Lusitania torpedoing to a confused crowd. The parade could continue up Broad to Lehigh—the former site of Baker Bowl, the 1915 Phillies home—and conclude with the septuagenarian grandchildren of Erskine Mayer and Gavvy Cravath getting checked for gout at the medical center that now stands there.



(Graphic enhancement on banner courtesy of Dave.)