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Know Thy Opening Day Enemy

Frayed Knot Apr 07 2008 09:05 PM

The 47th * and final * Shea home opener sees the 2-3 Mets facing off against some guys from down the pike sporting a 3-4 record after having the 2007 NL East handed to them. The blue & orange locals never trailed in any of their wins so far and never led in any of their losses ... which says something but I'm not bright enough to figure out what. The Phils lost 2 of 3 to the Nationals before splitting 4 with the RedLegs of Sin-City-Natty Philly took 12 of the 19 games between the two teams last year, which is probably not as lopsided as most remember it but that's only because it was first 4-1 Mets and later 7-4 before the Phightin's won the last 8 in a row. New Faces and new places: Pedro Feliz brings his good glove and low-avg/decent power bat (.253/.290/.418 in 2007) in from SF to man 3rd base. Longtime Brewer Geoff Jenkins (how in the name of Bob Barker is he only 33 y/o?!?) arrives to split RF with incumbent Jayson Werth as Shane Victorino shifts over to CF to cover the FA departure of Aaron Rowland. The sometimes good/sometimes not closer Brad Lidge - who was brought in to shove wife-beating Brett Meyer to the rotation - is just off the DL following his spring training knee injury and an off-season trade from Houston. And now let's play follow the bouncing Seanez! ... Newly signed (as in last week) reliever Rudy Seanez arrives in the City of Brotherly Drunks following a path that took him from Cleveland to San Diego to Los Angeles to Atlanta back to San Diego to Texas to Boston to Kansas City to Florida back to San Diego back to Boston back to Los Angeles and now to Philly ... and he's not even lefthanded. The rest of the infield from hell: Ryan Howard, Chase Utley & Jimmy Rollins returns (I guess it's Utley's turn for MVP) as does Pat (it's mandatory here to use the words "Met killer") Burrell in LF and the combo of Carlos Ruiz & Chris Coste catching. Reserves feature 3B/OF Greg Dobbs, the all purpose Eric Bruntlett who spent the last 5 years in Houston, and former Cardinal defensive OF specialist So (what) Taguchi Hot so far in 2008: Utley (.346/.438/.769 - 3 HRs); Burrell (.435/.519/.957 - 3 HRs) Not Hot: Ruiz (3 for 16); Howard (5 for 24 - 1 HR); Victorino (4 for 28) Tuesday - 1:00: Oliver Perez, coming off a great start in Florida, will face the 62 year old Jamie Moyer who have up 6 runs (3 earned) on 9 hits in just 3-2/3 IPs in his only 2008 start Perez started 3 times against the Phils last year going 0-2 including 18 walks in 13 innings!! Wednesday - 7:00: Mike Pelfrey makes his 2008 debut, the results of which will feed either the "he's a bust" or "he's a future star" camps for the next few days. He'll face the Phils version of a 23 y/o 2nd year pitcher Kyle Kendrick (4 ER, 8 hits in 5 IP last week) who beat the Mets in his only previous appearance last season. Pelfrey lost his only start against the Phils in 2007, giving up 3 runs in 5 innings. Thursday - 7:00: John Maine off his bad control outing against the Braves faces 2nd year Phil Adam Eaton who had a lousy 2007 (6-10, 6.29 ERA, 1.63 WhiP) but managed to go 2-0 against the Mets in 4 starts. Maine actually won a game against Philly in 2007 (somebody had to) in 3 starts. So they miss Pedro and Santana while we slide out without seeing Hamels & Myers JC Romero is their only lefty reliever and he keeps company in the pen with rightys Ryan Madson, Clay Condrey, Chad Durbin, Tom Gordon and the newly signed (to his 75th team) Rudy Seanez as they try to get to Lidge Injuries: Mets: Pedro Martinez, "strained" hamstring -- anywhere from 4 weeks to 9 years Moises Alou, hernia -- now running and swinging a bat in the DR, is expected to go to Florida soon for rehab and "baseball activities" ... I love that phrase Ramon Castro, tubbiness -- Is nowhere close to returning Duaner Sanchez, expensive taxi ride -- pitching in A ball, should be ready before April is out Orlando Hernandez, in early stages of fossilizing -- pitched in a rehab assignment Ambiorix Bugos, elbow surgery -- may pitch before the year's out ... or maybe not. Phils: No one of consequence seems to be injured at the moment Ex-Met Kris Benson was signed to a minor league deal but is rehabbing from something that's apparently NOT related to his wife but isn't close to pitching yet

metirish Apr 07 2008 09:07 PM

Nice one , I love it when the team opens up at home in the second week, huge excitement again.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 07 2008 09:31 PM

The Snooze btw mentioned Matt Wise had a sore forearm and might not be all that available (and may have contributed to Willie's smart-but-ultimately-doomed strategy of bringing in Heilman in the 8th on Sunday.

Gwreck Apr 07 2008 09:35 PM

Benson is the closest thing the Phils have to an ex-Met on their roster. We have Wagner, Anderson and Chavez who all served time in Philadelphia. Nice job, had no idea that So-fucking-Taguchi was on the Phillies now. One more reason to dislike them.

Fman99 Apr 07 2008 09:40 PM

Dude, he is so Taguchi he doesn't even know it.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 08 2008 07:34 AM

Now Rubin sez Wise is likely headed to the DL, with Carlos Muniz likel to be called up., Raise your hand if you thought Muniz would be next in line.

Benjamin Grimm Apr 08 2008 07:47 AM

Not me. I don't know who I would have guessed, but I don't think it would have been Muniz. What other choices were there? Other guys who have pitched in relief for the Zephyrs: Collazo, Maldonado, Paulk, Field, Santiago, and McNab. And there's also Stokes, who, had I reviewed the New Orleans roster, probably would have been my guess.

seawolf17 Apr 08 2008 07:50 AM

It might be because Muniz still has options; they might know Wise is a short-term injury, and they want someone they can shuttle up and down without having to pass him through waivers.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 08 2008 07:50 AM

Yup, I'da gone with Stokes. Or Ricardo Rincon, whose been "loaned" to the Mexican league.

metirish Apr 08 2008 07:51 AM

I might have guessed Collazo . I have a memory of Muniz pitching OK for the Mets last season , so did Collazo IIRC.

Valadius Apr 08 2008 08:08 AM

Why the hell did we ship Rincon to the Mexican League?

Benjamin Grimm Apr 08 2008 08:11 AM

He's on loan to a team there. He didn't want to pitch in New Orleans.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 08 2008 08:13 AM

He's Mexican, we have enough guys in AAA, he's a longtime pro who's not about to benefit from instruction, etc etc etc As long as we control his contract I don;t think it matters where he does biz. Think of him as telecommuting.

Triple Dee Apr 08 2008 08:32 AM

What about Padilla? Is he still rehabbing?

Benjamin Grimm Apr 08 2008 08:38 AM

Back to KTE business, here's another perspective on our current (and ongoing) enemy: ="Philadelphia Inquirer"] Psyche scarred? Book blames the '77 Phillies By Frank Fitzpatrick Inquirer Staff Writer It was during the Bartman-Boone-Bambino-Billy Goat postseason of 2003, when it seemed as if the whole world wept for the vanquished Red Sox and Cubs, that Mitch Nathanson got the idea for a book. "I was thinking that we have it much worse," said Nathanson, a lifelong Phillies fan and author of the recently released The Fall of the 1977 Phillies: How a Baseball Team's Collapse Sank a City's Spirit. "The whole nation cries for the Red Sox and Cubs," he said. "Phillies fans cry alone." So Nathanson, an associate professor of legal writing at Villanova's School of Law, set out to chronicle his own baseball pain, using his darkest memory - "Black Friday" - as a reflector. "Black Friday," as all scarred Phillies fans recall, refers to Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on the sparkling afternoon of Oct. 7, 1977. The Phillies and Dodgers were tied, one game apiece, in the series, and Games 4 and 5 were set for Veterans Stadium. But with two outs and no one on base in the ninth inning, the Phils blew the game and eventually the series. Somewhere in the research, however, the academic in Nathanson surfaced. He recognized that it wasn't just his mental state that had been negatively affected by this baseball tragedy, it was the entire city's psyche. The result is a book that, though in carefully footnoted terms, perceptively dissects the always stormy three-sided relationship involving Philadelphia, its fans and its teams, particularly the Phillies. "Philadelphia has seen its reflection in the Phillies more than in any other team or institution," Nathanson wrote, "finding in them support, or blame, for its opinion of itself. . . . While Philadelphians may love the Eagles, they identify with the Phillies." In Nathanson's view, the mid-1970s success of the Phillies created a rare bubble of optimism around the team and city. As the franchise was enjoying its most sustained run of excellence, Philadelphia was alive with a fledgling restaurant renaissance and the before-and-after Bicentennial buzz, developments made all the more pleasant here by New York's much-publicized urban woes. Even the city's notoriously cynical sportswriters had jumped onto the bandwagon. As an example, in 1974, when the arrival of Dave Cash and the maturation of Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski and others sparked the Phils' revival, Bruce Keidan, an Inquirer beat writer who had been beating up the team for years, inserted "Yes, we can!" several times into a story. The 1977 Phils were likely the best in franchise history. They won 101 games. They had power, speed, Steve Carlton, and a remarkably deep bullpen. That's what made Black Friday so maddeningly difficult to fathom. And when that optimistic bubble burst, it affected how Philadelphians felt about their city as well. "We like to think we're rational decision-makers, that we reach conclusions like judges do, issuing a verdict after weighing all the evidence," Nathanson said. "But research shows that's not the case. We usually develop a gut feeling first, and then we rationalize it later. We pick and choose facts that support that. "So when you have these emotional events that hit you on a gut level and change your perception, you start looking for bad things. That's where Black Friday comes in. It points you in that direction." Not long afterward, the MOVE shoot-out took place in Powelton Village. Mayor Frank Rizzo failed a lie-detector test and fell from grace and power. The fiscal and social problems plaguing New York surfaced here. On opening day in 1978, the two-time NL East champion Phillies were booed. By 1979, Penn sociologist E. Digby Baltzell, in his famous Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia, was lamenting the "detractors and losers" so prevalent in his city. For Nathanson, at least, even the great release of the 1980 world championship wasn't enough to get past Black Friday's aftershocks. "I started out to write a baseball book and ended up writing about the culture of Philadelphia," Nathanson said. "I found out that you can't separate the two. Baseball and the culture of this city are intertwined and inseparable." The boyish-faced son of a city planner and a teacher, Nathanson, 42, lives in Springfield, Delaware County, with his wife and two children. He grew up in a Trenton suburb that was split between Philadelphia and New York fans. In writing the book, what struk him most vividly, he said, were the deep roots of Philadelphia's negativity and its related inferiority complex regarding New York. Even in the early 19th century, he noted, residents here began to resent Philadelphia's rather sudden decline as the young nation's political, cultural and financial center. "[The negativity] manifests itself, however, through sports and particularly baseball," he said. "In this way, we retain a link to our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers. In short, it's in our blood, passed down from one generation to the next. . . . It's what makes us uniquely Philadelphian. "When little kids booed Adam Eaton [at the 2008 Phillies opener], they didn't do it because of Eaton's record. They did it because they saw their parents do it, as well as those around them. In this way, all of the frustrations of generations past were passed on to the one emerging. They were inhaling a little bit of the collapse of 1964, Black Friday, and Mitch Williams in the '93 Series, even though they have no actual knowledge of any of them." It's Nathanson's view that the Phillies' long legacy of losing has become, for many here, the symbol of the city's shortcomings. And that's why we're so quick to abuse that team and its players. "[They are] the face of the city's discontent," he wrote. The connection here between fan, team and city is, Nathanson contends, more visceral than in Boston and Chicago, two other towns with painful baseball pasts. "There's a romance about the Red Sox to fans in Boston," he said. "With the Cubs, whatever happens, the fans go to Wrigley, drink beer, and have a good time. For Phillies fans, it's pure raw emotion. And it's not sugarcoated, and it's not overly intellectualized. It's just out there, and it's not pretty. And that's why no one outside this region is ever [tempted to become a Phils fan]. "There's no John Updike writing about us."

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 08 2008 08:54 AM

Wait a minute. Didn't the Phillies win the World Series in 1980? I agree they'd won with a different feel from the homegrowners who were a big part of their mid-70s run, but that happens. The MOVE bombing was in 84 or 85, as I recall it. What a shameful episode in city history that was. Anyway, sounds like that book is a little something of Bronx is Burning only the team doesn't win at the end.

AG/DC Apr 08 2008 09:02 AM

="Valadius"]Why the hell did we ship Rincon to the Mexican League? Someday, Valadius is going to be a boss making a lot of employees miserable, yelling shit like, "WHERE THE FUCK'S MY STAPLER!?"

Benjamin Grimm Apr 08 2008 09:05 AM

I can see that. If I were to make a nickname for him, it might be "The Donald."

SteveJRogers Apr 08 2008 04:06 PM

="John Cougar Lunchbucket"]Wait a minute. Didn't the Phillies win the World Series in 1980? I agree they'd won with a different feel from the homegrowners who were a big part of their mid-70s run, but that happens. The MOVE bombing was in 84 or 85, as I recall it. What a shameful episode in city history that was. Anyway, sounds like that book is a little something of Bronx is Burning only the team doesn't win at the end. I think I'll check that book out. The book You Can't Lose Them All about the 1980 team touches upon it, but only briefly and doesn't really try to explain the reason for the culture of hating in terms of what was going on around Philly during those years. It was kind of depressing though that they mentioned that in 2000 they recreated the parade that the '80 Phillies did and a sparse crowd showed up (I forget the number, but it was less than what a stadium holds). I wonder where getting punked out in 3 straight after toppling the Mets (granted it wasn't like the '69 Mets blowing past the Cubs in September but still) for a "reverse of 1964" ranks in terms of bitterest Philly sport disappointments?