We did it!
At 12:16 AM EST on Sunday, July 8, 2007, Wes Helms strikes out swinging on a Manny Corpas pitch, and the Colorado Rockies defeat the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 6-3. Jamie Moyer, the poor soul, is the losing pitcher.
Few situations could have been more fitting for the 10,000th franchise loss: on a horrendous road trip, with a lead surrendered by a bullpen sinking faster than the Lusitania, with an offensive output concentrated entirely on early home runs, to a franchise that has done almost nothing of consequence in its 14 years of existence. The early tease and the subsequent roll-over (in this game as well as Friday night's) were almost poetic. It's as if the team had finally realized their fatalistic mission and set out to dispose of it as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
It would have been better only if Pat Burrell had struck out looking at a fastball on the inside corner to end the game. Otherwise, it's a perfectly obscure ending to a perfectly obscure milestone.
Here's to the next 10,000. Let's hope they sprinkle in a few more W's this time around.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
Do You Recall...Joe Roa?
After I noticed that the Phillies were getting in the habit of recognizing the contributions of players whose time in the red pinstripes was somewhat...underwhelming, I decided to launch my own (hopefully) monthly series on the Phils' post-maroon Rogues' Gallery. Enjoy.
Do You Recall...Joe Roa?
A Google News Search for the term "Joe Roa" turns up only two stories of note, in which both stories use his name as a snide euphemism for the Phillies' institutional lack of quality starting pitching. It's hard to believe, then, that five years ago the man pictured above was the Next Big Thing in the Phillies rotation.
His Phillies statistics--9o 2/3 IP, 4-6 record, 4.47 ERA--proved that he wasn't even the second coming of Robert Person. No, it was Joe's success in the minor leagues that first put him on the radar of Phillies fans.
It's only appropriate that the best picture I found of Joe has him in his Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons uniform. I vividly remember reading the Phils' minor league blurbs in the newspaper during the spring and summer of 2002. One name kept popping up in the single-paragraph recaps--Joe Roa.
To read these tasty little nuggets, you'd think that Joe was the Sandy Koufax of the International League. At first, it was a curiosity--Joe Roa racks up a few wins, goes to 4-0, 5-0, 6-0. Then it started to get serious. When Joe finally got to 10-0, I wondered to myself, "Who is this guy? He sounds fantastic!" By the time he was called up to the Phillies' major league roster, he was 14-0 with a 1.86 ERA.
You could say that there wasn't anywhere to go but down, but it's not as if he was going to light Philly on fire anyway. 2002 was that great season of metaphor for that ever-present Phillies Apathy, where they finished the season at 80-81 because they decided that making up a late-season rainout just wouldn't matter at all. Nope, I believe Joe Roa's destiny was to be the hurler's equivalent to Crash Davis.
The only other thing I remember about Joe also has a cinematic connection: the guy was a dead-ringer for Glenn Close's Alex Forrest character in Fatal Attraction.
First off, I always thought he kind of looked like a pre-op tranny; that is, he looked very feminine yet very masculine at the same time, mostly in the face. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but he had the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen on a ballplayer. His cheeks were in perpetual blush and it seemed like most of the time he had Carrot Top eyebrows.
The second part was this inexplicable vindictive streak that he had. Every time he pitched against an organization that had either traded or released him, he would give interviews saying that he relished the chance to make teams "pay" for not recognizing his prodigious talent. This initially made me uneasy, especially when the Phillies granted Joe his release during the 2003 season and faced him a few months later at San Diego. Before the game, Joe gave his usual spiel about payback.
The result? Joe surrendered 5 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks in 3 1/3 innings in his only start as a Padre.
For his (quite literally) insatiable lust for vengeance, I fondly recall Joe "Fatal Attraction" Roa.
Joe Roa Statistics [Baseball Reference]
Box Score of the "Payback" Game [Baseball Almanac]
Fatal Attraction [IMDb]
Do You Recall...Joe Roa?
A Google News Search for the term "Joe Roa" turns up only two stories of note, in which both stories use his name as a snide euphemism for the Phillies' institutional lack of quality starting pitching. It's hard to believe, then, that five years ago the man pictured above was the Next Big Thing in the Phillies rotation.
His Phillies statistics--9o 2/3 IP, 4-6 record, 4.47 ERA--proved that he wasn't even the second coming of Robert Person. No, it was Joe's success in the minor leagues that first put him on the radar of Phillies fans.
It's only appropriate that the best picture I found of Joe has him in his Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons uniform. I vividly remember reading the Phils' minor league blurbs in the newspaper during the spring and summer of 2002. One name kept popping up in the single-paragraph recaps--Joe Roa.
To read these tasty little nuggets, you'd think that Joe was the Sandy Koufax of the International League. At first, it was a curiosity--Joe Roa racks up a few wins, goes to 4-0, 5-0, 6-0. Then it started to get serious. When Joe finally got to 10-0, I wondered to myself, "Who is this guy? He sounds fantastic!" By the time he was called up to the Phillies' major league roster, he was 14-0 with a 1.86 ERA.
You could say that there wasn't anywhere to go but down, but it's not as if he was going to light Philly on fire anyway. 2002 was that great season of metaphor for that ever-present Phillies Apathy, where they finished the season at 80-81 because they decided that making up a late-season rainout just wouldn't matter at all. Nope, I believe Joe Roa's destiny was to be the hurler's equivalent to Crash Davis.
The only other thing I remember about Joe also has a cinematic connection: the guy was a dead-ringer for Glenn Close's Alex Forrest character in Fatal Attraction.
First off, I always thought he kind of looked like a pre-op tranny; that is, he looked very feminine yet very masculine at the same time, mostly in the face. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but he had the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen on a ballplayer. His cheeks were in perpetual blush and it seemed like most of the time he had Carrot Top eyebrows.
The second part was this inexplicable vindictive streak that he had. Every time he pitched against an organization that had either traded or released him, he would give interviews saying that he relished the chance to make teams "pay" for not recognizing his prodigious talent. This initially made me uneasy, especially when the Phillies granted Joe his release during the 2003 season and faced him a few months later at San Diego. Before the game, Joe gave his usual spiel about payback.
The result? Joe surrendered 5 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks in 3 1/3 innings in his only start as a Padre.
For his (quite literally) insatiable lust for vengeance, I fondly recall Joe "Fatal Attraction" Roa.
Joe Roa Statistics [Baseball Reference]
Box Score of the "Payback" Game [Baseball Almanac]
Fatal Attraction [IMDb]
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
A Dear John Letter From the Phillies to Jose Mesa
Dear Jose,
We might as well just come out and say it: it's not working out between us. Every time we see you, it reminds us too much of the pain you've caused us over the years. It's sad to watch. You still dangle your right arm inches above the ground, leaning in to get the signal, but now it only reminds us of the slow, intolerable atrophy of our once-proud relationship.
We really don't want to have to say this since it's so overused, but--it's not you, it's us. You should have never been here in the first place. We've always attracted the worst sort of luck, and we can never protect our loved ones from these freakish, horrific twists of fate.
Case in point: Carlos Lee was out at first last night. Dead to rights. Ballgame over. But the umpires didn't see it that way and there you were, in the thirteenth inning--one day after your 41-year-old body had struggled through another disappointing relief performance--pitching to a man 17 years your junior. We can almost understand, Jose. If we'd have been up there, we might have thrown a gopher ball too.
We're just got too much pride, Jose. Our initial attraction was based on mutual overachievement, before we discovered that we also shared a great deal in terms of mediocrity. The only difference is that you seen to have completely given up, yet we are soldiering confidently to our 10,000 loss as a franchise. We are romantics, Jose, and "romance" disappeared from your vocabulary a long time ago (along with "strike three").
Please, Jose, remember the good times. Remember those back-to-back 40-save seasons. Your hair was still a rich black color back then, and your goatee (dangling, like your arm, precipitously far away from your body) a ticket into baseball Valhalla. Remember those funny commercials you used to do, pretending "Pat Burrell" was pidgin Spanish for "Studmuffin" and making fun of Travis Lee's Frankenstein-esque demeanor. That dude was always good for a laugh.
You knew this was just a fling for old time's sake, cashing in what little was left of our memories. It was never going to last. We've packed up all your stuff already. Just grab your things and go, Jose. Don't make this more painful than it already is.
Sincerely,
The Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Club
We might as well just come out and say it: it's not working out between us. Every time we see you, it reminds us too much of the pain you've caused us over the years. It's sad to watch. You still dangle your right arm inches above the ground, leaning in to get the signal, but now it only reminds us of the slow, intolerable atrophy of our once-proud relationship.
We really don't want to have to say this since it's so overused, but--it's not you, it's us. You should have never been here in the first place. We've always attracted the worst sort of luck, and we can never protect our loved ones from these freakish, horrific twists of fate.
Case in point: Carlos Lee was out at first last night. Dead to rights. Ballgame over. But the umpires didn't see it that way and there you were, in the thirteenth inning--one day after your 41-year-old body had struggled through another disappointing relief performance--pitching to a man 17 years your junior. We can almost understand, Jose. If we'd have been up there, we might have thrown a gopher ball too.
We're just got too much pride, Jose. Our initial attraction was based on mutual overachievement, before we discovered that we also shared a great deal in terms of mediocrity. The only difference is that you seen to have completely given up, yet we are soldiering confidently to our 10,000 loss as a franchise. We are romantics, Jose, and "romance" disappeared from your vocabulary a long time ago (along with "strike three").
Please, Jose, remember the good times. Remember those back-to-back 40-save seasons. Your hair was still a rich black color back then, and your goatee (dangling, like your arm, precipitously far away from your body) a ticket into baseball Valhalla. Remember those funny commercials you used to do, pretending "Pat Burrell" was pidgin Spanish for "Studmuffin" and making fun of Travis Lee's Frankenstein-esque demeanor. That dude was always good for a laugh.
You knew this was just a fling for old time's sake, cashing in what little was left of our memories. It was never going to last. We've packed up all your stuff already. Just grab your things and go, Jose. Don't make this more painful than it already is.
Sincerely,
The Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Club
Monday, July 2, 2007
Somebody Give Pat Gillick the Name of Daniel Briere's Agent
Sure, the Flyers recently signed free agent center Daniel Briere to a nice $52 million contract, but it's clear that the players of the National Hockey League lack the consul of "superagent" types. Whereas agents in other leagues find that it's easy to hoodwink teams into believing that an athlete is worth more as he gets further from 29 years old, the puckheads are letting things like this slide:
You know that wouldn't fly if Boras or Rosenhaus had their fingers in this cookie jar. They could probably negotiate a 3-year, $35 million deal for Gordie Howe, citing Moses as a precedent for his expected physical stamina and "leadership ability," and nobody would bat an eyelid. The stiffs at the NHL's business offices need to know how lucky they are to not have these types of guys around.
On the other hand, the NHL's main employees--the players--are not so lucky. This incredibly logical way of placing the correct value on the diminishing athletic abilities of aging players is not accepted with such sangfroid in any other major professional sports league. Then again, the players' union in any other MPSL (I like time-saving acronyms) isn't even close to the unprecedented level of weakness of the NHL's. After the 2004-05 lockout--which I recall as a few vague memories of weeping Canadians--players returned to face the bitter reality that an entire season of hockey was canceled and few people cared. Goodbye leverage. Hello peanuts.
Even though I think the NHL's product has improved by leaps and bounds since then, I'm not yet disheartened by this shift in the balance of power. You have to figure the owners aren't making a hell of a lot of money either, not when your team's "national exposure" is roughly once a month on a channel anchored by televised rodeos and karate competitions. Too bad the players don't have quite as much to fall back on anymore.
But hey--if P. Diddy and the Phillies starting rotation have taught us anything, it's that mo money equates to mo problems. Enjoy this period of fiscal sanity while it lasts, hockey fans.
The contract is heavily front-loaded, with Briere to make $10 million next season -- double what he made last year. He'll then make $8 million in the next two years and $7 million during the 2010-13 seasons. The contract then tapers off with Briere scheduled to make $3 million in 2013-14 and $2 million in the final year of the deal.
You know that wouldn't fly if Boras or Rosenhaus had their fingers in this cookie jar. They could probably negotiate a 3-year, $35 million deal for Gordie Howe, citing Moses as a precedent for his expected physical stamina and "leadership ability," and nobody would bat an eyelid. The stiffs at the NHL's business offices need to know how lucky they are to not have these types of guys around.
On the other hand, the NHL's main employees--the players--are not so lucky. This incredibly logical way of placing the correct value on the diminishing athletic abilities of aging players is not accepted with such sangfroid in any other major professional sports league. Then again, the players' union in any other MPSL (I like time-saving acronyms) isn't even close to the unprecedented level of weakness of the NHL's. After the 2004-05 lockout--which I recall as a few vague memories of weeping Canadians--players returned to face the bitter reality that an entire season of hockey was canceled and few people cared. Goodbye leverage. Hello peanuts.
Even though I think the NHL's product has improved by leaps and bounds since then, I'm not yet disheartened by this shift in the balance of power. You have to figure the owners aren't making a hell of a lot of money either, not when your team's "national exposure" is roughly once a month on a channel anchored by televised rodeos and karate competitions. Too bad the players don't have quite as much to fall back on anymore.
But hey--if P. Diddy and the Phillies starting rotation have taught us anything, it's that mo money equates to mo problems. Enjoy this period of fiscal sanity while it lasts, hockey fans.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Shenanigans Formally Declared On Willie Randolph
While the Phillies and Reds were slogging through ten innings last Thursday in weather conditions that only Wolfgang Petersen could love, that day's Mets-Cardinals game never even got started. The game was postponed before a single pitch was thrown. Why? Jim Salisbury has a theory:
Salisbury's article also has an interesting item about how El Duque may have received some extra motivation when the Phillies asked the umpires to check his rosin-stained hat. Nice one, Charlie.
Hmmm. Is it any wonder that a tired team forced to start multi-initialed rookies is getting shredded by a well-rested, well-hitting, veteran-influenced team? Touché, Willie. Touché.The Mets weren't thrilled that they had to play a night game Thursday, not with a bus ride to Philadelphia and yesterday's doubleheader on tap. They had planned to bring up rookie Mike Pelfrey (0-5, 6.53 ERA) to start one of the games, but didn't need to after the rainout.
That rainout, by the way, raised some eyebrows in the Phillies' clubhouse. Major League Baseball confirmed that the Mets - not the umpires - made the call to postpone not long after the scheduled 7:10 p.m. start. The team chose not to wait out the rain, even though one member of the club's traveling party said it was clear by 8.
Salisbury's article also has an interesting item about how El Duque may have received some extra motivation when the Phillies asked the umpires to check his rosin-stained hat. Nice one, Charlie.
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