BOOOOO!!! (the 2007 Phillies thread)

Manager Charlie Manuel's frustration was evident after the game. The normally mild-mannered manager challenged a radio talk-show host to a fight. Manuel had to be restrained by hitting coach Milt Thompson at one point.

thank you messrs. gillick and manuel for giving me hope in '06 so that i might purchase a partial season ticket package in '07. phuck the phils.

Why on earth did this team sign Jose Mesa? Are the Phillies that desperate for entirely shot relievers?

well, for some reason, they thought tom gordon was going to be their closer, so, yeah.

So who wore Eaton's uniform last night?

this kinda says it all about being a phillies fan, no?

http://enrico.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/11/nytimesphillies_2.jpg

cubs fans can eat our fuc when it comes to mediocrity ;__;

In fact, no team has ever stunk so often as the Phillies, who, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, have lost more games than any professional franchise in any sport. The Phillies are 14 losses from a particular threshold of ignominy — the 10,000th defeat for a club that has won one lonely World Series title (in 1980) during its 125 years of often dreadful existence.

“I didn’t know this until a week ago,” Manager Charlie Manuel said before the Phillies defeated the White Sox, 3-0, on Monday.

you just gotta laugh

i went to the game monday night and i'm going to see them against the tigers saturday. it's hard to believe that this team is within striking distance of the mets after the series against KC.

2nd place in NL East! On a night off! [Now watch as we drop 3 to the Tigers before rolling into mighty Cleveland. This is the Phillies Old Man and the Sea moment I think. "I fear the Indians of Cleveland..." and all that.]

Now watch as we drop 3 to the Tigers before rolling into mighty Cleveland.

If the Tigers' starters can get through nine innings in each game, it just might happen.

as soon as i said 2nd place, mesa started warming up. i'm going to the game tonight. my mitchell & ness schmidty jersey has been on a lucky streak that i believe ends tonight with moyer's fastball [which looks like everyone else's changeup.]

Citizens Bank Orchestra Pit, more like -- amirite?

a little bit i guess. it's way nicer than the vet [tho i loved the vet] because it's easier to see the game. and it's grass. and it's not 120 degrees on the field from late june through september. something the phils front office didn't figure out: we need ground ball pitchers.

now i'm curious to see hamels face cleveland. this should be good.

still? i thought the eric milton debacle hipped them to the ground ball/fly ball thing?

our free agent acquisitions haven't exactly been as advertised. thanks gillick!

w/ last night's shot, ryan howard is the fastest to 100 home runs in mlb history.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070709/capt.4eaf1ceca4434d3bbf2b15b523d7eaab.phillies_rockies_tarp_baseball_coden102.jpg

So they've all been demoted to groundscrew members?

that rockies tarp thing could be the highlight of the season. i'm going to today's game. this could be 10,000 [we bought tickets before the seasons started, so this would be 'fortuitous.']

Damn! Some big wind, and some HUGE rain. Kudos, Phillies.

10K losses achieved tonight

;__;

the best part about this loss was that it felt like all the others. my wife and i are getting the tickets framed.

Really not THAT many L's since 1876, as Jon Miller was sayin

Ha hahah aww: TLR steals game-ball.

i totally expected this series to break my heart. it hasn't so far. i still expect us to finish three games out of the wild card .

Extra Innings might be worth it just to watch Rollins and listen to Kalas.

poor chutley

this epitomizes what it feels like to be a phillies fan. maybe they need to make a documentary or feature film about the team and then we'll break our streak of bad luck.

parts of this are just tremendous:

http://philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070726&content_id=2111137&vkey=news_phi&fext=.jsp&c_id=phi

Amaro said the team is optimistic in the diagnosis, saying it was described as a "two-to-three type of fracture" on a scale of 1-to-10, with zero being the least mild.
-----

Utley said the best-case scenario has him returning in three weeks. The worst?

"My hand will fall off," Utley said.

It's Iguchi time.

iguchi in a nice first start. i'm horrified to think what SRO fans will have to say about him if he has a bad night.

the way he played tonight i'm inclined to believe that michael bourn has cut a deal on the side with matt damon for cross-promo as the bourn(e) supremacy. makes me look forward to a time when rowand's in left, vic/bourn in center and player tbn in right [the chatter on beerleaguer and elsewhere is that we'll go for rf power rather than pitching, which seems stupid, but maybe cheaper?]

iguchi's awesome, but wow w/o bourn and vic we're really really hurtin'.

Season To date, Ryan Howard has hit more homeruns per at-bat than:

Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Prince Fielder and even Ryan Braun.

Bet you didn't know that!

i did NOT know that. howard's a mah-cheeng!

STAT OF THE DAY

Top 5 Luckiest NL Starters, by LUCK

Player, Team, W, L, E(W), E(L), LUCK

Adam Eaton, PHI, 9.0, 8.0, 6.4, 11.6, 6.2
Cole Hamels, PHI, 13.0, 5.0, 9.6, 7.7, 6.1
Claudio Vargas, MIL, 9.0, 4.0, 6.7, 6.8, 5.2
Jeff Francis, COL, 13.0, 6.0, 10.4, 8.4, 5.0
Aaron Harang, CIN, 12.0, 3.0, 11.8, 7.4, 4.7

Adam Eaton is one lucky dude.

When Myers was asked about the two home runs he said, he said they were really "just pop ups," and he dealt with the follow-up question harshly. "You're not even a beat reporter, you're a fill-in, you don't know anything about baseball," said Myers, who then called the reporter "retarded." The Inquirer reporter asked if Myers could spell retarded, and Myers stood up and had to be restrained by Pat Burrell. All things considered, Burrell probably overreacted. The reporter wasn't his wife, so it's doubtful things would have gotten physical.

link

"You're not even a beat reporter, you don't know anything about kissing the asses of baseball players"

Ha ha - oh wow!

I might vote for that bastard Utley for MVP even with the missing month.

here's some of that phillies fan optimism: i fully expect to drop 2 games to the fish after this. but wow: every game in this series was a classic for us. i just wish we wouldn't play so much like an AL team.

on the local broadcast, g. dobbs said 'way to go, motherfucker!' to jayson werth on air. it was beautiful.

that's awesome!

btw...greg dobbs is such a classic phillie. pretty happy he's basically supplanted wes helms.

really fun series. four game sweep is pretty sweet. as much grief as this team gets, i think it will be fondly remembered if it knocks the mets off.

NO, NOT REALLY FUN

How many Philly hack writers are attributing the sweep to 'character'?

Man, the NL sucks.

yeah, really fun.

i could care less what philly writers think!

i wanted to think it wouldn't happen, but as predicted, phils drop 2 of 3 to the fish and it's back into a 4 game hole. ugh. it's hard to like the phils sometimes.

this thread is aptly named. maybe morbs can see why Philly's a football town now. i see a blue and gold Frankford Yellowjackets throwback in my future.

lolololololololololololololololololololo

The difference this year is that it seems sillier than ever to cheer for the hapless Birds.

i still prefer the scenario where the phils have hopelessly lost the season, rather than this annual mindfuck.

This is really gonna hurt. I have tickets to see them against the Braves. Will the Nats take us down again?

I have tickets to the 25th. These events are all leading up to another year where they miss the playoffs by 1 game.

another sweep of the mets surely indicates that you are both correct. the fuck? i hate this team!

I think I want the Phils in the playoffs ... 10-9 games every night!

I know that a Phils-Pads playoff matchup is a longshot (Philly wins the WC, SD their division?) but it would be the best pure hitting vs pure pitching playoff matchup ... ever?

As a Padres fan, I think you're overestimating the Padres pitching by a lot. And for what it's worth, the Padres' hitting has been better than the pitching since the break. I think the staff is still as good as any National League team's, but I'd trade it for the pitching staffs of any of the four AL front runners.

yeah, once you get past Peavy & Young & (sometimes) Maddux... but of course frontline pitching pitches more often in postseason.

You have a point, and the Padres hitting is usually underrated because of their ballpark (a lot of people got on their bandwagon before the playoffs started last year when they realized the Pads had led the NL in road OPS). But in a short series, having arguably the best two starters in the NL is a huge asset and can offset other weaknesses of the pitching staff.

xpost!

Hey I'm not complaining, I like my team. I think Phillies/Padres would definitely be an interesting matchup.

wow...until this line of discussion, it had been quite some time since i took a look at the number son the phils starters. outside of hamels? yikes. kyle kendrick is positively trachselian (remember that dylan record?).

oh goddamn Cardinals, those last 3 runs you couldn't manage after 11-0?

I'm still pretty sure that we'll tank against the Nationals just like the Mets. 1 game out sounds just about painful enough.

Yadier rescues the Mets, aiiiieeeeee

Whoa, Phillies are killing me. I'm gonna become like Frederick Exeley of baseball if this shit continues. Boo-yah

lol, Joe Sheehan:

"We all need to start mentally preparing ourselves for the idea that Lohse is going to get a five-year deal for $11 million or more per season."

and then there were two

i actually had a dream a few nights ago, the phillies not only got to the playoffs but they also managed to get to the world series -- i woke up before i learned whether or not they won the world series though.

See my comment above. My pessimism persists, esp. after yesterday's game.

I wonder what's going through Moyer's head right now.

No 1st inning homer. Phew.

Welcome to the National League Charlie!

It's fitting that someone would get injured in this game.

J-ROLL!

Blast off.

OMMFG!!!!!!!!!

HOW SWEEEEEEEET IT ISSSSSSSSSSSSSS ...

No champagne in the clubhouse?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y155/rgin/freddie20mercury20820-20live.jpg

http://drewmac12.tripod.com/KewlPics/thumbnails/100x100/gay-spiderman-and-friends_1_.gif

http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/eehistory/Images/berlinwall-2.jpg

YR TEH BEAST

more spidey

I'm 100% behind rooting for a Phils-Rockies NLCS.

you like 15-12 games?

1) a series full of softball scores would be a fun change of pace
2) it's a fresh matchup
3) barring any emotional attachment to the playoff teams (usually the case with me and the NL), I always root for the matchups that the networks are dreading

re 3, yeah, a Cleveland-Colorado WS wd kill them

though, seriously? cleveland v. philly is also fairly unsexy as far as matchups go.

Gillick said that for many years he felt that talent was everything. But he said after watching Philadelphia overcome injuries and other adversity this season and overtake the Mets, he had concluded that talent was overrated.

Talent is important, he said, but what is more important is mental toughness, character, passion and the desire to win.

THAT'S RIGHT, EAT IT U SABERMATICIANS

I thought Bill Rhoden was smarter than that...

Yeah, Brett Myers. Mr "Character." *SMACK*

so it's the rockies ... we should be so lucky as to face jorge julio as often as possible.

Glimmer of hope remains for Rollins MVP, amirite?

jocampbell (Australia): How would an infield of Howard-Utley-Rollins-ARod rate historically, assuming none of them goes down the chute in the next 4 or 5 years?

Jim Baker: Cool question. It's cool because you get to picture Rodriguez taking shots at leftfield in that little place the Phils call home. Could he hit 40 home runs there in 81 games? He hit 26 at Yankee Stadium, so is that such a great leap forward? He probably still couldn't take down Bonds' single-season record, but it would be fun watching him try.

As for the infield as a unit, it would be fantastic. The other three are still in their twenties, after all, and Rodriguez, while older, has an extended prime owing to his greatness.