The All-Star game marks the traditional mid-point of the baseball season, but the 40-47 Phillies officially passed that literal milestone a week earlier when San Diego came to town. I don’t want to quibble over a mere six games, but by the same token any talk of how long the season is, i.e., how many games still remain, is pointless at this juncture. The Phillies are done for 2006 and will be playing out the string from this point on.
For those remaining optimists (relatives, wives and significant others of the players and coaches) who look at the imminent return of Brett Myers (yes, he will be back) and Randy Wolf and the recent recovery of Jon Lieber and see reasons to believe, I have a bridge for sale.
For everyone else, we need hardly recapitulate the Phillies’ many failings to date, but one in particular bears mentioning: these guys are not much fun to watch. The current crop generate little excitement and, more often than not, have fallen hopelessly behind before coming to bat for the first time in a game. In a world that is constantly reminding us that sports are a business, this may be the Phillies’ greatest crime against its fan-base: they aren’t entertaining.
1 comment:
Well, there's always the new players I'm assuming we'll get for any combination of Lieber, Lidle, Abreu, Cormier, Gordon, Rhodes, Nunez, or Burrell. Then we'll get to play the role of evaluators the rest of the way, just like Gillick. Not much fun, but it'll give us something to talk about.
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