Phillies leave Brewers Drained….

Posted: May 17, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

– PhilliesOutside –

The Phillies left Milwaukee
after sucking the life out of the Brewers,
the sweep was a back to back the Brewers
suffered at the hands of the National League East. It was a little cooler
last night in Brewer Town or were the Milwaukee
Brewers just trying to change their luck at home by closing the roof,
either way it made for a pleasant atmosphere, gave the pitchers a comfortable
environment, but it didn’t change the Brewers
luck as the Phillies completed a 3 game
sweep in a 4-2 win.

The game aired live on ESPN, who as usual showed their lack of up to
date knowledge of teams and players, other than the advanced scouting reports,
which at times are grossly out of date or inaccurate at best, given to them so
they could show some elements of knowledge about the 2 teams that were playing.
They pounded the commercial breaks with the information on the upcoming FIFA
World Cup, which is great for me, but I just hope they really do their
homework on the countries and the players, and don’t just go at it with the
minimum information on the players and the countries abilities and
accomplishments. It’s a little more insulting when you get information about a
country wrong than a home grown city or town.

So last night Cole Hamels got win number 4 and put him at 4-2 on the
year, coincidence that matches last nights score, it means about as much as Mick
Billmeyer using binoculars in the bull pen in Colorado, absolutely
nothing. It was a relatively okay performance by Hamels, nothing earth
shattering, he managed to get a RBI hit, but then left the bases loaded twice,
still ESPN felt he did enough to warrant being player of the game, personally I
don’t think he did, I am not sure anyone player jumped out at me, everyone
seemed to do their thing and no one really screwed anything up, except maybe Weeks,
should have had the out, on the Victorino base stealing, but let the ball
fly into centerfield instead, and he just didn’t seem focused, and
as good a game as Zaun called for the Brewers,
I was a little concerned at how when he went to the mound with the pitching
coach, he just stood there gazing into the air, paying absolutely no attention
to what was going on, does he not like, Rick Peterson, the pitching
coach, because he had that same attitude each time he came to the mound during
all 3 games.

The Phillies are utilizing back-ups for back-ups, with Ruiz out
and 3rd string catcher Hoover working everyday, Ruiz should be
back Monday, maybe. Valdez filling in at shortstop while JRoll
rehabs, Valdez is also filling in for Castro who is also out of
action, Rollins should be back on Monday, then we have Madson out,
Happ out the good news is that Lidge is also back on the DL, the
list goes on a bit, but really the Phillies
have managed just fine and when these guys return it should only be an
improvement, except for Lidge of course.

Last year we saw the images of Lidge where each time he came into a
game you had
to hope that for just this game he was able to hold it together long enough to
close the game. Unfortunately that didn’t happen to often, it was like a Holiday
Inn commercial, where Lidge is on the mound and Dubee comes out
cause Lidge is struggling and you know the conversation, Dubbe to Lidge
“Lidge you good, your our closer, right, you can do this” then Lidge
would reply “Yeah sure, I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night, no
problem”. We all know how that worked out.

This year I think we should stay with the Holiday
Inn commercials, you must have seen the new ones, where people are sometimes
doing dumb things, like being total idiots, yep that’s it, we’re going to work
with that this year for Lidge.

The Phillies return home to face 2
against the Pirates, and 2 against the sCrUbs,
then it’ll be on to that stupid thing they call inter-league play. I think we
should get one of those hidden dog fences to keep American League teams out of
the National League games, I am still not sure why there pitchers are such prima-
donnas that they can’t pick up a bat. The
Philles get to host the Boston Red Sox as
the first of what will no doubt be long drawn out inter-league play.

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Blogger vs Press – Who’s Who?

Posted: May 5, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

– PhilliesOutside –

What determines a professional and what determines the right to freedom of
speech and the right to freedom of the press.

Why do I ask?

A "blogger", someone regularly showing intent to provide an
element of news and/or information to the public via any legal means available
to them and allowing the public access to that information for a reasonable
length of time.

A "Member of the Press", someone paid to obtain and report
information or someone paid to report information previously obtained, by any
legal method that is provided by the company for which they are paid, or if
freelance, by any legal means available to them.

In my happy world or "Idiots Guide To Things" you know the big
yellow books without phone number lists, this is how I see the difference
between a reporter and someone, say, like myself. With this in mind there are a
multitude of questions, but here are the ones I am interested in for now.

1 – If I get unknown information from a source within a company or government
and I choose to disclose this information via the means I have to the public, or
in plain terms, if I write about it in a blog post, am I allowed to claim the
same privilege as a reporter and not have to disclose my source if compelled,
since at the time I was acting as  reporter?

2 – If a "Member of the Press" writes a blog is that still
classed as reporting, are they still bound by the same rules of verification of
information as they would be if it was written for a newspaper column?

3 – As a "blogger" are you bound by those same rules of
verification, or do you truly just have to ‘in all good faith believe what you
are writing is the truth’?

4 – or can both parties write what ever they like with the appropriate
disclaimer?

 

Still the question – Why Do I Ask?

Some of you may or may not have seen recently a reporters column, John
Gonzalez, for the ‘Sports’ section of the ‘Philadelphia Inquirer‘
which is found online at Philly.com,
this particular
columnist handled the mailbag on April 28th, 2010 the day in question
and received a question from someone named ‘Alex’, you can read the
question and answer here
remember this was mail bag day so all questions are sent in by readers. (image
of John Gonzalez linked from his column on Philly.com)

May 1st, 2010 another reporter, Mike
Goldstein, (not the ex-scientologist, or at least I don’t think it is) who writes a blog for ESPN760
and also broadcasts the Saturday morning ‘Sports
Page Show’ chose to target John
Gonzalez and his mail bag post, notably the question from ‘Alex’ and
in doing so he not only questioned the abilities of John
Gonzalez he also questioned his livelihood as a reporter in a post on his
blog titled  "This
isn’t journalism, but it’s still not ethical" , if you take the
time to read this great, if you skim over it and get the general census, that’s
okay too, if you do neither, then here’s the key points, Mike accuses John of plagiarism
while fabricating a question to suit his own means.

May 2nd, 2010 the same reporter, Mike
Goldstein, wrote another post in his blog titled "The
Joke’s On Me" where he is supposedly making a retraction of his
previous claims about the ethics of John
Gonzalez, but in my opinion he doesn’t, he just excuses himself as a radio
show host and not a reporter. Claiming he just writes a blog and it is not meant
as journalism. (image of Mike Goldstein linked from his column on
ESPN760.com).

I also understand that exchanges via ‘Twitter’ took place as well as other
possible communications and they have to some extent resolved the issue at hand.

We get back to the question, can people of the media
pick and choose when they are covered by the ‘Freedom of the Press’ and when
they are just trying to make a name for themselves.

I as a blogger, who at times wants to believe I can be a member of the press
would like nothing more than for some big media company to pick up on one of my
stories and start paying me for something I enjoy, or anyone to start paying me for
something would be nice, but again I digress, back to the real question.

With the creation of blogs can members of the press pick and choose when they
are press, and can you and I pick and choose when we are reporters.

I say to you big media sports companies, how about a reality show that
represents the amateur blogger, and less of the ‘so called’ professional sports
reporter playing at being an amateur blogger.

All this and I have to ask, does anyone really care unless it effects them in
someway shape or form, probably not!

Baseball:

The Phillies managed to sneak a win last night in extras from a walk
off by Ruiz, Cole Hamels pitched an outstanding game as did Wainwright
for the Cardinals, the series all tied up tonight will be a good night
for Kendrick
to prove to Manuel that keeping him in the rotation is the right thing to
do.

The Howard contract has caused a stir around the bloggers, mostly
those whose team has a 1st baseman due to renew a contract in the next year or
so, they question the value of Howard and say the Phillies paid to
much, I say, someone has to be first and if anyone thinks that it has set the
bar high for others then they are wrong the bar was already high, Pujols
was due to get around $30M a year and anyone who thinks he would have
settled for less is mistaken, just because he gave the Redbirds a cheap
deal last time, doesn’t mean he would have done it again. Suck it up Cardinal
whiners you can’t keep expecting to pay Walmart prices for the very best
quality.

 

UPDATE:(6am May 6th, 2010)

In another pitcher duel last night the Phillies over came Brad
Penny and the Cardinals bullpen to win the 3rd game of the series in
a shut out win 4-0. Well done to Kyle Kendrick for pulling out an
extraordinary night of pitching. Halladay is up today in a day game, the Cardinals
have Lohse on the mound.

Mets (Muts) Pound Phillies

Posted: May 1, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

– PhilliesOutside –

It is clearly obvious to anyone who has been watching the Phillies that the
offense has been on the 15 day DL along with Jimmy Rollins, Joe Blanton and now

Ryan Madson. Blanton is scheduled to reappear this weekend with the possibility
of being back in the rotation this coming Monday against the ST . Louis
Cardinals. Pitchers made it back into the bullpen, J.C. Romero last week, which
didn’t seem too successful and Brad Lidge yesterday, which was also not very
reassuring.

The offense though has been the most absent, after an excellent start to the
season there has been a distinct reduction in output since April 16th, there was
a brief appearance, a glimmer that maybe they were heading back on the right
track around the 22nd of April, but since then nothing, zero, zilch, nada,
nowt, stuck somewhere between spring training and now in a twilight zone for
baseball, the offense is scheduled to make an appearance anytime during the next
few days and from there slowly pick up speed and increased numbers till the All
Start Break then it will be time to see if they make it back from the mid-term
break.

This offensive malfunction doesn’t however excuse all the errors
and mistakes that have been made in selecting which player does what and when
they do it, I know we’ve lost a few so it has to be the managers fault, wrong, that’s
not what I am saying, but he does have some role to play in the events that lead
up to the losses. Last year we saw Charlie Manual in a situation that
allowed this type of graphic….

….this year however, unless more thought is applied to
situations things will be very different, and I want to be fair to Charlie,
it’s not all his fault, he relies heavily on Rich Dubee for up to the
minute information on members on the pen and listens to recommendations on who
should be utilized and when, but there are times when even a novice such as
myself can tell that certain pitchers shouldn’t be used in certain situations. It
has to be the only time a major league ball club manager can safely say, it was
down to the Dubee.

We have in the bullpen a pitcher who is a rule 5 draft pick, who
we keep in the pen because if we don’t he
has to go back to where he came. In reality he belongs in the pen, he serves a
role and he’s good at it, but put him in the wrong place or situation and he’ll
have a bad day as would most of the pitchers out of the pen. Last nights game
against the Mets was a key example of right and wrong pitchers for the
scenarios, Baez is not a 2 inning guy, why was last night the time to try
and find out, it wasn’t, it shouldn’t have been, cause we already new the
answer, but for some unexplained, x-file type reason we had to confirm something
that we already new, after he pitched in his second inning and didn’t get any
outs, but gave up 4 runs, it was time to bring in the rule 5 guy, Herndon,
who went on to pitch 2 scoreless innings, he did let a inherited guy score, but
nothing against him.

Today the Phillies and Mets go at it nationally on
Fox, oh whoopiii, we get to listen to a bunch of no knowledge numbnuts a-sssswhipe’s
ramble on about how good or bad players are when they don’t even know anything
other than what they read in the columns from the biased reporters of either FoxSports
or ESPN. Talking of ESPN, we get the joys of watching and
listening to all the action from them on Sunday night.

Anyone who has any interest saw or heard the Mets pound
the Phillies last night, the rivalry makes it hard to stomach, but I have
to say the Phillies made it easy for the Mets. There was signs of
talent back in the Mets lineup, sorry all you Mets fans, but I
dislike Reyes with a passion, not because he’s a Met, but
because he gives the appearance of having an arrogant, holier than thou
attitude, his actions indicate that he believes he is bigger and better than the
game itself, so for me, he is not one of players with talent on the Mets,
however Jeff Francoeur and David Wright showed up to play and play
they did, Jason Bay also made the right choice and opted out of the BoSox
for the Mets in the off-season. Rod Barajas, okay he hit 2 homers
last night, but guys he’s a 3rd rate catcher at best and should be kept on the
bench for emergency use only, preferably behind a glass, with ‘break in case of
emergency’ on it.

So it’s big pat on the back for the New York Mets, but
it’s still early in the season, so no breath holding hoping you’ll go all the
way, we don’t want a rush of people turning blue in New York,
cause I think that’s happening in LA at the moment and it’s not
from breath holding.

Phillies Offense Wakes Up…

Posted: August 13, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Dailies | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

On a night that had been promoted by the media to be the second coming of Pedro Martinez turned out to be the awakening of the Phillies bats. The night at Wrigley Field was broadcast on ESPN, you have to ask yourself, was that just a coincidence that the rotation was switched around to debut Pedro Martinez, or were greater powers at play, the word is, that the Phillies would not change the rotation just to help ESPN get extra ratings, but conspiracy theorists believe otherwise. Personally it didn’t matter, the Pedro Martinez debut was over shadowed by the return of the long awaited Phillies offense.

How did Pedro perform in his return…

martinez.jpg

for me the verdict is still out!

It is really hard to compare how one pitcher would have performed over another pitcher on a specific night, since things may have been different for a different pitcher. When you consider he went 5 innings, anyone else out on the mound and Charlie would have pulled in the 5th inning, he loaded the bases with nobody out, the fact that he had a huge lead at the time and his name is Pedro Martinez on his debut in a Phillies uniform was the only reason he stayed in the game to get through the 5th, had the Cubs hit a grand slam I hope Charlie would have pulled him regardless of the circumstances. In the end he finished with a 5.40 ERA, I just cant help thinking had it not been a struggling Cubs, but a red hot hitting team, he would have been crushed and the huge lead the Phillies had would have been worthless, but I will wait for at least a couple more starts before rendering a verdict on his inclusion as the 5th starter.

The night really was all about the Phillies offense, which came to life, you could tell from the begining it was going to be a good night for them, even the defensive plays were considerably better than they have been over the last couple of weeks.

Who was the hero of the night…

offense.jpg

 All of them!!

Yes, some had more hits than others, some had more RBI’s than others etc. etc. but the real fact is they all hit, they were all swinging the bats well, and none of them made any errors. Until Eric Bruntlett came in to give Chase Utley a rest, then he managed to kick a ball into the outfield that should have been a routine double play.

The only other incident, which I am sure will be picked up on highlight reels was that of a fan, with Victorino going back on to the warning track in left center, some stupid, idiotic, Cubs fan, I know I here some of you saying they just have to be a Cubs fan to to be those things, but this one was a little more of those things, he threw, what i can only believe to be perfectly good BEER at Victorino just as he was making a catch…

beer-mix.jpg

1 – Shows him throwing the BEER, (what a waste)

2 – Shows him pleading his denile case

3 – Shows him further denying it, while the wrong guy gets ejected

4 – Shows him bragging to fans around him how he got away with it. (okay, so I helped out a little with the t-shirt lettering)

It wasn’t over, I am guessing they reviewed the footage and decided the guy they ejected wasn’t the one,

because this lonely idiot…

beer-5.jpg

managed to get everyone around him ejected too…popular guy now I bet…

Today is a day game and Cliff Lee will be taking the mound, lets hope the offense stays alive and gives him similar support. It will be a day where the Phillies fans will be hoping to bounce back from the weekend and complete a sweep of there own.

Here’s something that came to me yesterday while watching this game, no real reason why it came to me just did, so thought I would share for others to ponder it, and if you know the answer great…

Has a hitter in a single game, hit for the cycle, been put on base by a HBP and got on base by a swinging strike that gets away from the catcher, thats 6 at bats, I know, but has anyone ever done that?…