Lee Thomas, The Undeniable Genius

So, I logged onto ESPN.com this afternoon and saw that Baseball Tonight commentator John Kruk had posted a column today about the impending trade deadline. Being a fan of Kruk, I decided to take a quick look. About a third of the way through the article I came to a paragraph that made my jaw drop. I remember back in '93, when we had a chance to get Randy Johnson in Philadelphia. When the deadline passed, our GM walked out of his office and said, "We're not getting him. We're not going to mortgage our future." I'm still in shock. I have nothing to say.

Promises, promises

I watched most of Senator Kerry's speech last night accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president.  Of what I saw, I neither liked nor disliked him.  He seems to still be trying to find his way as a speaker, which is surprising considering he's been a publicly elected official for better than 20 years.  I would say he falls in the middle, somewhere between the former president Bush and former president Clinton. This being said, I liked a lot of what he had to say.  Most of this, though, was about the economy. I will cut middle-class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education. If, if, if . . . if he can do what he is promising.  It sounds great, but I wonder how he will be able to do this with a Republican Congress.

More of the same, part deux

I'm getting to the point now where I'm almost sick and tired of writing about it.  Bowa must go.  This is obvious.  If you watch the team for any one inning, it's obvious that they have no life, no spirit.  And yes, attitude does reflect leadership.  If you watch them for any one game, it's obvious that Bowa doesn’t have a clue about what he's doing out there.  From making his best clutch hitter sacrifice bunt with stiffs batting behind him to sacrifice bunting with his second batter in the bottom of the first inning in a game where Paul Abbott is his starter, this man does not have any business managing a major league baseball team.  Far be it from me alone to comment on this.  As the Inquirer's Todd Zolecki writes today, Rheal Cormier took note as well:  . . . Cormier (4-4) noted that the Phillies' clubhouse, during a 58-minute rain delay in the bottom of the eighth, was dead before the game had ended. As if they had already lost. As if they knew they wouldn't come back. "You could look in that dugout, and you could tell," Cormier said. "I've seen it a lot of times. Just in general. It's a lot of stuff that takes place, and it's not positive. I feel that even though we're down a run or two, we should never be out of the game. There are a lot of times when you're walking off the field and you're down by one, you feel the game is over, and we still have one more inning to go. It's frustrating." Cormier wouldn't say exactly where that negativity comes from. "Just the whole thing," he said. "I really think the guys are really trying. It's not that we don't try. But sometimes when things don't go your way, it's not the end of the world. And you when we lose a few games it's like we've lost 12 in a row. It shouldn't be that way. We play every day. You know what? Tomorrow we might win. It's pins and needles in here. It makes it very tough." Even though they do need on field help, I think the first step is quite clear.  Bowa and his entire coaching staff must be fired.  Hire Charlie Manuel to take over.  Now.  While there's still time.

Random Thoughts

Sports and politics -- can't we all just get along? 1.  Enough already with the "greatest rivalry in sports" nonsense.  Seriously, no one outside of Boston and New York cares who wins a lousy game between the Red Sox and Yanks.  No one.  The Sux trail the Spanks by 7 ½ games for first place.  To tell you the truth, I wish it were 70 ½.  I am so sick and tired of hearing about "The Curse" and about how bad the Sox fans have it.  (And, by the way, I refuse to call them by their preferred moniker as it's just plain dumb.)  We Phillies fans support the losingest team in North American professional sports history.  Think about that for a second.  There are no teams -- in any sport -- that have lost as many games as the Phillies.  And yet Sox fans think they have it bad. 2.  Last month the New York Rangers declined to pick up their option on Eric Lindros' contract, making him an unrestricted free agent.  I have been on the fence about Eric since he left Philadelphia, citing reasons on both sides for the acrimonious -- to put it mildly -- relationship he had with management.  However, today he takes the cake.  In an interview yesterday, he had the temerity to say "I'm at the point right now where I want to win a Cup."  Excuse me?  What were you trying to do during your 8 seasons here in Philadelphia, where you actually made it to the Finals? 3.  Will the Bush supporters out there now stop getting on Kerry for his "flip-flopping?"  Mr. Bush is now saying that "[t]he 9/11 Commission's recommendations will help guide our efforts as we work to protect the homeland."  Eh, what?  Bush did not even want a commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks.  Now he's agreeing with some of their assessments and working to enact some of their suggestions?  Flip-flop, indeed.

Can we get a designated president?

Here’s a subject I can guarantee a comment from Middie Back on:  in an interview during ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game featuring the Yankees at Boston, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry admitted he “never liked” the designated hitter.  Even my parent’s have now found something to agree with Kerry on!

More of the same

Continuing their maddeningly inconsistent season, the Phils lost Friday night’s game and then rallied to win on both Saturday and Sunday.  Friday’s game, chronicled here by Shallow Center, featured a monster home run by Sammy Sosa off of Ryan Madson, an actual Eric Gregg sighting, and one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever tasted. The evening started off badly, sitting in traffic before even getting to the Walt Whitman Bridge and then realizing that I forgot my ticket.  Fortunately, the Phillies are able to offer reprints for season ticket holders.  After finally getting in, I was able to wander into the outfield area with my brother and catch an unbelievably short Tony Luke’s line.  (This is the first time I’ve even tried getting in line there this year.)  After a short wait, I grabbed a roast pork sandwich.  I can honestly say that I have never had a better sandwich, anywhere.  To anyone who can get to the park early enough, I very strongly recommend that you try to snag one for yourself. While in line for the sandwiches, I lost a bet on whether or not Tony Luke’s served any beer besides Anheuser-Busch products.  (They don’t; it’s Bud and Bud Light only.)  So, after grabbing the sandwiches, I made my over to a nearby fry stand – run by Chickie and Pete’s – to get a couple of Lagers.  Who do I see serving them up but none other than former Major League umpire Eric Gregg, looking bigger and beefier than ever.  Talk about surreal. The game itself was about what we’ve seen all year from the Phillies – a non-existent offense coupled with pitching that wasn’t great but mostly got the job done.  It was close the whole game until Sammy Sosa steppe to the plate facing Ryan Madson and absolutely tattooed a pitch to dead center field, actually hitting the brick wall about a third of the way up.  It was the first home run I have seen to hit that wall. On Saturday the Phils used to two run single from starting pitcher Paul Abbott (!) to pull ahead of the Cubs 4-2 and held on for a 4-3 win.  Today’s game was even better.  Facing the minimum number of batters through eight innings, Eric Milton had a beautifully pitched no hitter going.  (He had given up a leadoff walk in the first inning to Mark Grudzielanek, who was then doubled off of first base on Corey Patterson’s fly out to right.)  Taking a 2-0 lead into the ninth, Milton gave up a leadoff bloop double to Michael Barrett – a ball that new centerfielder Doug Glanville probably should’ve had.  Milton recovered to strikeout the next two batters before giving up a single and double to tie the game.  Milton was then lifted for Madson, who got Sammy Sosa to ground out to end the inning. Jim Thome led off the bottom of the ninth with a walk and moved to second on a sacrifice by Glanville.  Pat Burrell then ended the game with a line drive to right field that plated Thome.  The single was Burrell’s second of the game to the opposite field, something I would love to see him do more of, instead of trying to yank everything over the short left field wall.  The problem with what he did today was that in both instances he wasn’t trying to hit the ball the opposite way; had he tried to drive the pitches the other way, they probably would’ve wound up in the seats.  Alas, I shall settle for something being better than nothing and take the win and Burrell’s pair of singles. All in all, the Phils did go 2-1 this weekend, though they looked thoroughly ambivalent doing it.  The only conclusion I can draw is that this team needs something, almost anything to give them some kind of shot in the arm and wake them up.

NHL, NHLPA to meet today

The NHL and the Players' Association are meeting today at the NHL offices in Manhattan.  This will be the first such meeting since they got together during the Stanley Cup Finals.  Both NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA head Bob Goodenow are expected to attend. I can't imagine that anything of substance will get resolved today and, that even if something was, that it would be announced.  Short of a deal being reached, I see nothing coming out of this meeting.  Both sides will say the meeting was "productive, " but that there's "still a long way to go before a deal is reached."

"Middie Back!" ought to love this

In a move sure to make Shawn's head explode, the Sixers yesterday traded starting point guard Eric Snow to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Kevin Ollie – who is now on his third stint with the Sixers – and Kedrick Brown, a former first round pick of the Boston Celtics.  GM Billy King and Coach Jim O'Brien both said the move cleared the way for Willie Green to get more playing time. Excuse me?  I understand the trading of Snow.  He wouldn’t have fit in with the up-tempo game that O'Brien wants to play.  Fine.  Then why get two nobodies for Snow?  You should've drafted Jameer Nelson who, by the way, played in an up-tempo offense and defense in college to start and then you could've traded Snow and a pick for a big man instead of signing Brian Skinner. Thank you Billy King.  Now I have to start rooting for Orlando.

Random Thoughts

As promised, it's Tuesday and here are my Random Thoughts of the day:   1.  How do you let Todd Zeile get a bunt single against you?  Todd Zeile, for cripe's sake!  150-year-old Todd Zeile!  Yet, the Phils did just that during Sunday's loss to the Mets.   2.  If you have watched a recent Phils' game on TV, you have to have seen the McDonald's ad with a guy in the bleachers complaining about his obstructed view (due to the large man seated in front of him).  The first guy goes on to make an analogy between the large man – whom he calls "Mr. Big Head" (no, I'm not lying) – and "Frankenstein's spawn."  This irks me to no end.  The creature Dr. Frankenstein raises from the dead in Mary Shelley's novel has no name, and is usually referred to as simply "The Monster."  Even if you have only seen the various movie versions of the novel, you would know that the creature has no name.  I'm also irked here by the "spawn" implication.  The creature was not Dr. Frankenstein's son and had no relation to him whatsoever.  To boil it all down, I just want new commercials being shown.  I'm tired of the same ones over and over during every game.   3.  I'm trying to come up with a name for my fantasy football team.  We have been limited to using band names, though this is a loose limit.  Basically, it can be anything musical.  However, I like the band name idea was thinking of using fictional names.  The problem with this is that the only ones I can come up with are CB4 – which I am using now, Stillwater, and Ellen Aim and the Attackers – which I won't use for the obvious reason.  (I also can't use it because it won’t fit into the block of characters we're allowed.)  So, I'm asking you, my loyal readers, for any suggestions you may have.  Send in something good and it'll be used.

Back In Black

Okay, looks like I was gone a little longer than five minutes.  Again, apologies.  I meant to do this last week while I was on vacation, but I decided I would rather sit around, watch TV, play video games and get in a car accident.  (No worries, I'm fine.  The car got a little banged up, but it's still chugging along.)   Anyhoo, you are now on the new and improved There It Is blog.  On the right side of the page you will find an updated and better-sorted list of links to sites that I frequent.  You will also find a quote section.  This will be updated daily, so that even if I don't blog on a given day, this will change EVERY day.  My source material will rotate between movies, songs, books, public figures, and friends and family.  And yes, Random Thoughts shall return in its original weekly format, appearing every Tuesday.  More weekly columns may appear in the future; I'm kicking around a few ideas now that may or may not make the cut.  (Feel free to send along any suggestions you may have.)   You will also find that, after each post, will be a link for comments.  I have seen this used on a few other sites to much success and I am nothing if not unoriginal, so I have tacked that on here as well.  (Think of the line "good writers borrow, great writers steal.")   So, without further ado, hop on in for a spin.