An Open Letter to God, the Baseball Fan

Dear God,

I know your preferred method of correspondence is prayer, but let’s face it, I’m at work and I’ll get more than a few strange looks kneeling behind my desk. I am not writing you out of desperation…yet. But I want you to know that there are two sides to everything and it’s possible that you may have not yet realized the good in the pinstriped half of the National League Divisional Series.

Take 2 Corinthians as an example. Sure, Paul used his “A” Material in 1 Corinthians (“without love, I am nothing” is some inspirational stuff, Lord – nice assist on that one), but that doesn’t mean that 2 Corinthians is no better than a cut-rate sequel written by a man who got overly excited about making the Book. There’s still valuable scripture in there.

I read an article that came out last summer about the Colorado Rockies. It was in the USA Today, and while I do not know if their circulation extends beyond the Pearly Gates, but I tell ya, those full color picto-charts have their appeal. I’ve linked it here, but I doubt God uses a mouse to click through get his information. Anyway, the story is thus: the Rockies’ organization are guided by Christianity, and regularly hold prayer meetings to build not only as baseball players, but as fine moral men. As you well know, you’re not going to find a Playboy, expletive-laden music, or Devil’s Food cake in the locker room.

I thought the Angels and Padres were more apt teams to become the God Squad.

Look, I’m proud of the Rockies and what they are trying to do. No matter what thy calling is, one should try and make an effort to devote their vocation to You, as they will be rewarded with everlasting life, I got that. I’m a finance analyst and my favorite arithmetic operation is addition since the symbol resembles tiny crosses. But is Divine Intervention the way to win a Divisional Series? Can the Almighty choose favorites in America’s Past Time?

Revelations 2:2 -- I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men.

God, neither dugout is full of wicked men. For they both have worked hard to make the post-season. And while I know you have a history of rewarding those who hold your Being in highest regard, and I know Todd Helton’s beard is his daily reminder to walk in your footprints, and Clint Hurdle pens “Jesus” in on the “Bench” section of his lineup card, but what about the Phillies? They are good guys, too! Could you, maybe, I don’t know, let these two teams duke it out, without carrying Matt Holliday fly outs over the fence?

I’m telling you, Lord, my Phils are good guys. Jimmy Rollins often misses practice to walk old ladies across the street. Shane Victorino is still an altar boy in his local parish since the robes from when he was 12 still fit. Chase Utley memorized Acts of the Apostles during a rain delay in Florida. Ryan Howard has The Golden Rule branded into each of his bats. Pat Burrell prays in the outfield every game that he won’t get hit with a battery. Aaron Rowand must live with the Fire of God in him – there’s no way a man can live his life with so much reckless abandon without having an after-life plan in place. Abraham Nunez is the only Latino Jew I’ve ever known. Carlos Ruiz’s sign for a slider inside is actually the sign of the cross. And Kyle Kendrick – our pitcher today for Game 2 – just finished Sunday School.

Lord, those boys in red are good boys. So while the Rockies get all the Ink of God, keep in mind that the Fightin’ Phillies will totally invite you to their World Series Parade. If you let them.

Oh, and thanks for “mentioning” to Charlie Manuel that Adam Eaton sucks. Didn't want to see him on the postseason roster. Smite him at will.

In Your Name,

Chris Condon
Phillies Fan

A Cake Named Pinstripes

Now that’s how you do a birthday.

I was on the receiving end of two different birthday presents of which I would like to discuss with you. The first one will leave you with a question worth hours of meditative pondering. The second might read like semi-serious sports column. I ask that you forgive me for both in advance.

Item #1: a fog-less in-shower shaving mirror. By my request, I asked for a mirror that you can put within the shower curtain so that one can shave without having to treat sideburns with a “best-guess” methodology. Well, I used it this morning, and the circular reflection of facial insight worked like a gem. No longer do I have to peek outside the curtain to get a glimpse of the mirror on the other side of the bathroom. But riddle me this: if they have the ability to make shower shaving mirrors fog-less, WHY DON’T WE USE THAT TECHNOLOGY ON ALL MIRRORS?

Item #2: a playoff spot for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Yeah, let’s just savor that for a second.

I’d like to personally thank each and every New York Met that phoned it in over the last part of the season. Your inability to hold a late-inning lead, play error-free baseball, pitch effectively out of the bullpen, or beat the Phillies in any of the last six games you played against one another were all very thoughtful, and I appreciate you thinking of my city and me. I’d also like to thank the Florida Marlins, who took care of business and ended their season on as ruiners for the Mets. And as for my local team, the Washington Nationals, thank you as well. I admire your manager’s move to make this a fair fight and play your starters throughout the weekend over young’ins, as well as the whupping you delivered at Shea Stadium early last week. You will always be my second-favorite team because of your efforts this season. (Also, thank you for losing the season series with the Phillies; Mattias owes me a Wawa hoagie because of it.)

I’m forgetting someone here in the division. Who could that – oh right, the Atlanta Braves.

Screw the Atlanta Braves.

But it was the Fightin’s who had just as much to do with this post-season birth as any of the teams listed above. They made a true stretch run that did not falter in the end. They won games in all sorts of ways, and that included spotting the other team a few runs every time Adam Eaton took the hill. Now they go into the postseason with a recovering ace, an old man, and a couple of Kyles on the mound, and honestly, I couldn’t be more confident about it. The lineup is locked and loaded at every position (assuming Ruiz’s elbow is okay after getting drilled yesterday.), and Charlie Manuel has promised me he will do everything in his power to not let Wes Helms onto the field.

The last time the Phillies made the playoffs, their charmed existence became a thread woven into my daily fabric. I was permitted to go about my day wearing hats, jerseys, and everything else I had in my support of them. Meetings were interrupted to discuss their chances, and the entire commute was froth with baseball chatter.

Of course, I was in 8th grade at the time.

Yes, the last time this ballclub played extra frames was 1993 – the year that they lost to Canada in the World Series. I’m twice as old now as I was back then. Darren Daulton is twice as crazy. And yet, during all this tim of chasing down New York and San Diego, somehow Philly ended up in the driver’s seat. Citizens Bank Park will play host to Game 1 and 2, and potentially Game 5 in the following week. Our opponent will be either the Padres or the Rockies. (They play a one-game playoff tonight, which is good, because it’s totally unfair to make Philly have to play both of them at the same time.)

I’d like to close with a statistic. In 1980, the Phillies won the World Series in my first full season of baseball. Clara, my daughter, was born 49 days before Opening Day, making this her first full season of baseball.

Just sayin’.

No Box Score is an Island

Being a Philly fan outside of Philly is hard.

Over the weekend, I spent some time back in the Delaware Valley at the Jersey Shore. For the most part, vacation havens like Ocean City, Wildwood, Avalon, Sea Isle, and others serves as a convenient place for those in the tri-state area to take a break without having to book an airline to get there. The premise of shore life is rather simple – it’s the only place you can look forward to sitting in an uncomfortable chair to just read a book. But the Shore is more than that – there’s a culture aspect to it.

And that culture loves Philadelphia sports.

As you drive the long North-South avenues of any of the isles, you’ll see that this area, some hour and a half from the City of Brotherly Love, live and die by the teams they so desperately support. Eagles flags billow in the breeze off the deck railing of rental duplexes. People spend their evenings not watching the crap on network summer television, but watching the Phillies play a moderately important series against the Braves. The basketball courts no longer have players with the Iverson shoes – they’ve moved on to Andre Iguodala jerseys and Kyle Korver haircuts. The vacation getaway is alive with Philly sports talk, without the help of Angelo Cataldi et al.

Back to the real world…

The omnipresence of Philadelphia sports disappears as you go over that picturesque bridge near Havre de Grace on I-95 in Maryland. The Flyers bumper stickers are harder to come by, and the Eagles preseason WYSP radio broadcast crackles into silent airwaves. If you want to be an out-of-town sports fan, it’s all on you to maintain the fervor and interest that you receive automatically by breathing the hometown air. You have to make the best of it with what you’ve got.

Fortunately for me, both the Phils and the Birds play in the same division as their Washington D.C. counterparts. That means even if everything else goes wrong, I’m guaranteed 2 NFL and 18 MLB games with full media coverage here in the Nation’s Capital. So there I was, listening to the Washington Post talk radio station for the last few innings of the series opener between Philadelphia and your Washington Nationals.

Not mine, mind you.

Without TV coverage, I keep track of a lot of the Fightins’ efforts via GameTracker on MLB.com. It updates pitch-by-pitch, and keeps way closer to real time compared to whatever hamster-powered engine the NHL uses. As I was busy lowering Clara’s crib down to the second notch last night, I watched as the Nationals went up 2-0 on a pinch hit double over the head of Pat Burrell. Dejected, I minimized GameTracker and set out to do some errands.

Following a brief trip to Wegman’s, I spent the trip over to Target in the Top of the 8th with Philly down 2-0. After a non-surprising pop out from Jason Werth (he’s your Victorino pro tempore), Greg Dobbs ended up on second after a Ryan Zimmerman throwing error. Rookie phenom catcher Carlos Ruiz singled him home to make the score 2-1 with one out.

At this point, I had been sitting in the Target parking lot for five minutes. With newly acquired Russell Branyan coming up (batting average: .197), I figured I wouldn’t get too excited about this mini-rally.

25 minutes and 36 packages of gooified baby veggies later (bought, not eaten), I returned to my car to check the score. All of a sudden, we’re bottom nine. Bottom nine!

(If the bottom of the ninth is being played, that means that the home team (in this case, Washington) is either tied or trailing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even bat. Translation: WooHoo!)

So Branyan decked a 3-2 Jon Rauch pitch into the right field, uh, “Washington Wall of Fame,” Tom Gordon held them scoreless in the eighth, the heart of the Phillies lineup fanned in the ninth, and now Brett Myers stands on the mound while I sit in my car.

Batter #1: Ryan Langerhans. Result: Struck out, swinging.
Batter #2: Brian Schneider. Result: Struck out, swinging.
Batter #3: Nook Logan. Result: Struck out, swinging.

No one in the DC area was cheering louder.

Or in my car, for that matter.

Free With the Price of Admission

Since the Flyers only garner about 12 seconds of daily Sports Center airtime, and March Madness has not yet begun, I think it’s safe to say that I’m ready for baseball season to begin. And why not? The actual pro ballplayers are enjoying themselves in sunny Florida (or Arizona), just taking batting practice and getting a tan. And with my softball season still over a month away, I’m taking blogging practice and getting a headache. Why can’t these two worlds – business and baseball – collide?

Oh, but they can.

In hopes of convincing fans to come down to the ballpark, pro teams will often create a promotion or theme night giveaway, in hopes that some crappy hat with MAB Paints stitched across the back will make it worth the price of your admission. Yeah, it makes the kiddies happy, and if you’re a hardcore, box-score keeping type, it may hold their interest until the top of the third. I remember growing up and going to numerous promotion days with my dad – the best, of course, being Bat Day. Now most promotions were for the kids, and this was strictly adhered to in the ads. “Hats for all kids 14 and Under! Juan Samuel baseball cards for all kids 14 and Under!” “Free Hot Dogs for all kids 14 and Under!” What does this mean?

Hey 15 year-olds! Stop freeloading and get a job, you slackers.

The Philadelphia Phillies enter this ’07 campaign with high hopes for their playoff chances. And because they want you to have equally high hopes, the following promotions have been planned. We comment on them now.

April 4th – Peanut Chews College Opening Night – Is there actually a Peanut Chews College? I figured after they failed miserably at making candy bars, they’d fold like a cheap card table, not venture into higher education.

April 15th – Jackie Robinson Salute – Since 2004, every April 15th has been in memory of the man who broke the color barrier in the Major Leagues. You want to talk memory, though? I remember that on the day when his number was retired across the entire league, the Phillies fielded the following starting 9 – Gregg Jefferies, Ruben Amaro, Darren Daulton, Rico Brogna, Mickey Morandini, Mike Lieberthal, Kevin Stocker, Scott Rolen, and Bobby Munoz. What’s so compelling about a team that lost that game? Not a single black guy in the starting lineup on Jackie Robinson Day. You stay classy, Terry Francona.

April 29th – Citizens Bank Phanatic Birthday – Look, I’ll honor another year of survival/existence for the big green freakshow that is the Phillie Phanatic. After all, not only did he not kill himself riding is all-terrain vehicle while looking through an eyehole no bigger than a stick of baseball card chewing gum, he lived through a horrific attack from a ferocious beast. Buy that guy(?) a drink.

June 3rd – Shane Victorino Hula Figurine – Look, there’s rumors that the Phils are going to trade Lieber to Toronto for solid outfielder Alex Rios, which has to make current rightfielder Shane Victorino a little bit nervous. Which must have been the exact time her agreed to a bobblehead that features him in a grass skirt. Hang loose, Shane. Hang loose.

June 26th – Stitch and Pitch Night – “Bring your knitting, stitching, quilting or other projects to the game and meet other enthusiasts while enjoying Phillies baseball.” Um, I’m not so sure that I want all of South Philly coming to the ballpark to knock back a few cold ones and then wield GIANT METAL NEEDLES. But hey, that’s just me.

July 29th – Equipment Drive – Look, fans. We’re proud to still be in playoff contention the day before the trade deadline, and we’d really like to bring in one more big bat to solidify our lineup for the stretch drive. Pittsburgh’s willing to part with Jason Bay, but in return they actually are requesting a truckload of big bats in return. Red and plastic, if possible. So if you have one, help out the Fightins,’ would ya?