2007 Philadelphia Phillies Thread - DIVISION CHAMPS MOTHER fargER!!!!

[ice grillin you]

or two weeks when they trade carrasco for him

[SD_Eagle5]

Durbin sucks, he entered the game with an 11 run lead and I still didn't feel safe

[Rome]

When Durbin walked in a run in the 9th the fans started booing their asses off.  I started laughing because I thought only in Philly could we find a reason to boo with a 10-run lead.

[PhillyPhreak54]

He's going to be the 5th starter in LA next week too.

He's got no control...although he did look half decent in that extra inning game in Colorado.

[Geowhizzer]

Here's an article in the local rag, by a local Phillies fan/writer:

10,000 proud
Phillies' fans grow used to yearly bafflement as losses mount

By Bob Tennant
btennant@news-press.com
Originally posted on July 14, 2007


Editor's note: With the Philadelphia Phillies on the brink of history, we turn to our resident Phillies expert to put all this in perspective.


Congratulations are in order. The Philadelphia Phillies will soon be — tonight, maybe — the proud parents of their 10,000th bouncing, baby loss.

If they happen to offer you a cigar, pass. It would just blow up in your face. The Phils have been pulling that ol' gag on their fans for 124 years.

They not only are used to it; they've grown to expect it. They embrace it. They love it.

Wilson Pickett had his 1,000 dances. Minnesota has its 10,000 lakes.

Phillies: 10,000 losses, more than any other pro franchise. And counting.

What's not to be proud of?

Red Sox Nation, so named to combat a lingering — and well-founded — sense of inferiority to the Yankees, seems not to be satisfied that the Red Sox win a World Series every 87 years, whether they have to or not.

Cubs fans wail long and loud over their fate, which is that they haven't had a World Series title to celebrate since 1908.

For these fruitless endeavors, Beantowners blame the Bambino; Northsiders blame some poor goat and some poor Bartman.

Phillies fans blame no one.

They embrace futility. They wear it like a badge of courage.

Unlike those sniveling, whining people in Boston and Chicago, we Philadelphians don't need to manufacture curses or scapegoats. The Phillies didn't need any hocus-pocus bad luck to lose 10,000 games.

They dabble in losing the way DaVinci dabbled in oils.

In a pathetic, miserable history that began in 1883, the Phillies can make these two claims — and only these two — to baseball lore:

• A World Series win. One.

• A big, stupid, green mascot.

Other than that, what exactly can you come up with that would masquerade as an accomplishment?

Cue the exploding cigars:

• They had an owner, William Cox, who lasted one year — 1943 — before he was banned from the game for life for betting on his team.

• They had a manager, Eddie Sawyer, who lasted one game into the 1961 season, quitting on the spot as he no doubt sensed what was to come.

"I'm 49 years old," he famously said as he let the door hit him in the butt, "and I want to live to be 50."

His successor, rookie manager Gene Mauch, seethed and cursed, and turned over post-game spreads of pork chops as he endured a 23-game losing streak.

• In all of their 124 years, they appeared in four World Series other than in 1980, when, somehow, defying all logic, they won. In those four Series — 1915, 1950, 1983 and 1993 — they won a total of four games.

• They had a manager, Danny Ozark, who, with a two-run lead over the Dodgers going into the ninth inning of what would have been a National League Championship Series-clinching win, either a) refused to; or b) forgot to pull lumbering left fielder Greg Luzinski for defensive replacement Jerry Martin.

Ozark claimed he wanted to get Luzinski, whose spot was on deck, one more at-bat. But, of course, the Phillies wouldn't have needed that at-bat, because Martin would have caught the two-out fly ball by Vic Davalillo that Luzinski butchered.

The Dodgers, of course, went on to win that game and, of course, went on to win Game 5.

Like I said, Phillies fans were not at all surprised by that turn of events, because ...

• In 1964, the Phillies created the Mona Lisa of baseball choke jobs.

Up 6 and 1/2 games on the second-place Cardinals with 12 to play, the Phillies went on to lose 10 games in a row, yakking up contests in every imaginable way — to start the streak off, for example, the Reds won when someone named Chico Ruiz stole home with a startled Frank Robinson ready to swing away.

Mauch stubbornly stuck with a three-pitcher rotation — Jim Bunning, Chris Short and Dennis Bennett — throughout the final two weeks, while erstwhile starters Art Mahaffey, Ray Culp and Dallas Green watched, their arms in various states of health.

No team before or since has coughed up a pennant in such shamefully inept fashion.

The franchise, and city, has never recovered from it.

The Phillies won that one World Series in 1980. The Flyers won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and '75. The Sixers had that terrific championship team in 1983-84. And the Eagles, God bless 'em, keep trying.

But ask any Philly sports fan with any decent amount of mileage what team comes first to his or her memory, and those damnable '64 Phillies will be the choice.

I was about to turn 14 when that team stood on the precipice of a World Series. By that time my father had taught me what it means to be a Philly sports fan. How if you let down your guard, even for a moment, they'll break your heart.

A colleague here at The News-Press figured out for me the other night that, since 1956, when I can first remember my father taking me to watch the Phils at Connie Mack Stadium, I've been witness to 4,101 of those 10,000 losses.

That sounded about right. Like I said, you get used to it.

But with 12 games to play, and that 6 and 1/2-game lead, I fell into the trap. I allowed myself to start celebrating the 1964 National League champion Philadelphia Phillies.

In the 43 years since, I've never accepted another of their cigars.

The smoke and the ash from the last one are still there.

And the scars still smart.

— Bob Tennant is assistant news editor at The News-Press. A 27-year veteran of Philadelphia-area sports departments, he covered the 1980 World Series champion and 1993 National League champion teams on a regular basis.

[Rome]

• A big, stupid, green mascot.

Find him and punch him in the farging face, Geo.

[Geowhizzer]

• A big, stupid, green mascot.

Find him and punch him in the farging face, Geo.

As soon as I finally recover from mowing this @*&@#*&* lawn.

[BigEd76]

Gordon's start in GCL yesterday:  2 IP, 1 hit, 3 Ks, no runs or walks

He's flying back to Philly today and will throw in the bullpen tomorrow.  If it goes OK, he'll be activated for the LA/SD trip

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Gordon's start in GCL yesterday:  2 IP, 1 hit, 3 Ks, no runs or walks

He's flying back to Philly today and will throw in the bullpen tomorrow.  If it goes OK, he'll be activated for the LA/SD trip

World.  Series.

[Geowhizzer]

Gordon's start in GCL yesterday:  2 IP, 1 hit, 3 Ks, no runs or walks

He's flying back to Philly today and will throw in the bullpen tomorrow.  If it goes OK, he'll be activated for the LA/SD trip

Hey, that brings Gordon's GCL ERA under 20.00!

Yep, he's ready! 

[PhillyPhreak54]

Pat Burrell actually drove in some runs earlier!

My boy JRoll has started off the second half on fire...

Utley is smokin' it too.

[BigEd76]

10-4 final

[ice grillin you]

phils farg me again...cant even lose 10k when im there...fargin clowns

[Wingspan]

Wah. Maybe they will never lose another game, just to piss you off.

[MDS]

Myers is targeting July 24 as his return date
Joe Savery signed
Anderson Garcia down to AAA, Clay Condrey back up (guesses are he will start Tuesday)