Decision day

Floyd Landis learns the result of two-years spent working on his defense against doping allegations at 11 a.m. today. But will it ever really be over?

One would assume that the governing bodies would acknowledge the work of the Court for the Arbitration of Sport if it overturns the United States Anti-Doping Association's decision against Landis and restore his victory in the 2006 Tour de France. After all, one would assume that the sport bureaucracies will be quick to pat themselves on the back for nailing a “proven” doper if the appeal comes back in its favor.

Nevertheless, nearly two years after he arrived at the Champs-Élysées in the Yellow Jersey, Floyd Landis finally arrives at the finish line on Monday at 11 a.m.

Phew! What a ride…

The wise Bob Ford of The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t give Floyd much of a chance in CAS’ verdict… I don’t know. Bob is much smarter than me (which isn’t saying much), but I give Floyd a 50-50 shot.

More later…

Sounds like a broken record

Needless to say, there will be a lot of attention given to Kris Benson's outing for the Triple-A Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs on Sunday afternoon. Though it's unlikely that the outcome of the start will be much more than a warm up for Benson's long rehabilitation, count on a bunch of the Phillies' brass taking meticulous notes on every pitch. As it turns out, it seems as if the team is looking for a starter.

At least that sounds like the case based on the quotes coming from Arlington, Texas after Opening Day starter Brett Myers tossed up another clunker on Friday night. Actually, the latest stinker might be the one that officially put the portly righty on notice. In just two innings Myers threw 66 pitches, gave up five hits, five runs, four walks and blew a four-run lead.

But wait, it gets worse...

In Myers' last 12 starts the Phillies are 1-11, including losses in the last five straight. With a 3-9 record and 5.84 ERA, Myers has allowed fewer than four runs in just seven starts. He's allowed less than three runs in just three starts, which isn't bad when one considers that Myers is averaging just a little more than five innings per start.

Yet it was the two-inning clunker - one in which he walked three straight despite working with a four-run lead in the third inning - that finally made manager Charlie Manuel post an opening for Myers' spot in the rotation.

"Can I say his job is secure?" Manuel told the scribes in Texas. "I don't know what to say, if you want to know the truth. We'd have to find somebody to do his job first, I guess."

In other words, if the Phillies had someone better Myers wouldn't be going out there anymore. Really, how tough is it for a guy when he knows that the only reason the team continues to give him the ball is because they don't have anyone else?

Myers must know what time it is based on how he reportedly busted it out of the ballpark without talking to the writers after the game. Typically a stand-up and an accountable guy when it comes to talking to the press about his job, Myers must figure that he doesn't have anything new to say.

What else can he say?

What else can he do?

And what happens to Myers if the Phillies find someone better?

Here is the most telling quote from the manager as it appeared in The Inquirer:

"We're trying to get him right," Manuel said. "Myers' best year is 14-9 as a starter [in 2003]. You stop and think about it, that's not lighting it up. I mean, look, that's not what you call a huge season. He's had some bumps. He's had moments on the mound where he's had some struggles.

"Our expectation of Myers was always an 18-, 20-game winner. I said before the season started that in order for us to win, we needed 16 to 20 wins out of [Cole Hamels and Myers]. That's kind of how we always evaluated him. His talent has always been there. Right now, things aren't going too well for him. He's having trouble."

As a starter Myers had been very consistent in being inconsistent. In his four full seasons as a starter, Myers topped 200 innings once and never won more than 14 games.

Maybe he's proving that he really belongs back in the bullpen.

*** If you missed the women's 10,000 meters in the Olympic Trials last night, I bet you're kicking yourself now. Described as a race that was at least four competitions in one, the Olympic qualifier had a virtuoso performance from Shalane Flanagan, a solid effort from Kara Goucher and drama galore when Amy Begley edged Katie McGregor for the last spot on the team.

But just barely.

Flanagan, the American record holder in the event, and Goucher ran away from the pack to finish in the first two spots, while Begley and McGregor dueled it out for the last spot for a trip to Beijing.

Only Begley and McGregor weren't racing against each other - well, kind of, but not exactly. You see, to run in the Olympics an athlete needs to meet a qualifying standard of 31:45 for the 10K. If the top three runners don't have the required time by the end of the trials race, the next best finisher with the standard makes the team.

So with Flanagan, Goucher and McGregor three of the four runners in the race with the qualifying standard met in a previous race, Begley spent most of the race one place ahead of McGregor watching the clock and running for her life. After the race she said she spent the last two laps doing math and running as fast as should could while holding out hope that she could squeeze in ahead of McGregor and under 31:45.

With a crazy sprint to the finish line and a last lap of 67.3, Begley made it under the standard by 1.4 seconds.

Then she collapsed on the track.

McGregor, conversely, finished in the worst spot possible for a trials race by coming in fourth. Worse, it was the second straight Olympic Trials in which she finished fourth in the 10,000 meters.

Look who's out of the house

I don't get out much. That's pretty obvious. I go outside to run, I buy groceries and I hang out with the kids in the yard or the Country Day playground across the field from my house. My friends have jobs and kids with early mornings looming. As a result, most of my conversations with people are electronic. Then there is work, which usually takes place in a large stadium or arena with professional ballplayers and media types. Obviously, the nature of the conversation in this realm is limited as well. After the game is finished and the stories all finished it's usually close to midnight or a little after and  I have to drive all the way back to Lancaster. That means my post-game social life is limited to time spent in the car with an iPod loaded with downloaded podcasts and loud music to keep me alert on the way home.

But that's all fine. Besides, is there anything more pathetic than a guy pushing 40 just hanging out?

No. No there is not. It's just plain creepy.

Anyway, because I don't get out much and because my wife and I are always looking for different forms of entertainment, excitement and travel opportunities, she went all out and surprised me with tickets to see Pearl Jam in Washington, D.C. last Sunday. Actually, it was a Father's Day gift for me, which is totally unnecessary. As long as I get a drawing from the kids or a bottle of Brut or Old Spice, I'm as happy as can be. I don't wear anything like that - in fact, I don't even brush my rapidly thinning hair [1]- but if my kids got me some I'd splash it on like it was pay day.

Hell, if they got me a wacky tie that didn't match anything I have in my closet I'd wear that, too. If they took the effort to get me something, by golly I'm wearing that thing out in public... all the time.

But instead of Old Spice or a gaudy tie, we left the kids with my mom and went to The District so she could stare at Eddie Vedder for three hours (more on that in a bit). Sure, we could have gone to one of the two shows in Camden just before the band hit Washington, and perhaps I should have picked up on her hints when she asked me about going to Philadelphia vs. Washington. Instead, I lauded the drive from The Lanc to The District and ripped away on the town where I work.

"There is no comparison between the cities," I told her and quickly tamped down any type of social activity that involved me going to Philadelphia for something other than work.

Clearly we made the correct choice. In comparing notes with a friend who attended the shows in Camden, the D.C. crowd was treated to a better show and the folks who skew toward the older end of the demographic didn't have to tolerate ridiculousness from fellow concert-goers.

I'm sure there is another rip job on Philadelphia fans between those lines there. Let's just leave it with what my friend told me:

"Everyone was either 18 and looking to buy drugs or trying destroy anything they could get their hands on," he said, noting that Washington and Philadelphia "Were totally different."

Having lived in both places I agreed, noting that the D.C. natives I knew well all were similar in that they were all intensely into what they liked. They focused on it passionately, yet always knew where to draw the line. With Philadelphians, the line doesn't exist.

Needless to say, both approaches have their plusses and minuses.

Just like sweeping generalizing about residents of specific geographical areas.

When presented with a choice between seeing a rock show in Washington or Philadelphia, it's a pretty easy decision. Barring that, if both cities were equal in terms of things to do and cultural selections, Philadelphia would lose simply because one has to drive on the Schuylkill Expressway to get there.

Yes, ultimately it comes down to the pavement.

So we went to Washington to see Pearl Jam, though, truth be told, I was more interested in the opening act, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. In fact, had any other outfit opened the gig for Pearl Jam, I doubt we would have even considered going and I'm sure there might have been like five or six other folks in the big Verizon Center, right there in the heart of downtown, with the same sentiment.

Regular readers of this little dog & pony show already know that we are big fans of the Pharmacists led by Ted Leo. In past missives I believe I wrote that I follow Ted Leo's rock-n-roll outfit the way some folks follow baseball. If he plays within driving distance of my house and I can get away, I go. If not, I'll check out the set list on the web and maybe even find an audio copy of what I missed because I was hanging out with the kids or watching a baseball game or something like that.

Generally, though, the venues Ted Leo typically performs in are nothing like the Verizon Center. When he played in Lancaster in November of 2006, Leo played at the Chameleon Club, which is a medium-sized rock house a lot like the 930 in D.C. or the Trocadero in Philly only... well, nicer. It's in those types of places - or the steady amount of live radio interviews and sets - where Leo built his following and continues to pack them in with (strapping on the newspaper writer hat to drop the clichés) an energetic assault of melodic punk rock with a solid ‘70s feel, harkening back to the early Clash.

That's what they always write, and it's true. But there's something missing there that doesn't quite grasp the appeal of Ted Leo. Sure, he and the Pharmacists are energetic and have a tight, melodic sound - but there's more. Maybe it's something about the ethic of the guy and the fact that at 37-years old, there definitely were easier routes to take rather than fighting for everything in the indie scene? Maybe there is some hopefulness in just seeing someone like Leo - a Jersey native educated at Notre Dame with stints in D.C., Boston and NYC - sticking to the notion that the work and the aesthetic is the most important thing? Maybe with Leo there's something there that people can touch - it's real?

Then again, what do I know? Michael Bolton has sold 53 million albums[2].

Nevertheless, the idea of Ted Leo in the Verizon Center warming up the crowd for Pearl Jam was an intriguing concept. How would that D.I.Y. vibe and stripped down sound and stage work in a basketball arena? Would 20,000 people be in their seats waiting for him to go on? What would it look and sound like from the nosebleed section?

Truth be told, seeing Ted Leo & the Pharmacists in a quarter-filled arena looking like a Gibson-playing dervish dressed in white was... interesting. Yes, it seemed as if he was bringing the energy from the clubs into the big building, but with so few people in the seats there wasn't enough to absorb the sound. As a result, the sharp-edged melodies bounced all over the place just like something Gilbert Arenas tosses around in the joint.

Still, in the 45 minutes he played, Ted and the Pharmacists ripped through 12 songs, half of which were brand new. Leo told the crowd that since he was a DCite of sorts and the people who were hyped on him likely knew his body of work, he trotted out the new stuff, which should appear on an album this fall.

I wish I could report on the details of the new material, but it took a lot of concentration to keep up with the sound before it was swallowed up by the vastness of the arena. However, compared with the last record, the spring '07 Living with the Living, the new stuff sounded angrier.

That's good. What also was good was my wife leading my four-year-old son in a sing along of the chorus of "Rappaport's Testament," the tune Ted sang to close his act.

I never gave up, I never gave up I crawled in the mud but I never gave up

Afterwards, Ted and the gang helped the crew pack up the gear to clear the way for Pearl Jam.

***

OK, how does one write about Pearl Jam in a way that hasn't been done before? Have they become so ubiquitous and so entrenched in the pantheon of agit-rock that all that's left is for them to cruise into the ether much like their predecessors? Will they turn out to be like The Who, a group that lead singer Eddie Vedder claims "saved his life" and whose guitarist, Pete Townshend, Vedder says should receive a father's day card from him every year? Twenty years from now are we going to see a Pearl Jam reunion tour like something out of the Rolling Stones' playbook? You know how they do it - it's always the last one ever until the next one.

I doubt it any of this will occur with Pearl Jam. You don't stick round for a long time and produce meaningful work by getting old.

But whatever. The notion that someone should quit doing what they want just because they get old is arrogant and stupid. Who doesn't want to do what they love forever? Hell, I hope I'm engaged in all of my passions when I'm old. Better yet, I hope I'm lucky enough to get old.

When Pearl Jam gets that old and takes their act out on the road, I suspect it won't be any different than what we saw last Sunday in Washington. Stripped of all the bloated, rock-star excess, Pearl Jam played for nearly three hours. That includes short breaks between the pair of encores, though the extra sets lasted nearly as long as the initial, 18-song preliminaries. Actually, the 13-song encores went on so long that some of the workers in charge of cleaning up the Verizon Center had gathered near one corridor waiting for Eddie and the gang to call it a night.

Even when the house lights went on a little after 11 p.m., the band raged on for another 30 minutes.

But rather than beat the crowd into submission with a show longer than my last few marathons[3], Pearl Jam hosted a sing-a-long in which 20,000 folks screamed, chanted, pumped fists into the air and recited the lyrics back at the band. Unlike a lot of big-arena rock shows where some folks in the audience are intent on ingesting various organic and inorganic substances meant to alter some sense of reality, the Pearl Jam crowd in Washington was rapt by what was taking place on the spare stage decorated with just a mural of a pair of waves crashing toward each other in the background.

Some critics have written that the Pearl Jam crowd seems to be an updated version of a Grateful Dead audience in that many of the fans will travel from city to city to see the shows, they take a painstaking interest in the set lists and the scarcity of the performances of particular songs and they collect the "bootleg" versions of the shows the band offers for download on its web site.

But unlike Dead shows that I witnessed in three different cities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was more of a sense of community in Washington last Sunday. Everyone (at least where I was) was focused on the music and the performance instead of "where their trip might take them."

Besides, is there any band more overrated than the Grateful Dead? OK, how about The Doors?

However, similarly to Dead shows of a generation or two (or three) ago, the mainstream media (I guess that's me, right?) likes to charge Pearl Jam shows as some sort of cultural statement or at least the antithesis of popular culture. That's especially the case when it comes to Vedder, who in Washington railed against the White House, the war, off-shore drilling and voiced his support for a certain presidential candidate when he said, "It's going to be great to get some color in the White House!"

But come on... how alternative can a group be when it has sold approximately 50 million records? How "anti-" can people be if they take one specific side in a two-party system? Better yet, why are people shocked when I guy with a microphone uses it to say something?

Hell, even some Pearl Jam fans don't like hearing Vedder's politics or opinions. That seems to be the general opinion about all celebrities too - a lot of people want their celebrities and rock stars to be just as vapid as there are.

And that's a damn shame. Frankly, I wanted to see the Pearl Jam show in Washington more than any other city specifically because it would be more politically charged. I like hearing other people's ideas - I know, it's crazy. In fact, I don't care if I agree with what's being said at all, I just want to hear someone say something interesting. For instance, take baseball pitcher Curt Schilling - he and I probably agree on very few political issues. I'm sure I'd even ridicule some of the things he says to friends or in print (check the archives here, I'm sure I ripped him). But Curt Schilling isn't boring. That counts for something.

Eddie Vedder isn't boring either. Though he fronts a really tight band with guys who are stars in their own right, all eyes were on the singer. I know that because my wife was damn-near swooning from the second he took the stage. During a couple of stretched out jams, Vedder left the center of stage to wait in the wings where he drank from a bottle of wine, caught a quick smoke and chatted up some of the fans. Yet the entire time the band was wailing away, I heard, "Look at him... I wonder what he's saying to them."

It was the same thing in July of 2003 when Vedder showed up at Veterans Stadium before a Phillies game. Everyone swooned. Mike Lieberthal got an autograph, others tried to wiggle past the extremely large body guard to get close enough to say something to the singer. Hell, even I wanted to walk over to the guy and tell him that Fugazi is the greatest band of the past 30 years because I knew he'd agree.

And then we'd both be right.

Regardless, only one person - a player's wife - penetrated the wall and chatted up Vedder and even she had the same look on her face that my wife had last week. Shoot, the guy was so short and wiry that I thought about picking him up and putting him in my pocket.

Yeah, that was creepy.

Anyway, Pearl Jam is far from perfect. There a few songs that are so odious that they have become very difficult to listen to. But presented in a nearly perfect rock show format even the bad ones are kind of good. For instance, the song "Black" is so heart-wrenching that I can't stand to hear it. When 20,000 people sing along to one of the saddest songs outside of Elliott Smith, it's tough.

The same goes "Last Kiss," the remake of the early-‘60s number, which gave me a good chance to sneak out to the nearly deserted concourse to find the restroom. "Crazy Mary," the sublime number from the Victoria Williams benefit soundtrack was a little overdone with the addition of keyboards.

However, "Yellow Ledbetter," another one I always found a little... well, awful, was pretty good with the house lights up and guitarist Mike McCready finishing it off with a Hendrix-style "Star Spangled Banner."

The highlight? Try Vedder singing "No More" from his solo record made for the film Into the Wild. Actually, it was just Vedder and an acoustic guitar singing a perfect, folk/protest song that he wrote as a tribute for a soldier injured in Iraq.

The song also made it onto the documentary Body of War.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTbvqRytwgI&hl=en]

Finally, the most in-the-know bit of stage banter came when Vedder introduced "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" with, "This one is for Mt. Pleasant..."

He didn't have to come out and say Ian MacKaye, right?  I mean, Vedder is on record saying that MacKaye should be put up for sainthood - and he's right - but everyone got that reference...

Right?

*** Afterwards, we rolled up to Adams Morgan to The Amsterdam Falafel Shop only to find it closed at 12:15 a.m.

Oh well, at least I got out for a change.

---

[1] I wash the hell out of it, though.

[2] Do you know anyone who owns a Michael Bolton album (or will admit it)? Fifty-three million! Who is buying 53 million Michael Bolton records?

[3] Was that me bragging? Yes, I believe it was.

Full plate

So I went into Starbucks this morning and ordered the big, big Sidamo coffee. Of course I mispronounced it which drew a bunch of blank stares from the baristas, before they realized what I wanted and corrected me. "Oh... you mean Sis-AH-mo."

"Yeah. Coffee."

The Sidamo brew was described on the board above the urn as "delicate yet complex." OK. But when I quipped, "Delicate yet complex... sounds like me!" I got nothing.

Blank stares.

Anyway, there is a lot going on today. To start, the struggling Phillies offense takes its road show to Arlington, Texas this evening to play the Rangers. Actually, when I write struggling offense, I really meant all-or-nothing offense. That really seems to describe the Phillies' hitters perfectly.

Need proof? Check out this stat I was e-mailed about the all-or-nothing Phillies:

The Phillies have scored 10 or more runs in eight games this season for 110 runs. In the other 72 games, the Phillies have scored 294 runs, or 4.08 runs per game.

When scoring 10 or more runs the Phillies are 8-0. In the other 72 games they are 35-37.

Feast or famine.

When was the last time a team with numbers so skewed won the World Series?

*** Meanwhile, the track portion of the Olympic Trials begins in earnest tonight in Eugene, Oregon at Hayward Field. For those who don't follow the sport (and you know who you are), holding the track trials at Hayward Field is staging the World Series in Wrigley Field, Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium rolled into one.

Yeah, it's a pretty big deal. It's an even bigger deal when one considers that the Olympic Trials are about as dramatic as it gets in sports. Think about it -- athletes get one chance once every four years to qualify for the Olympic team. If they don't finish in the top three in their event, they have to wait another four years for the next chance.

Needless to say, they bring it at the Trials.

Tonight at 9:20 p.m. the women's 10,000-meters team will be determined. But if Shalane Flanagan doesn't run away with this one, something is up. I'm also predicting that Katie McGregor and Elva Dryer will take the other two spots on the Olympic team.

What about Kara Goucher? Come on, you can't go with the chalk all the time.

*** Finally, the final appeal of the Floyd Landis case will be issued on Monday by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.

At last.

*** There's more coming later today. I went to see Ted Leo and Pearl Jam in Washington last Sunday so I figured I might as write about that, too.

*** Cryptic sentence of the day:

Clips are back.

The meek will kick your @#%

Jeff Pearlman of ESPN caught the rumble between ex-Astros pitcher Shawn Chacon and general manager Ed Wade. Normally this is something I'd write about for pages and pages, but right now I still can't wrap my head around it...

I need to lie down.

Lots of writing coming Friday. Buckle up.

Meanwhile, in Detroit...

It doesn't matter who the other two guys were -- this photo shows half of the greatest foursome in the history of golf.

Uh... what!?

An Astros pitcher allegedly grabed Ed Wade by the throat and tossed him to the ground... What's going on in Houston?

Older dead than alive

I saw the sentence on ESPN.com this afternoon and it made me shudder: Len Bias has been dead longer than he was alive.

Yes, it's been 22 years since Bias died shortly after being drafted by the Boston Celtics. Ironically, it took the Celtics the same amount of time -- 22 years -- to win another championship. When Bias died, Charles Barkley said it would set back the Celtics franchise at least 10 years. Who would have known that Chuck would have been just half correct.

Nevertheless, I've waxed on in the past about being a teenager and hearing the news about Bias' death while mowing our lawn in Lancaster, Pa. It truly was one of those where-were-you-when moments for me, especially since I believed then that Len Bias was the best college basketball player I ever saw.

With the passage of time and the fact that everything seemed bigger when I was younger, that believe still holds true.

Anyway, the ESPN story about Bias by Michael Weinreb is quite compelling. I found the grave photos particularly interesting because the site has become a pilgrimage area for some. In fact, Bias and his brother Jay are buried next to each other just over the Anacostia River from the Nationals new ballpark in the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland, Md.

There is also a documentary due out on Bias this year by filmmaker Kirk Fraser. Word is it made waves at the Sundance Film Festival.

More: Kirk Fraser - Len Bias Documentary Michael Weinreb - The Day Innocence Died (ESPN)

USA Basketball names Olympic team

Here's the team that will be going for gold in Beijing: player, team Carmelo Anthony, Nike Carlos Boozer, Nike Chris Bosh, Nike Kobe Bryant, Nike Dwight Howard, Adidas LeBron James, Nike Jason Kidd, Nike Chris Paul, Nike Tayshaun Prince, Nike Michael Redd, Nike Dwyane Wade, Nike Deron Williams, Nike

George Carlin

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YphEUa5LPjM&hl=en]

Little pebbles make a big splash

Of the piles of theories I have about things, only a handful are as solid as a bronze statue. One of those theories is that everyone has eaten a loogie at one point or another. Hey, I don't mean to be gross, but let's face facts - there are a lot of disgruntled people out there and most of them work in restaurants. Another good theory is that sometimes it's the smallest and seemingly insignificant bit of news that triggers much larger events. For instance, it took the 1914 assassination of an otherwise obscure Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria to light the powder keg that exploded into World War I.

Who would have guessed that Ferdinand would have ever become the presumptive heir to Austro-Hungarian throne, let alone his death spur the calamity that followed?

Along those lines it's interesting to note that the reports out of Chicago are that ace pitcher Carlos Zambrano is headed for the 15-day disabled list. Certainly that's big news for the Cubs since they currently have the best record in the National League and could be on the way to the World Series for the first time since 1936. Obviously it's big news because the Cubs need Zambrano if they want to have any chance at all in the post-season.

Regardless, Zambrano should be able to help the Cubs relatively soon. That's important because even though Zambrano has bum shoulder, an MRI revealed that the big right-hander has no structural damage. Unless something unforeseen occurs, Zamrano will be back pitching for the Cubs in no time.

Here's why the MRI results, a two sentence bit of info in the fourth graf of the wire story, could be the powder keg of the National League pennant race:

Because if the Cubs have Carlos Zambrano, they probably won't need to go out and make a big-time trade to land C.C. Sabathia or another pitcher of that ilk. Oh sure, they can still do it and it may even be cost effective noting that the Cubs haven't won the World Series since 1908. But they don't have to.

It also means the Phillies might have a better shot at making a trade for a pitcher like Sabathia (or one of that ilk) if they can cobble together a package big enough to entice the Indians. That's the really important part as it concerns us.

Nevertheless, despite reports that the Phillies have dispatched scouts to take a gander or two at pitchers like A.J. Burnett of the Blue Jays, Bronson Arroyo of the Reds, Greg Maddux of the Padres as well as Sabathia, general manager Pat Gillick told the gang on the Daily News Live! panel that it's much too early to contemplate such a move. For one thing, most teams are still in the playoff chase even with the non-waiver trading deadline still a little more than a month away.

That means the annual summertime dance where teams get into position to get in position is just beginning.

Can't you hear the music?

Still, it's interesting to note that Gillick says he would not rule out the possibility of trading away one of the players on the current 25-man roster in order to get the piece the team needs.

Would that be interesting?

In the meantime, let's keep an eye on Archduke Zambrano. The state of his shoulder could decide a lot.

Schilling down to his last pitch

The news from Boston today that Curt Schilling is headed for surgery to repair his right rotator cuff, labrum and biceps should not come as much of a surprise. When spring training began the question was whether or not Schilling would be able to respond to a rehab program and throw a pitch in a big league game before going under the knife. Decidedly, the answer was no. No way.

Now, after Schilling has given up on the 2008 season as well as his tenure with the Boston Red Sox, a new question rears its head regarding the former Phillie:

Is it all over?

"There's a pretty decent chance that I have thrown my last pitch forever," the 41-year-old ex-Phillie said. "I don't want it to end this way, but if this is the way it has to end, I'm OK with that. If it's over and my last pitch was in the 2007 World Series, I'm OK with that. I just can't stress enough where I am mentally with this. I have not a regret in the world.

"None of this makes me bitter or angry. It is what it is. In that sense, honestly, it's very, very easy for me, because of what I've been able to experience compared to what I wanted when I first started my career. But if I have some say in how this is going to end, I want it to be different than what it is right now."

That much is obvious. After all, Schilling would not be having an elaborate surgery on Monday with Dr. Craig Morgan, the renowned shoulder specialist in Wilmington, Del. on Monday if he was thinking about hanging it up. Really, who has biceps tenodesis surgery (when the diseased biceps tendon is detached from the bone and reattached in another location) as well as arthroscopic surgery to determine if more surgery is needed to the labrum and rotator cuff if the only ball playing he does is with his kids in the yard? The rehab process for those surgeries is difficult for a guy just looking to handle the remote control with more alacrity, the fact that Schilling is going through with it means he wants to pitch again.

But whether or not Schilling will pitch again could be determined in Wilmington on Monday. According to Dr. Morgan, Schilling's future as a big leaguer depends upon what is found when the right-hander is scoped.

"The key issue there is frankly the rotator cuff," Morgan told The Boston Globe. "If he does not have significant rotator cuff involvement there's a good chance, even at age 41, that he can come back and pitch. But he must accept the fact that this may be career ending."

Schilling understands that last part very well.

"If I don't have surgery, my career is over today," he said.

Still even if the damage to his shoulder isn't severe and a return to the mound is not ruled out, Schilling knows the rehab process will be much more difficult. Age is the damndest thing - if Schilling were 10 years younger there would be no question that his career could continue in 2009. But even if everything goes perfectly and the tendons in the big right-hander's shoulder turn him into the $8 million man again, the fact that he was born in 1966 instead of 1971 or 1976 makes a HUGE difference.

So too does the issue of contracts and ability to pitch for an entire season. No longer the horse every five days as ex-Phillies GM Ed Wade once claimed, Schilling says he will not be able to go to spring training for a team to compete for a job. A better scenario, says Schilling, is a post-All Star return to a team in the playoff race. But of course, that's putting the cart before the horse.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting to think hypothetically. Let's suppose the Phillies are in a similar position in 2009 as they are today - one where they lead the division but starting pitching is still a glaring weakness - do you take a chance and sign up Schilling for a second-half run?

Clearly it's one of those low-risk/high-reward situations that general managers love so much (hello, Kris Benson!), but in Schilling's case the intriguing part is his history not just as a big-game pitcher, but also as a pitcher for the Phillies. Though his regular season statistics aren't shoo-in Hall-of Fame numbers (he'll get in), his body of work in the playoffs and World Series place him with the biggest names in the sport...

And that was before the bloody sock.

Here's one more question to ponder about Schilling until his future is decided: which cap does he wear on his Hall-of-Fame plaque?

Actually, this question is probably more apt... how long until Schilling is working on baseball broadcasts? Aside from big-time outings in big games, Schilling's legacy will be that of a guy who liked to gab just a little bit. In fact there may have been the rare occasion where he did not rehearse his interviews in the mirror beforehand. One time at Fenway Park I wandered over to the home team dugout to search out Schilling where I was told by a teammate to, "follow the cameras."

Guess what? That's where he was.

Measuring up

During the past month it's been very difficult not to get excited about the Phillies. They have scored runs with impunity, won games at nearly a 1993 rate all while the bullpen corps established itself as one of the better groups in the game. When it comes to rallying for a lead in the middle to late innings before the relievers come in and nail it down, the Phillies are as good as any team in baseball. In the process, the Phillies have established themselves as the best team in the NL East and baring a collapse of New York Mets-like proportions, the Philllies should return to the playoffs in 2008.

But that's where it gets complicated.

Yes, the Phillies are a playoff-caliber team. And, yes, the '08 Phillies are better than the version that slipped into the playoffs during the 2007 season. Those two points are given. But what complicates things is that the Phillies are now forced with a pretty difficult decision that must come to a conclusion by the end of next month.

What are they in this for?

Do the Phillies simply want to improve on last season's short ride through the playoffs, or are they going for the rings, trophies and champagne?

Sure, it sounds like an easy question to answer. Every player on every team - even the ones who secretly know they have no shot - say they won't be satisfied unless they win the World Series. That's the whole point of playing, they say. But the facts are much more austere. Some teams just aren't built for the long haul of a 162-game season. Others are built to win a division or a wild-card berth, but flame out in the playoffs.

But only a couple of teams every season are built to go all the way. With some clubs the brass gets together to compile the components that will carry the team during late October. Sometimes those teams even go on autopilot for the first few months of the regular season.

The Phillies saw firsthand what those really good teams look like when the Boston Red Sox came to town for three games this week. The players and the management got to see how the Red Sox set up the Phillies' pitchers, patiently waiting for a pitch to bash for extra-base hits or base-clogging walk. The Red Sox made the Phillies hurlers work and then they exposed all their little, tiny weaknesses.

If that wasn't enough, the Sox pitchers worked over the heart of the Phillies' batting order and held Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell to a combined 1-for-24 (.042) during the final two games of the series and 6-for-36 (.167) during the entire three-game series.

No, the Red Sox didn't come right out and embarrass the Phillies. After all, Cole Hamels pitched splendidly in the Phillies' 8-2 victory last Monday where Howard, Burrell, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino spurred the offense. Instead, the Red Sox treated the Phillies as if they were a tiny winged insect there for amusement and all they had to do when they got finished plucking the wings off one-by-one was stomp on them.

"Obviously they've been successful a long time and there's a reason why. They have some good players over there," Utley said. "I thought we played well the first game. We faced a tough pitcher the second game and today we had some opportunities we didn't capitalize on."

This was the Red Sox with Jon Lester and Justin Masterson and not Josh Beckett or Dice-K. It was the Sox with Sean Casey and J.D. Drew leading the way and not sluggers David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez or Kevin Youkilis.

It wasn't exactly the B-team... that was the Phillies. Better yet, it was a Phillies club that came away from the series with a handful of lessons.

"The first night, we went out and won and everybody's talking about the Phillies finally proving they can do it. Then, we lose the next two," Victorino said. "It's not a learning process. It's just a matter of seeing what they have.

"I think we match up with them. I know we can."

Thinking it and doing it are two different things. As a result it has become quite clear that if the Phillies are interested in playing the Red Sox again this season, they need to make an addition or two. That's because the only sure thing the Phillies have in the starting rotation is Hamels. After that, it's pray the bats are hot.

Fortunately for the Phillies and their fans, management was hip to the team's weaknesses all along. In fact, reports have surfaced which indicate the team has dispatched scouts specifically to watch the Indians' C.C. Sabathia and the Padres' Greg Maddux pitch. Both players could be available for a trade before the July 31 deadline, though the price won't be cheap.

Meanwhile, the proverbial gauntlet has been thrown down for Opening Day starter Brett Myers, who thus far has limped to a 3-8 record with a 5.58 ERA. Both manager Charlie Manuel and assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. have stated that the big right-hander has to improve quickly...

Or what?

Fortunes turn fast in baseball. Suddenly the Phillies have lost three straight series and six out of their last nine immediately on the heels of a stretch in which they won 12 of 14 games. Plus, the first-place Los Angeles Angels head to town this weekend. Like the Red Sox, the Angels are another tam built for games to be played when the leaves have dropped from the trees and the air takes on a chilly bite.

Have we seen the real Phillies or are they still on the way?

"I'm concerned, I'm not worried," Manuel said. "We got three more games on this homestand. I'd like to see the Angels come in here and finish this homestand real well. I'd to see us get some things going."

Looking to go back in time

If it were possible to go back in time and retroactively edit my favorite childhood baseball player, I would. But alas, time travel is meant just for Michael J. Fox.

As a kid in the 1970s and ‘80s I was a victim of geography. With no Internet or the proliferation of cable TV, I was stuck in my tiny little realm. That meant when we lived in Washington, D.C. we closely followed the Orioles and even attended a handful of games at Memorial Stadium every season.

But when we moved to Lancaster, Pa., though technically closer to the city limits of Baltimore, we followed the Phillies. Though Lancaster with Harrisburg and York comprises the 41^st largest media market in the country, it falls under the umbrella of Philadelphia sports fandom. In fact, it's not uncommon for traveling Lancastrians to tell strangers that their hometown is "near Philly" despite the fact that Philadelphians believe Lancaster to be in the middle of nowhere, or worse, the other side of the earth.

Having lived in both places, the Philadelphians aren't wrong about Lancaster... but then again, they're stuck in Philadelphia.

Just to mix it up a bit, the Red Sox were another team we kept up with, but that was just because they were a team that was a bit exotica. The Red Sox always had good players, always were almost good (but not quite good enough) and always seemed to have a bit of soap opera quality. And since they were on the nationally broadcasted game-of-the-week often and played in that goofy little ballpark, it was difficult to ignore them.

As a result of all of this, Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Steve Carlton, Pete Rose, Eddie Murray, Jim Rice, Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens qualified, at one point or another, as favorite players. Those players had the swings that I copied though my pitching motion was strictly a direct rip-off of Luis Tiant.

Trust me on this one - this skinny kid from The Lanc with a funky pitching motion was never afraid to stick it in a hitter's ear. Hey, I own the inside part of the plate!

By the way: is there a reason why El Tiante is not in the Hall of Fame?

Anyway, of the group of ballplayers listed above I have had the chance to meet and spend moments in the company of all of them except for Boggs, which is why I want to change who my main guy was.

If I could do it all over again I'd go with Reggie.

REG-GIE! REG-GIE! REG-GIE!

Look, I know all about Reggie Jackson, the Cheltenham High grad and Wyncote native (like Ezra Pound and Benjamin Netanyahu) who came to prominence with the Oakland A's, but turned into a superstar with the New York Yankees. I know how he had an ego as big as all of those home runs and strikeouts piled on top of each other. I also know that he was a bit of a diva who probably didn't blend well with all of his teammates and/or the press.

Sometimes it seemed as if Reggie could drive everyone crazy. And I mean everyone... especially Billy Martin.

Nevertheless, Reggie got it. He knew it was a show and he had panache. People went to the park to see him homer or whiff and he rarely ever disappointed anyone. Better yet, he went deep and struck out with equal amounts of flair in which he took a huge, powerful cut that came from so deep within that it dropped him down to one knee.

But if he got a hold of one... look out! Not only did it sail far into the seats, but Reggie would stand at home plate and watch it along with everyone else before beginning his static yet stylish trot around the bases.

For some reason, though, the Reggie posturing fell out of favor. Oh no, I doubt the fans disprove, nor does it seem as if certain home run hitters like Barry Bonds or Ken Griffey are opposed to such subtle histrionics. However, when Ryan Howard gave a long home run the Reggie treatment in St. Louis last week, he took one on the right hip the next trip to the plate.

Hey, if I were putting together an all-time greats team that spanned my lifetime Reggie probably wouldn't make the cut (maybe we'd find him a spot as a late-inning pinch hitter), and clearly he was a flawed player. But the best part about Reggie is how he interacted with his audience and the messengers. Reggie was never shy about talking to the press and actually saying something interesting. He also liked to prod writers and challenge them the way a coach would a player. For instance, my old pal Howie Bryant was covering the Yankees for the Bergen County Record, Reggie used to give him a hard time about the location of his employer.

As Howie wrote in his book, Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball, Reggie used some Jedi-like, passive-aggressive tactics that led to him writing the book.

H.B. wrote on page 403 of the hardcover edition:

Reggie is never easy. He can employ numerous tactics designed to prove one thing: that he's somebody and you're not. During my first months covering the Yankees for The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, he could be funny or condescending. A favorite Jackson ploy was to read my credential, notice I worked for a Jersey paper, and comment, "Hey, how come you don't work for one of the New York papers?"

Reggie never had a problem with anything written about him as long as it was honest, good and not a cliché. Provocation and ideas were what interested Reggie, anything else was silly.

That's why Reggie is my favorite and why I'm looking for that time machine.

***

Speaking of silly, it looks like former Phillies' GM Lee Thomas finally completed a long-forgotten trade with the Dodgers.

Doing him a favor

There's an old saying that goes, "Nothing good ever happens after midnight." For Willie Randolph, that line should be amended to "nothing good ever happens after 3 a.m." It was at 3:15 a.m., after a victory over the Angels and a long flight from New York to Los Angeles that the Mets' brass finally decided that Willie Randolph shouldn't be the manager any more. No time like the present, I suppose. Why wait until the sun comes up when the job can be taken care of at 3:15 a.m. like a weirdo fraternity prank or Saddam's hanging. Why do it in New York when you can make the guy fly 3,000 miles across the country, make him manage a baseball game and then roust him out of bed at 3:15 a.m.

Yeah, I know the Mets are in California and it was shortly after midnight when the Mets' brain trust capped Willie, but it was 3:15 a.m. back in New York where, one can assume, the brass hoped they could sneak the news in well after the newspaper deadlines and the television programming had played the National Anthem to end its day of programming (do they still do that?).

But apparently the little thing that we like to call The Internets never goes off the air. That meant the Mets' big news spread through the east coast like a smoldering plastic bag filled with dog crap.

Think of all the things that get normal folks up at 3:15 a.m. like a dog barking, or a wrong number telephone call. Maybe one of the kids has a nightmare and wakes you up or maybe you get a 3:15 a.m. hankering for some organic granola and flax with a banana and soy milk... hey, it happens more than one could imagine.

But not Willie Randolph. Not with the Mets. At least he got a chartered flight to Los Angeles and was tucked beneath the down blanket in a four-star hotel when they shook him awake to tell him that the nightmare was finally over.

Willie doesn't have to manage the Mets anymore.

*** The best part of the whole Willie circus? According to reports, some of the players learned about the news not from team sources, but instead from text messages from writers.

Going the distance

For my money the best tiebreaker in all of sports is the one-on-one showdown over a full round of golf at the U.S. Open. That, folks, is as pure as it gets - one round and mano y mano. Argue all you want. Go ahead and waste your breath because you are wrong. The U.S. Open tiebreaker is the best there is because the participants actually play the entire match. There is no silly exhibition like in college football or the NHL where a watered-down skills competition decides the winner. Unlike the NFL the winner isn't decided by a coin toss or by a role player.

Instead, to decide the winner of the U.S. Open golf tournament after four rounds have been played to a tie, the participants play golf. No chipping competition or a putting contest or even a reward for the best driving abilities - instead the winner is determined by the ability to play golf.

Imagine that.

At its core, golf is a sport all about endurance and like most endurance sports golf is a game in which improvement comes to those patient enough to put in the time, discipline and sacrifice. It's about putting oneself in position for the next shot and then the shot after that as opposed to right now. Fortunately the pace of the game gives the player a chance to think about future shots with all of the walking and quiet meditation.

And yes, golf is a game best played by walking. Otherwise, what's the point?

But like endurance sports where improvement comes over time and practice, golf is sport that one can rarely master. Even Tiger Woods, probably the best golfer who ever lived, has to learn the art of humility on the course. That because golf, like most endurance sports, exposes every flaw and weakness. It's like marathon running that way in that imperfections are chewed up and snarfed back out into the dirt.

So to send Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate - the ultimate PGA Tour grinder - back out onto the souped-up (yet fair) Torrey Pines links for 18 more holes is about as good as it gets in sports. Also, maybe an 18-hole playoff - or 19 as it turned out to be with Woods prevailing by a shot - is the only chance a player like Mediate had. A 23-year touring pro ranked as the 158^th best player in the world, Mediate said his only chance to ever win a major was here and now.

He nearly pulled it off.

The good part was we all got to watch Tiger Woods persevere after getting pushed around by Rocco. Woods needed every dramatic shot he made just to get into Monday's playoff. Just the 18^th hole at Torrey by itself was center stage for three of the most dramatic shots in recent golf history for three days in a row. Those were three holes that Woods played eagle, birdie, birdie just to be able to have a chance.

Without the 18-hole playoff we don't get that.

Better yet, the U.S. Open tiebreaker is played on a Monday morning when people normally are at work or watching soap operas. Instead of manufactured hype and over-wrought production, we got sports.

Pure and simple.

Beat that.

*** Speaking of overwrought, manufactured, phony and annoying, what's with all these Red Sox fans?

Maybe the Inquirer's Bob Ford knows?

Nevertheless, the press box here at the Bank is filthy with folks who have ventured out of the proverbial woodwork in order to take a gander at the crowded Red Sox bandwagon. But what they won't be able to decipher is a difference between the Sox and the New York Yankees. After all, when teams throw around that kind of cash it all just blends together.

Catching up with PEDs

It's been a long time since I wrote about drugs here so I thought I'd start out with a "told you so." What is this time, you ask. Well, hold on... let me tell you. It wasn't too long ago - August of 2005 - when I wrote about how the well-publicized pharmaceutical Viagra was a performance-enhancing drug. And no, that wasn't meant as a joke.

Actually, most people think I'm being ironic when I say or write that Viagra can heighten the athletic prowess of an athlete, but, please, take the statements at face value. Nevertheless, what piqued my interest in Viagra was the positive drug test from ex-Orioles and Rangers slugger Rafael Palmeiro.

Palmeiro, of course, was suspended by baseball for 10 games for testing positive for the anabolic steroid Winstrol, which reportedly was the drug of choice for shamed sprinter Ben Johnson and stakes horse, Big Brown. But Palmeiro was even better known for his use of Viagra. In fact, Palmeiro famously appeared as a spokesman for the impotency drug and starred in national TV commercials that hit the airwaves in heavy rotation.

So while everyone was trying to figure out if Palmeiro was taking shots of horse steroids in his rear, I dug into what Viagra was doing for him other than what was being explained in the TV commercial.

Viagra, not unlike EPO, I wrote, could increase the level of oxygen sent to an athletes' muscles. The more oxygen in a muscle, the less tired it gets so it could be said that Palmeiro's muscles not only were recovering and growing quicker thanks to the horse ‘roids, but also they were getting much more oxygen from his little blue pills. Pretty much any athlete who participates in a sport that involves running or endurance might be able to benefit from taking Viagra.

But Viagra is also used to counteract potential impotence, which can be a side-effect of testosterone injections. At least that's what we learned from a story in the New York Daily News this week. The crux of the story:

Roger Clemens allegedly kept Viagra in a GNC vitamin bottle in his locker at Yankee Stadium. Already under investigation for alleged performance-enhancing drug use during his playing days, Clemens, sensationally, was allegedly one of many athletes taking "Vitamin V." according to the story, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Marian Jones were regular users of the drug. What's more, pro cyclist Andrea Moletta was suspended from the prestigious Giro d'Italia when police found 82 Viagra pills and a syringe in his father's car.

Sports regulation groups, including the federally-funded United States Anti-Doping Agency, are investigating whether or not Viagra could become a banned substance for athletes. According to drugs expert Don Catlin, "It's a complicated drug. If you go through the basic pharmacology and stretch your imagination, you could end up saying, ‘Yeah, maybe it could be useful for athletes who are competing in endurance sports at high altitude.'"

But - pardon the pun - Viagra is in bed with Major League Baseball. A long-time corporate sponsor of MLB, it seems as if baseball could find itself in an odd spot. How would it look if MLB came under the drug-testing auspices of the USADA and had to ban a product of one of its major sponsors?

Regardless, will Major league Baseball really test anyone for anything? According to a story in The New York Times, MLB may have suspended drug testing during the 2004 season. Better yet, if the league didn't suspend testing, the story reads, MLB alerted players when tests would be.The reason why that's such big news is that the league failed to mention any of this during the infamous testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in March of 2005.

It was during those hearings where Palmeiro wagged his finger at the lawmakers and told them he never used steroids.

Instead, MLB the MLBPA testified in those hearings that test results in 2004 showed a significant drop in positives, which may have stopped Congress from interceding in MLB's drug testing processes.

In other words, players weren't testing positive because they weren't being tested... allegedly.

Harry Waxman, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued a statement in which he says the information he received from MLB and MLBPA was wrong, though he isn't sure if either group was deliberately supplying the wrong information.

Says Waxman:

It's clear that some of the information Major League Baseball and the players union gave the committee in 2005 was inaccurate. It isn't clear whether this was intentional or just reflects confusion over the testing program for 2003 and 2004. In any case, the misinformation is unacceptable.

Because of the sports fans' drug fatigue, it doesn't seem as if the new revelations will resonate. However, it doesn't mean it won't be a problem for MLB. When the Olympic sports routinely test for performance-enhancing drugs and just as routinely suspend athletes - sometimes without the benefit of due process - baseball looks conspicuous by its absence. No, this doesn't mean baseball should start some of the Draconian methods used by the World Anti-Doping Agency and its brethren, but it's remarkable to think about what is banned by other sports but is perfectly legal in baseball.

Including that little blue pill.

Lidge on the mark

While everyone is all lathered up about the season Chase Utley is putting together (and rightly so), closer Brad Lidge is quietly putting together a fantastic season. Better yet, Lidge is well on his way to having the best season by a closer in franchise history. With 17 saves in as many chances, Lidge is on pace to nail down 42 games this season, though he could threaten the club record of 45 set by Jose Mesa in 2002.

More important than saves, Lidge has allowed just three runs in 28 innings (28 games) for a 0.96 ERA with 35 strikeouts. Using his fastball to set up a slider that is nearly unhittable, Lidge should be headed to the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium with Utley next month. Better yet, he appears to be the perfect anchor to the team's top-rated bullpen.

Interestingly, the years spent pitching in the cozy ballpark in Houston (whatever corporate monolith tagged its name on it this week) has served Lidge well. That's because in the broom closet known as Citizens Bank Park, Lidge has allowed just two earned runs in 14 games.

But the big question is how much longer Lidge will The Man in the Phillies' bullpen. Acquired in the deal that sent Geoff Geary and Michael Bourn to Houston, Lidge earns $6.35 million in salary this season and could be set for a big payday heading into a winter of free agency. Just 31-years old with a few not-so serious injuries behind him, including knee surgery that caused him to miss some of spring training as well as the first week of the regular season, Lidge is coming into his athletic prime.

But whether or not he will serve those prime years with the Phillies remains to be seen.

Lidge's agent Rex Gary told Comcast SportsNet on Wednesday afternoon that he would not comment on whether or not he and the Phillies have held discussions for a long-term deal for Lidge.

However, Gary told CSN that "Brad really enjoys it here. He and his wife Lindsay really like Philadelphia and Brad really enjoys his teammates."

So there's that.

Now if the Phillies can just figure out a remedy for Brett Myers, acquire another starter for the stretch run and nail down a contract with Lidge for the next two or three years, that would be something.

Pulling away from the pack

One of the best parts about writing about sports is listening to people talk about, well... um... sports. The insight, the nuance, the behind-the-scenes details are far better than anything that ever gets printed or turned into a movie. As someone who sometimes is willing to drive far distances just to hear or conjure up a story, hanging around the press folks at the ballpark is like Shangri-la.

And that's coming from a guy who once drove to Wyoming just because it might be fun to tell the story to people later... well, that and the fact that now I get to say that I've been to Wyoming.

Yep, Wyoming.

The best part of the drive to Wyoming? It was when I found an old copy of the Lewis and Clark diaries in a used bookstore on Capitol Street and buying chokecherry jelly from a roadside stand in the Big Thompson Canyon.

Weren't Lewis & Clark the ultimate when it came to rolling around the countryside looking for a good story or two? I thought the diaries -- especially an old copy in great condition -- was an apt purchase considering the circumstances.

Also, there is nothing in Wyoming. In some parts all you can see is the ground meet the sky. The landscape wasn't polluted with strip malls, over-commercialization, unsustainable growth or other tackiness related to suburban sprawl.

Anyway, it's always funny to listen to sports scribes talk about their athletic prowess from "the old days." It's funny because a lot of sportswriters were as good at baseball or basketball as James Frey was at detailing his arrest record. Sure, there might have been an "arrest," but then that's just a matter of semantics, isn't it?

Surely the preponderance of B.S. about athletic prowess is not just a phenomenon of the press box. Oh no. Men in general love revisionist history because it always ends the way it should - kind of like a big-budget Hollywood movie. But like Hollywood movies there is always those scenes where one thinks to himself, "There's no way that could have happened... just look at him. He makes Pat Burrell look like Ben Johnson!" when hearing those sports hero stories.

Actually, when hearing some stories I often wonder, "So, were you held back in school and much bigger than your classmates? Is that how you hit all of those home runs after you got popped in the eye with a No. 2 pencil?"

Look, I'm as prone to exaggeration as the next guy, but is the pure, unadulterated truth really the story? Of course not. The point of the story is the story. This isn't journalism, it's B.S.!

Be that as it is, I brought up my days as a really, really, really (really, really) poor hitter during high school. The fact is that I was such a bad hitter that I just decided that I would stop wasting everyone's time in waiting for my three strikes by bunting every time I went to the plate. Though I was told it was just as easy to hit a ball as it was to catch one, I could never make threatening contact with a full cut. However, if I squared around to bunt I could make the ball go where I wanted as long as that was a few feet in front of home plate, not past the pitchers' mound and on either the first-base or third-base lines.

My bunting got to the point that one of my teammates came up to me after a game and asked: "Why does the coach keep giving you the bunt signal?"

"No one gave me the bunt signal," I answered. "We have a bunt signal?"

By that point I had stopped looking down the third-base line at the coach, though during one point I remember him yelling, "Knock the cover off it, Johnny!" with a few claps after it was established that I was deep into the throes of my "Bunt Period."

The reason why my poor high school hitting ability came up pertained to Ryan Howard and, no, it had nothing to do with bunting. Though I'm sure Ryan Howard never looked down the third-base line to get the bunt signal, either, I doubt he ever needed to drop one down.

But Ryan Howard might have made a mistake by swinging (and hitting) the first pitch from Edison Volquez in the Phillies last loss (last week!). With the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth inning of the 2-0 defeat, Howard harmlessly popped out to left field to end the Phillies' threat. Strangely, Howard swung at the first pitch even though Volquez had walked Shane Victorino and plunked Chase Utley on the foot as the immediate preceding hitters. In other words, it appeared as if Volquez - the National League's top pitcher with a 9-2 record, 1.56 ERA and 96 strikeouts - were about to unravel.

Rather than allow Volquez to throw a pitch or two or even to make a mistake, Howard took a big cut and helped the young pitcher out of the jam. As a result, Volquez settled down and the Phillies got just two more base runners in the final four innings.

So that brings us to the conversation about hitting. During the elevator ride back to the press box after the post-mortem in the clubhouse, Howard's pivotal at-bat was discussed in a silly and unrealistic manner used to poke fun at an exaggerate the situation. By swinging at that first pitch Howard was the antithesis of the "Money Ball" player who was afraid that other players would make fun of him for "looking to walk."

After a few more seconds of silliness, I jumped in with the idea that I was a "Money Ball player before Money Ball even existed."

"I was always looking to walk. I was a looker," I said. "People yelled that at me all the time and the truth is I didn't even try to make it look good. Someone could have placed the ball on a tee and I would have taken it."

Or bunted.

Then I mimicked my high-school batting stance by holding an imaginary bat as if it were a light saber that suddenly went on without warning. As the imaginary pitch approached, I cowered as if being attacked by a grizzly bear.

But after the pitch safely passed, I celebrated.

"Ball One!"

OK, it wasn't that bad, but it may as well have been.

And it's a little more interesting than saying, "I hit .273 my senior year. In a game against Hempfield I went 2-for-4 with a double and scored a run. I also made a running catch in foul ground, but we lost, 6-3. We got two on in the seventh but couldn't push any across."

Booooooring.

Besides, in backyard wiffle ball there were few at my level. In that sport I'd make Ryan Howard look like Pat Burrell.

*** The one thing I was pretty good at during school sports was running. And by running I don't mean anaerobic capabilities or endurance, though I'm pretty good at those, too. Truth is, I'm probably the best distance runner of any of the mainstream sports sportswriters, but that's not saying much. Actually it's kind of like saying Brad Pitt is a better looking dude than Ernest Borgnine.

What I mean by running is that during the rare instances where I took the court or field I ran. When it was time to come off the field/court, I also ran. When I bunted one fair, I ran all out to first and if I ever walked and got to first, I ran as hard as possible to second, third or home. Somewhere along the line I was told that to do anything other than to run on the field was a sacrilege. Walking or jogging was never permitted - ever. You walked or jogged only when you were hurt, otherwise, you ran or you came out of the game.

Maybe the reason why I ran all the freaking time was because I didn't want to give anyone more excuses to take me out of the game. Playing time was scarce enough as it was so maybe I figured I wasn't going to waste it by not trying.

Watch Scott Rolen, Chase Utley or Pat Burrell - they run on and off the field, too. They don't lope or jog... they run.

When it comes to effort, those guys aren't kidding around - ever.

Just the same, I doubt Jimmy Rollins kids around when it comes to effort, too. However, unlike other players, Rollins sometimes worries about style points. The weird thing about style is that it sometimes makes perfectly good things look bad.

At least that was the case for Rollins last week when he dropped his head after a harmless pop up and casually rolled to first in anticipation of the out.

But because he wasn't hustling and had his head down, Rollins couldn't make it to second base when the pop fly was dropped by shortstop Paul Janish. After the half inning ended, manager Charlie Manuel rightly assumed the lack of hustle meant that Rollins needed a breather and sent him to the bench.

Here's the thing about Rollins - he's won games for the Phillies because of his hustle. In fact, his hustle and quickness have kept him out of trouble in a lot of instances. One, of course, was when he won a game by "stealing" home against the Cubs when he faked out the catcher by running hard toward the plate before hitting the brakes as if he were going to change direction and go back to third. When he got the catcher to fall for the fake and throw the ball to the third baseman, Rollins quickly changed direction again and sprinted home to score the winning run.

It was a move only smart, hustling players make.

The one where he didn't hustle to first base wasn't.

"It's my fault," Rollins said. "I can't get mad at him. That's like breaking the law and getting mad when the police show up. You can't do that."

Here's the thing about that, though ... if any other player did what Rollins failed to do, Manuel probably wouldn't have come down on him as hard. Manuel knew that his message would resonate more if he punished Rollins, the league's reigning MVP. Manuel also knew that Rollins wasn't going to overreact and that he was smart enough to understand the message the manager was sending not just to his MVP, but also the entire team.

The message?

You guys haven't won anything yet.

Manuel has been around long enough to know that sometimes even the best teams get complacent. And sometimes even those really good teams have a tough time shaking out of the doldrums when the games really mater.

So with the Phillies on the verge of taking three out of four from the Reds with a big, nine-game road trip looming, Manuel sent his streaking, first-place club a little love letter that they are all accountable and that there is no time to take the foot off the accelerator.

Rollins got it immediately.

"With this team you don't get away with anything anyway, but he's the manager and that's what he's supposed to do when a player isn't hustling," Rollins said. "He has to take the initiative to make sure you play the game the right way."

The message seems to have been received loud and clear. When Rollins was "benched," the Phillies went on to finish off the Reds before jetting off to Atlanta where they swept the Braves. With 12 wins their last 14 games and a four-game lead over the Marlins in the NL East, the Phillies could bury the rest of the division with another sweep in Miami.

Maybe if that happens Manuel should toss the post-game spread.

Third baseman of the future?

The Phillies drafted Anthony Hewitt, of Brooklyn, N.Y. and the Connecticut boarding school, the Salisbury School this afternoon with the No. 24 selection of the 2008 draft. Read all about it here.

I'll write something interesting later.