CFP wrote:Things were really really bad when he was here

Yeah we were playing Desi Relaford every day.

MFP wrote:

LongDrive wrote:Is Desi Relaford available?

He is not.

Eighteen years after playing in Philadelphia, former Phillie Desi Relaford called Philly fans “trash.”

Relaford spent 11 seasons in Major League Baseball, the first five with the Phils. He was a career .243 hitter.

“The fans, they were trash,” Relaford told The Jake Brown Show podcast. “I have some really good friends there, but as fans? Oh yeah, the worst…Not only are they hard, but they’re just irrational. They boo just to boo.

“Getting booed before they even announce my name, ‘Now batting, your shortstop, booo!‘ I get it, I was scuffling. I’m not saying you can’t get booed or fans shouldn’t boo. Yeah, if a player deserves to get booed, boo his a**, give it to him. But there’s a time and place and it shouldn’t just be for any and everything, and especially your home team. I can understand booing your home team, but things should be really, really bad before that happens.”

https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2018/ ... ans-worst/

Nice clear and concise statement from Desi... fan should be allowed to boo... but not when you are playing at a level they should boo at like 98% of his career.. got it

MoBettle wrote:

CFP wrote:Things were really really bad when he was here

Yeah we were playing Desi Relaford every day.

I lol'd at this

He used the term "scuffling", a clear tribute to Whitey, so gets a pass.

Also, some of the fans are clealy trash, we know this.

i remember being at a game where he attempted to steal second but the batter lined into an out. for some reason the fielder rushed his throw to double him up and threw it away. desi just continued to sulk between first and second while they retrieved the ball and doubled him up. that play will always define his career for me.

Squire wrote:Just wanted to post that the additions of Zach Wheeler, Didi Gregorius, Joe Girardi and Bryan Price *are* enough to get me pretty excited about the start of Phillies baseball.

i agree that the upgrades the phils made to the coaching staff this offseason combine to provide a very rare example of coaching changes that are likely to make a real difference. there are multiple lines of evidence suggesting that the coaching side of things was an unusually big problem for the phils in 2019. hopefully results in more positive "regressions" than negative ones from 2019 to 2020, adding at least a couple more wins. nola and eflin and vv/pivetta are the candidates for benefit on the pitching side. hoskins and maybe segura and harper on the hitting side.

Desi Relaford

SUMMARY
Career

WAR
-0.5

April 12, 1999. Saw Desi Relaford hit a bases clearing triple vs. John Smoltz and the Braves. And then get picked off third base with one out.

Of course went on to hit .293 vs. the Phils and to have his one good season as a Dirty Met.

Shore wrote:Desi Relaford

SUMMARY
Career

WAR
-0.5

BOO!

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

MoBettle wrote:

CFP wrote:Things were really really bad when he was here

Yeah we were playing Desi Relaford every day.

I lol'd at this

When I think of Relaford, I still remember the promise of the first half of that 1998 season. In 1999, he got injured, and the Phillies had to pluck Domingo Cedeno out of wherever to fill the spot, and I remember being devastated that he was gone (although I was in attendance for Cedeno's last big league HR, a walk off against the Diamondbacks that put the Phillies 13 games over .500 in August, in a game that had been started by Randy Johnson - heady night, that, particulary in those days).

I always think fondly of Relaford, because I liked him then. I was not yet introduced to advanced statistical analysis of baseball performance in the late 90s, so that might have been part of it; I was 20-21 at the time and just going to a lot of games for the first time in my life without Dad along, so that was my first experience of going to baseball games as an independent adult, and therefore I have a fondness for all of those teams, so that was part of it; Relaford had a great Harry Kalas name (I can still hear the "DEZ E REL A FURD" in my head) so that might be it; or it might be because I remember so well this high water mark of the Desi Relaford experience in Philadelphia, and after that I remember not much at all:

On July 4, 1998, Relaford went 4 for 5, with a home run and 5 RBIs in a 6-5 Phillies walk off win against the Brewers, with Relaford delivering that walk off hit. He slumped badly after that, finishing .245/.293/.338/.631, a contributing factor in the collapse of that team, which had played above .500 ball through July.

Relaford was of course supplanted by J-Roll after a foreshortened 1999 season and a dismal run here in 2000 on a dismal team, but had himself a career year in 2001 with the Mets, albeit in on 120 games/340 PAs: he slashed a .302/.364/.472/.836, good for a 119 OPS+. It was all downhill after that.

But on that July 4th night, Relaford was a hero, the Phillies were a .500 ball club at close to the halfway point of the season, a year after being 24-61 - twenty-found and sixty one! - at the All-Star break, and they were on a run of what would become six straight victories to run their record to 46-42 on July 12th. A week and a half later, on July 21st, after a two-game sweep at Montreal, they were 51-46, and I remember distinctly watching Baseball Tonight and for the first time in my adult life, they talked playoff race standings with the Phillies included.

The Phillies collapsed after that, went 24-41 the rest of the way, and finished 75-87. That's all anyone seems to remember, but me. Not coincidentally, a week after that July 4th game, Desi Relaford's slash line was .305/.354/.422/.775 on July 10th, 86 games into that season and just 104 games into his career. As I've already said, he went into a tailspin after that, and so did the Phillies.

It looked to my young eyes like the Phillies had a star in the making, who'd had an understandable slump after the league started to make adjustments, but that he showed a lot of promise. In the end, it was not to be. But worth noting: Relaford's successor, J-Roll, the Phillies all-time greatest SS, and one of the great players in franchise history, had a slash line of .275/.311/.424/.735 after the first 86 games of his first full season in the bigs (which represented his 99th career game). Eerily similar to Desi.

I didn't understand about age and all that at the time (Relaford was 24 and Rollins 22 in their first full seasons), but to me the story of Desi Relaford is the sad story of how fine the line can sometimes be between forgettable journeyman and franchise great. J-Roll sometimes feels to me like the dim mirage of the what might have been version of Desi Relaford; and Relaford the dark shadow-version of J-Roll, a reminder that for every career that works out, there are hundreds of nearly identical tracks that wind up in the dustbin of baseball history.

Wolfgang622 wrote:(although I was in attendance for Cedeno's last big league HR, a walk off against the Diamondbacks that put the Phillies 13 games over .500 in August, in a game that had been started by Randy Johnson - heady night, that, particulary in those days).

that was a great game. iirc ron gant hit a late hr to send it to extras. team was surging at that point.

The only thing I remember of Desi is that they used play the Bud Light "Wassssup" after Dan Baker said his name when he announced the lineups.

I remember Desi hitting an opening day homer off Randy Johnson down in Phoenix in 2000 in a late starting game, that’s the only bright spot I remember about him

The Ricky Otero/Desi Relaford 1-2 punch in the lineup was something else.

You mean Des-E Relaford

Wolfgang622 wrote:I really want MadBum. That may not be rational but I love that dude.

Wait, so you hate the Astros for 2005, but love MadBum?

PSUPhilliesPhan wrote:The Ricky Otero/Desi Relaford 1-2 punch in the lineup was something else.

I think they only ever batted 1/2 three times, and we scored 17 runs and went 2-1. They were some secret super-lineup.