yep

It's a pretty sweet deal to get Boston, Yankees, and Tampa at home and go to Baltimore and Toronto

well that would eliminate a home / home situation with the jays if they are hosting tampa,NYY,and boston, they probably go to baltimore and toronto and get another road series vs the central

Titlehungry wrote:It's a pretty sweet deal to get Boston, Yankees, and Tampa at home and go to Baltimore and Toronto

Pretty sure Rube had his hand in this.

Joe Buck's heart is breaking as he just stated on air that the Phillies and Eagles are the two best run organizations in baseball and football.

Titlehungry wrote:It's a pretty sweet deal to get Boston, Yankees, and Tampa at home and go to Baltimore and Toronto

Sweet. I hope the Toronto series is over the fourth of July weekend again. This year I took my family to Toronto and we went to all three games and then spent the fourth of July at Niagara Falls. I would so do that again next year.

stevelxa476 wrote:Joe Buck's heart is breaking as he just stated on air that the Phillies and Eagles are the two best run organizations in baseball and football.

Suck it, Boston!

But everybody told me the Packers are best run organization in football...

Yankees haven't been no-hit in a 9 inning game by one pitcher since Hoyt Wilhelm did it in 1958.

They were no-hit by 5 Astros pitchers in 2003.

BigEd76 wrote:The Phils will host the Rays and visit the Orioles next year. Supposedly we're hosting the Yankees too. Not sure if Toronto is home-and-home or just a visit to Toronto...

I'm excited to finally go to Baltimore, I think it's been like 8 years since we've been there

CFP wrote:

BigEd76 wrote:The Phils will host the Rays and visit the Orioles next year. Supposedly we're hosting the Yankees too. Not sure if Toronto is home-and-home or just a visit to Toronto...

I'm excited to finally go to Baltimore, I think it's been like 8 years since we've been there

I've never been. Been waiting for the Phillies to go down so I had an excuse to go. I'm definitely there. Is Camden as great as I've heard?

Camden is pretty great when it fills up (as it definitely would, with tons of Phillies fans). It's sort of the prototype for CBP, PNC, etc. I think the most recent parks did a better job with a lot of things, but Camden is where it started. Scenery is also usually pretty good in the summer since the area around the park has a lot of fun stuff going on as well.

seke2 wrote:Camden is pretty great

does not compute

seke2 wrote:Camden is pretty great when it fills up (as it definitely would, with tons of Phillies fans). It's sort of the prototype for CBP, PNC, etc. I think the most recent parks did a better job with a lot of things, but Camden is where it started. Scenery is also usually pretty good in the summer since the area around the park has a lot of fun stuff going on as well.

The two funny things about Camden Yards now that we are fully immersed in the era of "retro" ballparks:

1. When it openend, it was of course state-of-the-art in every respect, and when you see it on TV, it still fits in as well as any park with the modern baseball aesthetic. But when you are actually seated AT the ballpark, it is very noticeable how, if you are any place besides directly behind home plate, your seat is not angled toward home plate. You have to crane your neck in some areas to watch each pitch. They hadn't thought of that little detail yet when they built the place.

2. It will remind you of the Vet in one respect: closed concourse. You get so used to being able to watch the action from any spot more or less at CBP, even if you are going for a hot dog or something. But this is like older stadiums: the concourse is behind walls that separate you from the seating bowls, so you have a bit of the "tunnel" effect of the old Vet as you go from concourse to seat (my favorite part of the Vet), but you can't see the game from all over. It feels weird now that we are used to CBP.

At first I thought, "This song doesn't go with this." Then I just about cried watching it. And I am not even a little drunk.

In a few more years I will cry like a baby.

Oh 2008 Phillies: you made me realize that all things are possible.

mozartpc27 wrote:

At first I thought, "This song doesn't go with this." Then I just about cried watching it. And I am not even a little drunk.

In a few more years I will cry like a baby.

Oh 2008 Phillies: you made me realize that all things are possible.

Fun as the World Series is, this is still also super fantastic. If heaven is just an endless loop of Ethier chasing after that ball, I'll be happy.

Goddamn, the Phillies had runs of 20-5 and 23-4 in the second half last year. Hard to believe they were 48-46 on July 21st, 7 games out of first. Take out those two stretches and they were actually a game under .500.

What stretches they were, however. Weird how a 162 game baseball season is decided in 52 games...

Obviously, I am up too late, reading about some past Phillies teams. Getting Hunter Pence has occasioned me to think, for the first time in a long time, about the strange case of Gregg Jefferies.

At the end of 1994, Gregg Jefferies was a 26-going-on-27 year old outfielder who had just put up the following two-year line in St. Louis:

245 G (out of a possible 276), .335/.401/.487/.888, good for a 136 OPS+. He got on base, had some pop, and certainly hit a lot of doubles. He was going to be 27. He was like the Carl Crawford of the 1995 free agent class. And the Phillies signed him to add to an offense that they were thinking already had Daulton and Dykstra.

Well, obviously, they well over-estimated the health of those two players, but it's interesting that Jefferies just totally collapsed. In 1995, he had a horrific start, and the fans turned against him, but he wound up having a decent season, though a dropoff from his established standard: he missed 30 games, and wound up at .306/.349/.448/.797, for an OPS+ of 109.

And that was the last time, at 27 years old, he'd ever be better than league average. His final three years with the Phillies: 97, 89, 91 (he was traded to Anaheim during the 1998 season).

I guess you could say those two great years in St. Louis were simply a mirage (Jefferies had a career line of .278/.331/.413/.744/109 OPS+ before that), but I don't think anyone ever doubted the talen with Jefferies. He was one of the Mets big prospects. Besides, those years were while he was still "figuring things out" at the ML level; he was just 24 in 1992. He seemed to put all that potential together in St. Louis.

But his prime ended as quickly as it came, and his drop off scared the Phillies off of major free agents for 8 years, until Jim Thome in 2003.

The other guy I think about from this time period is Tony Longmire.

Tony Longmire was acquired by the Phillies in a trade with the Pirates - for some goddamn reason, he was the player to be named later in a 1990 deal that had sent Carmelo Martinez to the Pirates for Wes Chamberlain and Julio Peguero. By today's standards, it's hard to imagine how this could have happened.

Carmelo Martinez was a pretty good hitter for a guy who was basically part-time. He'd had 227 PAs for the Phils when they traded him to the Pirates on August 31st (I think the non-waiver deadline was still August 31st then), and he had all of 20 plate appearances for the Pirates in September (he did hit 2 home runs).

In return, besides Chamberlain, the Phillies got a player in Longmire who had been promoted to AA at 19 years old by the Pirates in 1988. In 1989, it would appear he got hurt, and in 1990 he played in only 37 games, all at AA Harrisburg, putting up a .297/.343/.396 line as a 21 year old. Even with his limited playing time and pitiful SLG number, at 21 years old and at AA, this hardly seems like a PTBNL in a pretty inconsequential deal.

The next year, 1991, at Reading, Longmire put up a .288/.352/.446 line before being promoted to Scranton, performing at a lower level (.261/.311/.324), but he was still only 22.

He got hurt again (shin splints), and missed the entire 1992 IL season.

But when he recovered, in 1993, he came back and put up another impressive line as a 24 year old in IL: .304/.364/.443, with 36 doubles.

He got a call up to the bigs on August 31, 1993 after 120 games at AAA, so he would be eligible for the postseason roster. He got a single postseason AB in the 14-3 loss in game 2 of the NLCS to Atlanta.

In 1994, at age 25, he had a tough rookie season, batting only .237, with a .289 OBP and .317 SLG. But he only got 153 plate appearances, didn't get regular playing time until June, and then the season ended in August.

Finally, at age 26, he started putting it all together. His line for the year was .356/.419/.510, good for a .928 OPS (144 OPS +). However, he was still not being given regular playing time, despite his track record of figuring things out at each level and despite his excellent play in 1995 when he was in the game.

On August 6th, Longmire played in both ends of a double header against Cincy: he had a pinch hit appearance in game 1 (he flied out to deep right), and in game two he popped out in his first at bat, walked in his second, and grounded out 3 unassisted in his third at bat. He injured himself on this play (broke his wrist), and that was it. He never had another at bat in any affiliated baseball team, major or minor league. He did appear in some games for the Tri-City Posse in 1999, of the unaffiliated Western League.

A version of his whole story can be read here: http://drunkphilsfans.blogspot.com/2010 ... gmire.html

My personal recollection of Longmire is of this game, the second of a double header against the Pirates. The Phillies were going for a double header sweep, but were losing 4-3 in the eighth with one out and two on, when Longmire unloaded a shot into the upper deck in right field at the Vet. Remember hearing that on the radio like it was yesterday. A week and a half later, he would play his last game as a major leaguer.