GO PHILLIES!

The best team to ever come out of my home town is going back to the Series for seconds!

CBS: Nation will be pulling for non-phony, non-corporate Phillies

What I've Been Reduced To

This guy speaks for me.

Damn it.

Worst day ever.

There'll never be another like Harry K. I'm devastated.

UPDATE: Still so upset.

Some place near family and friends comes your baseball play-by-play announcer. Three hours a day, six months a year, every year since I could hear anything I heard Harry Kalas telling me about my Phillies. What a drag.

MLB 2009!!!!!!!

Preface:

I won't reminisce about the joys of last year's championship because a new year is upon us. It isn't my style to discuss my religion like that. It's a private thing - something for you and your tribe. Just know that when you win a championship after a drought of 20 years or more, it pretty much frees your soul and allows you to do previously impossible tasks like exposing a corrupt municipal government or talking to women that are way out of your league.

One thing I'm having trouble figuring out is how to address all of the drought-era superstitions I've developed over the years around the Phillies. I haven't really blogged it, but for those of you that don't know, I'm a HUGE baseball fanatic. I'm kind of over-the-top.

One superstition I have is that I never publicly pick against the Phillies. NEVER! Under any circumstances. For instance, last season I impulsively left town for South Philly when we got to the NLCS. One of the great characters from my life, Upstairs Dan (who occasionally drops by WCBF as an anonymous commenter), decided to torment me with an impossible scenario. He cornered me and demanded to know what I would do if I could only have one of two things - either the Phillies win the World Series or Barack Obama wins the Presidency. Now this was truly unfair. Obviously I couldn't possibly pick against the Phils in the middle of a deep playoff push, the first time we'd made to the NLCS since I was eight years old. But would I really doom the whole country to another GOP administration in the midst of a worldwide financial crisis of our own making? The Phils are obviously going to continue to be competitive but it was now or never for Barack Obama.

I picked my Phillies! I said F-U to America and my integrity as a committed progressive blogger. It happened. I meant it. Upstairs Dan was incredulous. How could I? He threatened to put it on my blog and ruin my "career." And I didn't hear the end of it. The Phils kept on winning. Lucky for me, Obama won the Presidency and I got the best of both worlds.

So now I have a little bit of a conundrum. I'm about to publish my 2009 predictions but I'm having a real internal debate over whether or not I'll be able to sleep at night if I pick the Phillies to finish any worse than 150-12. I mean, we're the champs. I won. I don't have to just pick the Phils because all I have in life is springtime optimism. Plus I don't think the Phillies had the greatest off-season. I don't think replacing Burrell with Ibanez is an upgrade. I've always respected him as a player but Ibanez is getting old. And I'm not sure how functional it is to bat lefties at 3-4-5. Plus Hamels pitched A LOT of innings last season. Our bullpen overachieved. It's tough to repeat in baseball...

What will I do...


MLB 2009!!!!!!!

American League

AL EAST

1. Boston Red Sox
2. Tampa Rays
3. New York Yankees
4. Baltimore Orioles
5. Toronto Blue Jays

This is an incredibly tough division to win. I worry about the Rays falling back to the pack this year but their roster is just so impressive. I think they got lucky with injuries last year. The Orioles are going to hit and they finally have a game plan after a decade in the wilderness.

AL CENTRAL

1. Cleveland Indians
2. Chicago White Sox
3. Minnesota Twins
4. Kansas City Royals
5. Detroit Tigers

This is tough to handicap. The Indians have been a favorite of baseball purists for the last few seasons but they've kneecapped themselves with poor first halves. They're due. The Royals will be better surprisingly competitive and I could easily see them finishing third over the Twins, who I think play soft, and the Tigers who I think are going to have to shed talent and salary for economic reasons starting in May or June.

AL WEST

1. Oakland A's
2. Los Angeles Angels
3. Texas Rangers
4. Seattle Mariners

I thought the Angels were the best team in baseball last year but I really hate what they did this off season and I think the AL WEST is suddenly amongst the weakest in the game. The Mariners have a better roster than they've proven on the field but they don't work well as a team. They need a new plan. I like the risks the A's took this winter. They'll need to be especially healthy.

AL PLAYOFFS:

Boston over Oakland
Tampa over Cleveland

Boston over Tampa


NL EAST

1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Florida Marlins
3. New York Mets
4. Atlanta Braves
5. Washington Nationals

The top four teams in this division are all capable of making the playoffs. It's going to be a bloodbath. I hate the Mets so I'm picking them to finish in third behind two playoff teams. "K-Rod" is going to have a bad year, Santana is going to get hurt, and Jose Reyes is going to continue to earn the resentment of his teammates and the rest of his league for his lackadaisical effort and his overall badditude. The Marlins are really really talented. They might be the best team in the National League secretly.

NL CENTRAL

1. Chicago Cubs
2. Cincinnati Reds
3. St. Louis Cardinals
4. Milwalkee Brewers
5. Houston Astros
6. Pittsburgh Pirates

The Reds are secretly really balanced and have finally changed the culture of the franchise after dumping losers like Adam Dunn. The Brewers lost too much pitching but I was tempted to dump the Cardinals down into fourth because I really just don't like them.

NL WEST

1. Los Angeles Dodgers
2. Arizona Diamondbacks
3. San Fransisco Giants
4. San Diego Padres
5. Colorado Rockies

This division is getting better quickly. If the Giants can figure out their starting eight, their starting pitching could be the best in the league, Barry Zito renaissance or not. The Padres seemed willing to unload assets this off season but I don't think they're too far off from being competitive.

Florida over Chicago
Philly over LA

Philly over Florida

World Series: Phillies over Red Sox

Back to back champs!!!!

I couldn't help it guys. I can't not pick my hometown nine!

But if Boston beats LA in the World Series instead, I wouldn't be too surprised.

Too Nice

I had big plans to write copiously all weekend long for the reading pleasure of my lovely and loyal readers.

But did you see the weather outside?!?

There was no way in hell I was going to miss out on all the springtime fun. Plus who the hell was going to sit at home reading my blog on a Sunday as divine as this one?

In other news, my Philadelphia Phillies start their championship defense campaign tonight! Go Phillies!

My Official Major League Baseball Outlook is in the pipeline for later. Not only do I promise that it will be better than my aborted NCAA March Madness picks, but I guarantee that I will beat Nate Silver's powerhouse PECOTA system.

Everyone knows that authentic baseball fans make better nerdy political pundits.

Correlation and causation bitches!

Hateful Rays-Baiting By McCain Camp at PA Stop

This morning I drove to Bensalem, Pennsylvania, just outside Philly, to check out a John McCain event being held at the TC Millwork facility. TC Millwork manufactures fixtures and whatnot for casinos, health care facilities, and other retailers.

I had wanted to check out for myself some of this hatefulness characterizing many McCain campaign events over the last ten days or so.

But aside from a couple of refrains of "communist" or "socialist," McCain supporters in Bensalem were largely peaceful. No overly offensive anti-Obama tee shirts or buttons. The event was tightly controlled and occurred very early in the morning.

I was disappointed that I had schlepped all the way to Bensalem with a camera only to be put back to sleep by the relaxed crowd and the boring speech but trust me when I say how reassuring it was not to have had to witness a bunch of spiteful human caricatures flying off the handle.

Before the speeches began, I was chatting with some members of the local press gaggle who were wondering about just how short the notice was before this morning's rally. The reason was that the event drew no more than 1000 people. The McCain camp has gotten used to smaller crowds in comparison to Obama's events but the advance team seemed to have anticipated a more substantial turnout - a much larger area was cordoned off in the facility than ended up being necessary.

The other thing I noticed about the crowd was how familiar everybody seemed to be with other attendees. Now that's not an observation of the friendliness and camaraderie of McCain supporters - I'm saying that people knew each other, literally. The crowd seemed to be made up of a lot of regular GOP volunteers, not the larger Bucks County population. Also the crowd was disproportionately over the age of - they were freakin' old. There were some nuclear families there too but overwhelmingly, it was the early-bird.

Remember, it's not as if this event was held in Center City Philadelphia, where Obama is wildly popular. This was a campaign rally in the traditionally conservative suburb of Bucks County. Republicans have long relied on the Philadelphia suburbs to offset the liberal voting power of the city proper. But in 2000 and 2004, Bucks rejected George Bush and so did Pennsylvania at-large. In 2006, Bucks flipped the 8th Congressional district by electing Patrick Murphy, the first Democrat to represent the district since 1993.

Apparently, signals coming from the McCain campaign indicate a Pennsylvania-centered strategy over the next few weeks. Without a viable means of keeping up with Obama's message and campaign machine, the McCain camp seems to be realizing that there is no way they can win Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc. Without flipping a big electoral prize like Pennsylvania, McCain can't win the election. He simply does not have the money, time, or campaign competence to expect to keep all the red states that Obama currently leads in the polls - even if you take Florida and Ohio out of the equation.

To win Pennsylvania, which voted with the Democratic nominee in both 2000 and 2004, McCain will have to reverse the last fifteen years of GOP atrophy and Democratic gain in the Philadelphia suburbs. Not to mention the 8-15 point lead Obama has in the polls in Pennsylvania. He has two weeks to do it and he can't do it without boosting his popularity in Bucks County. And I don't think he can boost his popularity in Bucks County unless he can figure out a way to quintuple the number of people willing to attend his rallies there.

But wait -

John McCain is an experienced candidate and has become increasingly well-versed in the politics of division and deceit. He played the Rays card at today's event in the Philly burbs.

Here's what he said:

I heard that Senator Obama was showing some love to the Rays down in Tampa Bay yesterday. Now, I'm not dumb enough to get mixed up in a World Series between swing states, but I think I may have detected a little pattern with Senator Obama. It's pretty simple really. When he's campaigning in Philadelphia, he roots for the Phillies, and when he's campaigning in Tampa Bay, he shows love to the Rays.

That's the most blatant form of Rays-baiting imaginable. McCain is hinging his campaign on Pennsylvania which means he needs to reverse course in the Philly area. So what does he do? He questions Barack Obama's credentials as a Phillies fan.

Brilliant strategy.

McCain's advisers certainly know how important the World Series is for Philadelphia and have likely encouraged McCain to do whatever it takes to impugn Senator Obama on that issue.

But it's wrong!

Barack Obama has maintained that since his hometown White Sox were eliminated, he'd be rooting for those Fightin' Philadelphia Phillies. And good for him. It's the correct policy. Any objective observer that has studied the history of the game and the current baseball climate knows that the Phillies are the right team for the right time.

Yesterday, after the Tampa Rays won their first ever AL pennant, Barack Obama was introduced at an event by rookie pitcher David Price and some other members of the local nine. Obama politely congratulated them on their success, saying this:

"I have said from the beginning that I am a unity candidate, bringing people together," Obama said. "So when you see a White Sox fan showing love to the Rays, and the Rays showing some love back, you know we're onto something right here."

In no way did Barack Obama flip-flop on his endorsement of the Phillies. There is nothing wrong with the Tampa Rays. They have a lot of likable players, have a compelling worst-to-first story, and Barack Obama has no reason not to appreciate their efforts. But let us be clear: Barack Obama is pulling for the Phils!

He first endorsed the Phillies on October 12th. He did so AGAIN over the weekend - to an enemy Florida radio show. So what kind of campaign is John McCain running?

McCain, while accurately quoting Obama, makes an absolutely inappropriate inference about switched loyalties. The derision in his voice was palpable - it was scary.

McCain's decision to Rays-bait a tense Philadelphia shows what kind of man he is. McCain himself does not have the courage to pick a World Series team of his own but he has no problem inciting a crowd to - we're talking Philly sports fans here - violence.

It was a shameful display by a man once destined to be remembered as honorable. My how times have changed.

The Phillies

I can't believe we're going to the World Series.

I've never high-fived so many strangers in my life.

I'm very lucky to have made it home for this.

I'm so happy.

WCBF To Philadelphia

I'll be heading to Philadelphia this Wednesday for two weeks. I'll continue to blog semi-regularly, hopefully with firsthand reports of what a real Presidential campaign looks like. As we know, Philadelphia is critical to Obama's prospect in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania whereas Louisiana is off of the map right now.

(Full disclosure: Everyone knows I'm really only going to watch the Phillies in the playoffs)

(Anyone got tickets to NLCS Game 6? Anyone? Would upstairs Dan like to tempt fate once again?)

I Love My Home Town

Palin subjected to 90 seconds or more of sustained booing at Flyers game.





I was more than annoyed when I'd heard that Sarah Puppet would be given free hockey mom publicity by my hometown ice team. In fact, I said some mean things about the sport of hockey.

How about my Philadelphia brothers and sisters, eh?

From the CNN recap:

"Flyers fans, show Philadelphia's class and welcome America's #1 hockey mom, Sarah Palin," the massive electronic message board pleaded, to little effect. Booing quickly erupted when the smiling candidate emerged from a tunnel leading onto the ice, muffling the applause of any Palin supporters in the crowd.

Some in the audience simply gave her a thumbs down gesture. Others called her names.

But alas, the new Wachovia First Union Corestates Center attracts a corporate crowd compared to the vrai Philadelphians that used to populate the Wachovia First Union Corestates Spectrum. Had the game been at the Spectrum, some crazed fans would have dropped the gloves on Governor Palin at mid-ice, ran the Zamboni over her highlighted hair and sequestered her in the penalty box with that garsh darn mainstream media for the duration of the campaign. Meanwhile, the remaining crazed fans would just go for the beer supplies and end up passed out in the parking lot.

Woohoo!

UPDATE: Seems like Palin got the Philly treatment all day:

Outside the Bellevue, Palin, sitting in her car, gave a little back and forth wave to the protesters, who in return gave her thumbs down and rounds of boos.

"Back to Alaska, They shouldn't have Asked ya!" read one poster on the median.

Police said about 400 protesters lined the streets outside the hotel, the same number that organizers expected at the fundraiser, chanting to each other and to passing motorists. Inside, Palin got her hair and makeup done at Pierre and Carlo salon.

At times, Republicans attending the event and protesters confronted one another.

"They are hooligans," said Bucks County restauranteur and McCain supporter Andrew Abruzzese, after he flashed a peace sign at protesters, who responded with raised middle fingers. Another Republican complained of being jostled.

Er, I suppose she only had the opportunity to blow kisses to protesters when she wasn't getting her hair done at an exclusive salon and shelling out "varying levels of interaction" at $25,000 a fundraiser for a bunch of wealthy hot-and-jostled bigots:

Wally Nunn, a prominent Republican fundraiser who contributed $25,000 to be able to mingle with Palin, said he was disappointed that McCain had come to Obama's defense.

Nunn said he did not believe Obama to be a decent man. Attending the event with former 60s radical turned GOP activist David Horowitz, he said, "This guy Obama scares me."

--

Tickets to the Bellevue fundraiser, organized by local businessmen Craig Drake and Frank Giordano ranged from $1,000 to $25,0000, for varying levels of interaction with Palin. Leslie Gromis Baker, a state McCain official would not reveal the amount raised. She said 25 people paid the highest level or more.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama made himself right at home:

By contrast, Obama told supporters in Philadelphia today that with the his Chicago White Sox eliminated, he was rooting for the Phillies in the baseball playoffs.

Let's go Phillies!

For those of you who don't know, Obama's "Yes We Can" slogan was originally coined by Dave Cash, the 2nd basemen for the 1974 Philllies.

My Favorite Day of the Year

My Fightin' Phils are playing right now.

I dropped $120 I don't have so that I can watch them live all year long on the internets.

When I was a boy, my mom let me cut school on every opening day so that I could stay home and watch the first game of the season.

She also let me cut school to go to each home opener.

I'd get all decked out in my gear, go to Wawa for a hoagie and walk up South Street to Broad to catch the subway down to the Vet.

Now I'm a big kid and we don't play at the Vet no more.

I take the subway to the Bank. And my neighborhood Wawa closed down. Tony Luke's got a better hoagie anyway, even if it costs a little more and there's no free MAC machine. I go with the veal and broccoli rabe. If I'm hungry after the game, I might go to Pat's for a provy wit.

Sorry if my New Orleans friends don't understand what any of that means.

I love the Phillies more than anything else on the planet. I have punched walls in anger because of them and I have cried tears of joy because of them.

I am so happy right now. I got Harry Kalas doing play-by-play and my boys have an early 1-0 lead thanks to a Chase Utely sac fly that brought home reigning MVP Jimmy Rollins. Starter Brett Myers pegged that asshole Paul Lo Duca right in his shoulder.

I know more about baseball than I do about politics. I wish I could just blog about them.

But I can't.