As my brother pointed out, I did actually watch and/or listen to several parts of last night's Phillies/Cubs game. Sitting down for dinner at a Kutztown* pizzeria, my brother and father and I requested the game be shown on one of the mounted TV's.
While inhaling a lot of pizza and just a bit of Lager, we watched Rheal Cormier warm up with the score 3-1 Phils and Cubbies on base. My immediate reaction was not good...what is Charlie Manuel's fascination with Frenchie the Human Gas Can?
Sure enough, a ball is hit to shallow right/center field and Bobby Abreu comes charging in at full-speed, but with his usual tentativeness. Rather than dive, he brain freezes (as he usually does on anything less than a clear cut play), the ball drops, and the score is tied at 3-3.
You couldn't script a better Phillies loss.
By the ninth inning I'm making my way back down the Northeast Extension and listening to Scott Graham call the game on XM Radio (Chris Wheeler was doing the color commentary, I think, but I try to mentally tune him out).
Jimmy Rollins gets to third with just one out after a double and Kenny Lofton doing the right thing and moving him over with a ball in play to the right side of the infield. Dusty Baker chooses to intentionally walk left handed batters Chase Utley and Bobby Abreu to get to right handed bat Pat Burrell.
At this point, as Cubs reliever Mike Wurtz threw Burrell slider after slider, I'm thinking, "this has strikeout written all over it, they really aren't going to get Rollins in are they?!" And just as my pessimism overwhelms me, Barrett lets strike three get by him, it sounds like Rollins is caught in a rundown. And before I can yell out in anger, Scott Graham shrieks (literally), "Rollins stole the game!"
As soon as I arrived back in Delco, I checked out Comcast Sportsrise to see the replay of the final play...Hard to believe, Harry.
And that my phriends, that play right there, is why we end up watching just one more game after we throw in the towel.
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Bob Nightengale reports in USA Today:
The Marlins rejected the Phillies offer of pitcher Vicente Padilla, center fielder Kenny Lofton and reliever Ugueth Urbina for starter A.J. Burnett and centerfielder Juan Pierre before the deadline.
I guess it can't hurt to ask, but did Ed Wade really think the Marlins would make that deal with a division rival?
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* I was in Kutztown to help my brother in his move to Erie, PA for a new job. Kutztown has some type of ordinance where Kutztown University students are restricted from living in certain parts of town, apparently part of an effort to keep certain parts of town quiet and clean. It's an ordinance that makes incoming students feel a bit unwelcome.
However, the borough does allow some type of dirt-bike race to go on right in the middle of town. The constant and intense drone of the engines is overpowering and a dust cloud hangs over portions of town.
Who would have thought Wednesday Night Dirt-bike Racing contributes more to the local economy than an entire university of students?
