Phillies Breakfast Links, August 20, 2009: Baseballtown, Prodigal Pedro, Shane or Whitey?

I think he needs a few more years to be talked about in that group, but what I think is great about how he’s playing is that it’s vindicating what many of us said when he was backing up Rowand. Victorino should have been playing center field those years and Rowand should have been elsewhere. I wouldn’t say best-ever center fielder, but he was certainly the best center fielder on the roster the moment he joined the team.

love the way conlin reminds us that HE dubbed Garry Maddox the minister of defense.

“…who looked like a desiccated, water-stained Phillie Phanatic with advanced syphilis.”

That is some very nicc writing.

I still remember going to those Reading games 20 times or so a season and thinking was the greatest thing ever, despite the lack of “kid friendly” amenities. I might have been unusual in that I was so keenly interested in the game itself at a pretty young age, but I still kind of prefer my baseball viewing experience to be as “no-frills” as possible. I guess the skyrocketing attendance has more or less shown that I’m an anomaly in this regard (I can remember “Guess the Attendance!” nights where you could literally count the fans in the bleachers and get pretty close to the correct total). There were no kiddle playgrounds, games, etc., just the ballgame and some really cheap eats.

Rugelach. Love it!

L’chaim!

I’m going to call him hamantashan

I hope they don’t Disneyfy the joint too much in the renovation. I really consider Reading one of the absolute best places to watch a baseball game. From the looks of the article it looks like they’re addressing the needs rather than scrubbing it up too much.

I don’t remember the Silly Phillie, but early versions of Screwball were, well, worth the price of admission.

We should refer to one another as either “bubbes” or “putzes” depending on our reaction to comments. And I heartily endorse this tutorial for more Yiddish fun.

BTW – for out of market folks – tonights game is on MLB network if you have it

Nice to see one of our local Oregon papers getting an article picked up: the Lake Oswego Review story on local hero Mike Stutes. I don’t follow high school sports, but I do remember Stutes being part of both Oregon State teams that won the NCAA titles in 2006-07. He even won the clinching game in 2007, I believe. (By the way, for those who dream of a Phillies back-to-back championship, OSU winning two in a row has got to be one of the most unlikely stories, yet it happened.) With Stutes and the many other young arms in the Phillies’ minor league system, they seem to be ready to move pitchers up to the big team or make trades, as needed. Since those pre-Randy Wolf days when Tyler Green and Mike Bottalico were about the only Phillies prospect pitchers who did anything – and that wasn’t saying much – it’s heartening to see what’s available today.