Cease: Phillies at Giants Game Thread, May 8, 2013

It's truly a Satanic quirk of scheduling today that I have to write this game thread promo prior to the Halladay press conference, but here we are. I'd rely on the assumption that no one reads these things, but based on some Wu Tang awareness happening last night, and some pointed questions about my prom night the night earlier, I think that's probably a spurious assumption. So, again, here we are: I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen to Roy or what he's going to say; you, on the other hand, know (presumably) exactly all of that, such as it is. You future people put me at a bit of a disadvantage.

So, I'm'a talk about music again instead. My favorite Bad Religion song -- and, to be clear, this is setting a relatively high bar -- is the last track on their fairly forgettable Gray Race album, "Cease." The theme of the song is fairly bleak, but also rather simple: everything must cease. Or, that is: die, fade out, end, go away, stop, finish, resolve. It's a truth relatively unacknowledged that things have to end; if one thinks about it, in 1,000 years, the likelihood that there's even a Philadelphia Phillies at all is kind of slim. Regardless of one's theological predilections, the basic truth is everyone and everything we enjoy has to end at some point.

But this isn't black metal we're talking about, it's punk rock, so the implications are a tad more active, if no less bleak. One does not go quiet into that good night. And if Doc is broken, I can't but read his career as a punk manifesto: go balls to the wall and burn out quickly. I know it's maybe gauche to lionize that kind of thinking today, since one of the best pitchers any of us will ever see play the game might be done forever, but Doc did not play by half-measures. Even these last few starts were profane performance set against the whims of baseball injury, blasphemy to the Baseball Gods. If he had to accept his fate, then I'm glad he did it with a snarl.

Or, maybe he's okay and this all looks like needless sturm und drang. I could only be so lucky!

Jonathan Pettibone

#68 / Pitcher / Philadelphia Phillies

Height: 6-6

Weight: 225

Bats: L

Throws: R

Born: Jul 19, 1990

Barry Zito

#75 / Pitcher / San Francisco Giants

Height: 6-2

Weight: 205

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: May 13, 1978

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