New Coat of Paint: Cubs at Phillies Gamethread, August 7, 2013

The Phillies, at this point, are a little depressing. I don't mean to be a downer here -- I'm not going into tank rhetoric -- but let's be honest here: they're kind of a bummer these days.

When baseball makes me sad, I tend to get wistful. Maybe I just have some of the ol' good old days mentality about America's Pasttime. Maybe it's because baseball makes me think of over the hill could-have-beens and never-wases, a condition I sometimes envision myself embracing. For whatever reason, I think the Phillies, right now, remind me most of a torch album. You know the kind -- the album about romance, lost love, and hitting the skids all on your lonesome. For some people this kind of album lives in the R&B section -- Sade or Lionel Richie. Some people love the old yacht rock -- Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald. Some people might get their romance on to a Deicide record or an old Agoraphobic Nosebleed tape. No judgment. But for me, it's always Tom Waits.

Tom Waits' second album is the seminal Heart of Saturday Night, and while it doesn't have the bombast of his later work, it's exceptional in the number of slurred bar anthems that you can rattle off. Lonelyhearts, bar flies, and spiritual last kids picked, take note. And of course, by all those, we also mean the 2013 Phillies.

The first track on Heart is "New Coat of Paint," a jaunty number about painting the town, putting a new coat of paint (obv. red colored) all over the dull colors. But this isn't a happy anthem -- "love needs a transfusion," Tom tells us, "let's fill it full of wine." This is a drunk revelry racing to the end. A drunk, half-cocked shot into the rest of the album's listless "You can't go home again" vibe. The last benefit to the "scribbled love dreams lost and thrown, in amidst the shuffle of an overflowing day." Like the Phillies, Tom just wants to keep things going forever. And who can blame him?

As we'll see, sadly, while "fishing for a good time starts with throwing in your line," it doesn't end there. Discuss your own last ditch attempts at happiness and the Phillies below.

Cole Hamels

#35 / Pitcher / Philadelphia Phillies

Height: 6-3

Weight: 195

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Dec 27, 1983

Travis Wood

#37 / Pitcher / Chicago Cubs

Height: 5-11

Weight: 175

Bats: R

Throws: L

Born: Feb 06, 1987

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