The Philly Sports Journal

Pete Rose is all about morality.

Whether you’re for him or against him, no sports figure sparks more passion than Pete Rose does. That’s because he ignites our basic sense of moral values, the tenets we grew up with and by which we, at least partially, have defined ourselves since childhood.

On the field, Rose epitomized the morality of the fan: play to win, give it your all every day, no matter what.

In fact, one of his most famous quotes was, “I never got booed in a white uniform,” because he never mailed it in, never half-assed it, never jogged out a fly ball. If he was on your team, you loved him.

Integrity. Heart. Hustle. Those are the things that defined Pete Rose’s game, Charlie Hustle’s game.

On the field, Pete Rose was sports morality.

Hell, lots of people were willing to overlook his cheap shot on Ray Fosse as a biproduct of Rose’s drive to win.

Just like lots of people are willing to overlook his gambling on baseball. After all, the major leagues’ last player/manager never bet against his own club, never threw a game. Pete always bet on Pete.

So what if, off the field, Rose was a different kind of hustler — trying to hustle the system, trying to hustle you for sympathy, for Hall of Fame entry?

Off the field, Pete Rose was and is a total scumbag.

A degenerate gambler. An ignoramus. A liar.

That’s Pete Rose: Mr. Morality on the field, Mr. Amoral off of it.

I believe in forgiveness. What Pete Rose did was wrong. He broke baseball’s golden rule. It doesn’t compare to what steroid users have done. They truly compromised the game’s integrity. I believe that Rose, the All-Time Hits King, should be in the Hall of Fame.

Like in politics, my beliefs are largely based on my morality, and reasonable people can disagree. I support Rose’s Hall of Fame plea because of his accomplishments and morality on the diamond; you may oppose it because of his mistakes and absence of morality outside the white lines.

Let the debate rage on.

Tags: Baseball, Steroids
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It was the kind of deal that had Pat Gillick written all over it. Phils GM Ruben Amaro even acknowledged that his former boss, now a consultant for the team, was involved.

Amaro didn’t go for broke, but he didn’t skimp out either. It wasn’t Broadway, but it was still big-time. He got a legit, front-line starter. And by keeping J.A. Happ, he gave the Phillies depth.

Halladay is Mr. Consistent, the closest there is to a sure thing, a second-to-none Number One. That’s not what Amaro got in Cliff Lee, who can slide in either ahead or behind Cole Hamels in the Phillies’ rotation. But, although Halladay would have packed more of a punch — and was absolutely worth the price — the Phillies retain a more balanced staff, top to bottom, with the Lee deal.

Lee, Hamels, Blanton, Happ, Moyer, Lopez and, soon, Pedro. Not too shabby. One of the best staffs in baseball, in fact.

Is it a staff built for the postseason? We’ll see.

It’s comforting that the Phils kept Kyle Drabek, Dominic Brown and Happ. But who’s to say Jason Knapp — a 6-foot-5 righty with a 97-mph fastball at age 18 — won’t turn out to be the best of the lot? Cleveland sure seems to like him, and the Indians know a thing or two about young talent. They traded then-ace Bartolo Colon to Montreal a while back for a couple prospects named Lee and Sizemore. They also drafted and developed a guy named Sabathia.

It’s easy to say the Phillies “gave up nothing” to get Cliff Lee, but that might not be true. That’s why they should have gotten Halladay.

Still, I’m pretty excited about Lee.

Tags: AL Central, Baseball, NL East, Phillies
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Hold your breath, Ruben, and jump in. Close your eyes and pull the trigger. Go on up there, rook GM, and take a big-league hack.

Get Roy Halladay. Now. Please.

They want Drabek, Happ and Brown. Fine. I want another championship, and a Halladay/Hamels duo exponentially increases my odds.

And all you Phillies fans paralyzed by fear, it’s time to get on board. We’re big-time now. We’re major players now. We’re world champs. Realize what that means. This is not the time to wait and hope for tomorrow. Seize the day.

If you have so much faith in these sacred, pristine, untouchable prospects — about whom, I bet, you don’t actually know much (be honest) — then have faith in the Phillies’ ability to draft and develop other prospects. In the meantime, for the next two Octobers and hopefully beyond, we’ll have one of the best pitchers in baseball leading our elite club in its dynastic quest.

And Cliff Lee is no substitute. I won’t complain if we get him, but he doesn’t have the bulldog, big-game mentality Halladay has.

Ruben Amaro knows the Blue Jays are up against it. They need to deal Halladay, and with a year and a half left on his contract, right now is when they’ll get the best value. So Amaro is gambling that they’ll soften their demands just before the Friday deadline — and that no other team will swoop in and scoop him up.

Amaro may be right. But I don’t want to gamble, not on prospects and not on passing up Roy Halladay.

Tags: AL East, Baseball, NL East, Phillies
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Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is considering lifting the lifetime ban on Pete Rose, thanks to the urging of several Hall of Famers, including Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan and Selig’s friend Hank Aaron. If Selig takes this long overdue step, Rose will become eligible for the Hall, where he belongs.

What Pete Rose did was despicable, but there is no evidence he ever bet against his own team or threw games. That wasn’t in his makeup anyway. Not to mention, steroids distorted the landscape of the game far worse than anything Pete Rose did. 

If a single steroid user gets in — like, for instance, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, who is somehow getting a free pass — and then hard evidence comes out later that he was a juicer, where does that leave baseball? Pete should be reinstated and inducted, and there should be a note about his gambling, and steroid users should get in too, with a general note about the Steroid Era.

Tags: Baseball, Steroids
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David Sale was 22 years old. He was from the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdale. He was at Citizens Bank Park with some friends for a bachelor party on Saturday afternoon. As the Phillies finished off the St. Louis Cardinals, David was beaten to death in the parking lot by a group of strangers, including a 35-year-old man and a 45-year-old man.

There had been a confrontation in McFadden’s bar, which is attatched to the stadium. It spilled out into the parking lot.

The murder came on the same day that anonymous fans pointed lasers at Cardinals batters, causing a delay in the game. Nationally, and even locally, the two unrelated events are being linked as an example of negative Philadelphia fandom. 

A fan was killed at an Angels game earlier this year, but Philadelphia, because of its reputation and because of characterizations based on preconceived notions by lazy journalists, is being ripped today for having the angriest fans in the country. As if a crime committed in the parking lot had anything to do with the Phillies game.

It was a murder over spilled beer. People here are horrified.

Philadelphia fans booed Santa Claus 40 years ago, and the Vet used to have a judge and a jail in the basement, so the fans here are viewed as the worst of the lot. I’m not saying Philly’s harsh reputation isn’t warranted, but I’ve been to Yankees games in the Bronx and Giants games in North Jersey, and I’ve been to Boston and Chicago. Those fans aren’t any nicer than Philadelphia fans. Those cities have the same sort of drunken, low-life trash that we have here — basement jail or not.

Let’s not generalize what happened in the stadium parking lot as representative of Philly fans, because it had nothing to do with sports. It represented a larger problem of violence, which exists in Philadelphia and other big cities, and it was a tragedy.

Tags: Baseball, Phillies
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Last night, Manny Ramirez made his triumphant return to Los Angeles, appearing in his first home game since his two-month suspension ended. Although he had been booed on the road, Dodger fans welcomed him back with open arms, just as any fans would if he played for their team.

But overlooked in all the fanfare were some comments by Joe Torre the other day, when the Dodgers were in Milwaukee and Ramirez hit his 536th career home run, tying Mickey Mantle at 15th on the all-time list.

“Manny’s a special talent, he’s a special player, so was Mickey, obviously,” said Torre, who cemented his own historic legacy with the Yankees. “I know there’s going to be some questions for the rest of his career. I’m not sure you can question how many he hits, it’s how far they go. I think that’s really what affects it more than anything else.”

Not how many he hits, but how far they go?

Torre wasn’t prompted for a response about steroids. He volunteered it, barely pausing after acknowledging Manny’s accomplishment.

Read between the lines, and Torre — an MVP as player, a guy from the old school, forever a Yankee, despite how things ended in the Bronx, and a manager known for “managing personalities” — was taking a shot at his own player.

Torre knows Manny is great, but it turns his stomach that he cheated.

Tags: Baseball, NL West, Steroids
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As rumors continue to swirl about which team will get Roy Halladay, assuming Toronto decides to trade him, at least one team might be out of it.

The Yankees.

Although it would be crazy for the Blue Jays to deal their ace within their division — it would be like the Phillies trading Cole Hamels to the Mets or Braves — they said they’d be willing to do so for the right price. But the price may be too steep for the Bronx Bombers.

The Yanks may just be engaging in some poker-faced gamesmanship, but the Phillies remain the frontrunner. It’s all up to GM Ruben Amaro Jr. and whether he wants to part with certain prospects. Hopefully Amaro will remember one fact: It’s not about winning with Kyle Drabek; it’s about winning, period.

Halladay is a winner, and he’d give the Phillies the best chance to win, not only this year and next, but for several years down the road.

If the Phillies don’t pull the trigger for Halladay, it’s a bad baseball decision. The only other explanation would be that they don’t want to spend the money for Halladay’s contract. If stinginess is what prevents them from dealing for an ace, that’s an even worse decision.

Tags: AL East, Baseball, NL East, Phillies
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Whether he was with the Mets, Red Sox or irrelevant Montreal Expos, or even when he broke in with the Dodgers, I’ve never rooted for Pedro Martinez. But I’ll root for him if the Phillies sign him for half a season.

It’s rumored they’d pay him around $4 million without many bonuses, which apparently is fine with Pedro, who was originally seeking more money but wants to latch on somewhere and wouldn’t mind sticking it to the Mets.

Although there may be concerns about him disrupting the Phils’ chemistry, at this point in his career Martinez is looking to fit in. As long as signing him doesn’t interfere with a possible trade for Roy Halladay, the Phillies have nothing to lose. Other teams have scouted Pedro and been less than awestruck, but he was decent in the World Baseball Classic. And he’d only have to stay healthy for a few months instead of an entire season.

Tags: Baseball, NL East, Phillies
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GM Ruben Amaro Jr. said he won’t mortgage the Phillies’ future to get Roy Halladay. That’s smart, but he shouldn’t be afraid to pay a high price.

Halladay, 32, is one of the best pitchers in baseball and he’s in the prime of his career. And, perhaps along with the Angels, the Phillies have the prospects and payroll to make a deal. The Red Sox and Yankees might too, but there’s no way Toronto is trading its ace to an AL East rival. The Mets aren’t in the sweepstakes.

I don’t want to part with Kyle Drabek and J.A. Happ, but I’d wince and pull the trigger — and I’d even throw in another top prospect and a first-round pick — in order to get Halladay. Even at that high price, the Phillies have enough farm talent that they wouldn’t be gutting their system.

When the top of your rotation is Hamels and Halladay, you’re automatically in the running for a world championship. Plus there’s this: Rollins, Utley, Howard, Lidge, Victorino and Company are all in their primes. The Phillies’ time is now.

Halladay has a year-and-a-half left on his contract, and it would require close to $20 million per year to sign him to an extension. That’s worth it too. In fact, the Phils shouldn’t get him unless they do an extension, considering the high-end prospects they’d be giving up. They need to go all-in on this. A rental is how they’d get burned.

Halladay, who’s just two years older than Johan Santana and 14 years younger than Jamie Moyer, isn’t going to fade anytime soon. 

Making an extension easier is the fact that the Phillies will free up a combined $30 million in dead weight at the end of this season, when Brett Myers, Geoff Jenkins and Adam Eaton come off the books.

I’d be wary if the Phils were to go halfway and not give Halladay an extension, but even then they’d still have him for two Octobers.

Awfully tempting.

Tags: AL East, Baseball, NL East, Phillies
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Last week, and in fact for a while, they looked like chumps. Now they’re world-beaters who have it all figured out.

The way the Phillies are playing, it’s like when you come through a tough breakup.

One moment you’re a mess, seemingly directionless, without perspective and looking for solid ground, barely keeping your head above water and sometimes going under. It feels like there’s no end in sight, it becomes easy to question yourself, and everybody around you notices the state you’re in and starts to whisper. 

Then something changes.

Often it’s something simple. Something just clicks inside, maybe a realization or some other means of closure — like a Jimmy Rollins squibber that finds its way through the infield — and your slump is broken.

Your whole world opens up. You’ve re-found yourself, maybe even better now. Now you can’t even believe you were ever in such a funk in the first place.

The Phillies beat the Reds 22-1 Monday night, right after sweeping the Mets. Whatever bad stuff happened before that, it’s not even worth remembering.

J-Roll is back to being J-Roll. Hamels is back to being Hamels. Hell, when you erupt for 22 runs, pretty much everybody gets in on the act.

A 22-run explosion. It’s like when you finally break free of that relationship that was dragging you down and you find what you’ve really been looking for. You’re walking tall now, almost dizzy but in a good way. And there’s no looking back.

One more thing… Raul Ibanez, your All-Star left fielder, is due to return this week.

Life is good.

Tags: Baseball, NL Central, NL East, Phillies
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