dayton is not in ohio

“It was extraordinary for something like this to happen to us,” Dodgers manager Grady Little said. “But at least nobody got injured.” I’m not quite sure what he meant by this, but he’s referring to the Phillies’ 26 hit, 15 - 3 wasting of the NL West leading Dodgers last night.

My dad told me he heard a recent quote from a ballplayer that the difference between Philadelphia fans and everybody else is that when when Philadelphians throw bottles onto the field, they break the neck off first. Perhaps if Dodgers fans were as ‘passionate’ as those from Philadelphia, then he’d have something to worry about.

But speaking of feasts and famines, here are the final scores of the last five Phillies games: W 13 - 3, W 10 - 4, L 2 - 10, L 3 - 10, W 15 - 3. Make all of these losses and they look more like me playing Ping-Pong at Dupont Ping-Pong arena, than consecutive baseball scores.

But as Chesterton says, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing….” you know the rest. I’m… I’m, just. I’m speechless. Why do I torture myself.

There are only two reasons why any Philadelphia Philly batter would be the final batter in a ball game. One, you hit a walk-off __________ (home-run, single, anything…) or two, you get the last out.

The same is true in the All-Star game. The same is WORSE in the All-Star game - uh, oh… did I give it away, Aaron Rowand. Oh! Uh.. sorry Aaron, that… that you put a final end to the National League rally…

It’s not your fault. It’s Tony LaRussa’s fault. Two words: A-L-B-E-R-T. P-U-J-O-L-S.

I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t care about those readers who have no idea what I’m talking about. Right now, I don’t care.

It’s worth doing badly.

The pitching woes continue, but if you didn’t have a favorite Major League team before today, and this doesn’t convince you to come within the Phillies fold, there is no hope for you.

Above: The first and last pitch from Jose Mesa last night

It all makes sense now.

Here’s the scenario: The Philadelphia Phillies lead their opponent 3 - 0 after seven innings, until a reliever comes in and gives up four runs in the eighth and the Phillies lose.

No, this wasn’t last night’s game against the Astros, it was the Phillies’ first loss ever, back in 1883. Now the Phils are only four losses away from becoming the first sports franchise in the history of our nation to record 10,000 losses.

Here’s what frustrates me right now… The Phillies are ranked in the top six in the Majors in three of the five most important offensive statistics, including leading the National League in runs scored. They are a good hitting team, and they’ve been putting up runs.

However, our bullpen is one of the worst in the majors. In the battle of good hitting vs. bad pitching, the pitchers usually win — the only thing they know how to win, apparently, and nothing to write home about.

Above: Eaton spotting the Astros a run in the second inning.

These last two games against the Astros are a GREAT example: the Phillies bullpen has walked in what have eventually turned out to be the deciding runs in both games. Last night, thanks to a gift-wrapped run in the 2nd (from Adam Eaton, the starter), instead of going home at 9:30 with a one-run win, they played four extra innings, until Jose Mesa took the mound in the bottom of the 13th inning. He earned his salary last night with one pitch, right in the middle of the plate. My daughter could have hit it out. Hunter Pence did.

Happy independence day. I’m still grateful that we live in a country where we can play baseball, and we’re free to pitch anyone we like, as painful as that can be sometimes.

Jimmy Rollins hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the tenth inning tonight to beat the Reds. Thank you.

Below, a little graphic I whipped up of where Ryan Howard’s homerun in Wednesday’s game would have landed in right or left field based on where it landed in center. I created the arc for the actual homerun in the 3D program and then rotated it. Left goes over all seats to the base of the scoreboard. Right… deep into the cheap seats.

Big double-header with the Mets today. If the Phils sweep this series they’d take the NL East lead.

Oh, the Phillies…

It had the makings of an awesome night in baseball… Ryan Howard becomes the fastest player in MLB history to reach 100 home runs, and does it by hitting the longest blast in the history of Citizens Bank Park. 505 feet to straight-away center field. That’s one and two-thirds football fields. A tenth of a mile…

…followed by a pitching implosion that sees the Phils lose to the worst team in baseball 9 - 6.

I was able to catch a Phillies (versus the Chicago White Sox) game last night with Rob Matthews, and it was not disappointing. Adam Eaton got the shutout win and Pat Burrell, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins scored the three Phillies runs on solo homers. On the Howard shot, the right fielder didn’t move a muscle after the ball came off the bat. He just watched it go up, and then dropped his head. A no-doubter, even from the cheap seats where it’s always hard to judge a ball. Crushed. I listen to the Phillies on the (internet) radio for almost every game, so it was great to finally see them play in the flesh on a beautiful Philly night, and to be treated to a win.

The last month has been a whirlwind of making art, final critiques, writing papers, and a canoe trip to Mississippi. I just haven’t had much time to blog. Now I’m faced with finding a job for this summer, but I still want to do a few posts to catch up… so stay tuned, I’m still here…

Golf Video

Both receptions last Thursday night went well. The Northpark U show was short and sweet. The show was Tim Lowly, Bob Erickson, Jin Lee, April Wright and myself. There was some very short mingling, a short slide presentation by each artist and then some more mingling. Particularly fun was the fact that the whole family got to come along…

Shortly after the slides we packed up and drove all the way across Chicago to Hyde Park in the south for the second opening. The main difference between the two receptions was that one was fairly calm, with rootbeer floats, and the second was less calm, with real beer, athletic competition and vegetarian burritos/tacos which I heard were really good and would have found out had I not just finished a quarter-pound of delicious “beef” from McDonalds.

The golf was fun. Some holes were more playable than others, but they all made for a challenging competition. My favorite hole by far was by my fellow grad student Matthew Dupont, consisting of an AstroTurf quarter-pipe with a hole halfway up the face. This was also the hole that I watched a little white-haired lady get about a 30 on before giving up. Not the best “golf” hole, but definitely the best work of art. Other highlights included the two, two-story holes, one of which had a secret passage for a chance at a hole in one that you can’t even see, and the other, a two-story putter that you use from upstairs to putt on the green below.

My hole turned out fine, and proved to be very popular with the kids… so much so that it was hard to play at times. They liked putting the balls in the holes and running after them to watch them come out the end. You could play an entire 18 holes just on my hole, my brother and I decided. As you can see below, I abandoned the ramp for a raised putting platform.