Phils in a strange place...Front Running!

Being involved in the playoff race in Philadelphia is something new to us. Being the favorite in the playoff race is something even rarer.

Before this current era of Phillies baseball, the Phillies were perennial losers, disappointing fans, and not being known as a top destination for free agents. Winning certainly breeds success, and with the help of a good Ed Wade built minor league system and hiring of “player’s coach” Charlie Manuel, Pat Gillick, Ruben Amaro, Jr. and Phils ownership have installed a level of pride and success that hasn’t been seen in this town since the early 1980’s.

The best part about this current group of Phillies management is not staying put. It would have been easy for Amaro to call it a day after acquiring Cy Young Winner Roy Halladay, but he pushed on, bringing in Roy Oswalt as a deadline trade, giving up flavor of the month J.A. Happ and prospects to try to bring in the then 3-headed monster with Cole Hamels and Halladay. But what’s better than 3 aces? Well, 4! Brining Cliff Lee back to the fold showed that Amaro and Phils ownership are indeed all in.

The Phillies have been close to or owned the best record in baseball for the whole 2011 season, but of course, Ruben is never satisfied. Management saw a hole in right field, with Domonic Brown learning on the job, and decided that learning on the job is only good for a team like the Marlins or Cubs. The Phillies chased down their target Hunter Pence, taking a hard line with Ed Wade and giving up a low A pitcher in Jared Cosart (read: lottery ticket) and a solid hitter in Jonathan Singleton, who is young and shown signs of being a solid hitter, but is blocked by Ryan Howard at first base.

The fact that the Phillies are not getting complacent and are willing to give up potential future major leaguers to win now is a great thing for the current roster, but more importantly the fans. The fans have shown up for 182 straight sellouts and have purchased merchandise at a record rate. The fans are slowly starting to wear away at the old moniker of the booing and throwing snowballs and Santa Claus, recently being mentioned by Halladay, Lee and Pence as some of the strongest and most passionate in the league.

With management not being satisfied with a .500 record, the fans have a lot to cheer about over the next few years. It’s nice to be behind a team that is doing everything they can to improve and win now.

Ruben Amaro Does His Thing, Phils Land Hunter Pence

I would really like to go fishing with Ruben Amaro Jr. It seems like every time he casts his line he lands the biggest fish in the sea. Whether he throws a bucket of chum to the Indians and lands Cliff Lee, or whether he baits Ed Wade closer and closer to the shore only to watch him beach himself and give us Roy Oswalt and a bag of money for nothing. The guy just knows how to get deals done.

So in a four player deal, the Phillies have the right handed bat they've been targeting, they have the opportunity to give Dom Brown some more seasoning down in AAA, and they still remain well under the luxury tax cap. It's really a no lose situation.

Jonathan Singleton is a highly touted prospect, but his value with the Phillies is virtually nothing. We already have $125M standing at first base in Ryan Howard. While one would think that Singleton could have been moved to a corner outfield position, his audition out there to start the season did not go very well. I've read the he didn't have good instincts tracking the ball off the bat and that's a skill that's not easily taught. So his value with the Phillies, and in a trade for that matter, was virtually nothing. Any team looking to acquire Singleton had all the leverage in the deal. Jarred Cosart on the other hand is a fireballing right hander who ranked as high as 17 on ESPN Keith Law's prospect list coming into the season. He has a plus curveball to go along with his 94+ fastball, but he's had some injury hiccups in the past two years and his path to the majors wasn't very clear. These are the two top players in the Phillies system, but both have their questions. Pitcher Josh Zeid and a player to be named later were also included.

Most importantly, that PTBNL is not going to be Domonic Brown or Vance Worley.

Sure, I was probably a bigger fan of BJ Upton or Carlos Quentin coming to town, but I'm going to have to defer to RAJ on this one. In Pence, the Phillies get a solid hitter from the right side of the plate, something that's been missing since Jayson Werth's departure. Pence hits for a bit of power, plays plus defense, but most importantly he has a reputation as one of the hardest working guys in the business. He's Utley-esque in his baseball preparation. True to his word, Amaro avoided a player that would just be a 1/2 season rental by locking up Pence for the next two years under arbitration. He'll likely earn about the same amount of money that comes off the books when Raul's contract is up, but the free agent market for outfielders at the end of the season is incredibly slim as well. If Pence can work the Phillies staff to get on base at a slightly higher clip and cut back on the strikeouts, the sky is really the limit for him. You can probably expect 2010 Jayson Werth like production for the next two years in RF. The move also allows Dom Brown to slide over to left field at the end of the season into a more comfortable defensive position. He starts there tonight in Lehigh Valley.

So there's a lot to be excited about in this deal. Check out your boy @hunterpence9 on Twitter!

Lunch Time Link Dump

• Despite having a pretty disappointing season power wise, Ryan Howard is still among the league leaders in RBI. There has been tons of discussion about whether or not the RBI is overvalued, but it's tough to argue with the fact that Ryan Howard has produced runs in big situations. He's a bit of the Anti-Abreu in that respect. Fan Graphs took a look at Howard's numbers and determined that he has come to bat a league leading 141 times with runners in scoring position. So there's plenty of luck associated with his productivity. But as a lot of the commenters have pointed out, his .313/.418/.509 stat line during those situations is very telling about the way defenses have to play him with runners on second or third base. As Mike Schmidt pointed out in the interview I posted a few weeks ago, Ryan Howard desperately needs to learn to put the ball to the opposite field in order to improve his rate stats. The Good Phight looks at his OBI% over the last few years to determine that he is really efficient at driving in runners in front of him. But his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) with bases empty is a solid 24 points lower than with a runner in scoring position (.316 versus .340). It's not just strikeouts that are making Howard's contract look like a looming black cloud, but you can expect gaudy RBI numbers to continue at the same clip.

• Wanna hit homeruns like... Jose Canseco? Then buy his slowpitch softball bat!

"The Bass Jose Canseco Juiced features a one-piece construction made from Bass' new Anabolic Composite material. This composite design will inject a new level of power into your game and gives the bat added strength and toughness that won't wear down."

For the record, I'm rolling my eyes right now. It's a step above celebrity boxing, but clearly this man's desperation knows no ends. 

• On the prospect front, Bullpen Banter recently posted up their Top 100 Prospects report that features 5 Phillies in the top 100. Any player who has had an at bat or thrown a pitch was deemed ineligible for this list so it's a true list of prospects. The one that excites me the most right now is catcher Sebastian Valle. While his defensive skills seem to need a little more refinement, every report indicates that his athleticism is top notch for a catcher. At the All Star Futures game a few weeks back, he had two solid at bats roping a double down the line and flying out to CF. Scouts seem to indicate that he is transitioning very well against top notch pitching. While Chooch has surprised a lot of people with his offense, I don't believe he was ever thought of as a long term catching prospect. If Valle continues to produce, I think he could be wearing pinstripes by 2013. Check out Phuture Phillies midseason prospect report for even more Phillies news.

• Coming up on August 13th, a pretty huge Phillies Autograph signing at Bucks County Technical School. I've been to a couple of these in the past and while they're populated by the scurveyest people you'll ever come across and they generally smell like gymnasium full of old Italian hoagies, they're a great place for autograph and memorabilia seekers. Looks like Scott Mathieson, Mike Stutes, and John Mayberry Jr will be there from the current squad along with a host of former Phils.

Keep an eye out over the next few days. Hopefully we'll have a few more writers contributing to the site!

Is Michael Martinez Becoming a Serviceable Every Day Player?

Michael Martinez is a 28 year old utility type player who came to the Phillies this year via the Rule 5 Draft from the Washington Nationals. That alone should tell you everything you need to know about him. He's no spring chicken by baseball standards, and he wasn't even worthy enough to be protected by the basement dwelling Washington Nationals.

The Rule 5 Draft was created with guys like Michael Martinez in mind. It prevents a team from stock-piling too many fringe major league players that could otherwise find playing time with another team. It's a way for a lesser team to snipe top talent from a competitor that is reluctant to put them on their 40 man roster. 1% of the time you find yourself with the next Shane Victorino or Johan Santana (both former Rule 5 picks). 99% of the time, Rule 5 guys flame out. In fact, aside from the 2008 Phillies, no team in the past decade has won a World Series with a Rule 5 guy on their roster. The 2011 Phillies... well they currently have 3 former Rule 5ers.

Coming out of Spring Training, the Phillies had a conundrum on their hand: keep their Rule 5 guy Martinez, or move on with Delwyn Young. With one of the best pitching staffs in history, they had the luxury of giving the untested Martinez a shot. And as injuries piled up, his shot came. And he failed. Writers called for his head, fans booed mercilessly, and Charlie Manuel used him sparingly. And every one of you (read: both) that read this blog know that I hated him with the power of 10,000 suns when John Mayberry Jr was held in the minors while Martinez flopped like a fish.

So now that he's strung together a few solid games, I'm hearing it: "What do you think about Michael Martinez now?" one twitter message said following his first homerun. "Michael Martinez > Placido Polanco" said a text message following his 2nd homerun. I even heard the guys from the CBS Fantasy Sports podcast questioning whether Martinez was worth a free agent pickup in mixed league formats...

So let's set the record straight once and for all:
.237 BA, .281 OBP, .339 SLG
2 HR, 2 doubles, 2 triples, 1 GIDP, 3 SB ( I offered to eat my sandal if he had more than 2 SBs so technically I still need to chew on my reefs, but I'm still underwhelmed.)
He's played 5 positions with only 1 error and only makes $414K.

If that's better than Placido Polanco, then I'll wash down my flip flop by sticking my hat in a blender and drinking it. He's had a cute little 7 game hitting streak (only 2 of which were multi-hit games). He's raised his BA almost 50 points this month, but that's not really that impressive when you start around .180. For the better part of the season his OBP outpaced his SLG%. Take a second to think about just how sad that statement is... Truth be told, you can shake a tree in any Midwestern baseball junior college and find a guy that can replicate what Michael Martinez does. He's Wilson Valdez 5 years younger. He has no power. He can't hit gaps (only 6 XBH). He's not particularly quick. He plays admirable defense with a plus arm from a number of positions on the diamond. Name me one other major league team that has two Wilson Valdez-es. Michael Martinez IS a lesser player than Tadahito Iguchi, Miguel Cairo, Eric Bruntlett, and the whole host of utility guys the Phillies have rode to 4 straight division championships. All of them have been reliable defenders, all of them cost pennies on the dollar, and all of them had their moments. But none of them held a roster position that was as heavily contested as Martinez's. His place on this team is protected only by injuries to infielders. Should Placido Polanco come back and the infield remain healthy, Martinez will go back to being the 4th or 5th option off the bench. And that's a perfect job for him... on another team.

Michael Martinez is a great role player, but we already have a Wilson Valdez and he can when in a bind. What can you do Mini-Mart?

Phillies Win 8-5?

A Haiku to describe yesterday's game...

Mini Mart hits a homer.

Harold Camping must be right.

The world ends this year.

So let me get this straight... Vance Worley is effectively wild for 6+ innings and the Mets can only score a run? Then they shellack Cy Young candidate Cole Hamels for 7 runs and an early exit? And then Kyle Kendrick shuts down the Mets for the better part of the day Sunday? All the while, John Mayberry and Michael Martinez are the offensive powerhouses of the weekend? You can't predict baseball.

All Star Thoughts

For better or for worse, I always love the All-Star break in Major League Baseball. From the fact that I can bust out the classic "what are the only two days of the year with no professional sporting events? trivia question to the fact that I simply need three days worth of staring at my fantasy team to figure out what to do next, the midsummer classic is always something to look forward to. This year, I spent an inordinate amount of time googling what previous years warmup day jerseys looked like (seriously, if you have a good source for All Star jerseys that date back more than 5 or 6 years I'd love to see it!). But in between failed google attempts, I managed to actually catch some of the festivities. Naturally, here are my thoughts...

• Celebrity/Legends Softball Game: Jennie Finch looked damn good for only being 2 weeks post giving birth. I only know this because Erin Andrews told me about 400 times. Seriously, though... If the biggest celebrities that a professional sports organization can pull are an American Idol winner 5 years removed, the ugly Jonas Brother, and the dude who can read minds from Heroes (a show that got cancelled almost a year ago), then maybe we should just leave the Celebrity Softball games to the people at MTV Rock and Jock. Seriously, that show event should be back on the air right now. Corbin Bernson and Dan Cortez are bigger celebrities in my eyes than Blonde Hair Kid #5 on Glee or whoever those guys were out there. As for the legends, Ozzie Smith looked about 90 years old, Luis Gonzalez looked considerably less steroidy, and Rickey Henderson looked like he could probably help a team in the 2nd half.

• HomeRun Derby: Whoever had the idea to choose captains and then let them pick their own teamates should probably lose their job. People watch the HR Derby to see mammoth blasts that they typically wouldn't see during a regular season game. Not line drives from a 5'8" Second Baseman. Prince Fielder conceded the Derby to the Ameican League the minute he decided to field a team full of his buddies rather than Homerun hitters. Mike Stanton and Justin Upton are the two guys I want to see jack the ball a mile into the air. At the very least, let Ryan Howard take a crack at it. Matt Holliday? Rickie Weeks? David Ortiz did his job by picking the biggest hitter in the game in Bautista, and a powerful contact hitter in Gonzalez.  

• Bud Selig: There's some real Star Wars action going on here where someone elected Chancelor Selig emergency powers and he's used them to appoint himself Commissioner for life. That's the only explanation I have for how his actions are still supported by his fellow managers. When discussing new ways to spice up the game, Selig actually suggested that next year he may try having the DH in interleague games at National League stadiums and have the pitcher hit at American League parks. Why? He also suggested what people have been saying for almost a decade: using instant replay to determine fair/foul plays down the outfield line. I just don't understand what he's done that positively impacted the game.

• All Star Game: The "Why isn't ________ playing?" story has been covered a thousand times already and while I don't think that 84 people should really be able to call themselves "All Stars" (Scott Rolen, really?), I understand the reasoning. What I don't understand is how Bruce Bochy is getting away with effectively resting his "All Star" pitchers while working those of his biggest competition more than anyone? Tim Lincecum and Ryan Vogelsong were both chosen as representatives for the Giants and yet neither of them saw any game action. Meanwhile, three of the leagues top pitchers in Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Jair Jurrjens were worked harder than anyone. No one else on either team besides those three pitched more than one full inning, and they threw 19, 25, and 23 pitches respectively. Was is because they were fresher? No, Because Lincecum & Lee both started on last Saturday and Vogelsong and Halladay both started last Friday. Bruce Bochy was simply protecting his own arms (while simultaneously seeing to it that Lincecum made his $100,000 incentive bonus for being on an All Star team despite only a decent performance thus far). Brian Wilson, the 3rd Giants pitcher on the team (who also landed $25,000 for his inclusion), was only used because Starlin Castro made an error on a routine ground ball and Joel Hanrahan had to come out. The cameras showed no one warming in the NL bullpen when Hanrahan had one out. Wilson came in and threw only 9 pitches. It just screams of overworking your opponent and protecting your own guys.

Lunch Time Link Dump: All Star Break Edition!

• Despite the 14 run whipping they received yesterday from the Phillies, The Atlanta Braves have a pretty solid team. COSFBA makes the argument that their talent puts them in the position to begin another dynasty run as they did in the mid 90s. They're absolutely right and the Braves team/organization is downright scary right now. But while the talent may be there, I would argue that the financial landscape of the game has created a situation where a team like the Braves really can't build a decade long dynasty without some serious elevated commitment from the owners. Great scouting and player development is what it takes to build a pitching staff like Atlanta has right now. Truck loads of burlap bags with dollar signs on the side is what it takes to keep those players. With guys like Heyward, Jurrjens, Hanson, etc are cornerstones of this team who will all be looking at hefty arbitration cases in the coming years. During those same years, the Braves will be paying 8 figure salaries to guys like Uggla, McCann, and possibly still Chipper Jones. For 2012, the Braves already have about $60M dedicated to only 5 players. If their payroll sits under $100M and they still can't draw more than 20,000 people into the stands despite being one of the top 5 teams in the game, what chance do they have of going much higher than that threshold?

• I was pretty intrigued by this Deadspin story last week about Barry Halper and his mostly fraudulent collection of merchandise. I had read stories in the past about the collector whose collection almost rivaled what was in the hall of fame itself, but this was the first I had heard about half of that collection being stolen, forged, or otherwise illegitimate. I even remember seeing some of these items displayed proudly in the HoF during my last visit. It's fascinating that someone could produce such believable forgeries and fool even the most astute authenticators. I'll definitely be checking out the "Hauls of Shame" book when it is released.

• Here's another guy living out my dream of a baseball road trip around the country. I did this whole "adult" thing all wrong by getting a job, buying a house, and getting married right out of college. I really should have just taken a few months of "me time" and driven around the country for a baseball season. Back then, gas was still reasonable and I didn't have all of these responsibilities!

• For a cool $205M, you could own your very own All Star Team! According to Off Base Percentage, that's about what this year's teams will be making. Of course, that just refers to this years starters in the All-Star Game, not the whole host of people who were elected but won't be playing... which is a whole other complaint of mine. Why do we bother calling these guys All-Stars if seemingly 1/4th of the league makes the team anyway? Some of these guys have rather hefty bonuses tied to making the team so when Shane Victorino and Ryan Braun come up limp, an outfielder who might have been #8 in the voting suddenly finds himself with an extra $75,000 in the bank. That doesn't sound suspicious to anyone else? And while I'm griping here, I've talked to a lot of people in the past week about the All-Star Game dictating home field advantage in the World Series. I don't like it, but I think "best record overall" is an even worse system. The leagues simply aren't balanced enough to think that having the best record is worthy of homefield advantage in the WS. More often than not, the team with the best record doesn't even make the World Series. I've been in support of what Ernie over at FenwayNation put up this morning: Use Interleague play records as the bar for home field advantage. This coming from an NL guy who wouldn't have had homefield in the last decade, too. The sample size is adequate and it adds a little spice to a series of games that has started to become a bit mundane. The novelty of seeing a new team is nice, but even I can't get too excited for the Oakland Athletics coming to town.

• Through The Fence offers some tips for making your significant other enjoy the game of baseball with you a little more. This pertains more to those of you who don't live in Philadelphia, where baseball is already the hippest thing around and Chase Utley in a pair of baseball pants is enough to make women flock to the ballpark. God forbid you live in Kansas City where the biggest star in town is Joakim Soria's eyebrows. Nicknames for players, "cute" t-shirts, and pop culture laden player antidotes have worked well for me!

I Haven't Ranted About A Loss in a While...

Sweeping is typically a chore that no one wants to do. It's manual labor, it creates dust, and no matter how hard you try, you can never get those last crumbs of dirt that get stuck in the cracks of your kitchen tile. It's really no fun. Which clearly explains why the Phillies recent string of "win two, then lose one" should come as no surprise... They intentionally avoided breaking out the brooms against the Marlins last night.

At least that's the best explanation I have for the series of boneheaded moves and decisions in last night's 6-7 loss in front of about a dozen people in Florida. Where to begin...

• Kyle Kendrick is about as average a #5 pitcher as there is in the league... but even he is capable of going more than 5 innings and 81 pitches. Now, maybe I'd understand this decision if the top of the 6th was a high leverage situation with a couple men in scoring position and the team down a run and you wanted to bring in a pinch hitter that could bring home a run. But the bases had just been cleared by Dom Brown's base running gaffe (more on that later), and John Mayberry Jr's homerun. And they brought in Wilson Valdez who proceeded to fly out for the 1,000th time this week. I'm not even sure Valdez is a better hitter than Kendrick. I might have left Kendrick in to swing for himself, THEN pulled him. We're talking about a guy who was given a 7 inning, 6ER, and 93 pitch leash just last Friday in Toronto, and then he gets pulled after just 1 earned last night. It doesn't make sense. 

• Domonic Brown can't be making mistakes like that on the bases or in the field. Rookie or not, anyone who's been playing baseball long enough to become a professional at it needs to make both of those plays. For a guy who gets called an "athlete" so often, missing 2nd base is unacceptable. While Sarge and TMac tried to convince the viewers that the umpire was in the wrong position and that they think they saw the bag depress a bit, I'll trust the goofy mustached guy that was about 5 feet from the play with his eyes looking directly at the bag. The guy has a reputation for being less than stellar with his calls, but he was right there staring a hole through the bag. He saw it better than any of us did on replay and Dom Brown didn't help his case with his puppy dog face in the dugout or his post game admission of guilt. Arguing about the enforcement of bag touching is for a completely different day, especially since on this particular call they got it right. The botched play in the outfield is equally upsetting.

• How is David Herndon still employed? I think it was meech.one from The Fightins that posted on Twitter yesterday that the 2008 Phillies were the only team in the last decade to win a World Series with a Rule 5 guy on their roster. The Phillies currently have three. These guys flame out for a reason and when you find the incredibly rare diamond in the rough (Shane Victorino), you count your blessings, cash out, and go home. David Herndon is not a major league pitcher. He's had one clean inning since May and it was in 9th inning mop up duty of a 10-2 victory against the Pujols-less Cardinals. Shake any tree around a minor league baseball stadium and a right hander who throws in the mid 90s with his stuff will fall out. Danys Baez can ride off into the sunset too. Since his May 25th 5 inning performance, he's let up 12 ERs and countless inherited runs. If you're scoring at home, that's 2 more than Cole Hamels has given up in nearly 4 times the amount of innings. For christsake, he gave up a HR to Mike Stanton whose power has been MIA for a month due to vision problems that he said just last night still exist. How bad of a pitcher do you have to be to let a guy who can't see hit your ball 400 ft?

A Baseball Blogger's Vacation

While you were busy eating your burgers and blowing off your fingers with fireworks, the hardest working blogger in South Jersey (probably not true), was making a baseball pilgrimage to follow the Phillies up to America Jr for a 3 game set against the Toronto Blue Jays. Four tanks of gas, a nerve wrecking experience with border patrol, and copious amounts of alcohol later I'm back stateside and ready to share my experience with the 7 or 8 of you who will actually read this...

Day 1 - Depart en route to Buffalo, NY
One final Wawa stop and we're on the road... First stop is Binghamton, NY where Google tells me is a sports bar. Turns out to be more like an abandoned truck stop. No worries, there's another place just two or three miles away called "The Sports Bar." How can we go wrong with that? Well, it's either closed down or simply MIA, but we do end up at a decent enough place called Dillingers. But they don't carry the MLB Package and the Phils are already under way against Boston. We follow the game on Twitter as Cole Hamels gets drilled in the hand and leaves the game, giving David Herndon the opportunity to do what he does best: crap the bed. Still, a series victory and soon we're back on the road to Buffalo.

We check into the hotel, grab some beers in the lobby and head to Anchor Bar, home of the original Buffalo Wings.

It's a small little place, but well worth the stop. Naturally, it's packed and a bit touristy, but they managed to serve us at the bar and we had our food within about 10 minutes. A few more beers (and a new record in the bar top PhotoHunt game!) and we're on our way to the waterfront to catch a concert. On our journey, we come accross these young gentlemen:

I have no idea what they're saying, but I was equally entertained/frightened. Later, Buffalo gave us a few more fun moments at the Pearl Street Brewery, Coca Cola Park (home of the Buffalo Bisons), and a little Irish Pub called Irish Times ($30 for 12 beers was the last reasonably priced drinking experience of the trip.)

Day 2 - Niagra Falls & Toronto
We hit the road in the morning (closer to noon once the first hangover wore off), and headed toward the border. We were warned that booze is ridiculous on the other side of the border so we stopped at the Duty Free and picked up as much as we legally could (approx 1 case per person, or one large bottle of liquor if you're scoring at home).

Then I held my breath and headed for the border crossing. Despite my fears that a run in with the law from a decade ago might end this trip before it began, we made it over without a single issue.

Niagara is a pretty intense place. You're able to stand literally just a few feet from where the water crashes, and the town resembles a miniature Las Vegas with attractions and shops brightly lit and the storefronts buzzing. I thought it might be a little cheesy, but it was worth the stop.

Onward to Toronto. Two more hours of driving in which we listened to the Blue Jays fail to beat Kyle Kendrick, and we arrive at the hotel (which was inexplicably out of parking spaces)! A place called the Pickle Barrel for dinner, followed by $10 drinks and singing "Just a Friend" at the top of our lungs at a place called Crocodile Rock, throwing water filled condoms at a couple of Random chicks on a sidewalk, and having my ear chatted in by an Iranian-Canadian who was trying to convince me to head to the ghetto and buy weed. It was an incredibly interesting night.

Day 3 - Halladay in Toronto
If they couldn't scratch out a win against Kyle Kendrick, then they really had no shot against Roy Halladay. As we walked to the stadium after a few hours of pregaming in the hotel room, it was clear that Canadians are just ridiculously nice people. For the most part, they couldn't even muster up enough mean spirits to be upset with the way RAJ pried their franchise player from their fingers.

The Rogers Center is a cross between new and old. It has an inner city ballpark feel, with a multipurpose concrete bowl skeleton. The place was packed with over 45,000 people, but we still managed to sneak down to about 4 rows behind the dugout for the first inning. Plenty of nice pics followed:

After getting the boot, we went back up to our ticketed seats above home plate. Not a bad view from there either:

But apparently the game wasn't interesting enough to keep this guy awake:

We enjoyed some $11 Alexander Keith's Beer and played some Blue Jays Plinko:

In the later innings, we snuck back down to the field level and found some more seats where we watched a terrible attempt at running on the field, and Jon Rauch throw an epic hissy fit on a play that pretty obviously safe from where I was sitting.

Ate some lunch at the highly recommended "Real Sports Bar," drank some more beers in the hotel, then we hit another pub for the UFC fight. Around this time, things got a little hazy for me so you'll have to forgive me for the lack of photographic evidence.

Day 4 - Can Lee Continue the Streak?
We decided to hit up the Hockey Hall of Fame in the morning on our last full day in Toronto. I have two thoughts on the HoF... First, it's brilliant that they put the Hall in such a major city where there is constant tourism for things other than just hockey. We're there for a baseball game and we're visiting the Hockey HoF. I don't think Cooperstown gets any traffic from people on Hockey related road trips. But my other thought is that it was incredibly odd of them to put the HoF in what equated to the basement of a mall. The signage outside was a limited and I'm sure you could walk right by it without even realizing where you were. Nevertheless, at $17 it's pretty much the cheapest thing to do in Toronto:

Onward to the game. Our seats for this one were row 4 off the outfield wall and directly above the Phillies Bullpen. Ryan Madson took some time to test out his injured hand by tossing bubble gum and sunflower seeds into the crowd between innings, and Michael Stutes sat right below us attentively watching through the bullpen fence.

Unfortunately, Cliff Lee could not repeat his previous month's worth of shutdown performances as he let up bomb after bomb to a host of right handed Blue Jays. The Jays fans got on us a little bit, but for the most part seemed to understand that they're a 4th place team with a sub .500 record and winning on game really isn't anything to cheer about. But boy do they love their Jose Bautista up there!

Again, the architecture of the Rogers Center is pretty cool with the dome closing after the game, and whatever these guys are supposed to be:

We hit the lake front harbor area for some more photo-ops, and headed back to the hotel for some rest. Dinner outdoors, followed by a few drinks at a Micro-Brewery in an area of Toronto we dubbed "Time Square Jr" led to a drunken night of us singing patriotic songs (as well as "High Hopes") during our walk back to the hotel.

Day 5 - Home
About 10 hours after leaving Toronto, about 7 bags of chips, a lunch stop at Syracuse University, and about 4 other pee breaks later we arrived home exhausted and poor.

It was a great trip and one that is going to be very tough to top next year. In the past few years I've been to Cooperstown, DC, Baltimore, both New Yorks, Boston, St. Louis, and I'm planning to do the Phillies minor league circuit later this summer. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

More pictures are available here.

Visit this guy's website! (Since I stole a handful of pictures from him, it's the least I can do!)