Philadelphia Phillies: Worst Franchise in Sports

*    Brett Myers beating his wife
*    Good ‘ole Cholly Manuel managing like he had a frontal lobotomy prior to the season
*    Leadoff extraordinaire, self proclaimed “J-Roll”, and his .300 on base percentage
*    Untouchable “Super Phenoms”, Gavin Floyd and Cole Hamels, and their 5.00+ MLB ERA’s
*    Pat Burrell and his 12 pack of Sam Adams that is super glued to his hip
*    Bobby Abreu’s defense
*    Waiver wire dynamo Rick White
*    Losing Streaks by the half dozens

  Folks – this is just the past two weeks in the life of the “Worst Franchise” in all of professional sports. Period. This is actually an improvement from the last decade or so when Ed Wade would be looking to move Bobby Abreu for some middle relief help by this point.

Charlie’s 2006 Band of Losers is “Par for the Course” in Phillies Land
  It is a franchise made up of mediocrity and underachievers. Big free agent signings that foul the ball of their foot, in their seventh at bat with the team, then proceed to collect millions while never playing another inning.

  It is a franchise that spent the 1990’s under .500 every single year but one (1993) – which ended in Joe Carter laughing at a dead armed Mitch Williams.

  It is a franchise that is closing in on an incredible milestone, ten thousand losses in its history. That would be the number 10,000, you read it correctly. See if you can find any other team in professional sports who has 10,000 losses. Good luck with that.

—————————–

*    Overall Regular Season Record:  8679 – 9879  (.468)
*    Overall Record since 1900:      7479 – 8731  (.461)
*    Overall Post Season Record:       22 –   35  (.386)

—————————–

  So the Phillies have played a total of 57 games in the postseason in their team history. In contrast, Yankees SS Derek Jeter, by the end of MLB’s 2005 postseason, had played 115 postseason games.  For those of you keeping track at home, that would be more than double the entire playoff experience of the entire Phillies franchise. These numbers are mind numbing.

  You can’t even write fiction that rivals the futility of the Phillies.

  How did we get here? Well, here are the TOP 5 items that represent all you need to know about the Philadelphia Phillies Franchise:

#5 – Free Agency

*    Want to understand what a free agent acquisition looks like to a Phillies fan? Meet Mr. Tartabull. This gentleman signed a one year $2.5 million dollar deal in 1997 and in his third game of the season broke his foot while fouling a pitch off. He never played baseball again. (See also Gregg Jefferies, David Bell) Tartabull contributed more to the Seinfeld show then to the Phillies.

Danny Tartabull embodies the Phillies approach and results from Free Agency all in one

#4 – “The Curse of Ryno”

“Jan. 27, 1982: Philadelphia sends veteran shortstop Larry Bowa and minor league infielder Ryne Sandberg to the Cubs in exchange for shortstop Ivan DeJesus.”

*    Hall of Fame second basemen Ryne Sandberg was “Mr. Cub” for the better part of the 1980’s and the 1990’s. He was an absolute stud at 2B for the Cubs and a leader on and off the field. The kind of player that defines an organization. The Phillies spent the better part of the 1980’s watching players get old and leaving Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton to grow old on losing teams.

  The “perfect” transition player for the early 1980’s Phillies Teams (World Series Champs in 1980 and World Series Losers in 1983) from the Schmidt, Rose, Carlton era would have been Ryne Sandberg. Alas the Phillies shipped him off for the ever dangerous Ivan DeJesus. Some believe he was a founding member of Al Qaeda (I joke). DeJesus spent three seasons in Philadelphia with a light stick (.250 batting average) and a below average glove (20+ Errors per season). Meanwhile, Ryno, went on to become a Hall of Famer and one of only a handful people who you think of when the position of second base is brought up. Major mistake.

The Phillie that Never Was

#3 – 1993 World Series

*    The 1993 Philadelphia Phillies represented everything the Philly faithful want from a baseball team. Hard working, “Blue Collar”, overachieving winners. Even the “White Collar” crowd in Philadelphia loves the underdog and the overachiever. If you don’t think a copy of the movie “Rocky” is placed in every kid’s cradle when they are born, from Valley Forge to Camden, then you don’t know Philadelphia.  Nails, Krukker, Dutch, Wild Thing, Psycho…the list went on and on. What a great story.

  Alas, and I remember it like it was yesterday, Jim Fregosi trotted out Mitch Williams and his 63 MPH fastball to face Joe Carter in game 6 and…well…you know the rest. For you see the tragedy wasn’t the Joe Carter home run and it wasn’t falling short. The tragedy was and still is that the 1993 Phillies team was not built properly. It was a group of mismatched ballplayers all having career years and it tricked upper management into thinking they knew what they were doing. They didn’t. They still don’t. Who is upper management you say? That’s a great question…

Darren Daulton now thinks Aliens live in his brain – Joe Carter’s HR will do that to you

#2 – Invisible/Terrible Ownership

*    Say what you will about the Philadelphia fan base but you can not deny that they are students of the games they follow. That being said, ask any Phillies fan to name one owner of the Phillies team and you’ll get a blank stare. The truth is the current regime has been monopolized by a group led by David Montgomery (AKA “Monty” – current team President) and his sidekick, Bill Giles (Stakeholder who tried playing GM for awhile because he thought it was fun).

  You see, Montgomery bought the team in the early 1980’s with a group of investors for about $30 million. He now oversees the team and makes sure that they are completely inept in every phase of ownership. He is largely responsible for the building of the beautiful new Citizen’s Bank Park, which is akin to a little league field in its dimensions and has become a laughingstock to all of Major League Baseball. He’s spent money – sure – but I can spend millions trying to run a telecom company but it doesn’t mean I have a clue how to do it. Montgomery doesn’t have a clue about professional baseball either. He’s overseen the hiring and firing of Manager after Manager after Manager, all the while coddling the #1 member of our list…

Ineptitude – thy name is “Monty”

#1 – Ed Wade

*    Setting the team back a decade, Ed Wade was hired by his buddy “Monty” in 1997 as the team General Manager. Wade’s experience? Well, um, he had his MBA from Penn’s prestigious WHARTON business school. Wade took that education and traded Curt Schilling to help Arizona win a World Series. In return he received:

o    Vincente Padilla (Drinks More than he Pitches)
o    Travis Lee (Tim Couch of MLB)
o    Nelson Figueroa (Exactly)
o    Omar Daal (You must be kidding)

  Schilling not only won a World Series with the Diamondbacks, he then won a World Series with Boston. Padilla recently won a Tequila drinking contest. A couple years later, Wade decided that he would trade the only other Major League talent the Phillies had, Scott Rolen, for the following:

o    Placido Polanco (Detroit’s 3B)
o    Bud Smith (I can’t make this stuff up folks)
o    Mike Timlin (Didn’t even want to report to Philadelphia)

  Wade’s tenure was the above. You can look at his deadline deals for such legendary acquisitions as Dennis Cook and a dead armed Turk Wendell. You can also look at the lack of deals on players who were on their way out such as Rolen and Billy Wagner – but you get the picture. Just pathetic. Oh yeah, and he gave no trade clauses out to journeymen like they were candy.

Ed Wade threw Money at Jim Thome to help fans forget Rolen and Schilling

———————–

  So as we approach the midway point of the 2006 Major League Baseball season the Philadelphia Phillies are already a long way out of playoff contention (Save the wildcard talk you’re wasting your time). If you are counting the days to your Fantasy Football draft and want to have come perverse fun at other people’s expense – please sit back and watch closely as Pat Gillick tries to deal with this awful franchise. No matter how it plays out, Pat will be on a golf course three or four years from now while the Phillies hover around .500 or below -and “Monty” will be wondering why fans are cheering E-A-G-L-E-S at the games. It’s because of you Monty. It’s because of you.