Philitically Incorrect

When I walked into my brother’s house for dinner, he asked me one question. “What did Madonna name her daughter?” “Lourdes,” I said. Instantly that answer put me on the Trivial Pursuit dream team. All I needed to qualify was one right answer. Hell, if that’s how things work, ask me another question. Quick. Ask me if Africa’s a country. The answer’s “no.” Now I'm qualified to run for President. Here’s another question: Are you currently pitching in the MLB? “No." You’re hired! Pedro Martinez can talk the talk and walk the walk, but can he still pitch? Who knows. No one else was interested enough to give him a contract this year, but the Phillies aren’t worried, they’re only shelling out a million dollars. A million dollars?! Hey, that’s a lot of money to me. I think I’m qualified to pitch. Quick, ask me a question. What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow? African or European Swallow? No really, I can pitch. I’ve spent hours doing that on the phone. Wait, my husband

By now you know a bunch of stuff about the All-Star game. You know the winner, what league has home-field advantage for the World Series, and the MVP. But in this article, we’re hoping to present you with the stuff you didn’t know about the All-Stars that made the game possible. After reading for months about draft picks, prospects, trades, players, and the life of Charlie Manuel, it occurred to me that Charlie has been everywhere. He was even a star in Japan and that’s a feat—Barbie couldn’t even make it there. That brings us to the reason for this article. You’ve all probably heard of the oracle of “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Supposedly any actor in the world can be connected to Kevin in six steps or less. Well, this is the “Six Degrees of Charlie Manuel.” And although Kevin Bacon was one of the top picks for actors who now look like lesbians, I guarantee you Charlie is nowhere close to holding that honor. This project is the cumulative effort of Bleacher Report contributors Ch

Atlanta had the Phillies’ number: 8-6-7-5-3-0-9. Whoops, sorry. That’s Jenny’s number. The Braves were dialed in on Phillie pitching. In Thursday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, the banner article on the sports page focused on the hoard of pitching talent residing in the Phillies minor league system. But the article curiously didn’t mention a guy named Rodrigo Lopez, yet he’s the choice to start Friday’s home series with the Mets. I’m in the dark on this one. Lopez hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2007 when he underwent Tommy John surgery. Maybe Ruben Amaro Jr. is thinking he has another Jayson Werth-type “diamond in the rough” prospect on his hands. If that’s the case, maybe I should keep a spot open in my “Phillie Playmate of the Week” calendar. But the article failed to mention why suddenly the Phils are spotlighting their pitching prospects. Either every team in the MLB has decided they’re a post-season contender and aren’t willing to trade real pitchers for prospects (but Ruben doesn’t

It’s a tough world out there. And blogging is no exception. Recently a bunch of readers attempted to coerce me from posting to a site called The Good Phight on SB Nation . For your convenience you can click on those words and it’ll take you there. Isn’t technology great? Basically their beef is that they only want to read news from statisticians and don’t want to be bothered with any opinion on the game outside of graphs that post the Phillies performance on an X/Y axis or ideas aside from numbers that affect a player’s BABIP. A BABIP? Can I calculate that on a slide rule or should I fetch a pipette? Trust me, I get the BABIP. It’s the batting average of balls hit into play and is a method of determining a player’s future value in fantasy baseball. But there’s not a stat in the world that’ll tell you why the Phil’s ruled in come-from-behind wins early in the season and now can’t post one to save their skin. Or when Jimmy Rollins will get his groove back, or what identity Brett Myers wi