Pitchers and Catchers Report Today

Today's the day! Phillies pitchers and catchers officially report to Spring Training today in Clearwater, Florida, with their first workout tomorrow morning. Truth be told, however, may have been there for a while already, including Roy Halladay, who has been participating in a rigorous workout routine which will set the standard for our other pitchers.

These are among the key questions for our staff this year:

* Has Hamels developed an effective, reliable third pitch (curve, cutter or slider)?

* Can Lidge come back from a horrendous 2009 season and two off-season surgeries (knee and elbow) to regain something close to his 2008 form?

* Who will occupy the fifth starter's spot? Top contenders at this time are Kendrick and Moyer, but a few months in Spring Training can change that calculus.

* Will Happ be able to replicate his "almost" Rookie-of-the-Year 2009 form?

* Will there be other lefty relievers from our system to step up and make it to the show, so that Romero is not driven into the ground by mid-season?

With all 8 position players locked up (C-Ruiz, 1st-Howard, 2nd-Utley, 3rd-Polanco, SS-Rollins, LF-Ibanez, CF-Victorino, RF-Werth), it looks like all eyes will be focused on the pitchers this Spring Training.

Look for other Spring Training headlines as they develop, such as possible injuries and off-field items, including Skipper's stunning weight loss and Kendrick's fiance's Stephanie's run on "Survivor - Heroes and Villains".

What's Your 10-20?

Today is "Truck Day" at CBP and, according to a friend, the Phillies' Spring Training truck left this morning, heading to its destination of Clearwater, Florida!

The truck is full of baseballs, bats, uniforms, pine tar, bubble gum, hats....all the necessaries.

A great harbinger of things to come!

Enjoy the Blizzard!

Sorry Charlie.

While driving to the Courthouse this morning, I came across an obviously lost dog running back and forth across Lambs Road. As I came upon the scraggly brown mutt, cars ahead of me were slowing in fruitless attempts to coax it into their car. Car doors open and shut, including mine, but the dog wasn't biting.

After hooking a left and running down a long driveway, I pulled in behind it, got out of my car, and waited to see if it would turn around. A car pulled up next to me, and the driver identified herself as the owner of "Charlie".

"Come 'ere, Charlie, com 'ere boy", I said, excitedly, trying to convince the dog to turn around. About 100 yards away, he stopped, turned his head...and turned around, running toward me at breakneck pace over the snowy, slushy gravel.

I lowered slightly, like a Dad about to catch his running son. Now, you need to know that, since I was on my way to Court, I was wearing a suit and tie. Two thoughts came to me simultaneously: one, that if the dog really did come to me, I was going to get a little dirty and wet. That would have been fine. Two, that if he tried to get past me, I would have to make a quick decision whether or not to tackle him.

As he closed within 10 feet, Charlie took a mean turn to the right and proceeded past me, just out of my reach. I could have dived for him, but chose not to. Off he went, into the middle of the street, dodging a car that didn't know what was going on. Charlie continued down the road, far down, until he found another long driveway, and turned into it. Charlie's owner had already hopped back into her car and was following, but this new driveway led to the woods, and Charlie was not slowing down.

I got back into my car and drove past the driveway, looking to see if Charlie had perhaps dodged off the beaten path and circled back around. I didn't see him. What I did see was Charlie's owner, 200 yards down at the end of this new driveway, slowly get out of her car, look around, and then walk reluctantly into the woods.

I waited a few minutes, looking, hoping....and then I left, having to get to court.

I don't know what happened to Charlie.

* * *

Changing out of my suit at the end of the day, I notice -- as I have for months now -- that my pants are way too baggy. So is the jacket. The suit that I bought at one of my highest weights is now a testament to what happens when you diet and exercise. It really looks kind of silly on me.

I also notice, for the first time, that there's a little tear by one of the front pockets, exposing the white inside.

I should've dived for Charlie.

Next time, old suit or not, I will.

Getting Ready for Spring Training

I like to say that as big as a Phillies fan as I am, I'm an even bigger fan of baseball. That's just how I feel about the sport, and is a huge statement as to how I feel about the game, given my intense love of all things Phillies. It emanates from my childhood, growing up around the sights and sounds of baseball. The crack of the bat, the smell of the freshly cut grass and leather glove, the beautiful lines created by a hit or pitched ball and the infield diamond. The symmetry of it; the excitement of it. Plus, back in the day, I was pretty good at it.

So perhaps you'll understand why I was somewhat disappointed with myself when I just couldn't bear to watch the final innings of last year's World Series Game 6. It was just too painful. In fact, other than catching a snippet from the news of Shane Victorino's weak groundout to clinch the WS for the Yankees, I still hadn't watched those final three outs, in the top of the 9th.

Until this morning.

Forget about pitchers and catchers --- MY spring training reporting date is 20 days away. I'm eager to get this season started, and I wanted to put a final endnote on last year's wild ride. So well before dawn today, I slid the WS DVD into my BlueRay, and finally accepted what occurred.

I know that if I had watched the final 3 outs live, I would not have had the perspective to truly notice what I realized this morning: we were THAT close.

Took the first Game AT Yankee stadium.

Lost the second game to take a split back to Philly. Although Milt Thompson will say that the Phils really, really wanted that Game 2, the fact remained, we now had home field advantage.

Lost the next two games in Philly to go down 3-1 and to relinquish home field advantage. But, refused to go quietly and stole one back after another monstrous game from Chase Utley. Momentum slowly began shifting back to the Phils as the Yankees realized they will not win this series 4-1, it will go to a Game 6. And I always said, whoever won Game 6 was going to win the Series. (which is obvious if the Yankees won it, but perhaps not quite as obvious if the Phils won it).

And so here we were for Game 6. Watching those final 3 outs, down 7-3, I realized that we were just inches or feet away from taking that one.

First up in the top of the 9th was Matt Stairs. Before this morning I thought he had struck out, because one of the clips that keeps airing is of Stairs taking one of his monstrous swings and missing. But what actually occured was a good at bad where, facing the best closer in baseball, he fouled some pitches off, including a monstrous jack to right which, while clearly foul by 50 feet, was home run distance. It was the kind of swing and launch we had gotten Stairs for in the first place. Unfortunately, he made the first out, but it was on a strong infield line drive. Considering the situation, the stage: impressive.

Next up was Carlos Ruiz, who had the plate discipline to work a walk against Rivera with pitches that were mere inches off the plate, if that. Ruiz's clutch playoff performance was continuing.

Third up was Rollins. This and the next at-bat are what really struck me. Remember, we're down only 7-3, and this Phillies team has come back from larger deficits multiple times. Plus we've proven that we can rise to the occasion and get hot when necessary. This was clearly the most necessary of times to do just that, with Ruiz on base in the 9th and one swing away from cutting our deficit to just 2 runs. Rollins jacked a moon shot to right which, while caught by Swisher, landed deep on the warning track just a few feet from the short porch. Close!

Last up was Victorino, whose at-bat, like Stairs', I had misconstrued throughout the long winter. After seeing highlight after highlight of this last World Series out, you would have thought that his weak grounder was all there was to that at-bat. But prior to that, Shane fouled off a number of pitches, even prompting Phils' Manager Charlie Manuel to mouth to his assistant, "Good at-bat". One of Shane's last foul balls was a liner into the right-field stands. Remember, this is against the best closer in baseball, at the most pressure-packed time.

Of course it was not meant to be for the Phils last year. But far from choking, we have the Yankees their money's worth. Giving the Yankees a great run, going to the World Series 2 years in a row, poised to do that and more this year: What an exciting time to be a baseball fan, a Phillies fan.

May I have a moment to ReGroup?

We're having fun regrouping over here. Alex came home with his first two-digit subtraction paper on Monday night, and when I got home from work, Laura demanded, "Chris, you have to help him with this, he got it all wrong and I don't know how to explain it to him!"

I looked at it, and it did take me a little while to figure it out, but when I got it, BAM, it was almost fun (almost). When Alex first handed the paper to me, it had answers on it like 32 - 28 = 34. So I'm looking at Alex and, taking a step back for a moment, trying to just theoretically explain how it is that when you have 32 of something, and you take away 28 of it, how you can actually end up with 2 more than you started with. That's when he squints his eyes, cocks his head to the side, his hair stands on end (truly), and he says something that sounds like a combination of "What?" and "Huh?" I knew then that we were in for a big night.

So then I figure we better just go at this mechanically, and apply the regrouping, which is not what we called it when I was a kid (right?), but which I had to figure out. The first thing that threw me off was that in showing how he got to his answer, his work had a vertical line down the middle between the numbers. For some reason this really alarmed me.

But then I noticed that the only problems he seemed to need to "regroup" were the ones where the top, right digit (I know academic types call it the "1's") were lower than the bottom right digits. Ok, so regrouping has something to do with........That.

And then, suddenly, it hit me. I was transported back to my 2nd grade math class at Kindle School in Pitman. I'm at my desk, doing math (by myself! Calculator be damned!), my teacher Mrs. Morgan is looking particularly Teacherish and making teacher noises, and I'm putting slashes through numbers, taking away one's on top, putting one's in front of 3's, all sorts of cool stuff. Some kid's throwing a spitball at me too.

But the point is, I got it. So, for the rest of the evening, I tried to impart to Alex this grain of knowledge, this wisdom, this pearl from the language of the universe that is mathematics.

I'm not sure it's worked. Yet.

But, at least for now, rest assured, someone gets it.

I just hope I don't have to re-learn 3-digit subtraction. Texas Instruments, anyone???

A solution for 911 hangups.

Following the Pitman house fire yesterday, which killed a member of our Church and left her mother critically injured, thoughts naturally turn to what could have been done to prevent it. My first question was to my wife: Our smoke detectors are working, right?

But something else crossed my mind, culled from the different media reports. ABC News reported that the surviving victim was pulled out by the Pitman Fire Department. The Gloucester County times reported this morning that the Pitman Police Department was first on scene as a result of a 911 hangup call, and when they arrived they reported the fire and the Fire Department was then dispatched. While the Fire Department pulled the survivor out of the burning home, they were unable to rescue her daughter in time, who died from smoke inhalation.

Driving by the scene on my way to the office yesterday, I noticed Councilman Russ Johnson standing outside. Today's Gloucester County Times reports:

"Pitman's not used to tragedy like this," Johnson said. "I can't even tell you the last time we had a fire death. Our guys did everything they could." He pointed out that firefighters were on the scene in under five minutes of being dispatched No small feat at four in the morning as snow fell. "We're really fortunate in Pitman that we're absolutely blessed to have three fire companies with well over 80 volunteers that fight fires," Johnson said. "I don't think we let them know how much we appreciate what they do for us."

We can agree that the firefighters were there as quickly as possible. A 5 minute response time is appropriate for the Fire Department. But the fact is, emergency services (the Police) were there quicker and, evidently, couldn't do a heck of a lot because they lack the training and equipment to address a fire (at a minimum, all Police vehicles should be equipped with gas masks). So, at the end of the day, the call to 911 was not initially directed to who it needed to go to: the Fire Department.

Fires are different from heart attacks which are different from nuisance complaints. Yet, through our 911 system, all these calls are dispatched the same way when there is a 911 hangup. This exposes a significant flaw in the system: the same potentially neutered response to all 911 hangup calls.

What we need to do is develop a system where a 911 hangup for a fire is instantly routed to the fire department as well as the police. Immediately dispatching an ambulance would also be the protocol for emergency requests for a health issue: if someone's having a heart attack, the minutes that pass between the time the police respond to the 911 hangup and the arrival of an ambulance only dispatched after the police arrive could be the difference between life and death.

The solution is the creation of two new emergency numbers, one for fire, and one for ambulances. This would cover the gamut: police, fire and ambulance. This step, followed by a public information campaign similar to what we utilize to "advertise" 911 services, would go a long way to ensure that calls made to the respective emergency numbers result in the immediate dispatch of the specific service required.

This issue is narrow and will only arise when there is a 911 hangup, with the caller rendered unable to detail what exactly the problem is. But, to those who cannot speak, it could mean a lot: and we need to find ways to listen to them even more intently.