Road To 10,000 Losses: 9991 Down, 9 To Go

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. The Phillies stand at 9991 losses, only 9 away from 10,000.

A lot has happened since the last time I’ve written about the Phils. (More on this absence tomorrow.) Basically, although the Phillies have climbed over .500, the season’s pretty much over because the Phils are one injury away from re-signing Jim Bunning and having him start every other game the rest of the season. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll have to sign me, and although I have a wicked curve, my fastball tops out at around 82 and I don’t have the control of Jamie Moyer.

Phillies starters Jon Lieber and Freddy Garcia are both on the disabled list and are probably both out for the season. Tom Gordon and Brett Myers are supposed to be off the DL soon, but, ah, yeah, we’ll all believe that when we see it. This leaves the Phillies starting rotation with three players, one of whom (Adam Eaton) has an ERA over five. The bullpen has Jose Mesa, Clay Condrey, Lefty Grove, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Cy Young and Lil Stoner (the best baseball name ever). Unfortunately for the Phillies, only one of those pitchers (Condrey) is alive, although Grove did pick up a win last week.

The bullpen is a mess, and now the starting rotation has somehow become an even bigger mess. The problem is, the Phillies had a guy who might’ve helped in the rotation this season. His name is Justin Germano, and he is 5-1 with a 2.67 ERA. How recently did the Phillies have him? Oh, they fleeced the Reds last season, trading Rheal Cormier for him. But despite going 2-0 with a sub-three ERA in Scranton after the Phillies traded for him last year and a 4.50 ERA in spring training this season, the Phillies decided he wasn’t in their plans and placed him on waivers.

As for the bullpen, Justin Miller was with the Phillies’ AAA affiliate this season and is now in the Florida Marlins’ ‘pen with an ERA just over three. The Phillies released him from Ottawa so they could sign more of Pat Gillick’s friends.

Anyway, the Phils are only 3.5 games back of the first-place Mets, which is pretty amazing considering the Phillies were 28-29 and 8 games back on June 4. Unfortunately, that a team averaging 5.09 runs a game in the National League is only three games over .500 is pretty amazing, too.

Oh, and here’s who’s starting the first game of the doubleheader Friday:

The Phillies, Durbin’s fourth team, claimed Durbin from the Red Sox on April 13, after Boston designated him for assignment. He spent Spring Training with the Twins, but was claimed off waivers by the Diamondbacks on March 29. He appeared in one game for Arizona, and allowed seven earned runs in two-thirds of an inning, compiling a 94.50 ERA.

Update: Yeah, I miscounted when I put my original post up. Stupid evolution, not giving me enough fingers to properly do simple arithmetic.

Oh, let’s update again: Jason Weitzel on Durbin: “Last season, managers rated his curveball as the best breaking pitch in the International League. Baseball America had him as the Twins 10th best prospect this season, which would probably [definitely—dmac.] make him a top 5-10 player in the Phillies’ system.” He might be able to pitch a nice game Friday, especially since the Mets won’t know what to expect. Hey, optimism!

Archives: Road to 10,000 Losses

Fumo Unable To Get Verizon To Just Give Him $15 Mil

Turns out Vince Fumo’s “I’m being unfairly targeted by President Bush” letter to his constituents (which was also paid for by his constituents) was pretty timely after all. Currently, Fumo’s lawyers are in court arguing for their right to represent Fumo in the most boring hearing in American history. The Inquirer is, of course, liveblogging it.

During yesterday’s portion of the hearings, prosecutors alleged Fumo and Verizon struck a “gentlemen’s agreement” that if Verizon gave the state senator a handjob (in this case, “handjob” means “millions of dollars to a law firm of his choosing”) he wouldn’t push to break up the company.

As talks proceeded, prosecutors say, Fumo offered to drop his fight and pushed Verizon to give $15 million to Citizens Alliance. Unlike Peco[, who gave $17 million], Verizon refused to do that. But according to the testimony yesterday, [ex-Verizon prez Dan] Whelan did agree to give an unspecified amount to the Philly Pops - orchestra conductor Peter Nero and Fumo are close friends - and to hire a law firm designated by Fumo.

Then everyone involved went to their vaults of gold coins and swum around a la Scrooge McDuck. Ha ha, rich people are awesome, aren’t they?

Details emerge on Fumo, Verizon [Inquirer]
The Case Against Sen. Fumo [Philly.com]

Come On, Come All! Lessen Your Time In Purgatory!

In case you didn’t read the story associated with yesterday’s Catholic vs. Protestant poll on Philly.com, here’s the 411: The Vatican has approved a plenary indulgence available to all Philadelphia Catholics in honor of the Archdiocese’s 200th anniversary. While the church used to sell indulgences, now it simply makes people jump through hoops to get them: For the Philly indulgence, one must make a pilgrimage to a shrine (take the El to Girard, it’s just a few blocks to where St. John Neumann is buried), receive the sacraments of penance and communion and pray for whatever the Pope wants you to.

The Catholic church gets a little angry when somebody brings up the point indulgences were never mentioned by Jesus, except in the apocryphal Sermon on the Mount of Gold Doubloons.¹ even going so far as to say for about 400 years that anyone who disagreed with indulgences was going to hell. (Really.) Lots of people, though, believe indulgences are a free path to heaven, which they’re not. Geeze, you idiots: Indulgences simply lessen one’s time in purgatory.² (Wikipedia hilariously summarizes: “God has mercy upon sinners who repent their sins, but like some parents, His justice still requires that the sinner be punished for the wrongdoing.”)

You also have to be actually sorry for masturbating³ to get the indulgences, so tough luck, everyone.

¹ I may have made this up.

² I’m already in the clear here, since I wore a scapular for nine weeks a while back, and as such the Blessed Mother is going to bail me out of purgatory on the first Saturday after my death.

³ Or for using a condom with your AIDS-stricken husband.

Spiritual gift for Catholics in Phila. [Inquirer]

World War II Vets Too Dead To See Unbuilt Memorial

Back in 2000, people in New Jersey decided there really should be a World War II memorial in the state. The reasoning: If there’s any war we don’t really honor the soldiers from, it’s World War II.

Now it’s 2007, and it still hasn’t been built. This is worrying quite a few people because there’s a chance by the time it’s finished there won’t be any more WW II veterans alive to see the memorial.

The Garden State’s been on a bit of a memorial binge recently, with a Vietnam one opening up in 1995 and a Korea one opening in 2001. While the funding for those projects went smoothly — possibly because there are veterans of those wars not in nursing homes — people just don’t feel the need to honor the greatest generation or whatever. (Fun fact: 1,100 World War II veterans die every day in America. Wait, I guess that’s not fun.)

The state has kicked in $3 million for the memorial, but it’s now going to cost about 80 billion dollars to build and they could really use some money. And whose fault is it that the memorial isn’t done? That’s right.

While the state has allocated $3 million for the project, the commission in charge of the memorial has received only about $200,000 in donations from individuals and organizations, and not one cent from any New Jersey corporation, he said. The latter especially angers [Stephen] Abel, who said many of those corporations made windfall profits from wartime profits.

“It’s been a significant disappointment,” he said.

How dare those corporations make wartime profits and then not remember it like 60 years later. Come on, Standard Oil of New Jersey!

Few, if any, WWII vets to see N.J. memorial [Press of Atlantic City]

Abridged ‘Daily News’ Columnists

Elmer Smith: Ha ha did you hear about the pair of pants lawsuit?

Ellen Gray: OMG IDOL IS COMING TO PHILLY!

Philadelphia Will Do Gets Mail From Vince Fumo

Okay, well Philadelphia Will Do didn’t get mail from Vince Fumo, really. But it just so happens that I live in Vince Fumo’s district, and I got an official mailing from the state senator detailing his recent indictments.

His letter was nice and timely. (He was indicted in February.) It began with the note that his offices are still open, his staff is still helping people out, and all that stuff that makes a lot of sense. It then continues.

Second, I ask you to keep in mind that in this country, a person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty. This is not just a slogan or an empty phrase from social studies text books. It means no citizen should be judged until both sides are presented in a court of law…. If you have followed the news coming from Washington DC in recent months, you are aware that there is not a great deal of controversy regarding the pressure placed on U.S. Attorneys under the Bush Administration to pursue politically motivated prosecutions.

I can only imagine the scene in the White House, where George Bush Dick Cheney is slamming his fist on the table, urging the prosecution of an obscure yet powerful Pennsylvania state senator. Actually, with the competence the Bush administration has shown so far, it wouldn’t surprise me if the administration did spend a lot of time working to phrase Vince Fumo. (Translation: There’s absolutely no way he gets convicted.)

Philly.com’s, Uhh, 95 Theses

Oddly enough, this poll surmises there are only two types of people in this world: (a) Catholic and down with indulgences and (b) Protestant. But, hey, less time in purgatory!

Philadelphia archdiocese offers indulgences [Inquirer]
Philly.com Poll: Indulgences [Philly.com]

A Week Off And Nothing Changes

If you’re wondering, I took a week off from blogging because if I didn’t take a break soon I’m sure my brain would have melted into a goo of some sort. This might happen anyway, but I’d like to try to avoid that kind of PR nightmare for my death. But just because I wasn’t blogging doesn’t mean I didn’t take notice of the news last week.

There were a few news stories I almost thought about getting off my ass and writing about. I mean, some dude stole about 20 manhole covers, and he was 38! The cops managed to catch him by doing a stakeout, presumably in the sewers under manhole covers. “Okay, here’s manhole number 21–” “Gotcha!”

I also really enjoyed the Inquirer’s coverage of Wizard World, which included the photo at right. Being a nerd, I played quite a few Final Fantasy games when I was younger and, uh, what the hell have they done to Final Fantasy? Did I ever know any girls who dressed like that when I was 15? Hell, fuck that: Did I ever know any girls who dressed like that and played Final Fantasy when I was 15?¹

Anyway, when I last played a Final Fantasy game, the characters all pretty much looked like this:

More »

Dick Pole Man Censored By Own Company

This is from the comment section of an article about eminent domain and city incompetence, naturally.

Jury to city: Pay up [Daily News]

SEPTA Facing Attacks From All Sides

Pennsylvania must pass a budget by the end of the fiscal year, so as to figure out what to waste money on for the rest of this year and next. The fiscal year ends at the end of the month, which (in case you don’t own a calendar) is fast approaching.

This brings us to (what else?) SEPTA. Metro talked with a bunch of “reformers” today, asking them about new SEPTA funding. The transit agency needs a billion dollars (approx.) or else it’s going to kill all its weekday and weekend service and raise the price of tokens to five dollars. Each way.

This would make SEPTA cost-prohibitive for everyone except Tom Knox and our state lawmakers, so everyone in Philadelphia is hoping the state chips in new funding. The dude from Phillyville says that if there isn’t dedicated funding it will allow “other cities to purchase Philadelphia’s public transit infrastructure and remove it from our city. For instance, if you want to catch a ride on a Philadelphia trolley, you’re better off traveling to San Francisco.” So, also, without dedicated funding, Boston will probably just steal Route 12, which will promptly be slamming into buildings because the route follows different street paths than they have in Boston.

Meanwhile, SEPTA has another issue, as a local transgender person has filed a complaint. There’s a sticker on a TransPass (ba dum pum) that marks your gender, and this trans person was apparently hassled for being a drag queen or whatever. The real issue here is: Wow! SEPTA bus drivers care enough to hassle somebody for using someone else’s TransPass? Fortunately, if the state doesn’t give SEPTA new funding, there won’t be any more public transit in the Gayborhood anymore except PATCO, so this should blow over.

The biggest winners in the SEPTA crisis, though, are the lovable scamps asking for a buck for the R5 to get to Ardmore. If fare prices go up, they can ask for a fiver instead of a buck.

Metro recently witnessed a man fitting the description of “Mr. Stranded” collecting cash in Suburban Station from four or five people over about a half hour.

“I don’t want to talk,” he told a reporter whom he had just asked for money “to get back to Ardmore.”

There’s also a field guide to the random Center City people who ask for a buck for the subway because their car got booted or they’re an architect who designed the Kimmel Center, when they’re actually going to spend it on booze or drugs or really bad prostitutes. In case you thought these people were actually telling the truth, pro wrestling is scripted.

Reformers’ Roundtable SEPTA funding fight [Metro]
SEPTA: Not Sure If You’re A Boy Or A Girl [Philebrity]
Police step up forces as needed to head off summertime cheats [Metro]