Phillies Banned From Baseball For Winning World Series

p Ohh, it’s time! The Philadelphia Phillies — your most recent World Champions (!) — have opened spring training. Turns out the baseball offseason goes pretty quickly when you play ’til the end of October. Who knew?

But as excited as we all are for the start of baseball season, there’s another reason to get pumped, too: The return of baseball writing. Whether it’s whining about the integrity of the game that actually celebrates cheating (as long as it doesn’t involve a needle) or complaining that newfangled stats aren’t as good as old worthless ones (like pitchers’ wins), no sport brings out the best (worst) in a sportswriter like baseball.

Take this opening from yesterday’s Inquirer:

CLEARWATER, Fla. - If the 2009 Phillies exhibit an increased swagger when they arrive at training camp, it’s understandable. Figuratively at least, winning a World Series can have the same impact on ballplayers as steroids.

The key phrase in this lead is, of course, “at least.” Is Frank Fitzpatrick suggesting that winning a championship might work as well as steroids do?

If so, shouldn’t the Phillies have gained weight over the offseason? Instead, Ryan Howard and Brett Myers are a combined 50 pounds lighter.

But let’s not forget that baseball is also the top sport for nonsensical player quotes. Or, in this case, ex-players:

“There’s nothing that builds your confidence like winning [a championship],” said Del Unser, who did that with the 1980 Phillies. “It can take career monkeys off people’s backs.”

He’s actually not correct. While winning a title is good for confidence, it really can’t match an injection of Confidripine. I believe that’s been banned since the 1980s, though.

Photo by permanently scatterbrained used under a Creative Commons license