RIP

Ron Santo, standout former third baseman for the Chicago Cubs, 70.


The first baseball glove I had when I was a kid was a Ron Santo signature model. Even then the glove was old, and I didn't know who Santo was. The glove had a metal button at the bottom left of the outer shell that secured a strap across the back of my wrist. Every time I caught a ball, the button would sound a metallic rattle that I can still hear. Nobody else in my little league had a glove that made that sound.

I caught my first fly ball in a game with that glove, a fly ball that I can still see. I was in right field at Tarken playground in Philly and I saw the ball come off the bat and through the twilight. To me. I was terrified, and what made matters worse was that I had no read on the ball, no angle. I couldn't react to the ball, couldn't move. I stood frozen and watched the ball for a clue as to where it might be headed, eager to break in any direction, as soon as I could figure out which.

I kept standing there and kept looking up. The ball got closer and closer. As it approached, I bent my elbow to raise my glove and watched the ball land inside. I heard the pop of the pocket, the rattle of the button and the cheers from my bench along the third-base line, behind which my father stood watching (at that level, a fly ball was a serious threat, no sure bet to be caught). I smiled as I threw the ball in, resumed my defensive stance and shook with nerves for the rest of the inning. I caught my first fly ball, and I didn't have to move.

Had him played perfectly.

Signature pitch

An interactive look at Mariano Rivera's cutter and why it is so effective.

National League Champions

The Philadelphia Phillies.

A fan reacts to the Phils' Game 4 win.

100 Innings

I'm recovering from the 100 Innings of Baseball fundraiser for ALS research. The event was held Saturday through Sunday in Quincy, Mass. I've played plenty of night games, but I never watched the sun rise while playing the outfield before. There's something beautiful about dawn's early light on a baseball field -- especially one that's in use. But nothing compares to having my wife and daughter there to watch me play. Two images tattooed to my brain are my wife clapping after I singled and scored a run, and my daughter smiling while happily digging in the dirt behind the dugout.

Former Phillies and Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, a big supporter of ALS research, stopped by during the 95th inning to offer his support and say thanks. He chatted with the players, posed for a group photo and signed some baseballs.

The event raised $26,756 for ALS research so far. I say "so far" because even though the game is over, donations are being accepted for the next two weeks. To donate, click here. Anything you can spare will be a big help. Thank you to everyone who has been so generous in donating to support this great cause.

Arming for the stretch run

Phillies to announce Pedro Martinez signing today.

In other baseball news, the NL lost the All-Star game again. It's the first loss in the All-Star game by a Phillies manager. The last time the NL won the All-Star game was in 1996, at the Vet in Philly.

The knuckler

Tim Wakefield's slow, erratic road to the All-Star game.

The naturalizing effect

That's two in a row for left field at Fenway Park.

Scalpers

In Congress, selling Sox-Nationals tickets at a hefty markup. Oh yeah, the tickets come with the access that lobbyists crave.

When the Boston Red Sox come to Washington next week for a three-game interleague series, they’ll bring one of baseball’s best records and an impassioned Northeastern fan base. They’ll also bring in a major league cash haul for members of Congress.

More than a dozen lawmakers — including seven from Massachusetts and its neighboring states (aka Red Sox Nation) — have scheduled fundraisers at Nationals Park when the Sox come to town to play the cellar-dwelling Washington Nationals.

For between $1,500 and $5,000, lobbyists and political action committee managers can take in a game and a beer with a powerful lawmaker who controls the fate of legislation they’re paid to sway.

Donors who give $5,000 to Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) get two tickets to the game, plus the chance to watch batting practice from the exclusive President’s Club seating area beforehand, according to his invitation. Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) says donors will enjoy a pregame “dinner reception at the President’s Club, then enjoy the game in the best seats in the house — behind home plate!”

Langevin — a big Sox fan, according to his spokeswoman, Joy Fox — quickly sold out 50 tickets for between $1,500 and $2,500 a pop. Not a bad markup, when you consider the face value was $200 each.

Seriously, why don't you whores just put on some fishnets and stroll the streets and get it over with?

50 games

off for Manny Ramirez, who has tested positive for HCG, AKA human chorionic gonadotropin. The drug is often used by people using human growth hormone (HGH) or testosterone, because when the body recognizes that it has excess testosterone, it shuts down its own natural production of the hormone.

HGH and testosterone, of course, often are used by athletes looking to artifically improve their performance because they enhance strength and muscle growth.

Like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, this is another case of a probable Hall of Famer who now might not get in. But I don't suppose many of these players think that far ahead. For them, it's often about the next huge contract, which is ironic because why would someone who is already rich jeapordize their health and legacy for just more money? Would Bonds have had to take a job bagging grocieries if he had retired in 1997? Of course, given the way that baseball, the media and fans treated Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998, there was little reason for Bonds to think he would be tarnishing his image by using. The health effects he presumably knew about and disregarded.

Bonds has never tested positive (which, given the way the cheaters are always ahead of the testers and the weak-ass program baseball had previously, means nothing) and never admitted "knowingly" using, not even to the BALCO grand jury. Yet he has become the poster boy for baseball's steroid era (I'm not saying that's undeserved), and many Hall of Fame voters will refuse to vote to induct him. How then could these voters elect Clemens, McGwire, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez and now Manny?

What Manny's suspension tells us, along with the fact that MLB is finally, reluctantly serious about getting performance-enhancing drugs out of the game, is that the so-called "steroid era" is not over. What might help would be to get someone in the commissioner's office who is not an employee of the owners and free to act in the best interest of the game instead of his employers.

Sports journalism

Sox owner John Henry to buy the Boston Globe?

Bat man

The Sox will have a special, experienced pair of hands in the dugout Saturday during their game against the stinkins.

Babe Ruth greeted Arthur Giddon as he did most 13-year-olds, even those in uniform. Giddon chatted with the Babe for a moment but tore himself away because he had a job to do. It was 1922, and as a Boston Braves bat boy, Giddon had to break out the bats, polish some spikes and otherwise outfit his players for that afternoon’s game at Braves Field.

Eighty-seven years later, on Saturday, Giddon will reprise his role for his now-beloved Red Sox — as a special 100th birthday present, he will serve as the team’s honorary bat boy prior to the game against the rival Yankees. The same hands that delivered bats to Billy Southworth and softened Rube Marquard’s glove will do the same for Kevin Youkilis and Jon Lester.

Now at bat boy for the Red Sox: No. 100, Big Pappy.

Congratulations, Mr. Giddon.

RIP

Harry Kalas, Hall of Fame broadcaster and voice of the Phillies, 73.

Ringin’ in the new season

The World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Doug Glanville

Penn grad, former Phillie and New York Times scribe.

World Champions

For only the second time in history, the Philadelphia Phillies are World Champions. I let my daughter stay up to watch the game, and she sat with Mrs. S during the ninth inning while I talked on the phone with my father and brother, who had set up a conference call.

Brad Lidge, the Phillies closer, got the final out, a swinging strikeout, just like Tug McGraw did the only other time the Phillies won the title, in 1980. And, like McGraw in 1980, he did it with the tying run on base.

Last night was the resumption of a game suspended in the middle of the sixth inning Monday due to weather, but with all the anxiety and emotion, those three innings felt like nine. As I said to a friend earlier in the day, "If you're a fan of the chess match, this is the game for you."

Because the first five and a half innings produced a tie, other than the player already removed from the game (pitcher Scott Kasmir), they meant nothing. This was essentially an abbreviated game, with the World Series on the line. Every pitch takes on added significance in the postseason, but when one third of a game can determine the outcome of the World Series, that significance is tripled.

When Rocco Baldelli hit a home run in the top of the seventh, my stomach twisted itself into tense knots as I sagged on the couch. A single by the number-eight hitter, Jason Bartlett, didn't help. Two batters later, Akinori Imawura hit a bouncer into the no-man's land behind the mound. Chase Utley wisely didn't attempt to throw out the speedy leadoff hitter and caught Bartlett trying to steal a run.

It was the kind of play that that steals momentum. The Rays had tied the game and nearly taken the lead, but the Phillies took the momentum with them back to the first-base dugout.

Still, when Susie called in the bottom of the seventh, I was too anxious to take the call. The situation demanded my full attention.

Fortunately, Pat Burrell saved his only World Series hit -- a home run that the wind turned into a triple that he legged into a double -- for when the Phils really needed it. One productive out later, one of Chad Bradford's submarine pithces surfaced about belt high, and Pedro Feliz singled home pinch runner Eric Bruntlett. My stomach settled.

But the relief was brief because J.C. Romero, who was left in to hit in the seventh, fell behind in the count and then gave up a leadoff single to Carl Crawford. The double-play grounder off the bat of B.J. Upton did more for my stomach than Rolaids ever could. I knew we were one out away from Lidge. The title was in sight.

But nothing comes easy for the teams I root for, and Lidge left a slider up a little too much, and Dioner Navarro turned it into a broken-bat single. The tying run was on with one out. Soon after I said that the runner can't be allowed to steal, pinch runner Fernando Perez stole second. Then Ben Zobrist hit a soft liner to right that hung up long enough for Jason Werth to catch.

It was the last anxious moment of the game.

When Carlos Ruiz squeezed Lidge's last slider of the season, I yelled "Yeah!" and watched the pileup of red pinstripes in front of the mound. It was a celebration that nobody in that familiar uniform had participated in for 28 years, one that I hadn't seen since I was in grade school.

I could hardly believe that I was watching the Phillies celebrate a World Series title. It wasn't as unbelievable as when the Sox finally won it all in 2004, because I had seen the Phillies do it once before, and the Sox were never supposed to win. There was a whole industry built around their futility, libraries full of books by people congratulating themselves for sticking with such an apparently star-crossed franchise.

But I didn't grow up with any of that shit. I was thrilled when the Sox finally won and I celebrated their titles, but I was raised on the Phillies, teams that were good but not quite good enough until they won it all in 1980. By the mid 80s, they were just an average team. By the late 80s, they sucked. And they kept on sucking through the 90s, save for 1993. The tributes to the 1980 team and to the best players from the past that the team did every so often to attract fans to the ballpark were nice at first but soon became pathetic reminders that there was no other reason to go to the ballpark, and that current teams and players were unlikely to be honored this way.

Well, Phillies fans don't have to live in the past anymore. The Phillies are World Champions.

Entire generations of Phillies and Red Sox fans never got to see their teams win a title. I am blessed that I got to see each team win two titles, and that I got to share those titles with my family.

World Series

I've already explained that I'm rooting for the Phillies in the Series, and would have been even if the Sox made it too. The Phillies are my first team, and the only reason I became a Sox fan was because rooting for an American League team presented no conflict of interest (this, of course, was in the days before the novelty of interleague play).

Phillies fans have suffered as long and hard as have fans of any other professional sports franchise. Of the original teams in the National League, the Phillies have won the fewest World Series titles--just one, in 1980, their 97th season. The Phillies are the first team in any of the four so-called major sports to reach 10,000 losses, but nobody romanticizes the suffering of the Phillie fan the way they do for Cubs fans and, until 2004, Sox fans. The Phillies weren't lovable losers struggling admirably with curses of the Babe or a billygoat or any other forces that lend themselves to elegant writing in sports columns. They just sucked, for a really, really long time. It takes just as much character and commitment to stick with the Phillies as it does to stick with the Cubs and, until recently, the Sox, if not more. (Let's face it, Wrigley and Fenway make those commitments easier. Nobody's waxing poetic about Veterans Stadium.)

So I am rooting hard for my first love, and not because the Rays are the rotten swine who sent the Sox home for the winter. That's irrelevant. I'm rooting for the Phillies for all the times my parents treated my brother and me to a day at the Vet; for my first game, when my legs were sunburned as I sat with my father, watching Phil Niekro shut out the Phillies 4-0; and for the time my parents let me skip school to go to Opening Day with a friend. In those days you could bring coolers into the park, and our parents made sure we had enough rations to last 100 innings. I'm rooting for the Phils for all the memories I have of Philadelphia baseball.

Go Phils!

Comeback

Sox 8, Rays 7. Just like with the 2004 Stinkins and the 2007 Indians, the Sox have the Rays right where they want them.

The jersey under the stadium

Click here to bid on the David Ortiz jersey that was hidden in the concrete under the Stinkins' new stadium. Proceeds benefit the Jimmy Fund, so dig deep and bid often.

Concrete curse

I guess Gino Castignoli has injected himself into Sox-Stinkins folklore and made himself the answer to what someday will be a very difficult trivia question. He had fun with the rivalry and he didn’t get create a dangerous situation.

A construction worker's bid to curse the New York Yankees by planting a Boston Red Sox jersey in their new stadium was foiled when the home team removed the offending shirt from its burial spot.

After locating the shirt in a service corridor behind what will be a restaurant in the new Yankee Stadium, construction workers jackhammered through the concrete Sunday and pulled it out.

I doubt this would’ve had much of an impact on the Stinkins’ fortunes. Besides, I have a feeling Steinbrenner’s kids will do more to hurt that organization than an old jersey.

And anyway, I heard Castignoli planted 34 David Ortiz jerseys in the stadium concrete. Or did he? Better get out those jackhammers.

Opening day

The Sox earned a 6-5, extra-inning win against the A’s in Tokyo this morning. They were led by Manny Ramirez’s four RBI and a strong performance by a late addition to the batting order.

Manny tied the game in the sixth inning with a two-out double off of Oakland starter Joe Blanton. After David Ortiz fouled out with runners at first and second, Manny drilled the first pitch into the left-field corner, scoring Justin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. Manny then scored the go-ahead run on a two-out single to right by Brandon Moss, who was added to the lineup at the last minute when J.D. Drew had tightness in his lower back.

The Sox 3-2 lead was brief, however, as Kyle Snyder relieved starter Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up a two-run shot to Jack Hannahan in the bottom of the sixth. But Moss hit a home run off Huston Street (L, 0-1) in the top of the ninth to tie the score 4-4 and send the game into extras.

In the tenth, with Julio Lugo at second base and two outs, Street intentionally walked David Ortiz, who went 0-for-4, to pitch to Ramirez. Manny doubled to center, scoring both runners.

Jonathan Papelbon pitched a shaky bottom of the tenth, walking the first batter he faced, Daric Barton, who came around to score on a one-out double by Emil Brown, making the score 6-5. Fortunately, Brown was thrown out trying to stretch the double into a triple, because the next two hitters, Bobby Crosby and Hannahan, each singled before Papelbon got Kurt Suzuki to ground out.

Dice-K gave up two hits in five innings, walked five and struck out six. He got off to a shaky start, giving up a home run and two walks, hitting a batter and throwing a wild pitch in the first inning, when Oakland scored two runs. He gave up a single and walked two more in the second inning, when he struck out Jack Cust with the bases loaded.

Dice-K settled down after that, giving up only a two-out walk in the third and getting the side in order in the fourth and fifth.

Hideki Okajima (W, 1-0) got the win, giving up only a walk in the bottom of the ninth.

Notes: Moss’ home run was the first of his career. Red Sox hitters faced three former teammates in Oakland pitchers Alan Embree, Keith Foulke and Lenny DiNardo.