August 10- Philadelphia Phillies

From May 10^th to May 30th I cataloged and wrote about all of the 2012 Major League Baseball Stars and Stripes New Era caps I was able to get my hands on in honor of the men and women who served their country in the United States military and the ties they have to each team I wrote about. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find all 30 teams, but I did promise to continue on as I was able to track down each of the remaining teams. Lucky for me, a few of the teams were issued multiple caps which all corresponded with how many game caps each team used on the field. This would explain why I wrote two posts on the Oakland Athletics on May 21^st and May 30^th. Nonetheless, my original plan was to buy all of them because I loved the concept so much; however, with time being a years removed from when they were worn I’ll be lucky if I’m able to find the remaining teams. As it stands I have nine teams left to go: San Diego Padres, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Angels and the Chicago White Sox. There’s no telling when or if I’ll be able to find them, but the hunt and the stories that follow will be more than worth it.

You can go ahead and file this story under one of the more unusual, yet tragic stories that I have written about. Unusual in the sense that one man’s life path had so many close calls, but tragic because so many lives were lost along the way. Some of you may know this story, but I assure you I will do my best not to screw it up. I have my good friend Jason Cobb (@JasonMCobb) to thank for bringing it to my attention as my mind was really more focused on finding this Philadelphia Phillies cap as opposed to any good stories surrounding it. It was near the end of May when it was brought to my attention, right around the time when I was wrapping up on my Memorial Day posts. Jason had asked when teams I had upcoming as he is an avid reader of my blog. I rattled off the few caps I had and he asked if I had ever heard of Jack “Lucky” Lohrke. The name rung a bell, but I could put my finger on why. He then asked if I had a Phillies cap on order to which I said no. “That’s too bad,” he said. “If you get one you have to do a story on this guy,” he followed. I was intrigued. Jason has always been good about dropping some serious baseball knowledge on me and he would be the only person I’d humbly admit to knowing way more about the game than me. It was kind of a slow day at work so I was able to get a pretty thorough story before I went home and conducted my own investigation.

.190/0/1- Jack Wayne Lohrke was born Feb. 25, 1924, in Los Angeles, the second of three sons of John and Marguerite Lohrke. His father was employed by Fluor Corp, a global engineering and construction firm. Jack attended South Gate High School in LA where he dominated on the school’s baseball team. By the time he graduated (1942) he was playing semi-pro ball. His first minor league team was the Padres, but he played only seven games for them before joining a minor-league team in Twin Falls, Idaho, the Cowboys, a then-affiliate of the New York Yankees in the Pioneer Baseball League. He was named Twin Falls' most valuable player during his first year and met his future wife, Marie, who was the sister of another player. But, like a lot of his colleagues, when the time came to serve their country, Lohrke was not one to hesitate as he enlisted with the National Guard. Lohrke would soon find himself within the company of the 35th Infantry Division.

Lohrke was sent to train in San Luis Obispo, California. One day while riding on a train through California to ship off to war, the train Lohrke was on jumped off the tracks, killing three people around him while many more were severely burned by steaming water that rushed through the train car. Lohrke walked away without a scratch like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable. As a member of the 35th Infantry Division, he fought in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, one of the costliest of human lives. On four separate occasions solders on both sides of him were killed in combat, yet he emerged unscathed. In 1945 Lohrke had fulfilled his duties and he was sent back to the States. Lohrke's good fortune continued when he returned to the US. A colonel had bumped him at the last moment from the passenger list of a military transport plane that was scheduled to fly from Camp Kilmer, New Jersey to his home in Los Angeles. Less than an hour after the plane took off it crashed in Ohio, killing everyone on board.

After the war, and following his transition back to civilian life, Lohrke resumed his baseball career. The summer of 1946 found him playing for the Class B Spokane Indians of the Western International League. On June 24, 1946, Lohrke was a passenger on the team bus carrying the team as it traveled toward Bremerton, Washington, to begin a road trip. At the time, Lohrke was the team's third baseman and was batting .345 in 229 at bats. His performance had earned him a promotion to the AAA Pacific Coast League's San Diego Padres but the team was unable to contact him as he was in transit between cities. The Indians’ business manager contacted the police along the route and asked that they relay the message to Lohrke, which they did when the team stopped for dinner. Lohrke, under orders to report immediately to the Padres, removed his gear from the bus, said goodbye to his teammates, and hitched rides back to Spokane. Later that evening, the team bus broke through a guard rail on a mountain pass, plunged down a hill, and crashed. Of the 15 players on it, nine were killed, including player/manager Mel Cole. The six survivors were badly injured.

"When the bus took off . . . I bummed a ride back to Spokane," Lohrke said in a 1990 interview with the Los Angeles Times.. "When I got there I found out both of my roommates had been killed." Although he was accustomed to being lucky, Lohrke said, war had conditioned him to deal with disaster. "Having been in combat, what's going to shock you?" Lohrke said in 1990. "I'm a fatalist. I believe the old song, that whatever will be will be."

From the time he joined the Padres after the accident, Lohrke was called, for obvious reasons, "Lucky"-Lucky Lohrke, the ballplayer who got off the bus in the nick of time, the soldier bumped from the plane that crashed. The name stuck. Who else, after all, had more right to be called Lucky? He's in the Baseball Encyclopedia that way: Lucky Lohrke. An amiable man, he lived with the nickname, but he never liked it, never wanted to be reminded of how close he had come to riding that bus into oblivion. But what could he do about it? –Sports Illustrated 1994

Lohrke played for seven years in the Majors, five of which came with the New York Giants from 1947-1951. From 1952-1953 he played in 37 games over two years with the Phillies, amassing a .190 average zero home runs and only one run batted-in. Lohrke’s time with the Giants was definitely more worthy of note (.244/22/95), but I already wrote about them.

After retiring from baseball in 1958, Lohrke worked in security for the Lockheed Missile and Space Co. in Sunnyvale, California and a few other companies all while living in San Jose. In April of 2009 Lohrke passed away, two days after suffering a stroke at the age of 85. Any bit of the legacy that he left behind is carried out in the few interviews he game to whomever came calling. Most notably, he lived and died by a quote he told Sports Illustrated in 1994 for a story headlined: "O Lucky Man" about the nickname he had bestowed upon him. He was known to have an aversion to storytelling or bragging about anything from his past. "My father didn't want heroes in our family." "When you're the age I was back then, you haven't got a worry in the world. You're playing ball because you want to play-and they're giving you money to do it. And then...well, sometimes those names spring back at me. I'll tell you this: Nobody outside of baseball calls me Lucky Lohrke these days. I may have been lucky, but the name is Jack. Jack Lohrke."

May 7- Reading Fightin Phils

It’s not often that I come across a hat that I really NEED for my collection. Yes, there are hats that I suppose I need in per team in order to fulfill my New Era-style Pokemon collection, but a lot of the ones that I see on the market are ones that I’ll see on the shelves and internet for months to years down the road. No, I’m talking about “love at first sight” hats. The ones that make you stop in your tracks, pull out your wallet and shell out whatever bit of cash they’re asking you to pay. This, my friends. This is one of those hats.

I came across it on HatClub.com when I was on the hunt for a, brace yourselves, San Francisco Giants hat. I know. Most of you are crushed to hear this, but I assure you I have a great post for that hat in a few months. Anyway, I immediately stopped perusing the other hats when I saw this because I had never seen a logo quite like it. At first I thought it was a custom design for a particular brand. I wasn’t really sure for what, so I took to the interwebs to find out a bit more about it before I threw it in my cart. As it turned out, it’s a Minor League cap for the Reading Fightin’ Phils. Once I got confirmation I threw it and the Giants hat in my cart and checked out.

The story behind this hat is really not that interesting except for the fact that the team, the Reading Phillies, had one of the longest running team names in Minor League Baseball. From 1967-2012 they were know by this name, but at the end of the 2012 season the Phillies’ management opted for a change. With other teams this has been viewed on both sides of the coin. Some teams have become more financially successful while others have had to eat a huge loss. All ready two months into the season I can only imagine that this has become a huge success for the AA affiliate. 

Due to it being a new hat, let alone a Minor League hat I unfortunately don’t have a tremendous amount to say about it. I always try to focus on players and the accomplishments that took place while wearing this hat; however, since this is new to the season there isn’t a whole lot to say at the moment. Perhaps down the road I can update it at season’s end with a few numbers. I’ll be sure to keep a sharp eye out on that. What I can say is that this is their home cap. Now, this sparks a little bit of a question because on the team shop Web site it does have it labeled as the home cap; however, on Wikipedia it is labeled as the home alternate. I will merely leave it as such until I get word from the team or anyone else in the Reading, Pennsylvania are who knows before I make any edits.

I suppose I can add what drew me to this cap, the fist. There was an old show on Comedy Central in the late 1990s called Upright Citizens Brigade; it was a sketch comedy show that featured the likes of Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts and Amy Poehler. The show itself was as a result of the New York City-based comedy troupe in which current MLB Fan Cave Dweller Nick Mendillo (@grevalt) is a member of. Every show was 30 minutes long and had an ongoing story throughout. The episode in particular that I’m thinking of was season three, episode 10 entitled “Thunderball.” As it would turn out, it was the final episode before the show was pulled from the air.

“Thunderball” had nothing to do with the James Bond flick with the same name; actually, it was a name of one of the greatest fictional sporting events in television history. Pro Thunderball, as it was known, combined football, baseball, dodgeball, street fighting, pit fighting (there’s a difference), demolition derby and stripping, and was played by borderline homicidal maniacs. For the sake of not blathering on you can watch the episode here, but broken up into three parts: Thunderball!!!

The essential piece of this is the name of one of the teams, the Decatur Fist. And, as you can see, their mascot is a guy running around in a giant fist costume. In 13 years that image has never left my mind, and when I came across this hat that was all I could think about. The “F” logo is comprised of ostrich feathers and the fist as the cross is the arm of their new ostrich logo. As unusual as their may seem, it actually makes perfect sense since the team’s mascot is derived from one of the in-between inning shows of an a hot dog vendor named Phrank who rides around on an ostrich throwing hot dogs at people. I realize the last few paragraphs will lead you to the conclusion that I’m high and/or making this up, but I assure that I’m telling you the truth. As the season progresses and I acquire more Fightin’ Phils hats the story will come together a little bit better.  As for now, I have a sweet new hat that will always remind me, and probably you now, of one of the darkest comedy shows in TV history… and baseball.

April 28- Philadelphia Phillies

I’ve never been that big of a fan of wearing red, so for this post I opted to swallow my pride and suck it up. I should start off first by talking about the shirt I’m wearing. My good friend and former boss at Just Sports (@JustSportsPDX) Jason Cobb (@MrCobbyCobb) was the mastermind behind this gem. As some of you may remember from my Pittsburgh Pirates post from January 2 I was sporting a sweet “Portland” shirt which featured the same typeface as the Pirates. With this shirt Jason did the same thing but with the Philadelphia Phillies typeface from the 1997-2007 season. I’ve run across a lot of sweet baseball shirts in my days, but these two definitely take the “Awesome Shirt of the Day” award. Now, I realize that I totally made that award up back in February; however, as many of you should know by now, I have yet to steer any of you wrong in this category.

As I mentioned above this hat was used from 1997-2007, but it was only used for interleague games which started during the ’97 season. I have never really been that much of a Phillies fan, but I do give them praise from time-to-time, mostly for the sake of Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Chase Utley and the cast of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Outside of those folk I’ve been an ardent smack-talker of the Phillies. Granted I really have no reason to show any angst against them, especially when considering the fact that I’m a die-hard Oakland Athletics fan; however, there have been some moves on the business end of things which have swayed my attitude in this direction. Almost all of it stems from this 11-year time frame.

At the end of the 1996 season the Phillies finished with an atrocious 67-95 record under then managerial journeyman Jim Fregosi. Fregosi’s best season as a manager came in 1993 when the Phillies won 97 and faced off against the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series, a post I went into great detail on February 11. Hoping to the right the ship, they hired rookie manager Terry Francona. Francona had been a manager in the Minor Leagues for the Chicago White Sox. His biggest bit of notoriety came in 1993 when he led the AA Birmingham Barons to Southern League championship. Very few recall that Francona had won the Southern League Manager of the Year award, not to mention that the team had won the championship, as the biggest story to come from that season was the addition of then-retired Chicago Bulls guard Michael Jordan playing for the team. Francona also managed in the Dominican Winter Leagues from 1995-1996, winning the league championship and the Serie del Caribe that season with the likes of future MLB stars Manny Ramirez, Miguel Tejada and Tony Batista on the squad. The Phillies liked what they saw out of Francona and brought him aboard.

From 1997-2000 Francona never had a season above 77 wins. His 285-363 record was one of the worst in franchise history. Francona obviously carried on bravely after his four-year stint, winning two World Series rings as the skipper for the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and 2007, but it’s really hard to look past his humble beginnings. In 2001 the Phillies looked internally for their next skipper, former 1980 World Series champion and shortstop Larry Bowa. Bowa, from my perspective at least, was the catalyst the team needed. From 2001-2003 Bowa went 252-234, finishing second or third in the National League Eastern Division. In 2004 Bowa was fired with two games left in the season, despite the fact that the team finished in second place again with an 85-75 record. Interim manager Gary Varsho went 1-1. Only in Philly can a manager maintain a winning record and get canned. While the move did prove to be successful after hiring Charlie Manuel in 2005, I still don’t particularly agree with it. With the talent coming up through the ranks that Manuel was served Bowa could have easily led the team to their 2008 World Series season as well, if not more.

Now, since this hat was only used for interleague games I decided to keep with the theme. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to pull some numbers which focused primarily through this 11 year range. After combing through the stats for every season, there was one guy who stood out among the pack. And no, it is not Gregg Jefferies, unfortunately.

.318/22/89- Originally a free agent signing by the Houston Astros back in 1990 out of Venezuela, Bobby Abreu was once the toast of Philadelphia or at least from what I saw. From 1998 through the middle of the 2006 season Abreu donned #53 for the Phillies and was one of the most potent pieces to the team’s lineup. In the nine years he played for the Phillies he finished in the Top-27 for the NL MVP five times, the highest of which came in his final full year when he finished 14^th after going .286/24/102, which oddly turned out to be one of the worst years of his career from a batting average perspective. As most people fail to remember Abreu hit .303 while he was in Philly, not to mention the 21 home runs and 90 RBI he averaged per season during those years as well.

What’s even more remarkable was what he was able to accomplish during the 13-18 interleague games per season. It certainly took me a while, but I was remarkably able to pull all of his stats from each of these games and find a career interleague stat total. In only three of the nine years he was with the Phillies Abreu hit below .300, barely. His career interleague average (with the Phillies) is an astonishing .318. On top of that he was able to club 22 of his 195 Phillies home runs during this frame along with 89 of his 814 RBI. Abreu also swiped 32 bags, only getting caught four times. He also walked 113 times and compiled an OPS of .948 during this stretch. Now, the regular season is 162 games long. Abreu played in 148 interleague games during his time with the Phillies. Basically what he was able to accomplish over a handful of games over a nine-year period is the equivalent of what everyone in MLB, let alone in the National Baseball Hall of Fame strive to even come close to hitting for one season of their career. What’s even more frightening is that he’s not even in the Top-10 for best interleague average. The top spot for that goes to Baltimore Oriole Nick Markakis with a .353 average. Abreu only cracked the Top-10 in one interleague category; hits with 275, which is only the fifth best of all-time.

Any way you look it, whether he hit the top spots or not, Abreu came to play every single day. He only won one Silver Slugger award in 2004, made only one All-Star Game appearance the same year and only won one Gold Glove award in 2005, his final full season with the Phillies. He was steadily pushing a possible Hall of Fame bid through 2010, but found himself seeing less time in the field which translated to fewer at-bats. He has 2437 hits for his career in only 17 years of playing. At 39-years-old he probably could have pushed an extra three years out if someone wanted him, but for now he remains a free agent.

March 28- Philadelphia Phillies

I don’t watch a terrible amount of television these days; however, there are a small handful of shows that I couldn’t live without: “The League,” “South Park,” “Justified” and most important “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” If you’re reading this article and you’ve never seen “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” seriously stop reading this right now and go watch all seven seasons immediately. I’m dead serious! You’re not only missing out on one of the most creative and clever shows on television, but you’re also missing out on an essential component of my dynamic.

Believe it or not I’ve seen every episode at least five times; the first through third seasons I’ve plowed through at least 20 times each.  With the exception of “The Simpsons” and maybe the short-lived “Ben Stiller Show,” never has a television program had such a profound impact on my day-to-day life. For example, the last three years of my life were spent schlepping beers and shots at a public house in Eugene, Oregon called Max’s Tavern. The really interesting things about Max’s is that

1.”The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening modeled Moe’s Tavern after Max’s as it was his old drinking hole in college, much like myself.

2. Kaitlin Olson, the actress who plays Sweet Dee Reynolds on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” also used to drink at Max’s when she went to school at the University of Oregon.

3. I just graduated from the University of Oregon and I drink at Max’s when I’m not working.

Ok, maybe that last part wasn’t interesting at all, but the first two definitely are. Almost every night behind the bar, for me at least, was like channeling Mac, Dennis and Charlie. I didn’t put up with anybody’s crap, I cleaned up after people a lot and I flirted with anything that had boobs. As for the Frank and Sweet Dee traits, I’m a pretty decent businessman and I suppose I do have some bird-like qualities. I mean, my school’s mascot is a duck. But like in the spirit of “It’s Always Sunny…,” I never really know when to shut my mouth.

For those of you who have followed me for the past year, I congratulate you. I know at times I tend to just fire some pretty out there opinions on major issues, but with that I’m also not one to flip-flop. I stand by my word. I also never stab people in the back, which I suppose is the one quality I don’t share with the gang. But, like the gang, we’re all baseball fans.

Hands down one of the funniest episodes from the show is “World Series Defense.” I’ll try to break it down: Dennis goes to court with the gang due to an insane amount of parking tickets he received while he and the gang were locked in a utility closet at the Oliday Inn (I didn’t spell that wrong) in an attempt to go through the visiting team’s secret tunnel in order watch Game 5 of the World Series after their tickets went missing. Throughout the episode we find out that Sweet Dee will try to fun onto the field when “the Phillies go up by a ton of runs in the bottom of the ninth at which Dennis and Mac will start fighting each other to create a diversion.” Yes, I see everything wrong with the sentence, but it’s all correct information. When Frank realizes he left the tickets back at his and Charlie’s apartment he, Sweet Dee and Mac go to fetch them while Charlie and Dennis go to Citizens Bank Park to scalp tickets… or con somebody out of theirs. Sweet Dee, Frank and Mac get poisoned because Frank forgot the apartment complex is spraying for bed bugs but only after Mac admitted that he’s in love with Chase Utley (like a brother) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU4w9FaSZ5M, Dennis gets hit by a car trying to fake an injury after Charlie pushed him in front and then Charlie got his ass hammered by passionate Phillies fans after Charlie got big leagued by, and took down the Philly Phranetic (spelling is correct). I feel like I’m rambling on much too long on this synopsis, but I guess that’s your fault for having not seen the episode or show… if you haven’t that is. The point is, I love baseball, and I love “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Here’s proof…

I’d say up until this point about 90% of what I wrote was merely a lead-in about my tattoo. What can I say? I can ramble at times. This hat; however, has been around since the start of the 2008 season and has served as the Phillies alternate cap for that time. One thing about this is that it’s actually a modified re-release of the team’s alternate hat from the 1994 season. The only difference is that the 1994 hat had blue panels and a blue bill. You know what? Now that I think about it, in conjunction with last night’s Detroit Tigers post, there were a lot of hats only used for a handful of games in 1994. What upsets me about this realization is that it is next to impossible to find the ’94 alternate Phillies cap. I’ve only known two people to have it: my friend Eric and fellow Cave Dweller Gordon Mack who rubbed it in my face that he had it and I didn’t. I really should have stolen it. Oh well.

As for the numbers, I have to refer to the “It’s Always Sunny…” episode “The Gang Gets Stranded in the Woods.”

#11- Actually, this one not so much. Jimmy Rollins is a hell of a ballplayer. He was drafted in the second round of the 1996 amateur draft out of Encinal High School in Alameda, California. A lot of Oakland Athletics fans, including myself, would have loved to have him on the team. It took him a while to get through the Minors, but he made his debut in 2000 and made his rookie campaign in 2001. In his first full year he went .274/14/54 with a League leading 12 triples and a League leading 46 stolen bases. Somehow those numbers weren’t good enough to finish higher than third in the National League Rookie of the Year vote. I suppose that’ll happen when you have to go against Albert Pujols.

Rollins has been a spectacular five-tool player: he’s won four Gold Glove awards at shortstop, one Silver Slugger award in 2007 and has made three All-Star Game appearances. Even though this hat debuted in 2008, it was Rollins’s 2007 that made him a top tier player in MLB. That season Rollins took home his only NL MVP of his career as he went .296/30/94 and led the League with 20 triples and a League leading 139 runs. Oh yah, he did all of this as a leadoff hitter too. Basically he put all of Lenny Dykstra’s 1993 to shame. One other import detail about Rollins is that he a 38-game hit streak that lasted the last 36 games of 2005 and the first two games of 2006.

#26- So now I have to re-establish the episode “The Gang Gets Stranded in the Woods.” Frank donated a ton of money to the SPCA and they decided to reward Frank for his service by throwing a reception in Atlantic City. Frank was also able to spring for Chase Utley and Ryan Howard to make an appearance at the party as well. I should point out that the whole reason Frank did this was to flaunt his leather suit and tell the SPCA off; however, Frank hates to pay tolls and decided to take all the back roads from Philly to AC at which Mac caused them to veer off the road as a squirrel ran out into the road. Only Dennis and Charlie decide to go for help at which the two run across a shady truck driver played by Tom Sizemore. Yaaaaahhhh… after he gets them to AC he offers to “tender their services” in the form of “opening him up like a coconut.” Use your imagination. Anyway, Dennis and Charlie make it to the hotel where the party is at and the two take on the roles of Frank (Charlie) and Mac (Dennis). And then this happened… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShjZ_PR3gIw

Dennis sends the photo he took to Mac and he becomes upset. As for Utley, he’s had a pretty solid little career. He was the 15^th overall pick by the Phillies in the 2000 amateur draft out of UCLA and made his MLB debut three years later. As Mac said in the first video, Utley certainly is a power-hitting second baseman, a rare quality. His best years were from 2005-2010 as he finished in the Top-15 for NL MVP voting in all of those years except 2010 and he made the All-Star team every year except for 2005. Funny. He’s a career .288 hitter and has so far tagged 199 home runs and 739 RBI. He’s led the Majors in hit-by-pitch three years in a row from 2007-2009 and is arguably one of the most liked players in Phillies history. This is saying a lot because Phillies fans are ruthless.

One thing I wanted to happen during my time in the Fan Cave was to meet Utley so I could talk to him about what his initial thoughts were on the subject of Mac's man-crush. Very rarely do we ever get insight from a player's mind when they are referenced in pop culture, kind of like the guy who made the Madden video of Green Bay Packers' wide receiver Greg Jennings "putting the team on his back" and scoring a touchdown with a broken leg. Jennings took it lightly and had fun with it. I could only hope Utley would do the same. I even thought having Utley write a letter back to Mac would have been funny. It could go either way: embracing it or being creeped out by it.

#6- Sweet Dee prefers the company of Ryan Howard compared to the rest of the Phillies. Who could blame her? The guys rakes! Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Howard was a fifth round draft pick for the Phillies in the 2001 amateur draft out of Missouri State. This has always boggled me because with the power he possesses what the hell were the other schools thinking? In 2004 he got his September call-up and played 19 games in the Show and hit two home runs in 39 at-bats. In 2005 he played in 88 games and went .288/22/63, which was good enough for the NL Rookie of the Year award. Not too shabby for only half of a season.

Howard proved he was a marquis player the following season as he hit .313 with a League high 58 home runs and a League high 149 RBI which were more than enough to get the votes for the NL MVP. I should point out that he struck out 181 times that season as well, and he still hit .313. Wow! From 2007-2011 Howard made the Top-10 in NL MVP voting and he has made the All-Star team three times in his career. Howard currently sits at 300 home runs and is #134 on the most ever home run list and you can see him all year long plugging Subway sandwiches; which reminds me of how hungry I am.

Obviously all three guys got World Series rings in 2008, at which I think all three can pool some cash together and help Dennis pay for his parking tickets. Something that always confused me why he never brought that up in front of Howard and Utley when considering that they gang will fire off about anything important to them no matter who is in front of them. Kangaroo court!!!

February 11- Philadelphia Phillies

This post is in dedication to Edith Houghton, the first female scout in Major League Baseball who worked for the Philadelphia Phillies from 1946-1952. It was pure chance that I threw on my Phillies cap today.

Chew and mullet in tact!

1993 was a year packed with adversity. I was a plucky fourth grader, learning the harsh reality that some teachers truly are witches, the Oakland Athletics finished the season with the worst record in the American League (68-94) and the film Jurassic Park made me believe that velocitraptors were lurking behind every closed door in my house. Needless to say, it was one of my worst years in existence. On the other side of the country things were rockin’ in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Phillies had struck the final blow of my wasted year by fending off my Montreal Expos for the National League Eastern Division title before dropping a 104-win Atlanta Braves squad in the NLCS; paving the way for their first World Series appearance since they lost to the Baltimore Orioles in 1983, the year I was born.

On the bright side of the MLB season, the San Francisco Giants won 103 games (tied for the most season wins in SF with the 1962 team), but failed to make the playoffs as a result of the Wild Card not being added until 1995. Too bad (sarcastic sad face). Despite the ups and downs of what went on in my life, 1993 proved to be quite the memorable year. And the thing I remember most… is the mullets. If hair growing and styling was somehow factored into the power rankings for MLB teams, the 1993 Phillies would be in the Top 3 along with the 1972-74 Athletics and any team which suited up Oscar Gamble and/or Ross Grimsley.

Having gone on long enough about what I personally remember from 1993, I suppose I should talk about the hat now. The Phillies introduced this cap at the start of the 1992 season and still use it today. In fact, last year was its 20^th birthday. Yay!!! I actually recall being furious when they brought this hat out because I loved the maroon and powder blue uniforms along with the swirl-style “P” logo. Just something about that looked reigned badassery; plus, I was a huge Mike Schmidt fan growing up, and with the new look it meant that it was time to move on from his era (real sad face). Even though 2008 proved to be a solid year for the Phillies as they won their second World Series title, I couldn’t help but reflect on ’93 when making my choices for marking up my hat.

#4- My first memory of Lenny Dykstra came during Game 6 of the 1986 World Series when he was the lead off batter for the New York Mets. BUT, Dykstra never came to the plate during the 10^th inning rally, so he really wasn’t that memorable. Even though he got the ring in ’86, it’s his time with the Phillies that I remember most, especially with every wad of chew he had stuck in his cheek that was printed so diligently on my Topps and Donruss trading cards.

Nails got dealt to the Phillies a little over a third of the way into the 1989 season and played the rest of his career in Philadelphia which came to an end in May of 1996 as a result of injuries. Nails may not have been the greatest player in baseball history, but as Athletics GM Billy Beane said about Dykstra in the book Moneyball, he was, “perfectly designed, emotionally” and had “no concept of failure.” In 1993, this mentality came to light. Dykstra hit .305 for the season and led the League in walks (129), runs (143), at-bats (637), plate appearances (773) and hits (194). He also tagged career highs in home runs (19), stolen bases (37) and RBI (66); not too shabby for a leadoff hitter. Dude, as he was also known, finished in second place for the NL MVP which went to Barry Bonds, his first with the Giants. This is one of the few times where I can honestly say that Dykstra got screwed.

#29- A career .300 hitter, John Kruk was my favorite member of the Phillies throughout the 1990s. One of the more memorable things I remember about Kruk in ’93 was that he humorously portrayed by Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live a number of times. See…

My only issue with his look is that they didn’t make the jheri curl mullet powerful enough. See…

Iconic acting and hairdos aside, Kruk, like Dykstra, was traded to the Phillies about a third of the way into the 1989 season from the San Diego Padres, and hung around Philly until the end of the 1994 season. And like Dykstra, 1993 proved to be quite the landmark year for Kruk. On the season he went .316/14/85 and tagged career highs in walks (111), runs (100) and hits (169). Even more important, Kruk finished 16^th on the NL MVP ballot; which leads me to the conclusion that the voters really hated the Phillies in 1993. Kruk is still one of those guys that I love to go back and watch highlights of. Like Tony Gwynn, the two didn’t look the part of professional athletes, but very few could play the game better than they could.