Baseball bookshelf: Willie Mays- The Life, The Legend by James Hirsch

    With Spring Training now here, the large amount of new baseball books are hitting the bookshelves, and perhaps the best of this season so far is an authorized biography of Willie Mays which was written by James Hirsch.

      An autobiography is usually the most important book you can find about a person, and with this book being ‘authorized’, it’s certainly one of the more accurate portrayals of one of the MLB’s best players ever, Mr. Willie Mays.

      Mays career started in the Negro leagues and morphed into the MLB where he takes his place in history among the greatest players of all time.

            James Hirsch is a New York Times best selling author, and presents us with a great book about the “Say Hey Kid”. From the humble beginnings to 2009 when Willie Mays flew on Air Force One to the All Star Game in Saint Louis with President Obama, this book is one that should be on the baseball fanatic’s bookshelf.

             We will be having James as a guest on an upcoming edition of “Phillies Talk” so watch the blog here for the show when he’ll be on. If you have any questions you would like to ask the author about his new book on Willie Mays, just email them to us and we’ll ask him!

Retired players numbers being worn again: Good or bad?

      



    A baseball player whose number is retired by a team has a special place in that team’s history. Consider the fact that with the Phillies the following jerseys will probably never be worn again with the numbers: 1, 14, 20, 32, 36, and of course 42 which was retired by every team in the MLB in honor of Jackie Robinson.

       This year in Chicago, the Chicago White Sox will unretire # 11, with the permission of the player who it was retired for. The number 11 jersey will once again be worn on the field by a player on the Sox team. The original retired number belonged to Luis Aparicio and this year it will be worn by Omar Vizquel who is also from the same country as Aparicio, Venezuela.

        This is a debate that has ignited a lot of comments on the situation. Regarding a number that is retired, should it stay retired or should a team or player be able to give permission for it to be worn again? Many players over the course of their career change numbers on their jerseys for one reason or another, and just the fact that this happens makes it a strange occurance that we will never be able to see a particular number worn by a player again. What should be so special about keeping a player’s number locked up for life in a state of suspended animation?

         The other side of the coin says that a retired players number should never be worn again, and that is that. There is no gray area or ‘in betweens’ with some people in regards to this.  There is also another side that wonders, Whose choice should it be to approve this. Should it be the club’s decision or a player? If that player is still living of course. Whatever the case, I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever see a Phillies players jersey unretired and when it will be. There are a couple players on this current Phillies team that might qualify for a retired number if they stay with the Phillies for a few more years, so if should be interesting to see if a the Phillies player will ever wear a retired number that some of us have never seen worn on the field.

              Here’s the ESPN story on the White Sox with number 11:
          http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=4897287



            Phillies Retired numbers:

Richie Asburn	1
Jim Bunning	14
Mike Schmidt	20
Steve Carlton	32
Robin Roberts	36
Jackie Robinson (every team retired)	42

 There is also two players on the Phillies with no number associated with them but they are listed as ‘Retired numbers’: Chuck Klein who wore multiple numbers and Grover Cleveland Alexander who also wore several numbers. Why didn’t the team just pick one and retire it? Or should players numbers be able to be reissued by a team?


  Want to hear a show we did with Todd Zolecki about his new book, which is in bookstores now?
            
    http://www.fightinphillies.com/2010/02/phillies-talk-podcast-todd-zolecki-from.html

Fightin Phillies Fantasy Baseball league invitation

The first "Fightin Phillies Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League' is looking for dedicated team managers who want to compete for the championship of the Fightin Phillies Yahoo Baseball Fantasy League manager.

Want to join our league? We'll have a live draft on the last Sunday night of March, but if you can't make it, you can always set your draft preferences in advance. We have 6 more spots to fill for this year's league.


Email me here: rich@fightinphillies.com and we'll get you the invite out to you.

Phillies Talk Podcast - MLB Picks Show 2010

   Hear our MLB Picks show for 2010 - who we think will be in the playoffs and win it all in '10. The Phillies Spring Training games are under way and we talk about Roy Halladay's great start in his first start against the Yankees.

  

In the zone: Halladay finds groove early

 

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Roy Halladay pitching in his first Spring Training game vs. the Yankees on March 4th,  will Halladay be the first Phillies pitcher to win 20 games since Steve Carlton?



   To the relief of many, Roy Halladay went to the mound today and pitched lights out in his first appearance in a Phillies uniform. Like a painter, Halladay painted corners and dropped sinkers in to the strike zone and baffled Yankees batters in his first outing.

    The game was won in dramatic fashion 3-2 in Spring Training game 1 against the Yankees, that's good too, but it's not something to start raving about. It's a long spring training season and when clubs like the Pirates beat you, you start to wonder what's going on.  It's great to win the first time out though and a huge crowd of nearly 10,000 people took the game in.


    Here's the numbers line on Halladay's first two innings as a Phillies pitcher:

•      2 IP
•      3 SO
•      0 H
•      0 R 

   

       The weekend schedule:

• Friday  1:05 pm  - Phillies vs. @Toronto
• Saturday  1:05 pm - Phillies vs. @Pittsburgh
• Sunday  1:05 pm - @Phillies vs. Tampa

    Picture of the week below:  You create the caption in the comments section !!

Photo from fOTOGLIF

         

1st Spring Training game gets underway today with Yankees

Photo from fOTOGLIF

  A familiar face now in a Yankees uniform

       The tune up game with the Florida State University is out of the way, the Phillies rallied back to win the game 13-6 in 7 innings, but it was more of an exhibition game than anything else and today will start the Grapefruit League for the Phillies.

        You can’t really put much credence into the first couple weeks of Spring Training or even most of the early Spring Training schedule as players are being moved around and everyday players just try to start to get back into game shape for the start of the regular season.

Maple Street Press “Phillies Annual 2010” – not your typical fan’s publication

 

      

 

The start of a new baseball season always brings out every pundit and writer and broadcaster trying to catch an angle on the upcoming season for the Phillies. This has been even more magnified as the Phillies have been more successful during the last couple of seasons.

 

     The local bookshops and vendors are usually crowded with baseball magazines and this year is no exception as the 2010 baseball season approaches. This is the second year that a company called Maple Street Press has published a “Phillies Annual 2010” season preview. It’s one publication that stands out and one that deserves a lot of attention. It is a very unique issue in that it is not your ‘typical’ type of baseball magazine about the Phillies. If you go to Citizen’s Bank Park and pickup the latest edition of the official Phillies magazine, you are reading a good quality magazine but not one that you’ll find being overly objective about certain issues.

 

     Phillies Annual 2010 is a neat assortment of stories written by both professional writers and bloggers that follow the Phillies. Jason Weitzel who authors a blog called Beerleaguer, is the editor and also an author of this year’s edition. Jason originally called his blog, “Berks Phillies Fans” back in 2005 before moving the blog to the “Beerleaguer” blog. The original blog was more or less how many blogs start out for the people that blog about the Phillies, but now only 5 years later, Jason now pens this Annual and just authored a Phillies book on the 2008 Championship Phillies season.

 

      Where else can you read that, “Philadelphia’s Defense Isn’t As Good As it Looks” which is an article in this year’s editon. Whether or not you agree with it, or not, it still makes for good reading. It’s objectivity that makes this publication so inviting. It is also full of colorful photos from even the Jim Thome Phillies era which seems like a really long time ago. I would like to recommend the edition to fans. Maple Street Publishing also publishes many other ‘Annuals’ of other teams in basketball, hockey, baseball, and football.

Spring Training - Yankees vs Phillies on Thursday

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Switching leagues means Halladay will now get to bat and slide into bases!

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Cole Hamels signs for a Florida Phillies fan 


       
 Only a couple days until the Spring Training season starts to turn competitive when the Phillies will take on the NY Yankees for the first game of the Grapefruit League schedule.  What a way to start it off, Halladay vs. Sabathia? Isn't this just for getting into shape? Forgettttaaabouuutttt it - this one will be for real! No more playing fun running drills and batting cages, this game will kick it all off, The Rematch.


 The Phillies opponents keep on coming after Thursday also, the weekend brings games against Toronto, Pittsburgh, and Tampa Bay. The Phils next day off isn't until March 18th once the Grapefruit Schedule starts.

  

Bloomberg Sports Fantasy Draft kit likes Phillies players

 

Perhaps one of the best ‘Fantasy Baseball’ Tools out there with Bloomberg Sports    

 

The Bloomberg Sports new MLB product where you can select your fantasy team based on stats and cool graphics is liking the Phillies. The number 4 pick according to them is Ryan Howard. Howard ranks just behind Albert Pujols at number 1 and A-Rod at number 3. The Bloomberg folks did a great job on this new service which is just in it’s first year.

 

     The main screen for the Bloomberg  features a “News Ticker” that runs across on the top of the screen, and then some heavy duty analysis tools to help you zone in on a particular player or team with an indepth listing of pertinent articles that you can link to on the web. Draft a great fantasy team and then another product that can be put to use during the regular season to keep track of everything, with Bloomberg’s “In Season Tools” package you can buy both the ‘Draft Kit’ and ‘In Season Tools’ for a discounted price here.

 

      Want a sleeper pick for your Fantasy team? Just click the button and instantly many players faces appear on the screen. One of them is Ben Francisco of the Phillies. All of the information you’ll find here on Bloomberg Sports is dynamically displayed in a clear, and concise manner.

 

       We are evaluating and enjoying what Bloomberg Sports has put out on the field so far with this new offering online. We’ll be blogging on this much more during Spring Training as we’ll get to see some more of this service as the games start being played in Spring Training.

Ryan Howard is half way to the Hall of Fame in only 5 years

Photo from fOTOGLIF

It's been 5 full seasons that we've seen Ryan Howard make his mark in MLB baseball as a Phillies player. He did get his start in 2004 with a scant 19 games but in only 5 full seasons, it seems that Ryan Howard is already half way to the Hall of Fame. The accolades and awards are still pilling up, and so are the home runs. If you look at Baseball-Reference.com, they have a "Hall of Fame Monitor" that they compile various statistics to come up with a number that a player has to reach to be Hall of Fame worthy. Howard is already well past half way toward reaching this goal, according to Baseball-Reference.

It's hard to believe that Howard was drafted by the Phillies in the fifth round of the amateur draft in 2001. It took him a couple years in the minors to get his chance, but he's made the most of it so far. He's hit 222 home runs through last season. If he hits his current production of 45 or so this season, he'll have almost 270.

If you're a big baseball fan, I say you are seeing history being made with Howard, he's a player that is destined for the Hall, and luckily he's playing for the Phillies.

Madson remains the ‘bedrock’ of bullpen

Photo from fOTOGLIF

  Ryan Madson looks to improve even more this season

   Going back over the past few seasons, the bullpen for the Phillies has undergone some major changes. The one unshakeable part of ‘the pen’ has been Ryan Madson. Madson has been the go to guy over the past two seasons in particular. This will be Madson’s seventh season with the Phillies and his lifetime ERA is 3.83 as a Phillies pitcher.

    Ryan has a reputation of being a ‘go to’ guy who is setting up for Brad Lidge now, but could easily probably be a closer on any other major league team in the league. Madson was effective in the World Series last year also, he sported a 2.08 ERA in 5 games and 4.1 innings. In his two combined World Series appearances, Madson has a 3.38 ERA in 9 games and 8 IP, giving up only 1 HR and striking out 12.

   In this day and age, a pitcher being with one team for 7 seasons is a rarity in itself, Ryan Madson is one of few pitchers that haved stayed with the Phillies for so many years.