This website is now closed. Its reason for being has ceased to exist. Ownership has cleaned house. The Country Club has at least been modernized. Now fans can at least hope.

Thanks to the glad handing Maitre d’ for leaving us fans with a nice bunch of prospects to root for as he leaves the building.

It’s morning again in Philadelphia.

Go Phils!

On June 19, 2015, another Day That Will Live In Infamy in an endless series of them this year,  Phillies management, in their infinite wisdom, decided to hold a Sixties Retro Night.

How appropriate is that?

In 1961 the Phillies set the all time record for consistent futility, a record that’s still standing, for their 23 game losing streak.  They ended that year with a record of 47 and 107 for a .305 winning percentage, a mere 46 games behind the pennant winner.

They finished last in the NL in 1960 and 1961, and last in the first season of divisional play in 1969. They finished next to last twice in that decade.

In 1964, they blew the pennant with a 6 1/2 game lead and two weeks left in the season by losing 10 in a row.  Gene Mauch panicked and pitched Chris Short and Jim Bunning every other day.  They lost one game when the Reds’ Chico Ruiz stole home.  I had already ordered my world series tickets by mail. Thud. The envelope was returned, unopened.

From 1962 to 1967 they actually won more games than they lost, but for the decade as a whole their record was 759 and 843. They amassed a total games behind of 181.  Excluding that dream to nightmare year of 1964 when they finished one stinking game behind the leader, they finished, on average, 20 games behind in the other 9 years.

So last night the Phillies appropriately commemorated Sixties Retro Night with one of the worst stinker exhibitions they have put on since that glorious year of 1961.  They stand a good chance of amassing an even worse record than they did then, and they have a shot at breaking their greatest record- the streak.

When I built this website in 2013, as you can see by the site tagline, I was hoping to, in some small way, stop the Phillies’ management’s dream of returning to the fifties and sixties glory years.

Too late.

They have succeeded.

It’s so bad that Comcast is starting to worry that it might not be able to sell any advertising to pay for its $2.5 billion investment in this programming content.

Maybe, just maybe that will force change on the owners, who are the real problem in this mess.

Or maybe not. It depends on the contract. Maybe getting Wheels and Sarge fired is as far as they’ll go.  That accomplished a lot.

Maybe Lenny Dykstra can raise the financing on Wall Street to buy the team.  Make em an offer they can’t refuse.

The attendance at Thursday night’s game was 19,047. That’s Langhorne’s Zip Code.

The population of that zip code is around 35,000. I’m sure Phillies brass would have been thrilled with attendance like that. With the zip code itself, not so much.

By the way, I heard the attendance from the press box PA in the radio broadcast background. Never heard Franzke announce it. Orders from above?

They should be embarrassed.

At the rate the Phillies are adding stiffs to their roster this year, they’re gonna need to build a crematorium in the stadium basement. They could market that. Fans could have themselves cremated at the ballpark and be scattered around the basepaths after rain delays and stuff.

I don’t know about you, but I’d do that for sure. Not crazy about the idea of being spit on with tobacco juice though. And I wouldn’t want to be behind the plate, not with the catchers and umpires farting all the time. The umpires especially. They stink.

The media is fond of repeating the myth that the Phillies are a big market team and therefore should be able to be financially competitive with teams like the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Angels, and Cubs.

That’s not going to happen.

Let’s get over the myth that the Phillies are a big market team. They will not be able to compete on that basis. They can only compete by having smart, competent management and strong fan support.  Uh oh. We’re in trouble.

The Phillies market while dense, is hemmed in by 5 other MLB markets within 200 miles. No other market in baseball is surrounded by multiple competitors and shut in to its local region to that degree. It means that the Phillies market is constrained to just the local TV market. Contrast this with teams like Atlanta, KC,  St. Louis, Colorado, Minnesota, and Seattle, whose markets extend hundreds of miles and include several small or mid size TV markets.

Click here for interactive map. 

One guy actually measured population in each team’s entire geo market. The Phillies were smack in the middle. Right between KC and St. Louis. While the strict geometric territories don’t match up precisely with where the actual fan bases are, you get the idea.

So the Phillies can’t rely on our market to sustain the third highest payroll in baseball. Even with the Comcast contract, if the fans aren’t filling the stadium, the owners will be forced to cut payroll. With more seats empty than filled with butts, and with this gang of inbred country club cronies running the show, that will doom us fans to watching more decades of the worst baseball franchise in history.

There were people who saw the Amaro debacle unfolding well before the results of his incompetence and arrogance would become clear to the rest of the world.

From Philly.com September 9, 2011

“LaMar requested a meeting with Amaro. Fellow assistant to the GM Benny Looper rode shotgun. So you knew right away the subject involved the minor league organization. Chuck got right to the point, which is his style.
Continue reading There Were Those Who Saw This Coming →

The Phillies’ Class A minor league teams are now a combined 36 and 86 for a winning percentage of .295. Continue reading The Ghost of Phillies Past →

No wonder Phillies owners hide in the shadows. Their plan is to cut payroll to $30 million over the next couple of years as the Comcast cash starts to roll in. Continue reading Laughing All The Way To The Bank →

Phillies Main Dining Room Maitre d’, David Montgomery’s dream is to bring back the glory years of the 50s and 60s when his headwaiter’s father was one of the Phillies great shortstops of that era. Ruben Amaro Sr. followed in the footsteps of the great Chico Fernandez. Continue reading Bringing Back The Glory Years →