Phils’ prospects need to be coached ... by somebody else
By early October, it will be over. If he is truthful at all about his intention to remake the Phillies into consistent World Series contenders, John Middleton will order a thorough cleansing of the Phillies’ coaching staff. Then, others can see if they can convince the players not to make baserunning errors, swing at the wrong pitches, leak concentration on the mound and lose close games with staggering regularity. It must happen. There are no alternatives. The Phillies cannot afford to allow their next generation to be infected by the widespread losing habits that have defined the major-league product in a season no longer funny. It’s OK to rebuild. But to grow players and then insert them into such a toxic atmosphere is a waste of energy.
The other day, Pete Mackanin ordered a mandatory workout for young Phillies five hours before a game in San Francisco. Fundamentals were stressed. Could help. The young Phillies must be taught to win … even if it may be too late to save the manager or his coaches. •••
••• A recent uproar occurred at Eagles training camp when a fan in Dallas Cowboys swag was pointed to the exit. So what did he think was supposed to happen – that he should be treated to a sandwich?
It’s one thing to buy a ticket to a football game, sit in the stands and root for the visiting team. That’s the idea of competition; pick a side, and enjoy.
But to show up at a coach’s practice rocking a rival’s colors is as disrespectful as it is distracting. It’s a look-at-me insult to the players sweating to improve and a potential stress point for others enjoying the day. Get lost.
And speaking of intrusive fans, why would the Chicago Cubs present inconsiderate Steve Bartman with a World Series ring?
Bartman was the fan seated along the third base line in 2003 when he deflected a foul ball hit by the Florida Marlins’ Luis Castillo heading toward the stands, denying Cubs left fielder Moises Alou a catch. Replays showed Bartman reaching into Alou’s space to tip the ball. Instead of being out, Castillo walked, a Florida rally ensued, the Marlins wound up winning that NLCS and Bartman was shunned in Chicago for years.
Feeling guilty — who knows why? — the Cubs rewarded Bartman with a ring 14 years later, after they finally won the World Series.
Bartman was wrong. Any fan sitting near the front row in a baseball park is wrong whenever he or she doesn’t get out of the way of any batted ball with even a remote chance of being caught by a player. But too many fans are greedy and selfcentered, interested only in a potential souvenir at whatever cost to the enjoyment of the others who’d paid to see the game. •••
••• Pete Rose was accused of inappropriate activity with underage girls. Pete Rose sued for defamation. The Phillies canceled a Pete Rose night.
And that recent cycle began because …
“People thought,” Bill Werndl said, “I was some kind of a goofball or something.”
Werndl hosts a radio show in WCHE in West Chester. It was on that show in 2015 — two years before the situation began to swell — that John Dowd dropped the 40-year-old dirt that he allegedly had on Rose. Rightly or wrongly, the news fizzled. But that was only until Rose sued. Dowd, whose thorough investigation of All Things Rose resulted in the alltime leading hits collector being banned from baseball, produced a Jane Doe who swore under oath that she was involved with Rose before she was 16.
Then Rose sued, the news resurfaced and turned international, and there was Werndl, the Sharon Hill native, with the I-told-you-so look.
“When I first heard it, I was in total shock,” Werndl said. “What followed was that Pete has self-destructed.”
Rose’s side is claiming innocence, or at least a disagreement about the woman’s age and location of the alleged encounters. Either way, Bill Werndl was not what his critics originally suspected.
“The Phillies,” he said, “must love me.”
Congratulations to Clark Bickling, a swimming coach at Garnet Valley High and the Rocky Run YMCA. As the coach of the Silverside Swim Club in the North Brandywine Swim League, Bickling recently ran a dualmeet winning streak to 100. Bickling, 45, has not had a dual-meet loss at Silverside in 20 years.
••• Two of the greatest ever to participate in their sport, two of the most successful and entertaining athletes of the turn of the century North American athletics, two competitors so clearly at the top of their profession that their legends will endure for decades, recently retired together.
Harness racing won’t be the same now that John Campbell and Bill O’Donnell are no longer driving past finish lines.
O’Donnell, 69, won 5,743 races. Campbell, 62, won more than 10,000 races. Neither won their final race, the Legends Trot, at Clinton Raceway in Ontario. But they were central to the singular most under-appreciated yet world-class sporting bonanza in Philadelphiaarea sports history, the 1985 harness meet at Garden State Park. Nightly, it attracted the world’s finest drivers and horses competing for millions in prize money in a brandnew facility. Campbell or O’Donnell didn’t win every race. But it sure did seem that way.
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