Phillies can’t introduce too many top prospects into losing atmosphere
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.
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 of 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 self-centered, 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 all-time 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.”
To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21st-centurymedia. com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery