Cliff Lee’s Twilight Zone

June 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Take every reasonable assumption from the last six months, pack them up in a box and throw them off the Space Needle. Sound extreme? Live a day, a week, this season in Cliff Lee’s spikes before you answer that question.

Ever since his name surfaced in a trade rumors last December, Lee’s life is worthy of a narrative by Rod Serling. He took his first step into the Twilight Zone when the Philadelphia Phillies shipped Lee to the Seattle Mariners in a four-team, nine-player trade including two Cy Young Award winners (Lee and Roy Halladay).

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A perfect Father’s Day

June 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

On June 20, 1964 Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Jim Bunning threw a perfect game against the New York Mets in the second game of a doubleheader at Shea Stadium. With his wife and children in the stands, here’s what happened …

By the eighth inning 32,904 Mets fans were cheering for the Philadelphia Phillies, for pitcher Jim Bunning. On Father’s Day 1964, the Phillies pitcher was just a handful of outs away from a perfect game.

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Great Lakes Gang sink Vincent

June 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

They were known as the Great Lakes Gang: Bud Selig, Jerry Reinsdorf, Stanton Cook, Carl Pohlad, Peter O’Malley and William Bartholomay, a cabal consisting of a half-dozen baseball owners leading the charge in ousting Fay Vincent as baseball commissioner in first week of September 1992.

Vincent came to Major League Baseball as a deputy commissioner in the spring 1989 and unwittingly was pushed into the commissioners role exactly six months later, when then commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti suffered a fatal heart attack.

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Manuel sheds weight, gains momentum

June 15, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Without the aid of Weight Watchers or the assistance of Alli, New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel is losing weight.

Manuel has shed the inflated expectations of Gary Matthews Jr., the bloated ego of Oliver Perez, the empty calories of John Maine and, ultimately, the monkey that has been clinging to his back recent days and months.

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Santana pitches with Hall of Fame heart

June 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment

 

Johan Santana said he felt he had the stamina and “stuff” to get through the eighth inning Monday. Clinging to a 6-5 lead Santana, sans velocity, had thrown 91 pitches when Jerry Manuel fetched him.

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Here begins there for Perez

June 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Oliver Perez told the New York Post he wants to stay here. If here is with the Mets then Perez must start there and earn his way back here because, for most, what Perez has done here in 2010 – zero wins, three losses and a 6.25 ERA – is justification for a one-way ticket there.

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From doubt to peace

June 1, 2010 by 2 Comments

What are you doing?

That question was ringing in Dave Padilla’s mind for the 2,249 mile cross country drive from California to South Carolina. But who’s counting?

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