Finger Food

Of coincidences and bowl games

WASHINGTON—As a kid growing up on those rough and tumble streets here in The District, we dreamed about one day lining it up at RFK Stadium for some big university to play in the storied Eagle Bank Bowl. Then again, that dream probably wasn’t relegated to the kids from DC.

Name one kid who didn’t want to play in the Eagle Bank Bowl?

OK, no one likes a smart ass. That’s especially true when it comes to some hard-working kids doing something damn-near unprecedented. Besides, the Eagle Bank Bowl is only two years old and unless you’re talking about the Redskins, there really isn’t much history to RFK. Sure, John Riggins played here and so and throughout these pages on this little site, I have opined about Washington’s RFK Stadium and the time I spent there in my youth. Though we could never go to see the Redskins play in the ol’ ballpark (the waiting list for tickets was something like 155 years), I can recall in vivid detail of watching the Grateful Dead and the NASL’s Washington Diplomats.

And, of course, there were three years worth of Phillies games that I saw up close.

Oh yes, RFK Stadium and I go way back.

But it’s kind of odd to see a college bowl game in the old joint, particularly one involving Temple University, and I was pretty sure that I’d never step foot inside the place ever again. Sometimes a life writing sentences about sports takes you on some crazy trips.

So speaking of weird trips and bowl game dreams, it’s worth noting that Temple’s coach Al Golden was just 10 years old the last time Temple was in a bowl game. Golden grew up in Red Bank, N.J. so if he was any type of a sports fan, particularly a college sports fan, he probably knew all about Temple University.

The chances he had even heard of the Garden State Bowl of 1979 played between Temple and California is likely slim. I was one of those sports junkies (and not all that much younger than Golden), and I never knew what the Garden State Bowl was until I read the final result in some sports encyclopedia my mom bought me in a grocery store or something like that.

Hey, there was barely cable TV back then—forget about Wikipedia. We had to go to places like Peoples’ drug store or a grocery chain in order to get our sports reference guides.

Perhaps more than making fun of attending the Eagle Bank Bowl at RFK Stadium in disinterested Washington, D.C. was all the chatter about the parallels and odd coincidences for the Temple team. The last (and only) time a Temple team won 10 games was when they beat California in the Garden State Bowl to finish the 1979 season, 10-2.

Golden’s Owls can finish the 2009 season 10-3 if they beat UCLA.

Yes, it takes going to a Bowl game for Temple to get double-digits in wins for a season—just like it takes the second year of a bowl game for Temple to get an invitation to a post-season game. Temple appeared in the second Garden State Bowl just as they are in the second ever Eagle Bank Bowl.

That fact doesn’t bode well for the organizers (or sponsors) of the Eagle Bank Bowl since after Temple showed up there were only two more Garden State Bowls before it vanished.

Yes, Temple football is the proverbial “mush.”

Of course there is not a heavy sample size from which to draw upon, either. Temple went to the very first Sugar Bowl in 1935 against Tulane as the No. 3 ranked team in the country and got upset. Needless to say it’s pretty much been downhill from that point.

It’s not unreasonable to pinpont the 1935 Sugar Bowl as the high-water point for the Temple football program. After all, since then the program has just 18 winning seasons in 74 years.

Worse, since that 1979 Garden State Bowl, Temple has had exactly two winning seasons. One of them was the 0-11 season that was actually a decent year until it was learned that star running back Paul Palmer had an agent, but that isn’t explained on the Wikipedia entry or in the grocery store reference guide. There it’s just an 0-11 mixed in with a bunch of one-win seasons.

In fact, since the 1979 bowl game, Temple has had nine zero or one-win seasons. Even Al Golden has one of them on his ledger. But at this stage of the program, those typical seasons could disappear for a little while. Better yet, if Temple shows up at the Eagle Bank Bowl at RFK in 2010, they might be a little ticked off.

A return to the Sugar Bowl on the 75th year anniversary of the first game would be more like it.

The Kid against the Champ

There are all sorts of famous sayings about best intentions or best laid plans that easily can be lifted from poets like Oscar Wilde or Robert Burns and applied to defensive schemes designed to stop Eagles’ receiver DeSean Jackson. After all, these days teams plan with the intent on stopping the Eagles’ second-year receiver as they way to stop the team’s high-powered offense.

But like Jules Winnfield in “Pulp Fiction” after Brett had laid down a rap about best intentions in his gang’s hideout, Jackson always takes his opportunity to retort.

“I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn't mean to do that. Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort.”

During the last two weeks Jackson has had the last word and then some against the best defensive backs for the Giants and 49ers. With six catches in each game for a combined 318 yards and two touchdowns, there wasn’t much to those best intentions and/or laid plans.

But then he faced Champ Bailey last Sunday. Bailey, of course, has taken a cruise around the lake a time or two in his day. Only 31, Bailey has been in the league for 11 seasons so he’s guarded a hot-shot receiver or three. Before that Bailey played receiver and defensive back for the University of Georgia, which is about as big as it gets in college football. Back then if Bailey wasn’t lining it up against a Top 10 team nearly every Saturday, he had to go against a future NFL star every weekend.

In other words, Bailey has seen guys like Jackson before. He saw them during college, in the NFC East with the Redskins, and in the AFC with the Broncos. Better yet, as a wide receiver who caught 50 passes in his last season at Georgia, Bailey probably could have been one of those guys before forging his own path as a future Hall-of-Fame cornerback.

Undoubtedly Jackson likely heard Bailey’s resume straight from the source during Sunday’s game. Oh sure, there were times when Jackson had a step on the old(er) All-Pro, like during the first quarter when he streaked down the sideline only to lunge in vain for a ball with just a little too much on it from Donovan McNabb. But when sizing up the matchup with Bailey the numbers pretty much told the story.

Jackson caught three passes for 31 yards last Sunday when guarded by Bailey (though not necessarily in man-to-man coverage). He added another catch—a two-yard TD grab—but that was against cornerback Tony Carter.

After the game, with a fresh brush burn on his back but a fashionable lid and Louis Vuitton sunglasses (despite the fact that he was indoors and the sun had gone down), Jackson talked mostly about Jeremy Maclin’s clutch, fourth-quarter catch and the second-half doldrums after a strong start.

Rather than give credit to guys like Bailey for holding him to his third-worst output of the season, Jackson chalked up the performance to “complacency.”

“When you’re up by 10 points or two or three touchdowns it’s tough and you get a little complacent. You ease up a bit,” Jackson said through those (rose colored?) sunglasses. “Luckily we have the type of defense that could step up in the second half when we weren’t really clicking. It was tough and it was ugly, but we’ll take it.”

Yes, Jackson is ridiculously talented and maybe we’re just seeing him make a light scratch against the surface this season. When he learns the league and gets into a better rapport on the field with McNabb, there’s no telling what he can do.

In the meantime just label the duel with Bailey as part of the continuing education of a budding talent.

“I thought we put him in some situations where he had to stand in there and fight with the guy,” Denver coach Josh McDaniels said. “He’s a great receiver, and Champ’s a great corner. Part of our game plan was to get him over there and try to create pressure on McNabb rushing more than four guys, and let Champ try to handle him. I thought Champ did a nice job for the most part when we did those things.”

The song and the dance

Just like in the movies, sports require the participants to be good actors. We like the drama, thrills and the comedy—both unintentional and intended. Otherwise, what’s the point? We watch and engage it to be entertained.

Brian Dawkins gets that. Why else would he exert so much energy to come up with such an elaborate routine before every game? Sure, it looks like he’s doing it for his teammates to help get them fired up before the game, but really why does a pro athlete need someone else to motivate them? With all the money and competition riding on every play, the last thing a football player (or any other athlete for that matter) needs is some guy dancing the hootchie-coo in order to make other play harder.

I mean really.

Nope, Dawkins does all that stuff for you. He wants you to react and to be entertained. His pro wrestling-like entrance is just his way, not unlike Peyton Manning acting all goofy in a TV commercial, Derek Jeter serial dating, or Tiger Woods doing whatever it is he does.

It’s all part of the show.

But don’t write it off as insignificant. Oh no sir! Ballplayers hate the notion that they might be asked to “dance,” but when the music starts up and the lights start flashing, it takes Barry Sanders-like focus to maintain that austere façade.

Everyone has an act in sports. In fact, even Barry Sanders had an act. As they say, sometimes no style is considered to be a style. Hell, even they digitalized pixels on video games come with personalities programmed into the code. Better yet, the computer geeks set it up so even the folks playing the game at home can design any type of player they wish.

That’s kind of the way it works in pro sports, too. Do you think Terrell Owens was an obnoxious, delusional malcontent from day one? Or was Dennis Rodman such a quirky dude when he joined the Pistons with Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, and Rick Mahorn in the mid-1980s?

Answer: No. Those guys would have gotten their rears kicked if they tried it.

Just like any of their other skills, the persona is something that needs to be honed. However, it has to come in conjunction with some bona fide playing skills. For instance, no one has a problem when Brian Dawkins does a somersault into a handstand during the pregame introductions in his first game back in Philadelphia as a member of the Denver Broncos. After all, Dawkins didn’t just show up doing that whole X-Men bit. It took a lot of work both on and off the field.

Meanwhile, Freddie Mitchell was a player whose skills skewed the wrong way. The former wide receiver and first-round bust had the song and dance down, but had no idea of which key it was supposed to be sung.

In other words, Mitchell wasn’t good enough to strut the way he did.

Of course there is a slippery slope one treads, too, and Dawkins very well might be in that territory at this point of his career. Before Sunday’s home finale the talk was more about the way Dawkins might enter the ball field as opposed to how well he would perform on it. Sure, everyone wanted to see Dawkins dance, but no one really paid much attention to the way he covered receivers or made tackles.

All anyone wanted to see was the show and to hear about how Dawkins was up in the tunnel in his old ballpark screaming "Hallelujah!" and various other sweet nothings meant to get everyone all ornery and loud.

And you can’t have one without the other.

When Roy (nearly) fought Larry

By 2003, there were plenty of players in the Phillies’ clubhouse who wanted to take a poke at their manager and the pitching coach. Eventually, one pitcher is said to have cold-cocked the pitching coach, but the manager only ever (publicly) started fracases with the opposition.

That manager, of course, was Larry Bowa whose house-divided style of skippering never really caught on. And certainly we’ve seen enough of his act to know how it works. It’s just like clockwork:

• Something happens in the game that wrankles Larry’s delicate sensibilities.
• Larry starts talking trash.
• Benches clear.
• Larry gets behind two or three players/coaches in uniform who, “hold him back.”
• Rinse and repeat.

It was something that was put on display a few times during Bowa’s stint as manager of the Phillies and then, famously, during the 2008 NLCS where as a coach for the Dodgers, Bowa was reported to have been chirping, “You started it!” toward Brett Myers.

Cooler heads prevailed before Davey Lopes could put Bowa over his knee.

Nevertheless, one of Bowa’s better known bench-clearing incidents with the Phillies happened in a spring training game during 2003 at Jack Russell Stadium against the Blue Jays. That was the one where Roy Halladay plunked Jim Thome with a pitch and immediately got an earful from Bowa. By the time Halladay took his turn at the plate, he had heard all he could handle from Bowa and did what most sane people do in those situations…

Try to stick a foot down his throat.

Before he could dig in, Rheal Cormier missed twice while attempting to plunk Halladay. Still that wasn’t enough to stop Bowa from running his mouth. By the sixth inning of the game, Halladay had heard enough and went after the Phillies’ skipper only to be intercepted before he could shove his foot down Bowa’s throat. Bowa, meanwhile, fell back into his old tricks… he talked, postured and talked some more.

Take a look:

After the game Bowa claimed Halladay intentionally tried to hit Thome—in a Grapefruit League game—and based it on the fact that the Jays’ pitcher has really good control. Ultimately, Bowa was suspended for a game. He later had his revenge, too, when he had rookie Ryan Madson drill a Blue Jays hitter in a Grapefruit League game in 2004.

Halladay, meanwhile, was a bit stunned by the whole thing. He said he told Bowa that he didn't try to hit Thome, but just got cursed at.

"He said a lot of things," Halladay said back in 2003. "But when he finally came close, I said, 'I didn't mean to hit the guy.' And he said, '[bleep!]' and a few other four-letter words."

All that yelling by Bowa was a bit confusing to Halladay.

"I don't understand why anybody would think I'd intentionally hit Jim Thome in that situation," Halladay said. "After all the times I faced him in the American League and never hit him, I can't imagine why they thought I'd intentionally hit him here."

Halladay continued:

"I didn't mean to hit the guy, but I understood why they were upset," Halladay said. "So you take your shots at me. Then it's over and done with. That should have been the end of it. ... If he hits me, fine. He tried twice, and he didn't get me. But to come out there screaming and yelling ... that was ridiculous."

Bowa was a bit more, um, curt.

"I don't know what he said, to be honest with you, and I really don't give a damn," Bowa relayed from his on-the-field "conversation" with Halladay.

So not only was Halladay a next-door neighbor to the Phillies during spring training at the Jays’ base in Dunedin, but like a lot of the old-time Phillies he also wanted to fight Larry Bowa.

Welcome aboard, Roy!

Halladay the latest to join greatest era in Philly sports history

Sometimes it’s easy to get excited about the littlest things. Maybe it’s a new episode of a TV show, or a favorite meal. Or it could be a small gift or a short trip to a favorite place.

You know what they say—sometimes it’s the small things that matter the most.

So when the team you’ve written about for the past 10 years gets the game’s best pitcher who just so happened to be the most-coveted player on the trade/free-agent market, it should be pretty exciting…

Right?

Yawn.

Sitting there and listening as Roy Halladay was being introduced to us media types during Wednesday’s press conference in Citizens Bank Park, a different feel pervaded. Usually, during such settings it’s not very difficult to get swept up in the emotion. After all, teams usually trot in family members, agents, front-office types and other hangers-on. In rare cases, like Wednesday’s Halladay presser for example, the national cable TV outlets turned out to aim cameras at the proceedings.

But when a team introduces its third former Cy Young Award winner since July after trading one away, there’s a tendency to become a little used to big events like introductory press conferences. Think about it—this year the Phillies have added Pedro Martinez, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. That’s five Cy Young Awards right there.

At the same time, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Charlie Manuel, Jayson Werth and Ruben Amaro Jr. all got new contracts since the Phillies won the World Series. Not to mention, the team signed Placido Polanco, Brad Lidge, Raul Ibanez and, of course, had that little parade down Broad Street.

In other words, you can see why it was easy not to get too worked up over Halladay’s arrival. That’s doubly the case considering the Flyers fired a coach and the Sixers welcomed back Allen Iverson within the past two weeks. Add in the facts that the deal for Halladay took three days to come together after Amaro spent the week in Indianapolis denying involvement of anything and it’s easy to get a little jaded.

Wait… is Ruben denying he was even in Indianapolis now?

Of course with success comes boredom. In fact, a wise man once told me that championships were boring and bad for business. Perhaps he is correct, because while people are excited about the recent developments with the Phillies, they also are expected now. It’s not quite complacency, but during the past decade every Philadelphia team has been in the mix to acquire the top players on the market. Sure, we’re still getting used to all of this largesse and therefore go a little wild for guys like Halladay, but really…

Been there, done that.

That brings us to the grand point—this is the greatest time ever to be a Philadelphia sports fan. Ever. Since 2001, every team but the Flyers have been to the championship round of the playoffs and every team has made gigantic, stop-the-sports-world acquisitions.

Just look at the list of names:

Roy Halladay
Pedro
Cliff Lee
Jim Thome
Larry Bowa
Jeremy Roenick
Chris Pronger
Peter Forsberg
Chris Webber
Elton Brand
Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo
Terrell Owens
Asante Samuel
Jevon Kearse
Michael Vick

If the team wants them, they are pretty darned good at getting them.

Certainly that wasn’t always the case. A friend’s dad often tells the story about how he and his friends were amazed that a Philadelphia team could get a player like Julius Erving, and I remember watching on TV when Pete Rose signed his four-year, $3.2 million deal with the Phillies. The fact that the Pete Rose signing was on live TV proves how big it was because, a.) there weren’t a whole lot of channels on the dial back then. Just 12 and none of them offered all sports programming. Cable? What?

And, b.) I didn’t even live in the Philadelphia region when Rose signed. Hell, I didn’t even live in Pennsylvania.

Oh, there were other big deals, too. Like when the Sixers traded Caldwell Jones to get Moses Malone, for instance. But they were few and far between. For every Moses, there was always a Lance Parrish lurking at the podium ready to take questions about how he will deliver the championship.

As far as those big moves go, the mid-season trade for Dikembe Mutombo was the first major move for us at the CSNPhilly.com site. We had three people on the staff back then and the trade came down on a snowy February afternoon that kept us cooped up in our little corner of the second floor in the Wachovia Center. Better yet for the Sixers, the deal for Mutombo was one of the few that worked out as designed. Mutombo gave the team the defense and presence in the middle it lacked and made it to the NBA Finals.

With Shaq and Kobe in mid dynasty, a trip to the finals for a team like the Sixers was as good as winning it all.

Jim Thome’s arrival was bigger yet. Not only was Thome the biggest name on the free-agent market, but also he was a symbol that there were big changes coming. Of course the unforgettable moment of Thome’s first visit to Philly was when he popped out of his limo to sign autographs and pose for pictures with the union guys from I.B.E.W. who held an impromptu rally outside the ballpark to try and sway the slugger to sign with the Phillies.

Moreover, Thome’s introductory press conference was memorable because the big fella was reduced to tears when talking about the switch from the Indians. It was a scene that hadn’t been repeated in these parts until Allen Iverson got a bit weepy when talking about his return to Philadelphia.

Oh yes, Philadelphia will make a guy cry.

Or maybe even do a bunch of sit-ups in the front yard.

Maybe in a different era, the acquisition of Roy Halladay would be a bigger deal. Maybe when the contract plays itself out—potentially five years and $100 million—we’ll view it differently. Until then he’s just another big name in a veritable cavalcade of superstars that seem to wind up in our town.

Trading Cy Youngs

With all that is involved in simply signing a player to a standard baseball contract, it’s no wonder that huge, blockbuster trades don’t happen much anymore. Actually, forget about blockbuster deals, just making a trade is work enough.

That’s why the proposed blockbuster with Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and a pile of top-ranked prospects makes one’s head hurt. There are so many moving parts, so many different contracts, so many different wants and pieces of the puzzle in which even the tiniest misstep will ruin the whole thing.

So the fact that the two teams involved (Mariners and Blue Jays) with the three way trade with the Phillies were able to keep their eyes on what was coming and going is laudable enough.

However, to make such a huge trade with two former Cy Young Award winners still in their primes in not just unheard of, but also unprecedented.

Cy Young Award winners rarely (if ever) get traded. Sure, they become free agents or essentially force a trade lest a team risk allowing the pitcher to walk away without compensation. But willingly traded after winning two games in the World Series and putting together the best postseason in franchise history?

Nope, never happens.

Until now, that is. Leave it to Ruben Amaro Jr. to pull the trigger on the biggest trade since Paul Owens dealt Rick Wise for Steve Carlton.

Amongst the Cy Youing Award winners to be traded in recent history, Lee and Halladay will join Jake Peavy, Roger Clemens, Johan Santana, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux as pitchers to be traded after they won the big award. There are others too. Tom Seaver and Fergie Jenkins were involved in a bunch of trades after great seasons.

Of course this doesn’t include all the great pitchers who were released and/or granted free agency late in their careers. Around here, we certainly remember how Carlton bounced from the Giants to the Indians and Twins after the Phillies released him in 1986.

But as far as Cy Young Award winner traded for another Cy Young Award winner, it’s happened one time and that was long before either pitcher had established himself as a big league pitcher.

Moreover, if it happens again in the Lee and Halladay deal, one of the guys will hold the odd distinction of being the only Cy Young Award winner to be traded for another Cy Young Award winner twice.

In June of 2002 and still pitching for the Expos’ Double-A club Harrisburg, Lee was traded to the Indians for Bartolo Colon. Actually, the Expos gave up Lee, Brandon Phillips and Grady Sizemore for Colon and Tim Drew.

With the luxury of hindsight that trade looks horrible. Making it look worse is that the Expos traded Colon during the off season to the White Sox for Orlando Hernandez, Rocky Biddle and Jeff Liefer. Two years after that, Colon went 21-8 for the Angels to win the 2005 Cy Young Award.

With the 2008 American League Cy Young Award in his trophy case, Lee is likely on the move again—this time for the 2003 American League Cy Young Award winner.

So what’s this say about Lee that in two of the three trades he’s been a part of, the other piece to the deal is a Cy Young Award winner?

Cliff Lee's lasting legacy

Sometimes it doesn’t take long for a ballplayer to create a lasting legacy. Other times it takes just one game. For instance, Don Larsen scuffled around the Majors for 14 seasons, lost way more than he won, but one October afternoon in 1956 he became one of the most famous ballplayers ever.

All he had to do was pitch a perfect game in the World Series.

Cliff Lee did not pitch a perfect game in the World Series for the Phillies, but then again he didn’t have to. If his career with the Phillies lasts just those 12 starts in the regular season and five more in the playoffs, he already has left an undeliable mark on the franchise.

There were those first brilliant five starts after the trade from Cleveland that painted images of another parade down Broad Street bookended with the five extraordinary starts in the playoffs that lifted Lee shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the great postseason pitchers of all time.

The first five starts after the trade, Lee piled up 40 innings, a 5-0 record, with 39 strikeouts, and a 0.68 ERA. In the five starts in the playoffs Lee went 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA in 40 1/3 innings.

It was two of those outings that stood out the most. The first one was the 11-0 shutout against the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLCS. According to the stat formula called “Game Score” devised by guru Bill James, Lee’s eight innings where he allowed three hits without a walk to go with 10 strikeouts and no runs on 114 pitches, was the best postseason game ever pitched by a Phillie. Moreover, according to Game Score only 45 playoff outings since 1903 rated higher than Lee’s effort in Game 3.

Though the statistical metrics don’t register it as such, Lee’s effort in Game 1 of the World Series was more impressive than the NLCS game against the Dodgers. Not only should Lee’s Game 1 outing go down not only as an all-timer in Phillies lore, but also as one of the great Game 1 performances in World Series history. Truly, the list of superlatives from the game is pretty impressive. Actually, my favorite of the bunch was that Cliff Lee was the first pitcher to strike out 10 hitters without a walk in Game 1 of the World Series since Deacon Phillippe of the Pirates beat Cy Young (the man himself) in the very first World Series game ever played.

In other words, Lee did something in Game 1 that was done just once and it was 105 years ago.

Just to top it off Lee got an single, pitched all nine innings, and made a flat-footed basket catch on a popup back to the mound that only would have been more quirky if he had caught it with his cap. Plus, Lee not only was the winning pitcher in the first regular-season game at the new Yankee Stadium, but he also won the first ever World Series game played in the new park.

Pretty amazing.

Better yet, Lee dared you to take your eyes off him. Even when he took the mound he had a unique ritual where he mimed a pitch into centerfield, he ran on and off the field and he worked very, very quickly. Lee caught it, threw it and then dashed off the mound.

After games he didn’t treat his arm with ice like most pitchers. Even after a career-high 272 innings pitched (counting the playoffs), Lee never strapped his arm in an ice pack after a game. In 16 of his 39 starts Lee pitched into the eighth inning. He averaged 104 pitches per start and hardly walked anyone.

In other words, Lee was a legit ace for a team that went to the World Series for the past two seasons.

But there is the matter of those seven starts wedged between the first five and last five where the innings and pitches seemed to catch up with the lefty. Even with a shutout against Washington mixed in, Lee posted an ERA over 6 during that stretch.

As they say, though, it’s how you finish that everyone remembers the most. With that in mind Lee finished the season better than any other pitcher in team history.

*
Obviously, if Lee goes in order to make room for Roy Halladay, the pressure is squarely on Cole Hamels’ shoulders. Perhaps if Lee and Halladay could have been teammates in Philadelphia, Hamels could fit in nicely as the No. 3 starter behind the two aces.

Imagine that: Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Blanton and Happ?

Still, Hamels needs to deliver in 2010. Obviously the Phillies are counting on him.

The art of the bluff

In poker they say it isn’t so much about playing the cards you’ve been dealt as it is playing the man across from you. Of course the cards matter, because otherwise what’s the point? But if you can represent like you have good cards, well, even better.

They call this “bluffing,” which is kind of like lying only without the anguish of a real lie. In sports like poker or baseball, those who are the best at distorting reality are lauded as masters of the game. In fact, long after other important skills have eroded, players can get by on bluffing or making certain adjustments.

It’s a skill not relegated just to the players, either. For instance, take Phillies’ general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. Not even a week ago he sat in a comfortable suite littered with snacks and room-service trays in the Downtown Marriott in Indianapolis and told the Philly-based media that a deal for a pitcher like Roy Halladay was, “unlikely.”

Hey, that’s what he said.

Of course people in the position to make big decisions say a lot of things. Some of them might even be true. Like I’m sure even Tiger Woods had a few standbys he used at the Perkins when he was (allegedly) picking up a waitress that could have been based in truth, but when poked or prodded further turned out to unravel sloppier than an old, worn out slinky.

So when the cards hit the felt and you belly up across from Amaro, just be sure to know that the term “unlikely,” actually means, “we’re going to fly the guy up to Philly in four days to see if we can iron out something.”

Oh sure, that’s a mouthful, but that’s the underappreciated skill of being a big-league GM. The art of misdirection is just like a dab of Vaseline under the bill of the cap or sneaking a glimpse at where the catcher sets up while digging in at the batters’ box. This comes despite the knowledge that everyone in baseball has their own little tells. People talk—like all the time. There are no more secrets anymore so the practice of misdirection or bluffing is futile.

And yet we play the game anyway. Actually, it’s kind of fun. The scouts, assistants to the traveling secretary, stat crunchers, and PR types leak like sieves. They also have the ear and the information discarded from the GM, which makes the whole thing comical.

In other words, when a management types says the team has tossed around the idea of trading Cole Hamels for Roy Halladay and then less than a month later the GM says any trade for the Jays’ ace is “unlikely,” it actually means it’s Cliff Lee and it’s a three-way with Seattle and Toronto.

So there.

But make no mistake about it, the Phillies never moved off of Halladay. Not after they traded for Lee and not after they had Pedro Martinez pitch in two games of the World Series. That’s why it was so funny to hear national pundits to write/Tweet things like, “The Phillies are quietly back in the mix to deal for Halladay.”

Really? When did they ever leave?

Maybe there’s a different message in here, too. Maybe when following the hot stove fest that has been buzzing up the Internets like a hornet’s nest, it’s best to stay close to home. Like politics, all sports scribing is local.

Either way, after the Halladay deal reaches its climax and Lee, et al find their new teams, there next bluff is just a moment away. After all, Amaro still has to get a reliever and a No. 4/5 starter in order to finish the off-season shopping. Strangely, finding that last bullpen piece has proven to be most elusive for the Phillies.

Getting Halladay, on the other hand, just took a lot of patience and a lots tangos with semantics.

So long, Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS—So the 2009 baseball Winter Meetings are finally complete and a lot of us got to cross off Indiana from our “been-there, done-that” lists. By my count I’m up to 30 of the 48 contiguous states and don’t see any scenario in the near future when I will knock off the two other states, Puerto Rico and Guam.

But Indiana, yes, been there. Unfortunately there was only time to stay within the downtown sector of Indianapolis near the capitol. Nice area, if I say so my own self (and I guess I just did). However, one of the joys of business travel is squeezing in the opportunity to see what a place has to offer.

This year we got to stand on the South Lawn of the White House just below the Truman balcony, and I was able to see the scene at Chateau Marmot in Los Angeles; snow in Denver, the first World Series game in the new Yankee Stadium mixed with a late-night drink at Elaine’s; the gravesite shrine for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta; the Fonzie statue in Milwaukee; the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and had my order messed up by the counter help at the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago.

That last one made me feel like I was in an old SNL sketch, which could have happened because former cast members Jim Belushi and the heroic Bill Murray were in the press box for Phillies games this year, too.

I got to talk to Reggie Jackson, Fernando Valenzuela and Pedro Martinez. Twice I was at a baseball-related event where the President of the United States also attended.

I don’t mean to brag, but…

In other words it was an interesting year that we closed out in Indiana today.

So what did we learn at this year’s version of the Winter Meetings? Well, let’s take a look:

• It gets cold and blustery in Indiana and the wind will go right through you because there aren’t a lot of really tall buildings and the entire state is as flat as a pancake. Furthermore, Larry Bird does not greet visitors at the airport, French Lick is the name of a city, and no one has seen Scott Rolen in these parts in a long time.

More notably, I got to see where the Baltimore Colts snuck off to, and frankly, the nickname and the colors still belong in Baltimore. Sure, they have Peyton Manning and all, and they haven’t lost a game this year, but I don’t know what the hell the Indianapolis Colts are.

• General managers of Major League Baseball teams practice the craft of misdirection and doublespeak better than any of those spies James Bond tried to capture. After going through the linguistic exercises with the Phillies GM this week, maybe it’s time for him to serve the country as a snoop with the CIA. Sign him up.

• The Phillies are very much in the mix for Roy Halladay. In fact, they never dropped out nor has their interest in the Blue Jays’ big ace waned since they tried to deal for him last July. Moreover, it seems to be very realistic that potential Hall of Famer John Smoltz could be pitching in the late innings for the Phillies in 2010.

Oh yes… John Smoltz.

• And speaking of pitchers like John Smoltz, expect the Phillies/Pedro flirtation to pick up as the off-season winds down. Pedro is perfect for the Phillies’ needs and no, I’m not just saying that because he is the greatest quote in sports since Muhammad Ali. Pedro for 25-to-30 starts a season at the back of the rotation might not be all that bad.

• Hanging out in the lobby of a hotel with baseball people is a good place to catch a cold. If it’s contagious and can get airborne, those people probably have it or are passing it on. Mix that with the 50-mph winds and sub-freezing temperatures and expect to spend the week coughing up and blowing out all sorts of fun stuff.

Yeah, ew.

• Finally, are the Winter Meetings really all that necessary? Sure, it’s nice to have everyone under one roof, but are the winter meetings one of those anachronisms baseball and baseball folks like to hang onto until it has overstayed its welcome by a decade or two? Hey, I like hobnobbing and hanging out as much as the next guy. Truth be told, I’m pretty damn good at hanging out—in the top 10, at least.

But in a digitalized world where news is reported instantly and old-fashioned things like newspaper deadlines are beyond silly, does all that “face time” matter? Oh sure, I’m pleased as hell I got to see Indianapolis. Better yet, I was lucky enough to learn about the state’s fascination with the concept of “eugenics” at the turn of the last century, but couldn’t I have just looked all that up on Wiki?

And do I really need to see Rosenthal and Heyman punch in their linkless tweets from stage right?

No, not really.

Please disregard the motion to retire the Winter Meetings when they are moved to a warm-climate city with palm trees and night life that sometimes serves as the setting for those “Girls Gone Wild” videos. In that case we’ll see you next December in Orlando…

Yep, Tiger Woods’ hometown.

Day 3: One more lap around

INDIANAPOLIS—This afternoon’s trip (or traipse?) through the lobby here in snowy and blustery downtown Indy was met with an intriguing question from my old pal, Matt Yallof. Matt, as regular readers of this site know, is one of my favorite people on the planet and he also happens to work for the MLB Network.

More importantly, Matt also happens to have one of the wickedest senses of humor of anyone I know. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but Matt is a funny, funny man.

But that’s not the point. No, Matt also is a pretty smart baseball guy. He really knows his stuff. Though he has the inability to sit still for longer than 10 seconds, Matt can bring up a lot of astute baseball points in a snap.

So when I traipsed (or was it tripped?) through the lobby this afternoon, I found Matt making some notes (or was it applying another layer of foundation?) before he cornered me with a good question.

“What are the top few surprises for you during these winter meetings,” he said

I should add that I probably cleaned up that quote a bit.

“Hmmm,” I said. “How about Randy Wolf’s contract, or the fact that Roy Halladay hasn’t been traded.”

Matt liked those and added that two other surprising developments during our stay in Indianapolis was that he did not hear Adrian Gonzalez of the Padres mentioned once in trade talks. That prompted me to add that until he brought it up, I hadn’t heard Gonzalez’s mentioned in a long, long time.

Most importantly, Matt said the biggest surprise was that his cholesterol level remained below 200 even though he went out for steak every night during his stay. Lucky him, huh? Maybe he ought to try the Thai noodle house I stumbled upon while walking down Maryland St.

Least surprising was the fact that the Yankees got into the marquee trade of the week. It ain’t a baseball event if the Yankees don’t try to hog all the attention. Additionally, I thought there might be a little more talk about Adolis Chapman, the lefty Cuban defector with a big fastball who is shopping his wares to the highest bidder.

Still, Phils GM Ruben Amaro Jr. said that the Phillies are interested in Chapman, but they aren’t interested interested.

Get it?

“Talking to the agent about an agent about a guy like that and having interest are kind of two different things,” Amaro explained. “I talk to agents and it doesn’t mean we’re talking about a guy like that. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re trying to sign him. Would we have interest in the talent? Of course. It would be silly for me to say we don’t have interest in the talent. What the demand and what the circumstances are that surround it, that’s an entirely different issue and I don’t see us being a player in that type of guy.”

That said the Phillies will send a scout to Houston to watch Chapman in a workout session next week.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t send anybody,” the GM said. “We send somebody because it’s important to have the knowledge of what this talent is.”

The End

Anyway, I’m not a huge fan of the movement of time, but I’m ready to go home. No, that’s nothing against the good people of Indiana, but I haven’t had a break or a vacation since July of 2008 and I’m whipped. Maybe even a little sleepy, too.

Indiana is nice and all, but it’s time to go.