Major league baseball is so “balled up” in statistics that it could drive you nuts (and I don’t mean peanuts) if you tried to remember even a small percentage of them. I don’t know why anyone would have an advantage by knowing the record for the slowest time for Tater Trots (amount of time it takes for a player who hits a home run to circle the bases, totaling 280 feet). David Ortiz, of the Boston Red Sox, holds the record of 33.39 seconds. Not even the television show Jeopardy would ask this question in Final Jeopardy!
Major league baseball teams play 162 games during the regular season. A mediocre team may end the season with 81 wins and 81 losses. The mark of an extraordinarily bad team is one that has 100 losses during one season. The last three seasons the Phillies have lost 89, 89 and 99 games respectively!
It has been reported by an “unreliable source” that since the Phillies’ record has been so poor the last three years that they colluded with Charlie Brown’s baseball team for advice, since their team has been in the cellar their entire career, in order to learn from their futility. Of course, probably few know that Charlie Brown’s team won approximately 10 games over the years, most of which were when Charlie Brown was not playing because of sickness and injuries, being away at camp, other teams forfeiting, etc.
In the secret meetings held between the Phillies and Charlie Brown’s team, the Phillies were offered the following advice. First, no matter how bad the Phillies’ record is during the year, they should approach each game like the Peanuts’ team. No matter their record, they always played the next game telling themselves they were one game away from the Championship. This was true even after losing a game 123-0. This puts things in perspective for me even after our high school team took a shellacking, losing 33-3.
Second, it was determined that the Phillies needed some extra assistance. Lucy, because she had so much business lately because of the ongoing political skullduggery, volunteered to raise the prices at her Psychiatric Help Stand from $.05 to $5. The extra funds from the price increase would be used to pay off the Phillie Phanatic to help the Phillies win. It did not seem like cheating too much. After all, teams in the past have been caught stealing the catcher’s signs by using binoculars from the old fashioned scoreboards in the outfield and pitchers cheat when throwing spitballs or putting other substances on the baseball.
The Plan: as the Phillie Phanatic was strolling and frolicking around the ballpark, whenever the opposition was in the midst of a rally, the Phanatic would be near the visitor’s dugout with a super-sensitive listening device to hear what the other team’s strategy was and relay the information to the Phillies’ dugout.
At first, with the Phillies winning four more games than they have lost this season (at this writing – by the time this is printed, there is a good chance they will have lost more games than they have won), I thought the Phillies were on to something. However, I hired a team of professional spies who investigated the Phanatic and they assured me he was not cheating. As a matter of fact, they have the Phanatic on tape saying: “Just because others cheat to win, my team is going to win honestly.” Oh my, the Phanatic could command much higher wages by speech writing for politicians and they would receive my vote!
Innocent or guilty?The Verdict: The Phanatic is innocent!
Jeff Hall, of Honey Brook, contributes columns to Berks-Mont Newspapers. Questions/comments may be directed to jeffreyhall77@comcast.net.
