The Goodbye Post
Well, it looks like this is goodbye. http://www.fireericbruntlett.wordpress.com is no longer. You should have seen it coming. Without Bruntlett on the Phillies, what use do we have as a blog? Maybe you’ll see us elsewhere on the Internets. But I say maybe with a heavy amount of uncertainty as to what we will do or where we will go.
BBA Interview With Jason From The MLB Blog
Over the weekend, we conducted an interview with Jason from The MLB Blog, a new Phillies blog in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Here’s what he had to say.
1. This is our standard first question – what are your thoughts on Eric Bruntlett? Continue reading
OMG, IS THIS TRUE??????? – Bruntlett Linkage, Part I
This is what I was writing before the news exploded today that Bruntlett’s Phillies career may very well be over, thanks in large part to David Murphy from philly.com’s High Cheese blog.
It was reported a few days ago – Wednesday, to be exact – what is possibly the greatest news of all time. The greatest news ever reported in the history of news being reported. Yes, that’s right. Our boy is not coming back. Eric Bruntlett filed for free agency. So, I did a Google Blog search for “eric bruntlett,” and this is what I found: Continue reading
No More Bruntlett!
Props go to Corey from We Should Be GM’s for coming up with this idea before we did – petitioning to have Bruntlett released.
“As fans, we deserve to know if the team plans on signing Bruntlett again so that we have as many winter days as possible to find a new team to cheer for.”
Go here to sign the petition. Here’s the open letter Corey wrote to Ruben Amaro, Jr., encouraging the release of Bruntlett. Since we are Bruntlett’s official hate club, I thought it was imperative to share this with you:
“Mr. Amaro,
As passionate and sincere fans of our beloved baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies, we feel it is our obligation to convey to you our position on a very important issue: NOT signing Eric Bruntlett.
Eric Bruntlett hit .171 this past season, which is amazingly high given his level of skill and performance for most of the season. The fact that he actually got eighteen hits is almost as amazing as you paying him $800,000 to do so. For reference, that is over $44,000 per hit. Government stimulus money is spent more efficiently than that.
Do not be fooled by the peripherals on Eric Bruntlett’s resume. Scoring the winning run in a World Series, turning an unassisted triple play and having the best beard on the team are not sufficient qualifications to earn a place on the defending National League champions.
Please do not repeat your mistake in 2009. Do not sign Eric Bruntlett.
Thank you and Best Wishes,
Fans of the Fightins”
Preaching to a choir…
We also have a new “No More Bruntlett” badge to the right. Stay tuned for more updates on Bruntlett’s status. When, not if, he gets fired, we will have the news!
Really Late Stuff: For Your Inspiration – World Series, Game 6
Edit: I tried to write this last minute last night, and get it up if not before the game started, then before it ended. Obviously, that didn’t work, thanks in part to a ton of computer problems, being depressed by the 3rd inning, and general laziness. (Thanks, Joe West!) Pretend that I did post it last night, but you just didn’t get around to reading it until now. There, that makes everyone happy. The bolded parts are what I added. The strikethoughs are what I removed. And, just to let you know, 11 and down were (re)written today.
We realized last week that music is a great way to talk about the Phillies, thanks to Steve’s Phillies Playlist. Well, as I was combing through my iPod earlier today, I realized how many songs can describe the Phillies situation – the team that never gives up down 3-1 in the World Series. So, here goes a little motivational mini-playlist for tonight’s Game 6 from the Bronx. At the same time, I will attempt to give you as much of a game preview as you can when you’re relating the game to music. Expect complete randomness from the music and very long stretches when it comes to connecting them to the game.
1. Queen – We Are the Champions
It only makes sense to start with the song that is most true. As of this writing, the Phillies are were still the World Fucking Champions of Baseball. Don’t believe me? Chase, if you would do the honors, please…
With Ben Francisco getting the start in left – Raul as the DH – and Steve mysteriously leaving this out of the Phillies Playlist, there’s no reason not to include this song. Have you ever seen anyone so obsessed with the thong?
For Clifton Phifer Lee and Chase Cameron Utley, our heroes. And they most certainly are ordinary.
4. Joe Esposito – You’re the Best Around
This one I dedicate strictly to Utley, the best second-baseman in baseball. THEY’RE NOT EQUAL!!! Plus, anything from The Karate Kid is awesome, right?
5. Bruce Springsteen – Streets of Philadelphia
Here’s hoping for the streets of Philly (particularly Broad St.) to get another parade. Next year? Please???
6. The Cranberries – Ridiculous Thoughts
When us Phils fans said that they could come back from being down 3-1, everyone else said that those were ridiculous thoughts. I pray that they were wrong. They weren’t. Umpires suck. If you’re not going to be good, at least be consistent. None of the home plate umps were either good or consistent.
7. Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’
Never stop believing that the Phillies could win. Ever. Until the season ends, of course. Start never believing again in March.
8. Queen & David Bowie – Under Pressure
In their immortal words: “Under pressure/Causes heart attacks/Putting fans in hospitals/When Brad Lidge closes.”
The World Series is 7 games for a reason. ‘Cause you gotta win 4 of them. They did. Whatever. I’m over it by now. It’s fine that while other teams were earning championships (some two), the Yankees were busy spending 9 years buying one. And spending $1.6 BILLION to be exact. Plus, A-Fraud finally got his ring!
CONGRATZ, A-ROIDZ!!!!!
Also, in case I blog-hibernate for a few weeks/months this winter, can someone make sure to find a way to tell me when he finally proposes to himself?
10. Corey Hart – Never Surrender
“So if you’re lost and on you’re own, you can never surrender! And if your path won’t lead you home, you can never surrender! And when the night is cold and dark, you can see, you can see light! Cause no-one can take away your right to fight and never surrender! Never surrender!”
Plus, he shares the name with a Milwaukee Brewers outfielder, who you can say: “wears his sunglasses at night.”
This really should have been Pedro’s official song of the World Series, but Weezer’s new Raditude album didn’t come out until Tuesday. But I would’ve loved, after those dumbass Yankees fans chanted, “Who’s your daddy?” for Pedro to shout back, “I’m your daddy!” (By the way, the album’s $3.99 on Amazon for a limited time. Just sayin’.) Come on, give it up for the Jheri Curl!
12. Dave Matthews – So Damn Lucky
Because we are so damn lucky to be fans of the Fightins now, during this amazing dynasty, in a great position for 2010. (’09 season wrap-ups and early ’10 previews to come in the coming days.)
Ya know, Saturday would have been a B-E-A-utiful day for Parade, Part Deux. Eh, hope the Yanks don’t lose their salaries on Wall Street!
14. Dave Matthews Band – Fool To Think
I wish I could say that I was not crazy to think that the Phils could win this series. It’s fine. I loved seeing all the douches wearing Yankee jerseys today, either the ones who never watched an inning of baseball before this World Series, or those who you know for a fact are fans of other teams and are just wearing the gear to really annoy you, or to be a bandwagon-jumper and really annoy you.
15. Vertical Horizon – You’re a God
This one is dedicated to Alex Rodriguez. In all seriousness no seriousness whatsoever, I would like to congratulate him. He sucked for 10 Octobers, admitted to using steroids in the pre-season, sat out the first month, couldn’t get a base hit to save his life, and still got a championship. See, kids? That’s a lesson for ya! You can be an egotistical douchewad and phony of epic proportions, but if at least 0.01% of the world doesn’t hate you, and you’re good at your job for 1 month of your life, you’ll be rewarded very handsomely! That’s why, A-Roid, I say this to you, with help from Vertical Horizon: “You’re a fraud, and I am not, and I just thought that you should know.”
Plus, Tiffani Amber Thiessen, from Beverly Hills 90210 (the original) and Saved By the Bell, is in the music video!
16. Bill Haley & Wheels feat. Tug Haines & T-Pain – Rock Around the Cock
The quintessential Phillies remix.
Stay Classy, New York Media: Part II – The Daily News
While the New York Post, featured in Part I of this post, is almost universally thought of as a rag, I expect a little more from the Daily News, who have had what some might call, “quality contributers,” like Mike Lupica. Now, all you have to do is watch The Sports Reporters to disagree
with that, but nonetheless, it’s the 5th-most circulated paper in New York. But it’s still trash. And that’s because of articles like these. That’s why I would like you to meet Joanna Molloy. She wrote a column that disagreed with me. Maybe it was a headline that read, “Cheesesteak-stinkin’ town poses just a phantom menace to Yankees.” It included great quotes that you could only find in a trash article for a trash newspaper from a female writer who has never stepped inside a sports atmosphere before. Including:
“Believe it or not, people down here in Silly-delphia actually think the Phillies will beat the Yankees in the World Series, which starts tomorrow.”
“Did they also think Sanjaya would beat Jordin Sparks? That would be ‘American Idol,’ in case you watch too much baseball and not enough Stupid TV.”
But it wasn’t her quotes that really irked me. It was the quotes that she decided to use to make a sad attempt to prove her point. “Fan after Philly fan,” she wrote. Yes. While Jeremy Olshan and his band of moron minions may have talked to actual New Yorkers, you know, writing for a New York paper and all, Joanna Malloy went to Philadelphia and talked to Philadelphians to prove that Philadelphia sucks. How did she manage to extract those quotes? “Hi, I’m from the New York Daily News. I’m writing an article about why your city and Phillies fans suck. Would you like to give me a quote?” She then proceeded to perform what appears to be a stand-up routine on why Philly sucks.
“W.C. Fields wanted his epitaph to say: I’d Rather Be in Philadelphia. Well, maybe it’s better than being dead, but I’m not sure.”
“The Philadelphia Art Museum has Picasso’s “Three Musicians” and Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” but New York has just about every other great work of art.”
“Philadelphia produced Bill Cosby, but he lives in New York.”
Stay tuned for more, er… actual, World Series coverage coming up later today.
Stay Classy, New York Media
What do you do when you’re a New York City tabloid newspaper, and your beloved Yankees are playing in the World Series come tomorrow against a team from a city that everyone loves to hate? Naturally, you get your crack advertisement department on 
the oh-so-important mission of photo-shopping a skirt onto the said team’s All-Star center-fielder! (By the way, “crack” here does not mean that they’re great. At anything. Or even remotely good. It means that I genuinely think that everyone at the New York Post who wrote, edited, or published this article must be on crack to let this get by and into their newspaper and website.) They could have at least tried to be original! I mean, the guy’s Hawaiian! Everyone knows that! His nickname is The Flyin’ Hawaiian! They couldn’t even go for a grass skirt? Plus, “The Frillies!” Are grass skirts not frilly?
Oh, if only they could stop there… But some Yankee reporter just had to ask Vic to pose with the cover: “”Shane, could you ..?” “No, I’m not holding that up, bro,” he responded, no questions asked.
"It's only a positive thing to have them focus on you. There's obviously a reason why they put me on the front," Victorino said, referring to the cover of the New York Post.
From Todd Zolecki’s Zo Zone piece:
“Pretty cute,” Chase Utley said. “Shane looks pretty good. I would say Ryan (Howard) might look a little bit better in that skirt than Shane.”
And then there was the article written for the cover. Oh, the article. Such trash. The Post needed 3 people to write this awful headline and by-line: “Frillies are coming to town! Their fans are second-rate & so is their city.” They needed three people to extract quotes like these, this one presumably from a hot-dog stand worker: “‘The Yankees are going to make Philly cream cheese out of them,’ a confident Tommy Bayiokos, 44, predicted yesterday in Midtown.” I particularly enjoyed The Sports Hernia‘s response to Tommy:
“Tommy, if it said you were 16 years old, this might make sense. You’re 44, please do us all a favor and violently tase yourself.”
Other choice quotes from despicable journalists Rich Calder, Erin Calabrese and Jeremy Olshan, with my response following:
1.) “Gotham has been regularly beating the pants off Philly since overtaking the one-horse town as the nation’s economic capital in the early 19th century.”
2.) “Even Benjamin Franklin, Philly’s patron saint, has been described as “the father of all the Yankees.”
3.) “Although Philadelphia doesn’t draw the same ire among New Yorkers as Boston or Los Angeles, it’s mostly because Gothamites consider the city across the Ben Franklin Bridge pretty pathetic, says Bleacher Creature Michael Stewart.”
4.) “‘I don’t have hate for Philly exactly — they are like our redheaded stepchild,” he said. ‘It’s like a nothing city. It’s just insignificant in comparison to New York.'”
5.) “‘The big meal there is a steak with cheese and onions on a hero, but they don’t even call it a hero. It’s a hoagie. What the hell is a hoagie?’ said Ron Montclane, 26.”
6.) “As far as sports go, sure, the Phillies have won two World Series championships compared with the Yankees’ 26, but far sadder is that no one from Philly cares much. ‘Their most famous athlete is Rocky, and he’s fictional,’ sneered Alex Rusu, 23, a building superintendent in Gramercy.”
1.) Isn’t it ironic… that we won the season series 2-1? (Unlike anything Alanis Morissette ever sang, that actually is ironic, which, in a way, is kind of ironic in and of itself.) Also, the 19th century was the 1800s. The Yankees didn’t pkay their first game until 1901. Great fact-checking. So, that’s an advertising department and a research department both on crack?
2.) I’d like proof of this, since, you know, HE DIED ALMOST A CENTURY BEFORE THE FIRST BASEBALL GAME WAS EVER PLAYED!!!
3.) I thought they literally just said how much they love Ben Franklin. So, they love the guy, but hate the bridge?
4.) I have two reasons why Philadelphia is a better city than New York. For the first one let me quote Homer Simpson: “New York is a hellhole. And you know how I feel about hellholes.” Wow, I can’t believe I just agreed with Homer Simpson. Secondly, living in Philly, you wouldn’t have to run into any of these morons – the ones working for the paper, or quoted by the paper.
5.) HOAGIE. CHEESESTEAK. SUB SANDWICH. IDIOT = YOU.
6.) Wow… stupidest statement of the article. We don’t care? We filled our stadium to 102.2% capacity every game! Yankees couldn’t even get 90%! Also, did they talk to anyone with an actual job?
Updates coming in the morning. Wow, that was longer than I expected it to be. Enjoy what I have so far, and look forward to some more.
Update: Here’s a great anti-Yankees picture that I forgot to add last night. Props to RCinPA and fdoyle11.
If there are two things that I love in this world, they’re plays on words and the Phillie Phanatic. Suck on that, Tommy Lasorda!
[BBA]: Most Valuable Player Awards
One of the many awesome things we get to do as a part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance – by the way, if you didn’t know yet, we are part of an alliance of baseball bloggers called the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Bill from Crashburn Alley is also a member, so you know it’s good. – is that we can vote on the various baseball awards. “Sure,” you say, “but any blog can do that!” Well, the BBA does them in a manner similar to that of the Baseball Writers Association of America. So, here are the Fire Eric Bruntlett official MVP awards:
Seeing as it’s pretty late right now, and I’m rushed for time, trying to get to bed, to wake up at 6:00 in the morning (I don’t like Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays, either.) I’m just posting our ballot for now – no explanations or stats yet. Hopefully, I can show you the ultra-complex system that I use to come up with these placements tomorrow. It uses a lot of numbers and stats, both sabermetric and mainstream.
In any case, here goes:
10. Matt Kemp, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers
9. Derrek Lee, 1B, Chicago Cubs
8. Chase Utley, 2B, Philadelphia Phillies
7. Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, San Diego Padres
6. Hanley Ramirez, SS, Florida Marlins
5. Ryan Braun, OF, Milwaukee Brewers
4. Ryan Howard, 1B, Philadelphia Phillies
3. Prince Fielder, 1B, Milwaukee Brewers
2. Mark Reynolds, 3B, Arizona Diamondbacks
1. Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis Cardinals
Phillies vs. Dodgers, NLCS Game 5: The Clincher?
We are bringing back the Fire Eric Bruntlett live blog for this potential clincher in Philly tonight at 8:00. So, if you’re stuck at home tonight, in fear of being trampled during the riot, join us! It could even be fun!
Closer Roundtable, Round II
As you may remember, I asked for thoughts on the closer situation last month on Twitter. I finally got around to posting it last week, but I didn’t really feel like I did it justice, since it was so late after the time I started it. So, I e-mailed back the participants, and asked them a few Phillies- and closer-related questions. Again, our players are David Foley and Kieran Kelly from Phinally Philly, author Allen Schatz, and tweeter Sara Scott. Jump to read the Qs & As. Continue reading
estebomb
Tommy
Max
Fire Eric Bruntlett 