Movin' on up!

The birthday game was a fun time. Good game, confetti, dollar dogs. It's good to have friends. The Phils improve to 16-11 on my birthday since 1976. I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

Tonight: Phils win, Pure Evil loses, Phils take second place. Scumbags win, but not before Wagner blows a save. Guess he's not committed to winning.

Flyers win! Flyers win! Feel the power of KATE.

In honor of my birthday tomorrow, I did a little research and took a look at all the games the Phillies have played on April 24 in my lifetime.

Around the time I was born, the Phils were beating the Braves 10-5 behind a grand slam from Greg Luzinski. The perfect beginning to the perfect life.

They've played a total of 26 games, going 15-11. They have the most wins against the Cubs (3) and have faced the Expos more than any other team (4 times).

They've hit 32 home runs in those games; Mike Schmidt leads with seven of them.

Here's the complete list, with home runs listed in parentheses:

1976: Phillies 10, Braves 5 (Luzinski, Schmidt)
1977: Phillies 6, Cardinals 3 (Maddox, Bowa)
1978: Phillies 12, Cubs 2 (Schmidt, Lerch)
1979: Phillies 7, Dodgers 6 (Rose)
1980: no game
1981: Phillies 6, Cubs 4 (Schmidt)
1982: Cardinals 7, Phillies 4 (Diaz 2)
1983: Astros 3, Phillies 2 (Schmidt)
1984: Pirates 3, Phillies 2
1985: Expos 7, Phillies 6 (Virgil 2, Maddox, Schmidt)
1986: Pirates 4, Phillies 2 (Schmidt 2)
1987: no game
1988: Expos 3, Phillies 1
1989: Phillies 8, Astros 4
1990: Phillies 6, Cubs 3 (Kruk)
1991: Mets 7, Phillies 3 (Dykstra)
1992: Phillies 4, Mets 3¹
1993: Phillies 7, Dodgers 3 (Incaviglia)
1994: Padres 6, Phillies 5
1995: no game
1996: Phillies 10, Rockies 8 (Stocker, Incaviglia, Zeile)
1997: no game
1998: Phillies 8, Cardinals 4
1999: Phillies 6, Expos 5 (Rolen, Abreu)
2000: Marlins 3, Phillies 1 (Gant)
2001: Phillies 12, Padres 7 (Abreu, Anderson)
2002: Padres 7, Phillies 2 (Perez)
2003: Phillies 9, Rockies 1 (Utley, Burrell)²
2004: Phillies 7, Expos 0 (Wolf)³
2005: Braves 4, Phillies 0

¹I was at this game - the Phils won in the bottom of the ninth on an RBI single from Dave Hollins.
²Utley's HR was a grand slam, and his first major league hit.
³Wolf hits a HR and pitches a complete game.

I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool!

The Phils are starting to warm up now, with three reasonably solid wins in a row, though I could do without the bullpen trying to make things interesting by cutting our leads. We need help there in a big way. We can't keep trotting out Rhodes and Gordon every single night, not with their combined age of 177. They may not actually have arms in another few months.

The Scumbags have taken the early lead at 8-1, but I would point out that eight of those games were against the Fish and Nats, two truly horrendous teams (it would so appear). Also, there's rumors that Wagner's finger is causing him big problems. How do you spell Schaudenfraude, again?

I've updated the menu at right with some standings, etc. Let's see if I actually manage to update it regularly.

Really awesome link here from Mariner Country. Worth the read.

Hey, look! Another fun link. Mathematically flawed, probably, but fun.

Existential Crisis Time! Wheeeee!

Show of hands: who actually wants me to break down the first four Phillies games? For those just tuning in, they were all losses. (The first 0-4 start since 1987.) Do you need me to go over the atrocious starting pitching? The spotty offense? The uncharacteristically incompetent fielding? The total lack of urgency? The surly crowds? The disappointing end to Jimmy's streak? You can find all that elsewhere. I'm just not in the mood. This is yet another moment - such a common occurrence the past few years - where I wonder what the hell I'm doing with my time. Note the lack of updates these days: that's 'cause I've got other stuff to write. [Writing is a precious thing, almost certainly the greatest joy in my life, and I'm tired of wasting even an ounce of my admittedly limited skill and talent on a dumb blog about baseball. (Blogs have, one could argue, cheapened writing to the point where it's lost all its power and usefulness, and reduced it to just trillions of ugly webpages filled with garbled, unreadable ranting. But that's a discussion for another time.)] It's 1:45 am. Do I feel like talking about 25 overpaid jackasses and their inability to win games? Not really. I think I'm going to go watch my tape of Look Around You and eat nachos. So long, suckers!