One week the Phillies are playing in the World Series and my alma mater, the University of Iowa, had an undefeated football team and was sniffing around a possible national championship. It was good to be me.
And then everything went kablooey on both fronts the next week. The New York Yankees spoiled back-to-back world titles hopes for the Phils and then a bunch of smart guys from Northwestern University handed the Hawkeyes their first gridiron defeat of the season and dashed any premature talk about a national college football championship. And it was bad to be me.
Naturally, both teams could have used a little help, especially the Hawkeyes. And they could have used it from JoePa and our friends at Penn State.
See, I have no particular rivalry problem with Penn State. The Nittany Lions weren’t even in the Big Ten Conference when I was at Iowa. I am friends with a lot of Penn State graduates. But I don’t have any love loss for the Ohio State Buckeyes, and that’s who Penn State played last week.
Certainly Iowa could have controlled its own destiny by just beating Northwestern. But since that didn’t happen, Iowa was hoping that Penn State could knock off Ohio State, which didn’t happen. Now Iowa goes to Ohio State this week in a must-win situation essentially to determine the Big Ten’s representative in the Rose Bowl.
Had Iowa beaten Northwestern and Penn State beaten Ohio State, then the Hawkeyes wouldn’t have to win this week in front of an unfriendly crowd in Columbus, Ohio.
Ahhh, phooey. College football frustrates me. But hey, only 14 weeks until pitchers and catchers report.

Labels: Joe Paterno, Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Ohio State University, Outta Leftfield, Penn State University, Phillies, University of Iowa

Admittedly, I got a big crate of sour grapes ready to be distributed. But I don’t care. With the way the Yankees have treated the Phillies up to this point in the 2009 World Series, I am in no mood to be nice.
And if baseball must be played in November, then certainly I would like the Phillies to be one of the teams still playing. Having said that, though, I was at Game 4 of the World Series, it was so dadgummed cold that I nearly froze my patootie off, which had that happened, would have created a lot of problems for me trying to hold up my drawers.
It tends to get chilly this time of year around here. But hey, the alternative is somebody else’s team is still playing baseball in November, so I guess I can stand to do with a little less of my patootie.
Here’s what else about this World Series to date has me peeved:
— It appears to entirely be my fault. I was at Game 4 of the 2008 World Series and the Phillies scored 11 runs, won the game and eventually went on to become world champions. I apparently did not do my job as a fan this year in Game 4, and for that I apologize.
— Ballplayers, Phillies included, either need to shave or not shave. I am tired of looking at four-day facial growth. Either grow a beard or don’t grow a beard. I am surprised the baseball wives have not chimed in on this. What, I have the only wife in the world who doesn’t like to snuggle up and have her face scratched?
— Tuck in the back pocket of your baseball pants. Players sometimes keep a batting glove, or something else in that back pocket. When they pull that something out, the pocket gets turned inside out. It needs to be tucked in because it just looks stupid flapping there in the wind, especially on anybody in Yankees pinstripes.
— I am no longer interested in anything that Alex Rodriguez has to say on any topic, not even if he’s talking about Kate Hudson.
— Having said that, I will not and did not boo Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera. They’re great players, they show a lot of class and all they do is beat you. That should be admired by all baseball fans.
And then the Phillies won Game 5 Monday night and I was less grumpy. At the time that this is written, there could be one more game, there could be two more games. The outcome will determine weather my weekend is full of wine or . . . whine.

Labels: Alex Rodrigues, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Outta Leftfield, Phillies, World Series, Yankees

There is this unwritten personal rule that I have subscribed to for years: I like to be the first person in the ballpark and the last one to leave.
What that means is that one never leaves a ballgame early, or to translate it further, if one cannot attend the game in person, one never goes to sleep until the last out of the game has been recorded.
To have violated that rule Monday night would have meant missing Jimmy Rollins’ two-out, bottom-of-the-ninth, dramatic double in the gap that scored Eric Bruntlett and Carlos Ruiz to give the Phillies an improbable 5-4 come-from-behind victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series.
In a similar situation last year in the NLCS between the same two teams, the Phillies’ Matt Stairs hit a two-run homer off Dodgers’ closer Jonathon Broxton to give the Phils a 7-5 victory en route to what would eventually become a World Series championship.
Like Monday night, Stairs’ blast last year happened later in the evening, after everybody but me had gone to sleep at my house. When Stairs crushed a Broxton fastball and sent it deep into the Los Angeles night in 2008, I let out a yee-ha that awakened The Blonde Accountant and the kids.
I’d say I was sorry about waking everybody up, but it was a really big home run in a really big situation and by my way of thinking, nobody should have been sleeping anyway, even if it was a school night.
A similar situation occurred Monday night. Everybody but me was asleep. Same teams, big game, big situation. And the Phillies pulled it off again! Phils win! Phils win!
Remembering that my hootin’ and hollarin’ last year awakened the neighborhood and at that moment finding nobody standing upright with which to do The Happy Dance, I was as subdued as I could be laying there in bed.
My solution this year was to start tapping furiously on The Blonde Accountant’s thigh, which in our house usually means something other than, "Hey, hon, the Phillies won a big ballgame."
Her response was something akin to, “Huh?” She stirred from her slumber as the Phillies mobbed Rollins, seeing absolutely nothing of the celebration, leaned over, turned on the nightstand lamp, and said, “Goodnight.”
I had to get up, go around to her side of the bed, and turn the light off. She had no recollection of the exchange the next morning.
But there was no doubt she was right about one thing: It was a good night.

Labels: Dodgers, Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, National League Championship Series, Outta Leftfield, Phillies

You know, I love Phillies fans. Hey, I’m one of them. But really, a few of them need to work on their reading skills.
Recently I was in New York and while there, I picked up a t-shirt that read: “New York Mess: Back to back collapses, 2007 and 2008.”
See, we Phillies fans really don’t like the New York Mets too much, and the fact that they horked up their playoff chances the past few seasons in a couple of late-season choke jobs gives Phillies fans particular delight.
Figuring that a t-shirt like that would play pretty well at Citizens Bank Park with the faithful, I purchased the shirt and wore in last Friday night to the Phillies game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
I guess my first mistake was thinking that once mass quantities of cold adult beverages had been consumed by a Phillies crowd, that fans could still tell the difference between “Mets” and “Mess” printed on a t-shirt.
That’s not to say that everybody in the crowd got it wrong. Several people commented to me that they liked the t-shirt. But a few jamoke spelling bee refugees didn’t focus quite enough and spent some time jamming me up verbally, like they would do to any Mets fan. The Phillies ball cap I was wearing apparently wasn’t enough of a clue either.
Knuckleheads. The t-shirt is an anti-Mets shirt. Take an extra moment to read it correctly.
One guy in my section in right field referred to me as “Mr. Met” all evening until my patience finally ran out in about the eighth inning. I stood up, turned around, pointed to the shirt and yelled, “Read carefully!”
His response? “Oh.”
Brilliant retort. We should ship that guy to New York and let him root for the Mets. It would raise the I.Q. of both fan bases.

Labels: Mets, Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Outta Leftfield, Phillies