More cheese and questions answered

Yesterday, I busted on Clay Buchholz and his Crocs. Today, it's the Phillies' turn.

Phans have Phun with the Ph stuff, but it seems really cheesy for a coach to use it:

Impressed by the boldness and skill of his infielders, Sam Perlozzo is experimenting with a nickname for the group.

"I have a whole thing where I call them the Phearless Phour, with a ph," said Perlozzo, the Phillies' third-base coach who also oversees infield defense. "They don't back down off of any play, so I call them the Phearless Phour."

When I read that Jimmy Rollins wasn't aware of the name, I thought he would agree that it's stupid and put the kibosh on it. Nope:

"Phearless Phour?" the shortstop said. "Oh, no. That's good. I hadn't heard that."

So now, we can look forward to a bunch of capes and boundless marketing opportunities for the crusaders against all things hit on the ground.

Meanwhile, a story today finally explained why Jacoboy Ellsbury changed his uniform number from 46 to 2. Dan Shaughnessy provides the answer in an unusually good effort by him about the uniform changes for young 'uns Ellsbury, Buchholz and Daniel Bard.

"I'd always wanted No. 2," said Ellsbury: "I'd asked for it when I got called up, but I didn't realize it was Millsie's [bench coach Brad Mills's] number."
[...]
Ellsbury wore No. 2 in high school and again when he played for the Portland Sea Dogs. He wore 23 in college because a fifth-year senior had No. 2 at Oregon State.

The Sox issued Ellsbury No. 46 (made famous by Bob Stanley) when he came to the bigs late in the 2007 season. It looked a little goofy for a center fielder, but Ellsbury figured 46 was OK because it was double 23.

Buchholz - going from 61 to 11 - was actually more interesting in that he still feels that No. 21 would put additional pressure on him:

There was another option for Buchholz this year. His dad wore 21 when he pitched. Clay is a Texan. And No. 21 has not been issued by the Red Sox since Roger Clemens rode out of town."That would have caused me to answer a lot of questions," Buchholz said. "I didn't want a lot of the added stress that came with that number."

Man, I was thisclose to being able to unretire my Clemens jersey.

Phinally: We can all rest easy. Pat Burrell isn't blaming Elvis for last year's struggles:

When Pat Burrell finally had an opportunity to sit down and reflect on one the least productive years of his career, the Tampa Bay Rays slugger concluded he had no one to blame but himself.

Sure, a "slight herniation" of two discs in his neck contributed to a slow start in 2009, but the 33-year-old designated hitter also said he let the problem linger too long before getting the injury checked out.