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.

Crikey

Last week, when we were in Disney World, we noticed these Mickey Mouse Crocs at all the souvenir stands but didn't see anyone wearing them.

Actually, we saw very few people wearing any variety of these ugly rubber shoes.

I couldn't decide whether that was because of the cool (for Florida) weather or because these stupid shoes are finally going out of style.

I'm still trying to figure out why they ever became trendy in the first place.

If they are out of style, no one has told Clay Buchholz.

Not a good look for young Clay. His new wife should do a better job of making sure he doesn't look so geeky.

But if he continues to develop this year into the front-line starter we have all been waiting for, then he can wear Crocs 24 hours a day - just not when he's pitching.

[Photo credits: surfanddirt.com (Mickey Mouse) and Gordon Edes' Twitter (Clay Buchholz)]

Shagadelic

There has been buzz this week about the first impressions made in camp by top SoxandPhils prospects Domonic Brown and Casey Kelly, but thanks to the unintentional comedic stylings of Charlie Manuel, they were overshadowed by a minor leaguer ranked the 205th best prospect in baseball.

Mr. 205, Tyson Gillies, made a big impression on Cholly: "He's something, man. He takes shagging to another level."

I don't know much about Gillies or his prospects, but I think he should retire tomorrow. No matter how well he does in his career, he will never have a highlight as good as this one.

A SoxandPhil who doesn't wear cleats

Other than griping about snow, I didn't have a strong feeling this morning for what I would write about until I read this little nugget on Todd Zolecki's blog:

Congratulations to Wilmington News Journal's Scott Lauber, who just got a job covering the Red Sox for the Boston Herald.

Congrats, indeed. It's always good to see a quality reporter leave Gannett on his own terms. I wish Lauber well in Boston. I don't look at it as losing a Phillies scribe, but gaining a Red Sox reporter.

This won't be the first time that Lauber, who attended Boston University, has covered the Red Sox. As I mentioned about a year ago, he previously did some work for an underground program sold outside Fenway.

Prospectin'

I still have Disney World on my brain. One of the nicest rides we had this weekend was on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We really had fun on that one - plus, there was no line so we pretty much walked right on.

The train is in Frontierland, which sets the mood for Baseball America releasing its list of top 100 prospects. I'm pleased with the SoxandPhils representation. I get just as proud with the organizational success of our teams as their on-field accomplishments.

The Phillies Domonic Brown (15) tops the SoxandPhils contingency, followed by the Red Sox quartet of Ryan Westmoreland (21), Casey Kelly (24), Josh Reddick (75) and Lars Anderson (87).

The Phillies also have Phillippe Aumont (93) on the list.

What's more impressive is that they had a decent showing on the list when each team has dealt away prospects in recent years. Former SoxandPhils farmhands include former future Phils Kyle Drabek (25), Michael Taylor (29), Jason Knapp (64) and Travis d’Arnaud (81), and former future Sox Nick Hagadone (44).

Not on the list is Brad Wilkerson, although he was ranked in 2001 (35) and 2002 (63) when he was an up-and-coming Expo. He was in Red Sox camp last year, but retired after two games in the minors. Now, he's with the Phillies. Christine thinks this line explains the move: Wilkerson is "a close friend of Phillies backup catcher Brian Schneider."

In my Baseball Mogul game, team happiness matters, and sometimes you have to acquire a player's friend to make him happy and improve team chemistry. We hope Brian Schneider is happy now.

[Photo credit: CoasterGallery.com]

How long were we gone?

If you couldn't tell by the stale reports and not-so-subtle hints, Christine and I took off for a couple days to visit Mickey Mouse.

We needed a break from this cold and snowy winter, and although it wasn't as warm as we had hoped (and the Warm Valrhona Chocolate Cake wasn't on Narcoossee's menu for Christine's birthday), it was still a nice getaway.

It looks like we missed a lot of SoxandPhils stuff, but it also looks like it's mostly generic opening-of-camp fare. Except for all the buzz surrounding the new look on Jayson Werth that he's not talking about, according to Scott Lauber:

And while the right fielder declined to speak about his runaway beard -- "I'm not going to ask you to explain that thing on your neck," he said to a reporter with a pimple -- he discussed his contract situation, expressing a desire to remain with the Phillies but stopping short of saying he would forego a larger payday to play elsewhere.

Todd Zolecki, who may have a thing for beards, got a little more out of Grizzly Adams:

Q: You want to steal more bases. Speed is a big part of your game. Do you worry the hair piece is going to slow you down?
A: I'm not wearing a hair piece.

Q: No, the beard.
A: No, I'm not worried about it.

Q: Will you taper down for the season?
A: I'm not sure.

Q: It's attractive.
A: Thank you.

Werth's new look inspired me ... to shave off my winter beard this morning. Bring on spring.

[Photo credit: MLB.com]

'Legends' falls short

We're not clearing out just our DVR lately, but also our "to-watch" pile of DVDs.

We recently caught Legends of the Fall, the 2009 Phillies video yearbook.

I guess it's perfunctory. There's only one little bit that got us excited (I'll get to that later), and the World Series loss was glossed over as if it were a spring training game. (Christine can't even remember whether they acknowledged that the Phillies didn't win.)

I also have a problem with the title. "Legends" implies greatness. Yes, it's remarkable that the 2008 World Champions returned to the World Series the next year, but they needed to win it in 2009 to be proclaimed legendary.

We were pleased when Raul Ibanez, the film's narrator, talked about the Phillies series in Tampa. Raul missed the series due to injury, and in the video he laments that he didn't get the opportunity to meet Elvis Burrell as he got his championship ring and woofed that now he's going to Disney World to celebrate.