Monday, September 04, 2006

Ryan the Ridiculous

The man hit his 53rd home run today in a tight ballgame. His partner in superstardom, Chase "Checkmate" Utley, sent everyone -- including Ma and Pa Bluegrass -- home with a walk-off solo shot.

Rare is the baseball player whose every at-bat is a legitimate "event". Today, the entire mix might account for the fingers on one hand.

Since I was born in 1979, I can recall three other Phillies who were so compelling: Mike Schmidt, Lenny Dykstra and Jim Thome.

In his second major-league season, Ryan Howard has joined A. Pujols and D. Ortiz as must-see TV. This is the same guy who was nearly traded for Kip Wells barely a year ago.

Utley is on the plateau just below, with less pop but better wheels than the guy hitting behind him.

In a town where the smallest wrong move by a general manager can turn fans against him in droves, Howard and Utley threaten to make life easy for Pat Gillick where they're concerned. There's no danger of them being part of a bad trade, because they are 100% untradeable.

That's a lot of words just to convey the idea that Utley and Howard are awesome and fun to watch, which almost anyone reading this blog knows already.

As far as Howard chasing Maris and his 61 home runs -- the best home run mark untainted by the rumor of illegal performance-enhancing drugs -- I don't really care about him breaking that mark and becoming the "clean" home-run king. Let's get rid of steroids everywhere else in the game before we care about the history books.

What I do hope is that Howard keeps hitting home runs to improve the club's reputation, its appeal to fans and free agents, and its chances to succeed in the playoffs. And of course, I hope it makes him baseball's biggest star.

As long as we can still afford his contract for the next 12 years.

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