Shallow | Center

Seventh-Inning Stretch

THE PHILLIES have won six of seven since the Great Purge of '06 began. Chase Utley is so on fire, even the opposing city's scorekeeper is giving him the calls. Somehow, the Phils have closed to within 2-1/2 games of the wild-card lead, after a sweep -- a sweep! -- of the Cardinals, and at Busch, no less. And yet blogging has become such a chore of late. The Phillies' modest success over the last week simply cannot mitigate several years of frustration and unmet expectations. When I started posting, more than three years ago, the idea was to find a creative outlet, as the rest of real life -- increasing responsibilities at work, a daughter under the age of two, a mortgage and house upkeep, freelance assignments, the desire to spend time with my wife that didn't involve discussing said daughter's bowel movements -- had rather conspired to reduce personal writing opportunities to a minimum. A blog, I thought, devoted to my favorite subjects, would be the perfect way to remain connected to the part of my soul that is passionately in love with words and the communication of ideas.

Finally

Gillick Eschews the Organization's Double-Talk and Gives It to Us Straight

ON THE day after the non-waiver trade deadline, it becomes clear just how awful it is to be a Phillies fan. The best Phillies hitter of the last two decades was gift-wrapped and presented to the Yankees. Other veterans have been jettisoned for next to nothing. Understand, I'm not saying these weren't necessary deals. But it's a hell of a thing to hear your GM saying that not only is this season a lost cause, but next year looks to be doomed, too.

And yet, as tough as it is to bear, Phillies City-State should be eternally grateful to Pat Gillick for saying what has needed desperately to be said for the last quarter century: We're just not good enough. And we won't be good enough for a while. Ever since the franchise's lone World Series title, the Phils have scratched their heads and spun their wheels, unsure of how to replicate the glory days of 1976 through 1980. GM after GM has tried patch after patch, fix after fix, manager after manager bad player after bad player, only to see the losses mount. The happy accidents of 1983 and 1993 were sad aberrations. Gillick was spot-on when he said the current group had had its chance, and had failed. We need wholesale changes.