May 1st, 1993: The Candy Man Can

 May 1st, 1993: Philadelphia Phillies (17-5) vs  Los Angeles Dodgers (8-15)

The Candy Man Can

An Introduction…

I’m the guy that decided the best way to cope with the present day Phillies by watching the 1993 Phillies. Now that the 2021 season has begun, my attention has returned to the current Phillies, but as too the heartbreak of being a fan of this franchise has also begun, I’ve decided once more to go back in time and revisit the greatest season of baseball of my childhood, the 1993 Phillies.  Thanks to the internet and more specifically the saint who runs the ClassicPhilliesTV youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWb6dGkCnKBlrQLJAjZ-4-w), I’m going back and watching every 1993 Phillies I can find just like if it was 27 years ago (but with the internet)... Previously I attempted to go day for day with every Phillies game in the month of June, which was a bold idea but proved to be futile. Now the plan is to start from the beginning of the season and attempt 1 game recap per week until we get to game 5 of the 1993 World series and then decide if I really want to torture myself with game 6. Come along for the ride to reminisce about the legends of John Kruk, Mitch Williams, and Darren Daulton, to mix the knowledge we have now, with jokes of how dumb things were then.  

Where We Last Left Our Intrepid Heroes (and Villains)

The Phillies have entered May with a 17-5 record good enough win percentage wise as the greatest start in franchise history. They just swept a two game series against the Padres in San Diego. The second game was won in spectacular fashion when David West faced Bob Geren in the 8th inning with the bases loaded, and Geren hit a long fly ball to left field that Milt Thompson amazingly brought back from over the wall to prevent a grand slam. It’s probably the best defensive play of the entire 1993 season. The next night in Los Angeles in the first game of the series, Mickey Morandini likewise saved a game with a remarkable defensive play. 

The Dodgers of Los Angeles (Nee Brooklyn) have an 8-15 record on the season and are comfortably relaxing in the NL West basement. Since leaving Philadelphia 6 days previously (in 1993) the Dodgers have won 2 out of 3 against the Mets and Expos after a six game losing streak. Very little is going right for Tommy Lasorda’s ball club, and last night’s umpires only angered him more. A fun fact about Lasorda is that he coached Rookie of Year winners 9 times in the 20 seasons he was manager, the Philadelphia Phillies have had 4 Rookie of the Year winners in 73 seasons since the award was created in 1947. Sadly, the veterans who are brought to Los Angeles with the allure of huge contracts are just as often underachieving. This year’s disappointments Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis are batting .156 and .253 while making 3.8 and 2 million dollars each (the highest salary in 1993 was 6 million a year, for the services of Bobby Bonilla, services the Mets continue to pay for to this day), the equivalent today would be about 18.5 and 10.3 million respectively. Their lone bright spot has been the play of rookie catcher Mike Piazza. 

Today’s Game:

It is Wednesday May 1st, 1993 and the Phillies are visiting the Chavez Ravine to play the Los Angeles Dodgers. You know how in Roger Rabbit, the reason the Judge wants to get rid of Toontown is to build a mass transportation highway though it. In real life Los Angeles, they built a mass transportation highway through the Mexican Neighborhoods (It’s a metaphor). Then they built Dodgers Stadium.  The television broadcast is brought to you on Philadelphia’s favorite regional channel WPHL 17, home to all of the important Phillies games. Our broadcasters are the A team of Richie Ashburn, Harry Kalas, and their gopher Chris Wheeler.  

  

Watch for yourself at: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqNXabZYdI0 

The Line-up

CF Lenny Dykstra .

2B Mickey Morandini

1B John Kruk

3B Dave Hollins

C Darren Daulton

RF Pete Incaviglia

LF Jim Eisenreich          Batting .320

SS Mariano Duncan  Phillies are 11-0 in Duncan Starts

SP Ben Rivera

On the Mound:

Ben Rivera is one of the few Philadelphia Phillies who has had a rocky start to the season, the six foot six Dominican currently has a 1-1 record and 6.55 ERA over 11 innings. The 24 year old had a late start to spring training due to getting the flu, and had the inconvenience of missing a start due to rain, skipping his spot in the rotation and messing with his timing. Wheels also attributes the fact that it’s cold and Fregosi told the media earlier today that Rivera “was trying to aim the ball”. No matter what, Fregosi needs Rivera to eat innings today after the bullpen took care of four innings yesterday and Mitch Williams has pitched in three straight games. The Phils currently hold a 4.5 game lead over the second place St. Louis Cardinals. 

Pitching for the Dodgers today is knuckleballer Tom Candiotti, as is mentioned multiple times during the broadcast, Candiotti didn’t start his career as a knuckleballer, but kind of slouched there eventually in 1986. Like most knuckleballers before him, Candiotti only learned the pitch when the rest of repertoire failed to make him an employable Major League Baseball player.  Before the knuckleball, Candiotti was 6-6 over 14 starts with a 4.04 FIP and 4.5 K’s per 9 innings, but didn’t even make the major league roster in 1985, and thus began his learning of the great floater of fear. In 1993, he is one of three knuckleballers in the NL, and has a career record of 95-96 and a 1-3 tally against the Phillies. After baseball, Candiotti appeared in Billy Crystal’s HBO film about the 1961 home run chase 61* as fellow knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm.  To learn more, check out Candiotti’s biography A Life of Knuckleballs by K.P. Wee, which both exists and is available on Amazon. 

Highs (Hopes) and Lows

Low- Bottom 1st- Early Hole

The Dodgers quickly get on the board when the male Brett Butler (not to be confused with the female Brett Butler who starred on Grace Under Fire) singles, advances to second after a wild pitch by Ben Rivera, is sacrificed over to third, and comes home with a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0 Dodgers. One might argue that taking the hands out of your 2 and 3 hole hitters is actually a win for the Phillies, as the Dodgers had far less chance of scoring more runs in the inning. Older non-analytics fans would respond that a run is a run is a run. 1-0 LAD 

Low- Bottom 5th- Piazza the Hutt

As mentioned above and in the past three Dodgers’ game write-ups, the best player for LA in this early season is catcher and former 62nd round draft pick (1390th overall) Mike Piazza. Born in Norristown, Piazza grew up in nearby Phoenixville (this is never mentioned by the Phillies broadcast), and was drafted primarily because he was the Godson of Tommy Lasorda. Now in the big leagues, Piazza is thriving to a degree that steroid allegations would haunt his entire career (nothing has ever been proven), and in the 5th inning, Piazza launches his 5th home run of the season. Now he’s slashing .321/.379/.564 with 9 runs 5 home runs and 14 RBIs, if he was on your fantasy team today in the 2021 season he’d be the 4th best catcher in baseball.  

Mids- Bottom 6th- Chess

With the Dodgers still clinging to a 2-0 lead, manager Tommy Lasorda is met with a classic baseball decision, thanks to a strategic move by Phillies manager Jim Fregosi. With a man on first and third with two outs, the Dodgers sent up their 8 hole hitter Jose Offerman (who amazingly is the father-in-law to the WWE superstar Bray Wyatt) to the plate, Fregosi counters by walking Offerman to load the bases and bring up the pitcher Tom Candiotti. Now up to this point in the game Candiotti has handcuffed the Phillies to the tune of 7 k’s and 4 scattered hits through 6 innings, and the fact that Candiotti is knuckleballer gives the pitch count no thought (Tim Wakefield of the Pittsburgh Pirates last week in 1993 threw 171 pitches!). Lasorda decides to go with his pitcher and sends Candiotti to the plate to bat and he weakly grounds out to end the inning. In 2021, there’s no question that Candiotti would be pinch hit for for the chance to score more runs, even if you believe in the adage that knuckleballers can’t be hurt by throwing too many pitches, the fact that the Phillies line-up was about to see him for the third time would scare any present day manager to risk it in a two run game. Maybe not Tony La Russa. 

High then low - Top 7 - Take that Old School or Not?

Jim Eisenreich (who is one of the few Phillies with extended history against Candiotti in the American League) doubles in Pete Incaviglia to tighten the score 2-1 in the top of the 7th, but Candiotti is able to get out of the inning by striking out Mariano Duncan to end the threat. Duncan was particularly perplexed by the knuckler today, ending up 0-3 with 3 strikeouts. So while Lasorda was betting the wrong percentages with keeping Candiotti in, he ended up beating the odds.   

Low- Bottom 8- Terrible Umpiring

It would be nice to tell you, that Umpires were once good, it’d be nicer to tell you that they continually got better and now they’re great, but I can’t. Umpires have been and probably always will be terrible. Of course there are exceptions, but Baseball happens far too fast for this to be a thing any more, so calls get missed, and players/fans/broadcasters will always get angry about it, and now with the technology that television provides, it’s only getting worse. In the bottom of the 8th, the Phillies brought out former Cy Young winner Mark Davis to pitch, but he quickly loaded the bases after giving up two singles and hitting a guy. Which brings up Jose Offerman again (years before he tried to attack a pitcher who hit him with a bat in the Atlantic League), and then came this pitch on a 3-2 count.

“Right down the middle of the plate, fooled the hitter, fooled the umpire.” Says Whitey. Darren Daulton also says something, but it can’t be heard by anyone but the umpire, and he is tossed for whatever opinion he shared. This brings out Manager Jim Fregosi, who also quickly gets kicked out of the game for sharing his opinion to the umpire. After everyone calms down, Mark Davis gives up another single and another run and gets the hook for Bobby Ayrault who gives up another run before finally putting an end to the bleeding. 5-1 LAD. 

 

Wild Rides

Though no longer a save opportunity, Tommy Lasorda brings in Jim Gott to finish off the game after Tom Candiotti went 8 innings,  struck out 9 Phillies, and allowed 1 run, 5 hits, and 1 walk. Jim Gott was the bullpen coach for the 2018 Philadelphia Phillies and was Dennis Quaid’s personal pitching coach for Disney’s The Rookie. He strikes out Dave Hollins to start the ninth when he comes up against Darren Daulton’s replacement, Doug Lindsey. Lindsey is only on the Phillies roster due to an injury to Todd Pratt, and has only played in one other professional baseball game, 2 years previously on the last game of the 1991 season. Lindsey is like Crash Davis, if Crash Davis wasn’t very good offensively, he spent 7 years in the minors, where he was known as the best defensive catcher in the Eastern League (Double AA Reading). In his one other appearance, the only start of his career so far, he had the bad luck of facing David Cone, on a day where David Cone was really really pissed off. Cone would strike out 19! Phillies on that day, and Lindsey would be a victim three times (his only at professional at bats). Now Lindsey comes to the plate fresh off going 2 for 17 in double A in the bottom of the 9th

and slaps a single to right field for his first (spoilers: and only) major league hit.  “I guess he figures after David Cone this game is easy” jokes Whitey. Two pitches later, Pete Incaviglia hit into a double play to end the game.  

Final: Philadelphia Phillies 1 (17-8) Los Angeles Dodgers 5 (9-15)

Words of Wisdom from Harry and Whitey and sometimes Wheels

“All his other pitches couldn’t get anybody out.” Whitey explaining why Candiotti became a knuckleball pitcher. 

Final Conclusions

The Phillies lose the second game of their series in Los Angeles after all the wind comes out of their sail thanks to a terrible umpire call. If you enjoyed this wonderful blast from the past please feel free to share, like, or comment on it. The hope is to have more people watching 93 Phillies games on youtube and talking about it. So hit me up @Kevin_Seamus on twitter or @loudphilliesguy on Instagram. The next game is May 2nd’s day game where we see a battle of the titans with Terry Mullholland facing off against Orel Hershiser.   

April 26, 1993: Don't Call it a Comeback

 April 26th, 1993: Philadelphia Phillies (13-4) vs  San Francisco Giants (11-8)

Don’t Call it a Comeback

An Introduction…

I’m the guy that is psyched about the fact that the Phillies actually made moves with their bullpen this offseason.  It’s crazy, but the Major League Baseball season was actually played in 2020, and the Phillies have done everything they could do to try to ruin my fanhood. So I’ve decided once more to go back in time and revisit the greatest season of baseball of my childhood, the 1993 Phillies.  Thanks to the internet and more specifically the saint who runs the ClassicPhilliesTV youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWb6dGkCnKBlrQLJAjZ-4-w), I’m going back and watching every 1993 Phillies I can find just like if it was 27 years ago (but with the internet)... Previously I attempted to go day for day with every Phillies game in the month of June, which was a bold idea but proved to be futile. Now the plan is to start from the beginning of the season and attempt 1-2 game recaps per week until we get to game 5 of the 1993 World series and then decide if I really want to torture myself with game 6. Come along for the ride to reminisce about the legends of John Kruk, Mitch Williams, and Darren Daulton, to mix the knowledge we have now, with jokes of how dumb things were then.  

Where We Last Left Our Intrepid Heroes (and Villains)

The Philadelphia Phillies are coming off a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers and currently* have the best record in baseball (*April 1993) at 13-4. The great start is attributed mostly to a much improved rotation and a perfectly orchestrated platoon system by third year manager Jim Fregosi. In Robert Gordon’s “Then Bowa Said to Schmidt”… The Greatest Phillies Stories Ever Told Mitch Williams is quoted as saying “ Jim Fregosi went out and got a prison squad. I never saw a manager get so much out of a group of players. No other manager could have managed that team. We didn’t have any of the premier guys in the league- at least no one that the rest of baseball recognized as marquee players. But we had guys who would do anything to win. Some of us were just, let’s just say, a bit of a challenge to manage. Fregosi knew how to handle us.” 

The San Francisco Giants are still on the runway in the 1993 season, sitting at a record of 11-8, the Giants are in some sense a disappointment, but in reality are just lucky to playing in San Fran at all. After finishing 72-90 in 1992, good for 5th in the NL West, principal owner Bob Lurie,  who was losing 2-7 million dollars annually, decided to sell the team to an ownership group with the intention of moving the franchise to Tampa Bay, Florida. Beyond mostly losing in the 35 years the Giants were in San Fran, the real reason for the move was that Candlestick park was a terrible place to play and no fans ever wanted to go watch the team.  At the last second a San Francisco investor group led by Safeway magnate Peter Magowan bought the team from Lurie with plans to keep the Giants in San Francisco and build a vastly better ballpark. The Giants, despite losing former MVP Kevin Mitchell in 1992, still had a strong offensive club with veteran sluggers Will Clark and Matt Williams at First and Third base respectively, and decided to go out in the 92 offseason to sign (checks notes… checks notes) the greatest baseball player in the history of the sport (shut up, you know I’m right) Barry Bonds. Bonds had originally been drafted by the Giants in the second round of the 1982 amateur draft, his father Bobby Bonds had been a perennial all star for the Giants, and his godfather Willie Mays was the greatest baseball player in the history of the sport, up til Bonds, for the Giants so it seemed like a perfect match. But as rich Baseball owners are wont to do, the Giants tried to lowball Bonds with a 70,000 dollar offer to forego college, Bonds wanted 75k so he went to Arizona State and was subsequently drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Bonds at this point (in 1993) has already won 2 MVP awards in his six full seasons, but has also won very few friends in the game of baseball. The Pirates beat writers voted him “Most Despised Pirate”, and after a disappointing loss in the 1992 NLCS vs the Braves, Bonds opted for free agency and signed for a then ludicrous 6 year 43.75 million dollar deal, the biggest contract in baseball.  

Today’s Game:

It is Monday April 26th, 1993 and here at Veteran’s stadium it is 54 degrees and raining. For every kid who grew up in the Delaware Valley, this is the weather we associate with the worst memories of April. Where it should be warm and finally nice, it is instead windy, rainy and cold, and we’re all still forced to go outside because it’s technically Spring.  Tonigh’s game started at 7:41 which is only important since the second and last game of the series tomorrow starts at 1.  The television broadcast is brought to you on PRISM (stay tuned for the Shane Black classic The Last Boy Scout after the game) with Chris Wheeler all game, but Jay Johnstone and Garry Maddox help alleviate the tedium. I tend to give Wheels a lot of unfair grief in this space due to his continued presence as sage broadcaster following the deaths of Richie Ashburn and Harry Kalas, but I’ve finally put my finger on why Wheels bothers me. Wheels is the kid whose dad goes up to people and says, “My kid knows everything about baseball. Ask him anything… go ahead ask” and then they sit there until you ask and the kid does know the answer. 

  

Watch for yourself at: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rblAgf_cOfk

The Line-up

CF Lenny Dykstra .

2B Mickey Morandini 6 game hitting streak

1B John Kruk

3B Dave Hollins

C Darren Daulton

RF Pete Incaviglia

LF Milt Thompson

SS Mariano Duncan

SP Ben Rivera

On the Mound:

Making his first start since April 14th is Bienvinido Rivera, who is currently for the year has a 1-1 record with a 6.48 ERA. This is only his third start of the year, but his previous effort was a nice 6 inning affair where he gave up 0 runs against the Reds while striking out 7 and walking 4. Rivera owns a pretty basic repertoire of fastball curveball, but if he is able to keep the ball down, he can be very effective.

Pitching for the San Francisco Giants is a future Phillie, a man by the name of Jeff Brantley. Brantley is a product of Mississippi State and has spent most of his career as a relief pitcher, making an All Star team in 1990. After holding Left handers to a .180 batting average in 1992, the Giants in desperate need for starting pitching decided to try Brantley out as a starter (he briefly auditioned at the end of the 92 seasons with 4 starts going 3-0 with a .44 ERA over 20.2 innings). The experiment has given the Giants some mixed results as he sits with a 1-1 record and a 3.45 ERA but 5.29 FIP over 15 innings. Brantley goes back to the bullpen after 8 more starts (not including tonight) in the 93 season never to return to the role again. In 1996, Brantley would lead the league in saves for the Cincinnati Reds, and in 1999 he would join the Philadelphia Phillies. His time in Philadelphia was terrible, to the tune of a 3-9 record 28 saves a 5.77 ERA and 5.27 FIP over two seasons (though the first season was only a month long after and injury shortened his year). Brantley is currently a broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds after a stint on Baseball Tonight for ESPN.  

Highs (Hopes) and Lows

Low, low, low, all the lows- The First Five and a Half Innings  

As New York Times bestselling author Shea Serano likes to remind people, “You can’t win a game seven without first losing three times.” And in that same vein, you can’t comeback from 8 runs without first giving up 8 runs. And that’s exactly what the Phillie pitchers did through the first six innings of tonight’s game in Philadelphia. As Lenny Dykstra puts it in the 1993 season video yearbook, Whatever it Takes Dude, “this was a nightmare, it was raining, and we were getting a big league butt kicking from the Giants.” Ben Rivera lasted only 2 ⅔ innings, giving up 4 runs (2 Earned) while walking 6 Giants and striking out 4 (he struck out the side in the first), relieving Rivera. Jose De Leon, didn’t do much to quell the fire by giving up 2 more runs (1 earned) with 3 more walks. On the day the Phillies pitchers would hand out 14 free passes to the Giants (1 intentional). “Everything they hit just seemed to find a hole” added Dykstra. The starting pitcher for the Giants, Jeff Brantley entered the game with two career RBIs and doubled his lifetime total with 2 more in tonight’s game with two hits of his own. The game gets so bad at one point, the person who taped the game on their vcr in 1993 starts tv surfing and misses an entire inning. 

High- Bottom 6th- Let it Begin

After spotting the Giants 8 runs, the Phillies offense finally decides to get to work in the bottom of the 6th inning as career reliever Jeff Brantley faces the line-up for the third time. Morandini walks to start the inning and moves to third on a John Kruk single. Kruk is then pulled from the game with an apparent hamstring injury, but Fregosi has already used back-up 1st Baseman Ricky Jord as a pinch hitter so Jim Eisenreich (who started 14 games at first base in 1991 for the Kansas City Royals and will go on to start 19 games at first base for eventual World Series winning 1997 Florida Marlins) is pressed into service. Morandini scores on a sac fly from Dave Hollins to finally put the Phillies on the board 8-1. After a walk to Daulton, Brantley hits the showers, and the Phillies score two more runs on an Incaviglia infield single and a Mariano Duncan double narrowing the game 8-3 when Wes Chamberlain pinch hit for the relief pitcher Bob Ayrault. The resulting play would really spark the fire for the Phillies, as Wes Chamberlain hits a shot right back to the pitcher Brian Hickerson, who snags it right out of the air for the third out of the inning. In an outburst of emotion, Hickerson spiked the ball onto the ground, and that really pissed off the Phillies.

“That was the wake-up call we needed” says Dykstra in Whatever it Takes Dude. Milt Thompson is quoted in William Kashatus’ Macho Row “I’ve never seen anything like that before. It ticked us off. And fired us up. We were destined to win after that.” The remaining Phillie fans, of the announced 17,000 who showed up for a cold rainy baseball game, decide to chant “Ass-Hole Ass-Hole Ass-hole” at Hickerson to end the 6th. 

High- Top 7th- Fregosi Playing Chess.

With the Phillies now trailing 5 runs in the 7th inning, Jim Fregosi makes a move that very few managers would make. With a Giant on third and two outs, Phillies’ reliever Mark Davis is facing off with GOAT Barry Bonds at the plate. For the season Bonds is batting .414 and is leading so many categories its humorous hearing Jay Johnstone list them all off. He hit a home run in his first game for the Giants and (spoilers) would win his third MVP in seven seasons when the year is all said and done. Fregosi intentionally walks Bonds (his fourth walk on the day btw), while down 5 runs with two outs. Larry Andersen said about the move in More Than Beards Bellies and Biceps "To me as a player, that move was a message. That's what we mean about being 'old-school,' a throwback team. We were trying to beat you right till the last out." This is the kind of stuff that Joe Maddon gets called a genius for day in and day out. I laughed so hard watching and Fregosi laughed (inside probably) when Davis retired Jeff Reed to end the inning. Fregosi would tell the media, "We still had a chance to win the game. It wasn't over."

High- Bottom 7th- Inch by Inch

New First Basemen Jim Eisenreich knocks home Lenny Dyskstra to make it 8-4, before the Giants decide to give out back to back walks to Dave Hollins and Darren Daulton to load the bases for Pete Incaviglia. It’s at this point (about 3 and a half hours of drinking into the game) that the Philly fans start to get really loud, and Incaviglia hits a tapper to 2nd baseman which promptly get thrown away for an error by Mike Benjamin to make it 8-5.

I should note that Wheel’s tv broadcast call of “Tapper to second and Benjamin BOOTS it and Incaviglia is safe!” is probably his best call of his career, and in fact this entire game he’s pretty great (which takes a lot for me to say). Thompson follows up with a two RBI single up the middle (just past the pitcher’s glove) to tighten the score 8-7. 

Low, but saved- Dave Hollins

Dave Hollins develops the yips in front of our very eyes in this game. After only committing 1 error in his last 51 games dating back to the 1992 season, Hollins commits 3 errors in this game, all throwing. His first comes after a nice stop, but he attempts to throw off balance to 2nd base and throws it into left field, his next comes when he’s thinking about a throw and the ball pops out of his glove. Further, Hollins gets so far into his own head (which is suiting given his nickname as “Headley” or “Head” for being a headcase), that he hesitates on an easy throw to second on a play which makes it impossible for Morandini to turn a double play. Now with Eisenreich at first base, Hollins is throwing the ball all over the place, Johnstone comments on Hollins’ throws, “Well at least (Hollins)’s is consistent he hasn’t had a good throw yet.” Eisenriech though is proving up to the task with some great snags, but after Hollins gains his third error of the game, the Giants have two guys on with Darren Lewis at the plate. What follows is that David West hits Darren Lewis. 100 percent, no doubt about it, David West hits Darren Lewis with a pitch.

Except… home plate umpire Randy Marsh (who may or may not have been the reasoning behind the name of the father of South Park character Stan Marsh) called it foul ball. David West then struck our Darren Lewis to end the inning. 8-7 GIANTS  

HIGH- Bottom 8- Tying Time.

With one out in the bottom of the 8th inning, Mickey Morandini “scoots” a ball into the right field gap for a triple to bring up Jim Eisenriech. Eisie had entered the game as a pinch runner in the 6th and delivered already with a rbi single in the 7th, and now comes to the plate as the go ahead run in the 8th. In the Phillies Clubhouse, the injured John Kruk is drinking beer and watching the game from the video room, and thankfully being filmed by Video Dan Stephenson who had the foreknowledge to grab a camera while Kruk was drinking. “I’m telling ya, Eisie is going to get another knock (RBI) and I’ll never fucking play again.” He is recorded as saying for Whatever it Takes Dude.

Eisie knocks in Morandini to tie the game at 8-8. 

Wild Rides

Tied at 8-8, Fregosi decides to stick with David West for a second inning as Mitch Williams warms up in the bullpen. West starts the inning with a walk but retired Matt Williams on a grounder before striking out Barry Bonds on three pitches for out number 2. Bonds ends his night going 0-2 with 2 strike outs and 4 walks. West then gives up another walk, the 13th and final walk of game given up by Phillies pitchers, before getting Royce Clayton to strike out to end the top of the 9th.

The Giants counter with the pitching version of John Kruk also known as Rod Beck. Beck along with Mitch Williams are the inspiration for Kenny Powers in Eastbound and Down played by Danny McBride, a mullet wearing, slightly overweight fireballer, Beck would make 3 all star teams in his career and finish top 10 in saves in 9 seasons, ending his career in 2004 a year after winning Comeback Player of the Year for the Padres in 2003. Beck would die of a cocaine and heroine overdose in 2007. Tonight though, Beck’s signature forkball completely flummoxes the Phillies hitters as he strikes out 4 of the 5 guys he faces and gets out of the 9th inning unscathed.

Extra Wild Rides

In the 10th inning with the game still tied, Fregosi opts to go with 39 year old Larry Andersen instead of Mitch Williams, who after warming up, joins John Kruk in the video room. Larry gets a pop up before allowing a single, and then strikes out the next two Giants to end the 10th leaving the game still tied.

Defensive replacement Juan Bell leads off the 10th and works a walk to get on base. Following back to back to pop ups by Dykstra and Morandini, once again Jim Eisenreich comes up to bat in a pressure situation. Eisie grounds a ball into the gap between short stop and 3rd base, but its fielded by Royce Clayton who tries to make a play at second, but like Dave Hollins earlier, throws the ball away allowing Bell to advance to 3rd and Eisenreich to 2nd.

In the video room, Mitch Williams tells the camera, “If it’s a wild pitch… we win”,

and Giants pitcher Gino Minutelli obliges the Wild Thing and throws a wild pitch allowing Juan Bell to score and the Phillies to win on a walk-off.  

Final: Philadelphia Phillies 9 (14-4) San Francisco Giants 8 (11-9)

Words of Wisdom from Wheels, Jay, and Garry

“Fans haven’t had much chance to boo this year, so some are taking advantage” -Wheels as Ben Rivera is being removed from the game. 

“Daulton can’t hit a 7 run home run hear so he’ll probably take one here”- Garry Maddox weighing the odds of Daulton taking a 3-0 pitch while the Phillies are down 8-1.

“You know what he would do. The next day he’d throw. A day after going 9, he would long toss right in front of you” Garry Maddox telling stories about how Steve Carlton was a machine of a human being. 

“He plays so shallow and he’s so good” Wheels is talking about Barry Bonds here, and reading the quote does not do justice to how good Bonds is. 

Final Conclusions

The Phillies complete a huge comeback against the San Francisco Giants, thanks mostly to Jim Eisenreich. In Kruk's book he writes about this game, If you enjoyed this wonderful blast from the past please feel free to share, like, or comment on it. The hope is to have more people watching 93 Phillies games on youtube and talking about it. So hit me up @Kevin_Seamus on twitter or @loudphilliesguy on Instagram. Join me next time as the Phillies head to the west coast to play a quick two game series against the San Diego Padres.   

April 17, 1993: Say It Ain’t Sosa

 April 17th, 1993: Philadelphia Phillies (8-2) at Chicago Cubs (5-5)

Say It Ain’t Sosa

An Introduction…

I’m the guy who has a backpack from college filled with every Philadelphia Inquirer Sports section from October 2008.  It’s crazy, but the Major League Baseball season was actually played in 2020, and the Phillies have done everything they could do to try to ruin my fanhood. So I’ve decided once more to go back in time and revisit the greatest season of baseball of my childhood, the 1993 Phillies.  Thanks to the internet and more specifically the saint who runs the ClassicPhilliesTV youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWb6dGkCnKBlrQLJAjZ-4-w), I’m going back and watching every 1993 Phillies I can find just like if it was 27 years ago (but with the internet)... Previously I attempted to go day for day with every Phillies game in the month of June, which was a bold idea but proved to be futile. Now the plan is to start from the beginning of the season and attempt 1-2 game recaps per week until we get to game 5 of the 1993 World series and then decide if I really want to torture myself with game 6. Come along for the ride to reminisce about the legends of John Kruk, Mitch Williams, and Darren Daulton, to mix the knowledge we have now, with jokes of how dumb things were then.  

Where We Last Left Our Intrepid Heroes (and Villains)

The Philadelphia Phillies have lost their second game of the season, putting their record at a very respectable 8-2 start. Manager Jim Fregosi is using multiple platoons to great success, but still as a sinkhole at short stop. They are first in the NL East, a game ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals.  

The Chicago Cubs are at a less auspicious 5-5 start under the management of Jim LeFebrve. The Cubs came into the 1993 season with a lot of question marks after failing to secure the services of their staff ace and future Hall-of-Famer Greg Maddux, as well as their best outfielder and future Hall-of-Famer Andre Dawson. LeFebrve is “Baseball’s first new age coach” according to Sports Illustrated saying that “ The Cubs do not have coaches they have pitching and hitting coordinators” the italics and condescension there within are all SI’s. The 2021 Red Sox just hired Jaseon Varitek as game day coordinator, and Miami Marlins unofficially have deemed their hitting coach their offensive coordinator. 

Today’s Game:

It is Saturday April 17th, 1993 at the Friendly Confines in Chicago, Illinois. Though it is much sunnier than the previous day it is a balmy 45 degrees in April.  Today’s game is on Sportschannel (an offshoot of Prism) which means our hosts for all nine innings are the venerable Andy Musser and former relief pitcher Kent “Tek” Tekulve. The Cubs are wearing uniforms this season that for the first time in their history provide the names on the back of the jersey. 

Watch for yourself at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjx5U72ctgM

The Line-up

CF Lenny Dykstra 11 Runs in first 10 games 

2B Mickey Morandini

1B John Kruk Leads the NL in doubles

3B Dave Hollins

C Darren Daulton .306 Lifetime Average in Wrigley

LF Milt Thompson

RF Wes Chamberlain

SS Juan Bell

SP Curt Schilling

On the Mound:

Taking the ball for the Phillies is Curt Schilling who on the year is 2-0 with a 1.59 era. His last start was also against the Cubs and he silenced them to the tune of four hits and a complete game shutout. With Schilling’s Hall-of-Fame candidacy being discussed currently (in January 2021) I’d like to step away from his playing record and his utterly disgusting public record since retirement and take a look at what his teammates  and coaches thought of him. Jim Fregosi was quoted as saying “Curt Schilling is a horse on the days he starts and a horse’s ass the four other days.” This quote in some form is also attributed to Darren Daulton. Kruk would later say, “Curt wants to be one of us but we won’t let him.” Curt would defend himself and his position on the team by saying things like, “I like to read books and they didn’t.” 

Pitching for the Cubbies today is Jose Guzman, a Puerto Rican native whose pitching arsenal consists of a power sinker, a split finger, and a change-up according to Tek. Guzman was the 1991 Comeback player of the year for the Texas Rangers, and followed the award with his best year as a professional pitcher in 1992, going 16-11 with a 3.66 ERA and 3.2 FIP. His last outing was against the Phillies where he gave up 2 unearned runs over 6 ⅓ innings of work. His first start of the year against the Atlanta Braves was arguably the best start of his career, taking a no-hitter into the 9th inning. It wasn’t until the last hitter the Braves had left, Otis Nixon, came up to bat with two outs that Guzman gave up his first hit of the game. For the 93 season Guzman has a 0.00 Era, with batters hitting .103 against him. During his career Guzman was four times in the top 10 in k/9 and twice top 10 in K’s, which is pretty cool.  

Highs (Hopes) and Lows

Low and Lower- 1st Inning- A Bad Start

After Mickey Morandini busted out of a 0-13 mini-slump with a double, Guzman walks the bases loaded with two outs and Milt Thompson at the plate. This is very familiar territory because almost the exact same thing happened in the previous game. Sadly, just like yesterday (in 1993) Milt Thompson grounded out back to the pitcher to end the inning with zero runs scored. Schilling then adds to the woes by giving up a lead-off home run to Dwight Smith (who came in 2nd in NL ROY voting in 1989), making the score 1-0 CUBS.

Low- Bottom 2nd- Ghost of Baseball future

To start off the 2nd inning, Schilling once again gives up a home run to a Cubs outfielder, Tek says of the home runs, “two guys you don’t really expect to hit a lot of home runs”. The second Cubs outfielder is a tiny little Dominican by the name of Sammy Sosa, who at this point is at the start of his fifth season in the Majors and with that home run has a career total of 38. He will hit 571 from this point until his retirement in 2007. Sosa is the poster child of the steroid movement and is the guy every one points to when they say you could take any player and make them a super star with steroids. It’s interesting that Bonds and Clemens continually get close to the 75 percent vote rate while Sosa continually gets less and less votes for the Hall. The argument has shifted to they’re all cheaters, to well Clemens and Bonds were really amazing but also used steroids.   2-0 CUBS

Low with a High Kicker- Top 3rd- The argument against Moneyball

The most basic tenet of the Moneyball ethos particularly if you only saw the movie, is that walks are good. Getting on base is extremely important when attempting to score runs, and runs are the reason you win baseball games. Billy Beane looked at on base percentage as an indicator on how to create runs, while other talent evaluators were obsessed with batting average. The basic principle (without taking other numbers into account) being that if a guy hits .300, but has an on base percentage of .312 (Peak Ben Revere numbers) he’s not as productive as a guy who hits .268 but with an on base percentage of .420 (hello Bryce!). The argument that developed against this (once again very basic idea) was that if your best hitters are taking walks instead of swinging, you’re taking the bat out of the hands of your best players. Which is what occurs once more with the Philadelphia Phillies, for the fourth time in 2 games the Phillies loaded the bases, and in three of those occasions both Dave Hollins and Darren Daulton, the number 3 and 4 hitters in the line-up, were walked. The heart of the order and the players most expected to knock in runs by doing the “smart” thing and taking pitches. On this occasion, Guzman decides to do the Phillies a small favor and throw a wild pitch to allow a run for the away team. But Wes Chamberlain then grounds out to third base to end the inning, with the Phillies once again failing to take advantage of having runners on base. The law of averages does say that the rest of the Phillies will start hitting in those situation and scoring runs,  two games is a very small sample size, but still this has been annoying. 2-1 CUBS  

Low then Lower then Lowest- Bottom 5th- The Anger Never Goes Away

These games happened 27 going on 28 years ago, but that doesn’t stop me from getting angry at managers, pitchers, or most importantly umpires. With two on and no outs, 3rd Basemen Steve Buchele hit a slow roller to Phillies 2nd Baseman Mickey Morandini, who astutely tried to tag out the runner, Sammy Sosa, as he attempted to get to 2nd base. The fiendish Sosa, dodged the tag, by very obviously running out of the base path and continued to 2nd. Morandini then threw to first base to get the force out at first. Except the umpire didn’t call out Sammy Sosa for stepping out of the base path, because the Umpire was only looking to see if Morandini had made the tag (which he did not).

And since this is 1993, the umpire can’t look like an idiot and reverse his decision, because it would make him look like an idiot, and since since this is 1993, there’s no video review. Fregosi comes out and yells for ten minutes, but it doesn’t matter, the Cubs get an extra out and extra base runner. Unsurprisingly as these things go, the Cubs will go on to score four more runs in the inning to make it 6-1 CUBS. 

Low then a little High- Top 7th- Here we are again

The Cubs call to their bullpen and immediately load the bases by walking Phillies for the 5th time this series. For a change of pace, John Kruk the three hole hitter is up to bat, for a terrible twist, he then hits into a 1-2-3 double play. Like literally pitcher to catcher to first. Some solace is achieved when Hollins follows up with a double scoring two Phillies to tighten the game 6-3. Since I’m actually in 2021, it’s impossible for me to imagine a scenario where a Philadelphia Phillies team could possibly overcome a 5 run deficit. 

Wild Rides

The Chicago Cubs Closer Randy Myers is a perfect 8-8 on save attempts against the Phillies, and his only two saves this season are against Philadelphia. Dykstra walks to provide some excitement, but then Morandini strikes out on a bad pitch.

Let's go ump.

Kruk sacrifices Dykstra to second on a nubber in front of the plate, but the game ends when Dave Hollins strikes out. Randy Myers improves to 9 for 9 against the Fightins. The Phillies lose their first series of the season and their first consecutive games.

Final: Philadelphia Phillies 3 (8-3) Chicago Cubs 6 (6-5)

Words of Wisdom for Andy and Tek

“The Plate looks the size of a postage stamp and seems about 50 miles away” Tek is commenting on a Cubs pitcher who walks the bases loaded. I enjoy metaphors.

“Saves them a big sewing bill.” Musser talking about how Rockies decided not to put their player’s names on the back of their jersey. 

This isn’t a quote, but Jim Lefebrve wears batting gloves while he coaches… why?

Final Conclusions

The Phillies continually get the bases loaded, but fail to make the most of those opportunities and lose again 6-3 to the Cubs. If you enjoyed this wonderful blast from the past please feel free to share, like, or comment on it. The hope is to have more people watching 93 Phillies games on youtube and talking about it. So hit me up @Kevin_Seamus on twitter or @loudphilliesguy on Instagram. The final leg of the 3 game set is scheduled with Danny Jackson facing Terry Hibbert (whoever that may be), we’ll just have to see when I write it.