Sneaky Like a Ninja

Phinally.

by Brian Howard

Baseball snuck up on me this year. Usually I'm the guy who counts down to the day pitchers and catchers report to spring training. Who, by this point in the season, has already drafted between two and five fantasy baseball teams. Who generally agonizes over who will be the 25th man on the Phillies' roster. Baseball's been my life as long as I can remember.

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And this year? None of that. In fact, I had to be reminded on Tuesday that the season had opened (albeit in Japan).

Am I just not a fan anymore? Hardly. I got all teary watching Goosebumps: The Phillies 2007 Video Yearbook the other day. The memories of the surging Phils besting the free-falling New York Mutts for the National League East title are still crystal clear.

I could chalk it up to being busy: My new gig around here eats up a lot of my time, I'm closing on a house and my sister's about to get married, meaning my entire family is descending on the city this weekend.

(An aside: My sister's fiancé is named Ryan, a former pitcher for St. Joe's. My sister's last name is, of course, Howard. They're both huge baseball fans. They've invited Ryan Howard, whom neither of them actually know, to the ceremony. I'm really hoping he shows up.)

But the real reason I haven't been paying that much attention? The Phillies — who open their season Monday at Citizens Bank Park against the Nationals — have had a real boring off-season. And that's actually sort of nice.

No, they didn't go out and trade for the best pitcher in baseball. (That was the Mets, and after last season's collapse, they kind of had to.) They didn't sign an aging centerfielder to a long-term contract that has no chance of being a value by its end. (The rebuilding Giants, inexplicably, did in luring Aaron Rowand from the East Coast.)

They didn't really do anything flashy. Or desperate. Or foolish.

They had a smart, sleepy off-season. They said goodbye to Rowand, who will be missed, and a bunch of guys who won't. They picked up a handful of players who, unless you really follow the game, you've probably never heard of but who, nonetheless, should improve on last year's team.

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Rather than dwelling on getting swept last year in the playoffs by the en fuego Rockies, the front office remembered that this relatively young team, with three homegrown MVP candidates in the starting lineup (Howard, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley) and two could-be aces in the rotation (Brett Myers and Cole Hamels) should be in the thick of things for at least the next few years. It should be a matter of tinkering.

I just cracked William C. Kashatus' Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies (University of Pennsylvania Press), which focuses on the years between 1976 and 1983, a stretch during which the Phils won one World Series, two pennants and five divisional titles. It's more history than analysis, but in reading it, it becomes clear that the team that won three divisional titles from 1976 to '78 but was unable to advance to the World Series isn't so dissimilar from the current roster. Homegrown nucleus coming into its prime: check. Spark-plug shortstop: check. Dominating left-handed starting pitcher: check. Headcase closer: check.

But while the '70s version, as the folklore tells us, needed the addition of Pete Rose to show them "how to win" in 1980, it's hard to cast the current crew as underachievers. If Howard is this team's Mike Schmidt, Rollins its Larry Bowa and Hamels its Steve Carlton, then Chase Utley is its Rose, at least in the win-at-all-costs, leave-it-all-on-the-field sense.

As E. James Beale discovers in our season preview, division rivals the Mets have significantly bettered themselves with the addition of Johan Santana. But they also have demons to exorcise. And the Phillies, barring serious injury or some sort of catastrophic regression to the mean, should be right in the thick of it again.

The long, boring off-season is over.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)