An epic achievement

No, not King James' performance of "My Lebrogative" on the ESPYs. But this:


Thats right. It's Von Hayes, who to better represent the Phillies 10,000th loss. Well known as part of the 5 for 1 541 deal in the '80s in which the Phils traded away such luminaries as Manny Trillo, George Vukovich, Jay Baller, Jerry Willard, and Julio Franco (still alive!).

That little factoid is one of many hilariously stupid chapters that make up the Philadelphia Phillies long and sordid history.

Here is one such story. It's no blowing a 6 game lead with 10 to play in 1964, or shitty owner William F. Baker building a giant fence over the right-field wall so hall-of-fame left-handed hitter Chuck Klein wouldn't challenge any of Babe Ruth's home run records, because then Klein would deserve more money that Baker didn't want to pay, or even some idiotic Ed Wade move (Pat Burrell).

No this is back in the halcyon days of 1993, when the Phillies rode steriod-fueled Lenny Dykstra, psychotic misogynist Darren Daulton, two-nutted John Kruk, "Wild Thing" Mitch Williams and a bunch of other yahoos to the brink of a World Series championship. There's no need to rehash what happened.


Sidenote: My Joe Carter hate manifested itself while I was in college and said slugger became the terribly bad color man for the Cubs. I remember one particular instance, when they were playing the Phillies and Carter described a middling Phillies starter thusly:

"Robert Person is a man who loves life itself."

Anyway, this tale is from Game 4 of said Phillies-Blue Jays series. The Phillies had a 14-9 lead in the eighth inning of a rainy, ridiculous game.

Actually lets back up: I remember sitting the the 700 level of Veterans Stadium, putting on a poncho, when Dykstra hit his second home run of the night in the fifth inning. It was the moment that got me through the strike in 1994, besides maybe momma thope cheering the Phils to a World Series championship in 1980 with yours truly in utero.

Needless to say the Phillies lost game 4. By now most of the memories have faded into an idle distrust of Tony Fernandez, Todd Stottlemyre and Paul Molitor. But that moment, when the rain was coming down and the crowd was rising up ... well, it defies description.

So here's video of Veteran's stadium imploding.
It's about the same feeling.