The Wind-Up

This year's Phillies spring training has been boring, and that's a good thing.

by Brian Howard

Got an e-mail from my pal Alex, publisher of Grid and the baseball fanatic I was sitting next to at Citizens Bank Park when the Phillies clinched their second straight NL pennant last October. The message said, essentially: "I'm so busy, I don't even know when opening day is." Baseball season (the Phils open their schedule in Washington against the Nationals April 5) snuck up on me, too. I'm generally one of those nutbag fans who geeks out poring over organizational depth charts all winter. And yet this season, I've been pleasantly oblivious to what's happening down in Clearwater. It probably has something to do with the two straight World Series appearances. Because you don't tend to lie awake nights fretting over whether your team is good enough to become a dynasty the way you do when your team hasn't won anything in years. But I think this malaise stems mostly from the fact that not a goddamned thing is happening — at least nothing particularly interesting is happening — at the Carpenter Complex this year.

This is not a bad thing. Sure, Roy Halladay's new in camp, but he's a stone-faced straight shooter (read: boring). Placido Polanco's new, but he's also old (and he's always been boring, too). With every job in camp, save for last man in the rotation and last men in the bullpen, having been decided in January, Phillies camp has been a snooze — in a way that Yankees fans of the late '90s can probably appreciate. Playoff-tested professionals quietly going about their business in preparation for a seven-month battle of attrition doesn't make for great headlines, but for fans who'd endured the early-year foibles of Darren Daulton and Lenny Dykstra (the drunk car crash in 1991) and Robert Person (who was hog-tied in the back of a police car in 2001) and Brett Myers (a veritable stupid magnet), this calm, cool, collected camp is a welcome respite.

For those wishing for a more eventful spring, consider the Mariners camp, where last year's Phils ace Clifton Lee has been: suspended for the season's first five games after throwing at someone in a meaningless spring game; sidelined with an abdominal strain; and waylaid by minor foot surgery. (Is Cliff acting out? Did Ruben know something we didn't?) And there's always the Mets, who, two weeks before opening day, have more roster spots up in the air than decided and a star shortstop sidelined with a freaking thyroid condition.

So what we're left with is this: schadenfreude. Which is, like looking through a one-way mirror, really hard to get used to. Especially here in Philly.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

At the beginning of each baseball season, The Clog runs its Predictatron contest and invites CP readers to weigh in on how they think the hometown nine's gonna finish the season. The winner gets bragging rights forever. Play at citypaper.net/clog, category: The Phightins.