CP Special Projects Editor Brian Howard is the type of guy who thinks baseball is still relevant in Philadelphia, and that people are far too negative when it comes to their hometown team.

But George Armistead, a friend of CP photographer Michael T. Regan, says enough's enough. Sick and tired and not willing to take any more of the losing, George has been urging his friends to boycott the team this year.

So what better way to ring in the new season than to pit them against one another, all Hannity and Colmes-style?

—Brian Hickey

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Brian Howard: Why should we support this team?!? You mean other than that it has the most likable homegrown infield (David Bell notwithstanding) this town's ever had? If you can't look at a double-play combo like the one we've got right now (Rollins to Utley to Howard!) and not want to scream till your lungs bleed, you should have your pulse checked.

You mean other than the fact that it's got a bulldog of an ace-in-training, in Brett Myers, heading the rotation? That fellow homegrown favorite Ryan Madson is finally getting his crack at the starting rotation? That we've got a quartet of kids with electric stuff and who are varying degrees of oh so close to putting it all together in the majors: Cole Hamels, Gio Gonzalez, Gavin Floyd, Robinson Tejeda?

You mean other than the fact that its opening day outfield (Pat Burrell, Aaron Rowand, Bobby Abreu) could be among the most productive in the majors?

You mean other than that we've now got a GM who was able to take a potential disaster (the Jim Thome/Ryan Howard first-base logjam) and turn it into a positive in a way that seemed light years beyond the scope of former GM Ed Wade?

Even if you don't buy into any of that, you should support this team because maybe if the Phils win something, the current ownership will cash in and sell to an ownership group with a clue.

George Armistead: We have been supporting this team for eons, and what has it gotten us? Two postseason appearances in the last 24 years. Now for a small-market team like Kansas City that might barely qualify as acceptable, but not here. There are plenty of dollars floating about for this organization to build a winner, but here we sit still waiting to see the first signs of construction.

The owners made virtually no effort [to improve the team] in the late '80s and '90s because they were coasting on a fan base with unwavering loyalty. That loyalty started to flag as the new ballpark neared completion, and then they spent some money—but most of it on the wrong people.

For most of their tenure, these owners have shown no interest at all in fielding a winning team. When they have put some effort into the task it has only been when backed into a corner, such as when we built them a new ballpark or when the season ticketholders threatened not to re-up at the end of last season.

Neither should we forget that this is the losingest franchise in sports history. Now, the current ownership can only take credit for about the last 30 years of that, but they have certainly done their part to put the fightin' Phils in a position to be the first sports franchise ever to lose 10,000 games. Mind you, they have done all this while making lots of loot for themselves.

The Phillies organization does not support the city of Philadelphia, so Philadelphia should not support the team. They have been lining their pockets with our loyalty for too long, so let's not hand it out so gratuitously anymore.

BH: When the Minnesota Twins can go from within an inch of being contracted to winning their division three years in a row; when the Red Sox and White Sox can, in consecutive years, end championship droughts that were closing in on triple digits; when the Oakland A's can make the playoffs four years in a row with a microscopic payroll—when all these things have happened just within the last decade, I think it's safe to say there's no such thing as a lost cause in baseball. That said, I think a new ownership group would do wonders for this team, as I think all the good will created by the Carpenter family has long since been burned by the current group.

GA: The Phillies are not a lost cause if we don't allow them to be, but we must take responsibility. Until we initiate a full-scale boycott of the team and force the ownership to sell it, then baseball will continue to be an embarrassment to the city. When played right, baseball is the most beautiful game in the world. [Since the 1994 strike], MLB has evolved into a very flawed game. They started lacing the balls tighter because then you hit more home runs and that was "the only way to get the fans back." Then, they compounded this by building little tiny ballparks all over the country. Now we've got watered-down pitching, plenty of steroids and still no salary cap. With all this, how good can baseball really be?

BH: No. He's a star right now. He still needs to learn to hit lefties better, but even if he doesn't, he's a major talent. He seems to be one of those guys who, even though he strikes out a little bit more often than you'd like and doesn't walk quite as often as you'd hope, just seems to "have it."

Further, Baseball Prospectus, using their fancy-ass PECOTA algorithm, ranks him as the 24th most valuable player in all of baseball in terms of projected value over the next five seasons—significantly behind folks like Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Alex Rodriguez, but ahead of Derek Jeter, Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones.

GA: Ryan Howard is absolutely a future star and is one of the few bright spots this organization can point to. (The only other is Chase Utley.) But even a broken clock is right twice a day. Now that the Phillies farm system has been allowed to shrivel and die, we will have little else to look forward to for a long, long time. That the owners would sit by and let Ed Wade carve up and mutilate our minor league teams the way he did is criminally negligent.

BH: I see this as a year when 88 wins (what they had last year) could get you the wild card. I think this is the year the Braves finally fall out of first in the National League East, and they'll be replaced by either the Mets or the Phillies. One will win the division, the other the wild card.

My guess: 90-72, playoffs. I refuse to predict beyond that, because as we've learned time and again, anything can happen, and usually does, in a short playoff series.

GA: With Pappy Manuel doing the navigating, no Billy Wagner, a catcher that can neither catch nor hit and a frighteningly unknown starting rotation, if anybody thinks we are going to be better than the '05 squad, they are sadly—and I mean depressingly sadly—mistaken.

Final record: 72-90. That ought to be good enough for fourth or maybe even last place in the division, familiar territory for this organization.