The winners of the Internet Baseball Awards — essentially the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie and Manger of the Year awards as chosen by stathead fans — were announced of the last two days.

More than 1,200 ballots were cast in this year’s installment. The hometown nine  fared well in the National League though, much like this year’s post-season, nobody took home any hardware:

MVP:

Chase Utley and Ryan Howard finished 4th and 10th respectively in the MVP voting.
Jayson Werth (20),  Raul Ibanez (24) and Cliff Lee (28) also made showings

Cy Young:

Cliff Lee finished 9th in the balloting, which is not bad considering he put in less than a half season of work in the red pinstripes. J.A. Happ placed 16th with Cole Hamels clocking in at 19th.

Rookie of the Year:

This was a nailbiter, as J.A. Happ finished 2nd to the Braves’ Tommy Hanson in a photo finish. Happ racked up 5,473 points to Hanson’s 5,487. To my knowledge, no other Phils rookies received votes.

Manager of the Year:

Charlie Manuel finished 4th, behind Jim Tracy (whose miraculous reversal of the Rockies season was deserving of praise even if his handling of the NLDS was not), Joe Torre (who’s kind of coasting on reputation at this point) and Tony LaRussa (see Joe Torre).

As if you didn’t know: The Phillies won a tense game 5, forcing a game 6 tomorrow night in New York wherein Pedro Martinez will get a second chance to end the “who’s your daddy?” chants once and for all.

Also, SEPTA called an audible, announcing a 3 a.m. strike shutting down all city subway, bus and trolley service, essentially holding true to the letter of their word to not striking during the World Series home games. Yes, yes, we support the union’s right to strike, but tell it to the people waiting at bus stops at 5:30 this morning.

So we’ll take this opportunity to share a word with the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia who suggest you “Bike the Strike”:

PHILADELPHIA - November 3, 2009 - The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia urges SEPTA travelers to bike instead of driving. Commuters who bike will win out over those stuck in traffic jams of epic proportions.”Avoid the crush and bike the strike,” says Alex Doty, Executive Director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. “Bike the Strike to save time, money and help shrink your waistline.  Plus, I guarantee you will have more fun than anyone trying to drive during the strike.”

In cooperation with Philadelphia’s Office of Transportation and Utilities, the Bicycle Coalition has established a Bike the Strike station at City Hall (Dillworth Plaza). The station has bike parking corrals, free coffee, bike maps and Bicycle Ambassadors on hand to give tips on bike commuting and personalized route planning.

Keeping safe while bicycling is critical.  “Bicycles are considered vehicles, so we also urge all bicyclists to obey the rules of the road,” said Education Director Breen Goodwin.  “It’s important for all bicyclists to be civil, courteous and comply with traffic laws, such as walking their bikes on sidewalks and stopping at all signals, to ensure the everyone’s safety.”

More biking tips after the jump: (more…)

Jim Horwat

Click image to see full print.

Jim Horwat, our favorite Phillies-loving, smile-crazy illustrator — the man behind last year’s championship-celebrating tribute/collage — is back with a 2009 print featuring all the stars of this year’s run and Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett. Oh, and it’s also got HK and the Phanatic done up like some kind of Mayan priest.

This year’s print is full color and available in a signed and numbered first edition on Horwat’s web site. Do some early x-mas shopping and maybe buy the Phils a little karma tonight.

Dunno if it was the shaky first inning by Joe Blanton, the continued struggles of Ryan Howard vs. lefties, the reliance on the solo home run, the uncanny ability to convert a 2-on-nobody-out opportunity into a goose egg, or the almost comically preordained bullpen collapse that was most emblematic of the Phils season.

Last night’s World Series game 4 had a little bit of everything for your local neighborhood Phils cynic. Let’s not forget that while the Phillies are indeed a very formidable team, they’ve got their weaknesses — and almost all of them were exposed against the best power pitching and power hitting money can buy.

• CC Sabathia — his inability to do anything with Chase Utley notwithstanding — continued to make Phils lefties Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez look look like Rico Brogna and Travis Lee.
• Joe Blanton, a yeoman 4th starter, despite a sick run from the second inning into the fifth where he painted the corners deftly, was undone in a fifth inning where nobody hit the ball all that hard, but, given Blanton’s lack of an out pitch, was unable to drop the hammer and end an ill timed two-run rally.
• Charlie Manuel, despite finding himself in a situation — tied at 4 in the ninth after an improbable Pedro Feliz tying shot — where he might be facing extra innings, decided to not try to get another inning out of his best/most durable reliever, Ryan Madson, and went to Brad Lidge in a situation that called for perfection.
• In a bit of irony too rich for words, when the Phils employed a severe defensive shift against Mark Teixeira — the same one used so often against their own Ryan Howard — they got burned on a steal of second wherein Johnny Damon kept running right on down to an uncovered third base.
• Of course, then there’s the mystery of why Brad Lidge stopped throwing his slider — his best pitch and possibly the best pitch on the entire staff — while facing Johnny Damon in the first place, but Brad Lidge mysteries could fill a book at this point.

Did I miss anything?

Courtesy of Laurel Hill/West Laurel Cemetery

Here’s an official MLB urn from the West Laurel Hill Cemetery, although it’s sold at other funeral homes as well. For $650, you can spend eternity with the Phillies, purchased from the final resting place of early Phillies owner Alfred James Reach, Ben Shibe (who created the two-piece cover baseball), his sons Thom and John who helped Connie Mack out with the A’s and, of course, HK.

Hoodie | Birdland/The Fightins

Beat NY: What they can’t buy, we’re gonna take

Running a little behind on this, but tell us who’s gonna win the World Series and how:

Yesterday our own contributing sports editor  E. James Beale sat down with Daily News sports editor Josh Barnett on Marty Moss-Coane’s Radio Times to talk about the World Series. Listen below.

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Philly Boy Roy, in his natural habitat

Last night, in the early moments of The Best Show on WFMU, PBR made a bold prediction: It will only take one game for nem Phightens to humiliate nem Yankees and win the World Series.

This led to a very improbable bet between the show’s host Tom Scharpling of Newbridge, North Jersey and Philly Boy Roy Ziegler of Roxborough.

Also discussed in this clip:

• Lipstick City, Barney Miller and Raul Ibanez guitars
• The appropriate age to begin dropping the F-bomb
• The Cin-A-Bon/milkshake deathwish
• Spinal Tap, Drum Power and WaWa Records
• An army tank driving through a lake of fudge pudding
• The time Peter killed a grip on the set of the Brady Bunch
• Whether pimpin’ is easy or not
• Whether it’s OK to put Peanut Chews into piñatas
• Whose bathroom area hurts

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As if one Phillies song - last week’s blast from NeeKo, “Ill State of Mind” - wasn’t enough, here’s one that’s one that’s a little more sporty: “Unstoppable” from Guerilladelphia.

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Guerilladelphia, made up of Don McCloskey, Chuck Treece (Bad Brains, McRad) and Tom Spiker (Kellis) came into effect after McCloskey watched the Phils beat the Colorado Rockies in the first round of the playoffs, then called Treece and Spiker to record what he’d written.

And then the real work began.

• Like phone calls to out-of-town Philadelphia natives G. Love and Kufie (in Boston at the time, they added vocal and harmonica  tracks).
• Getting Jay Davidson, Larry Toft and Patrick Hughes to add horn parts
• Playing a raw demo at the North Bowl and snagging Phil Nicolo to mix the victory track.

That teamwork’s even better than what you see on the field. Get it for free at  guerrilladelphia.com.

We wholeheartedly endorse any zeitgeist-riding/meme-fucking that involves turning Kurt Vile’s “Freak Train” into a paean to Carlos Ruiz. Extra credit for the Matador/Black Taco logo mashup.

(h/t Jon Solomon)

Last night’s game 5 between the Angels and the Yankees was a thriller, a back-and-forth affair reminiscent of game 4 of the NLDS between Philadelphia and Colorado.

It also popped a big ugly hole in the mystique that the American League teams are somehow inherently better than their National League counterparts. This was a game riddled with sloppy play, bizarre managerial decisions and bullpens as shaky and flaky as, well, as the Phils’ was most of the year.

How afraid are you of a manager who’ll pull his ace starter in the 7th to let Darren F. Oliver (Darren Oliver!) face Mark Teixeira?

How afraid are you of a manager who’ll pull his most dangerous hitter — and one who’s actually pretty fast — for a pinch runner in the top of the ninth while trailing by a run and when his run would only tie the game?

How afraid are you of Brian Fuentes? Of Phil Hughes? Of C.C. Sabathia for that matter?

In celebration of last night’s epic walk-off victory with this pretty astounding Sporcle quiz: Name, in 15 minutes, every player to ever appear on an opening day lineup for the Fightin’ Phils in the last 22 years.

Why 22? The quiz creator doesn’t explain the methodology, but it looks to me that the 1988 lineup contains some of the last vestiges of the Phillies’ late-70s/early-80s glory years. Following the lineups through the years is an oft-painful remembrance of the ugly rebuilding years of the early ’90s and the ugly rebuilding years of the late’90s/early aughts.

Without taking the quiz first, can you name the player that shows up most frequently, and one of the players who appears just once?

The memes are flowing fast and furious here in Red October. In our inbox today: The Cliff Lee Clutch Bar, a send up of the Clif energy bar and an homage to the Phillies’ postseason ace.

Still in search of a source of this bit of graphic noodlery, which has been up on the Cliff Lee Facebook fan page since. Oct. 7 but which no one seems to be taking credit for there.

What’s the best Phillies meme of this post season?