Michael T. Regan

This morning the Daily News ran a story entitled “History shows Phillies ace Hamels will be fine by Opening Day,” a piece which basically asked several member of the Phillies organization if they were worried about the state of their ace. The Phils said no, so the DN closed the case. Hamels‘ velocity is down? No worries, they say, the Phillies tell me he’s A-OK.

Money quote:

So the Daily News posted up behind the backstop of Robin Roberts Field at the Carpenter Complex yesterday afternoon to observe Hamels pitching against a group of Phillies minor leaguers managed by Class A Clearwater manager Ernie Whitt against a squad managed by Double A Reading manager Steve Roadcap.

Are you sitting down?

Yes! Hamels is not throwing consistently at 91 to 92 the way he did while establishing himself as the Phillies’ staff ace last season. But . . .

No! There is no evidence that anybody involved is concerned, not even a little bit.

One of the surest signs that there really are no silent alarms are going off in the executive bunker at Bright House Field is that there was no battalion of front-office types who tore themselves away from the real game against the Cardinals to watch Hamels. If there had been even an iota of worry, the big cigars would have been out in force.

The story quotes Hamels saying not to worry about anything, Chris Coste looking at Hollywood’s past production (or lack thereof) in previous springs, and Rich Dubee telling reporters not be concerned. It ends with this:

They aren’t [concerned]. And, apparently, nobody else is, either.

Everyone was so not worried, in fact, that the team sent Hamels to Philadelphia today to have his arm checked out. Best I can tell, Zolecki broke the story online.

Look, Hamels might be fine – the team has historically handled him with kid gloves and maybe the check up was at his request, but this type of reporting is absolutely absurd. Hamels was throwing 81 yesterday, which is way, way below his mid-season form — a point I know because it was dismissed out of hand in the middle of the article I just quoted.

It’s a minor story, and the error itself isn’t a big deal, but if the Daily News is devoting the energy and resources to housing and staffing a handful of guys down in the trenches at spring training for the sole and express purpose of staying on top of the World F. Champions they can’t get something as painfully obvious as this wrong.  Everyone jokes about Dave Spadaro working for the teams, but how is it any better to literally report on what they’re told instead of what they see? Hamels was throwing 81! You know who was concerned about that? Fucking everybody. I mentioned the fact with no context to a friend in another city and got back this response:

“not good” – a reaction which turned out to be about a million times more spot-on than that of an entrenched reporter.

This reminds me of the story of the man who, when caught in bed with another woman, denies everything exclaiming “who are you going to believe? The man you married or your lying eyes?” and smirks as he gets away with it.

Dear god, journalism, I’m trying to stay in your corner, get out of bed with the enemies.

In unrelated news the Podcast is scheduled to debut this week …

And now, the links:

• Lenny Dykstra: Douchebag. The saga continues, this time in a GQ profile from The Players’ Club’s old photo editor.

• Speaking of Dykstra, his old pal Jim Cramer took a few shots from Jon Stewart recently. I know that video has been making the rounds, but the full interview really is worth a view.
  

• Empirical evidence that home court advantage is not what it could be.

• Looks like Michael Strahan has done it again. This time he’s starring in what appears to be an In the House remake. Ugh

• Bait never let that happen.

• I’m dangerously late on this one, but Meech pulled the goods on the Sarge Matthews / Barack Obama bromance.

• Tim Malcolm reaches way way back to talk Sherry Magee.

• John Finger has high praise for Albert Pujols. Jose Alberto might just deserve it.
  

We’re working through our brackets today and should have plenty, plenty on the greatest three weeks in sports throughout the week.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Afternoon Rounds, Hollywood, WFC, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.