With Bart as the Halftime Guest. . .

When I was a regular viewer of The Simpsons, I'd get some of my biggest laughs out of the show's media satires. Whether it was Kent Brockman hosting Eye on Springfield or Rainier Wolfcastle (star of the show's fictional "McBain" series of movies) playing the Mel Gibson part in a Lethal Weapon rip-off, the segments, often so brief as to be afterthoughts, were concisely drawn moments of pristine comic genius. What made them so funny was their over-the-top yet not out-of-the-question nature; while clearly this wasn't how things were, you easily could imagine them getting there someday.

Someday has arrived.

Viewers watching ABC's coverage of last night's Eagles-Buccaneers stinker were greeted at the outset by a bit with Sylvester Stallone hurling body blows into a heavy bag and saying to Philadelphians: "New day, new house, new season. Are you hoping for the best? Are you prepared for the worst?" Not some guy playing a Rocky Balboa knockoff -- the actual Sylvester Stallone, looking cut and nimble. (And, actually, the piece was his best performance since Cop Land.) I sat on the couch, Homer Simpson-like, and blinked my eyes silently, not quite believing what I was seeing.

In addition to several pages of game coverage, the Inky and DN weigh in with tame pieces on the Monday Night Football telecast. Disappointingly, neither Larry Eichel's account nor Bill Fleischman's editorializes much, and Fleischman really pulls his punches when it comes to sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero. I thought Al Michaels was his usual professional self, but John Madden demonstrated yet again why he's a better video game marketer than analyst. Out of coaching for nearly 25 years, he remains on the country's top-rated football broadcast not because of his talent but his persona. Madden trips over his words constantly, repeats himself incessantly, and throws in a "Boom!" or "Pow!" here and there to distract viewers from his utter lack of coherent expression. All of which would be fine if you got some, you know, football knowledge along with it. But Madden seems more interested in being Mr. Funny Guy -- remember his eight-drumstick Thanksgiving turkey? -- than Mr. Football Guy.

The less said about Guerrero, the better. It's one thing to be a lightweight -- many sideline reporters are -- but at least have the talent to fake it for three hours. Guerrero was embarrassingly out of her league. In addition to being better looking, Melissa Stark, whom ABC dumped once she got pregnant, brought a quiet competence to her work. Guerrero's contributions were vapid and useless. Kent Brockman would have been proud.

Phillies Phollow-Up

One night after Kevin Millwood coughed up a 4-0 lead en route to a 6-4 loss at Turner Field, the Phillies are in the process of trashing the Braves tonight. It's 13-2 in the sixth, and Randy Wolf seems to be in command. The Marlins, meanwhile, who are deadlocked with the Phils in the wild-card race, plated two in the top of the ninth and lead the Mets, 3-1, at Shea in the bottom of the ninth.

Jim Thome has crashed 39 homers thus far, and his two RBI tonight give him 109 on the season. His dingers are works of art, really, soaring parabolas that arc through the sky and leave vapor trails in their wakes. While conceding that Albert Pujols and Barry Bonds are the likely National League MVP contenders this year, the Inquirer's Phillies beat writer, Todd Zolecki, makes the case for Thome, saying, "Thome has been extremely valuable to the Phillies this season, posting MVP numbers on a team in the thick of the National League wild-card race." The Daily News's Marcus Hayes offers Atlanta's Gary Sheffield as the long-shot candidate.

Finally, the Inky's Jim Salisbury, writing from Atlanta, chips in with a weak effort that tries (and fails) to illustrate that despite the Braves' huge divisional lead over the Phils, the current series still means a lot to both teams. After all, the Phillies are trying to win the wild card, and the Braves are chasing individual achievements. Sorry, Jim, but the reason this was going to be so special was that it was to have decided the division winner; with that tension gone, this is a much more routine set. Important, sure -- but every game is important to the Phillies now. They could be playing the Padres and the games would -- or should -- mean something.

R.I.P., Excitable Boy

Warren Zevon lost his valiant battle with cancer yesterday. While I can't claim ever to have been an enormous fan of his music, I always felt a little bit sorry that most people's exposure to it consisted of watching a pompadoured Tom Cruise lip-sync to "Werewolves of London" while pirouetting around a billiards table in The Color of Money.

This seems something of a shame, because Zevon was by most accounts an accomplished musician, and to delve even slightly into his catalogue is to appreciate his knack for writing dark, smart, cockeyed tunes. "Werewolves of London" very nearly reaches the level of novelty song; take a listen to "Excitable Boy," "Lawyers, Guns and Money," "Tenderness on the Block," "Carmelita," and "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," to name just a few worthy efforts, and you'll hear his true wit emerge. Zevon died just weeks after releasing his final album, the well-reviewed The Wind. In his own quiet, strange way, he'll be missed.

Phillies 5, Mets 4

Scoring single runs in the eighth, ninth, and 11th, the Phils came back to beat New York last night and retain their one-game lead over Florida in the wild-card race. Playing a sloppy game in front of a national television audience, Philadelphia notched its first victory of the season after trailing entering the ninth. With the bases loaded, the white-hot Marlon Byrd dropped a Texas leaguer into shallow right over a drawn-in infield to score the winning run.

If you're keeping score, that makes nine wins and just one loss since Larry Bowa's Montreal detonation. And the win pushes the Phillies to 15 games over .500, matching a season best. In other words, it's as if the heinous Milwaukee/St. Louis/Montreal self-destruction never happened.

Much of today's local sports coverage is devoted to various previews of the Eagles' season opener on Monday Night Football against the Buccaneers tonight. As a result, both papers check in with little more than game stories and sidebars noting the Phils' upcoming road trip to Atlanta and Pittsburgh. Sam Donnellon, though, shakes his head and marvels at the Phillies' pluck in today's Daily News. Comparing the team to another institution that somehow manages to keep on keeping on, he writes: "Five decades after she appeared on Ed Sullivan, Cher's still here, still singing, still wearing those clothes that suggest something, but show nothing. A nuclear survivor. Nineteen games left and the Phillies are still here, too. Kicked, stepped on, given up for dead like a bug trapped under a shoe. And still alive."

Diamonds Aren't Forever

A few readers have pointed out that the posts on Shallow Center have been very baseball-heavy lately. They're right, of course. This is the result of having a playoff race to experience and write about -- Phillies fans know what a rare occurrence this has been over the years. Throw in the unexpectedly high level of off-field drama and you can see why it might be hard to delve into other topics, given the limited amounts of time my duties as a husband, father, and employee afford me.

Please know that your comments have been noted. I do intend to turn my attention to music, movies, TV, books, and other sports as soon as possible. Also realize that once baseball season ends, there will be that much more opportunity to get away from the diamond.

Until then, do keep rooting for the Phillies, who are down a run to the Mets after the eighth at the Vet tonight. A win for the home nine would give the Phils six victories in a row and nine of 10 since the ugly sweep in Montreal. It also would allow them to stay a game up on the surging Marlins in the wild-card race.

Happy Birthday, Baby

Back in the day, when I was launching this little effort, I promised not to write anything resembling "a Bob Graham-like daily diary of my life's most mundane details." While I'm not going to tell you what I had for lunch today, I am going to take a break from the usual postings, in part to explain why there was no new content yesterday, even after the Phillies won their fifth straight.

The youngest member of the Shallow Center household turned 2 yesterday. Those of you without children may not think much of this fact, but parents know how amazing it is.

To look at my daughter -- 2 years old, sweet, funny, energetic, bright, beautiful, full of spirit -- is to regain my hope in the world. It is to see how she seeks and accepts love, attention, and approval, and is so quick to offer them as well; how she forgives my shortcomings as a father; how staggeringly quickly she learns. It is to know that I would give absolutely anything I possess, up to and including my own life, to make her happy and safe.

Parenthood is not for everyone, and those who don't want children should never be made to feel bad about it. But for me and the missus, our daughter is a gift. She is an unqualified and absolute joy, and where once I would have considered only the hardships and sacrifices involved in being a dad, today I recognize it for the privilege it is.

Thanks for your indulgence while I digressed from the usual nonsense. Taking the day off from posting here was more than mitigated by watching my little girl begin her third wonderful year of life. Happy birthday, sweetheart.

Phillies 6, Mets 5

The boos began as soon as Jose Mesa emerged from Veterans Stadium's right field bullpen and started trotting toward the mound. They intensified when public address man Dan Baker announced his appearance in the game to begin the ninth. With the Phillies up by a run and Mesa's disastrous appearance against the Red Sox Monday still fresh in many fans' minds, the crowd was in no mood for another bullpen high-wire act.

Too bad, because that's what we got.

Leading off the top of the ninth, Prentice Redman, in just his eighth major league at-bat, whacked a Mesa offering into the netting of the leftfield fair pole. The crowd really let Mesa have it at that point. The Phils' soon-to-be-former closer whiffed another Met no-name, Jorge Velandia, before Timo Perez blasted a rocket off the right field wall; the ball was hit so hard that Perez had to settle for a long single.

Larry Bowa popped out of the dugout with surprising speed and agility. But his stroll to the mound was long and leisurely, allowing the crowd to deluge Mesa with wave after wave of verbal abuse. This wasn't the scattered, disappointed rumbling that moves through the Vet when Pat Burrell punches out with the bases loaded; no, this was loud, sustained booing, the kind for which we've become famous.

New guy Valerio De Los Santos -- and how pathetic is it to shore up your bullpen by raiding the Brewers' relieving corps, for crying out loud? -- retired the Mets without further incident.

Happiness returned in the bottom of the ninth. Marlon Byrd walked and was sent to second on Jimmy Rollins's second beautiful sacrifice bunt of the game. After Bobby Abreu made an out, unlikely cleanup hitter Mike Lieberthal (eight home runs) dropped a single to left-center, scoring Byrd without a throw and sending the Phillies to victory.

Somewhat lost in the shuffle was a strong outing by Randy Wolf, who allowed just four hits and two earned runs in seven innings; Rollins's three-run blast to left in the fifth ; and Jason Michaels's pinch-hit homer in the seventh.

More important, the win kept the Phils tied with the Marlins, who had defeated Pittsburgh earlier in the day, in the National League wild-card race.

Shallow Center Goes National!

Thanks to Baseball Musings and Baseball Blogs for their respective listings of Shallow Center on their sites. The former is a mostly quick-hit and reasoned collection of thoughts on baseball news and games, posted even while they're in progress; the author is David Pinto, the former lead researcher for ESPN's Baseball Tonight. The latter is a listing of baseball blogs broken down by team, as collected by Web developer and baseball fan Todd Muchmore. Check them out when you get a chance.

Well, Maybe I'll Yell at an Umpire for a Change. . . .

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how Larry Bowa's first-inning ejection is deconstructed, but from my seat in the 300 level, it didn't look smart. The AP story filed tonight has Bowa going to the wall for his ace, saying, "Millwood doesn't ever complain. Ever. They were all strikes. I'm going to stick up for him. He's our No. 1 pitcher."

Geez, what to make of that? After the previous week's mess, much of which focused on how many times per game various Phillies mentally tell Bowa to conduct an anatomical impossibility upon his person, here comes Larry, the Players' Manager.

Yeah, okay, but the one thing that umpires absolutely will not tolerate is questioning of balls and strikes. By going off in the first inning on Alfonso Marquez in a game against a divisional foe and wild-card rival, Bowa furthers the public perception that he's an out-of-control problem child who doesn't work or play well with others. And what good does the early thumb do for his team? Umps don't look kindly on being called out as Marquez was, and if there were any make-up called proffered to even things out, I didn't see them. If Bowa did it to fire them up, he's just plain stupid; if last week's verbal thrashing in Montreal failed to accomplish that, getting booted in the first sure won't.

I'm not saying the guy shouldn't offer his full support to a pitcher the team is desperately hoping to re-sign in the off-season. But aren't managers supposed to be able to work umps in more subtle and beneficial ways than showing them up between the mound and home plate?

An aside: Since the Canadian discussions -- manager with players, players with each other -- the Phillies are 5-1. And there is ample opportunity to pad that figure, as the hopeless Mets come to town for a four-game series that begins tomorrow; I'll be there for my final regular-season game at the Vet.

Phillies 8, Expos 3

Veterans Stadium's final businessperson's special sure didn't begin on a promising note. After punching out Brad Wilkerson and Orlando Cabrera to open the game, Kevin Millwood walked Jose Vidro and Vladimir Guerrerro on close pitches. Wil Cordero followed by slamming a ball over the leftfield wall.

After Ron Calloway took yet another borderline ball, Larry Bowa strolled out for a visit with Millwood, and right away you knew something was up. Home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez must have thought so, too; instead of allowing Bowa some time to say his piece to Millwood, he stomped almost immediately to the mound, where Bowa immediately engaged him in an animated discussion. Seconds later, Bo was tossed, though he stayed around a minute or two to bob his head furiously and blister Marquez's eardrums while shadowing him back to the plate.

Montreal starter T.J. Tucker, meanwhile, set down seven straight Phillies before Todd Pratt, playing for Mike Lieberthal, poked a line-drive homer to left. Tomas Perez and Millwood were retired, and then the Phils put five on the board with two outs. Unlike last week's debacle at Stade Olympique, there was little doubt that the Phillies would make this one hold up.

Millwood settled down after his shaky first and plowed through the Expos with ease, departing after eight innings in favor of Carlos Silva, who pitched an easy ninth. The Phillies tacked on insurance runs in the fourth and sixth, but they weren't necessary. After being swept by the Marlins in Miami and losing to the Phils last night, Montreal played with little fire this afternoon, and the Phillies cruised to a thoroughly professional win. Lousy weather kept the crowd relatively sparse, yet the 18,000 who attended managed to make a fair amount of noise.

The Expos, like the rest of the National League wild-card contenders, failed miserably to take advantage of Philadelphia's and Florida's recent slumps, and now, five games behind the Phils, seem relegated to wondering where the hell they're going to play next season.

Red Sox 13, Phillies 9: The Aftermath

Lots and lots of Philadelphia sportswriters jammed the press box at Veterans Stadium for yesterday's implosion against Boston, and the media criticism of Larry Bowa is approaching critical mass:

* The most interesting Phillies season in 10 years has brought out the best in the Daily News's Bill Conlin, whose stuff has been terrific lately. His column earlier today, another sharp effort, notes that Bowa's dissing of Tyler Houston as "a loser" is a slap in the face to the guy who signed him -- his boss, GM Ed Wade.

* In the "This is News?" category, Bill Lyon of the Inquirer sympathetically describes Bowa's old-school ways and sneeringly dismisses the whiny, me-first, current generation of players before informing us that the gap is insurmountable and should lead to the manager's sacking.

* Paul Hagen, one of four Daily News writers at the game, takes a closer look at the fifth inning, when Bowa burned through three relievers, depleting the bullpen by the time the ninth rolled around. "If Bowa hadn't gone for the kill four innings earlier, he would have had some more options," Hagen writes. "Instead, his hands were tied by then. It could have worked. It didn't."

* Inquirer baseball columnist Jim Salisbury, who got into a shoving match with Jose Mesa a few weeks ago, offers that the Phillies really need their beleaguered closer down the stretch. Uh, really? Only Mesa and the inconsistent Carlos Silva have "closer's stuff," writes Salisbury. If a static, low-90s fastball and a breaking ball that rarely is thrown for a strike count as closer's stuff, the Phils really are in trouble.

* Sam Donnellon of the DN points out that not only is Bowa disliked by his players, he has no sustained record of success on which to hang his hat. So you can't even say they grudgingly respect him because of his past managerial achievements. Cutting guys like Tyler Houston is one thing, writes Donnellon, but if Bowa is the subject of Pat Burrell's pouting and can't win a public vote of confidence from Jim Thome, "this dream of a string of championships is not going to work." Donnellon continues: "Right now, [Bowa] seems to be more of a problem-maker than solver. . . . Larry Bowa has a month left to prove there is method to his madness and not, as it appears now, the other way around."

So, in sum, Larry Bowa can't get out of his own way. He trash-talks about his boss in the press. He has no clue what makes players in 2003 tick. He doesn't know how to work his pitchers properly. He keeps giving the ball to a closer whose best days are at least two years behind him. And the team's two highest-paid players trip over themselves to sell him down the river. Hmm -- it all sounds vaguely familiar. . . .

Meanwhile, Baseball Prospectus's Postseason Odds Report gives the Phillies a 47.3 percent chance of winning the National League wild card; the only other team in double digits is the Marlins, at 31.6 percent. I've no clue how accurate the good folks at Baseball Prospectus are, but I'll be at the Vet tomorrow and Thursday to see for myself what kind of September the Phils are in for.

Anyway, as of 10 p.m., Chase Utley's bases-loaded triple has given the Phillies a 5-3 lead over the Expos in the eighth; Florida, which just swept Montreal in a four-game set to take a one-game wild-card lead, lost to the Pirates, 3-2. So the question is: Who comes in to finish this one? Stay tuned. . . .

As the Vet Turns

Our Phillies sure are considerate. Not only have they provided us with a pennant race, they've given us a soap opera to watch! Woo-hoo!

Last week brought the ruinous Montreal leg of the two-week road trip, the lowlight of which was Larry Bowa's clubhouse detonation. The cliched players-only meeting followed. In New York Friday night, Pat Burrell bashed a two-run homer, then pointedly returned to the middle of the dugout instead of the more typical route -- to the end closer to home plate -- thereby avoiding Bowa's congratulatory handshake.

The next day, the Phillies released baseball's best pinch hitter, Tyler Houston, one of the team's so-called Bench Dog. Phils brass cited Houston's clubhouse grumbling over a lack of playing time and worried privately that he was a bad influence on Burrell. In an interview with the Courier-Post, Houston savaged Bowa, saying that his team hates hit guts and that the players' meeting resulted in a commitment to band together in spite of the manager, not because of him. The Phillies, Houston maintained, resented such an uprising and needed to make an example of someone -- and he was it.

Bowa responded by calling Houston "a loser" and telling reporters to ask Jim Thome whether the players dislike him. The Phillies' $90 million man sidestepped the question more than once, asking reporters to focus their queries on what happens on the field.

Oh, yeah, meanwhile the Phils were busy sweeping the Mets. Terrific starting pitching, from Kevin Millwood, Randy Wolf, and Vicente Padilla, carried the day, and the rest of the team chipped in with timely hitting, nifty fielding, and a lot of fundamentally sound play. The series at Shea brought the Phillies home on an upswing for a week's worth of games -- a makeup today against the Red Sox, a pair with Montreal, and then a four-game weekend set versus the Mets.

Sixty large were at the Vet to watch the Phils take on Boston, and they saw a corker. Brett Myers, whose locker-room feud with pitching coach Joe Kerrigan was part of last week's drama, quickly coughed up a four-run lead and lasted just four innings. The teams traded leads several times through the course of the game, but the Phillies seemed to sew it up with three in the eighth -- a pinch-hit solo shot by Ricky Ledee tying the score and Thome's liner to right plating the go-ahead two runs.

Jose Mesa, supposedly all straightened out, came on and promptly got into trouble. Yeah, he got squeezed a lot by the home plate umpire, but still. Closers close, no matter who's calling balls and strikes. Instead, Mesa loaded the bases, then gave up an infield hit that brought the Sox to within a run. Turk Wendell, reliable all season long, was summoned, only to walk in the tying run and get rocked by Trot Nixon for a salami to right. Final score: Boston 13, Phillies 9.

Given a golden opportunity to slingshot into a big homestand with crucial momentum, the Phillies coughed it up. Fourteen walks. Ineffective starting pitching. A bullpen collapse. No runs after beginning the seventh by loading the bases with nobody out.

So, just when we thought last week's clown show had left town, we look up to see the anointed closer again wearing a red nose and big shoes.

Is this any way to win a playoff spot?

Must Bo Go?

The rumblings about Larry Bowa's fate are beginning to get a little louder. Bill Conlin started the whispering a couple of weeks ago, but with the Phillies' 2-9 (so far) road trip, the voices are coming into greater clarity. After all, the Marlins have slumped at the same time, and going merely .500 on the trip -- an entirely reasonable prospect, given three games against the Brewers -- would have left the Phils with a five- or six-game lead in the wild-card race. But the team's puzzlingly lackluster and uninspired play, at a time of year when they should be thrashing and tearing every inning, has focused greater attention on Bowa's shortcomings as a manager.

The thinking goes: He can't connect with a generation of players who don't approach the daily grind of the season with the same consuming passion he did as a shortstop. He has no clue about handling his pitchers, and seems not to care. (Bowa's early hook of Kevin Millwood a few weeks back helped to spur rumors that Millwood would seek to sign elsewhere once his contract expires, at the end of this season; he has denied the rumors.) He fails to use the Phillies' speed effectively.

More: Bobby Abreu stole a meaningless ninth-inning base -- giving the Cardinals an open first base, to which they happily sent Jim Thome, taking the bat out of his hands -- and faced no sanction at all for his ill-advised play. Bowa stuck with out machines Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, and David Bell way too long. Rollins's presence at the top of the lineup for so many weeks -- and, specifically, his woeful inability to reach base consistently -- crippled the offense by robbing big guns Abreu and Thome of RBI opportunities, while Burrell will likely finish the season hitting around .200. And Bell was off all season after getting nicked in spring training and trying to play through it; he may not play again until Citizens Bank Park is overcharging me for beer.

Some of these criticisms are fair; others wouldn't matter if the Phillies had been able to drive some runners home with men on base. Regardless, perception is reality, and what people are starting to say is that Larry Bowa may not be the long-term answer at the Phils' helm.

Dissecting the team's slump, Paul Hagen wrote in yesterday's Daily News that Bowa and general manager Ed Wade have been at odds over how much to rely on young players. Bowa loves veterans, while Wade has been pushing guys like Marlon Byrd and Chase Utley. Both men have emphatically denied any rift, and Wade yesterday loudly affirmed his support for Bowa.

Yet the voices get louder. ESPN.com's current power rankings column puts the Phillies in the middle of the pack and says it's time to jettison Bowa. Locally, Phil Sheridan, in today's Inky, notes that players' dissatisfaction with Bowa extends well beyond any clubhouse tirades. Enough of his former charges have grumbled about "a steady erosion" of professional respect, Sheridan writes, "that there must be something to it." With Bobby Knight-style iron-fisted leadership fast fading in favor of "managing egos," Sheridan concludes: "It is fair to wonder how long Bowa's flint-and-steel approach can work. The way things have gone the last two weeks, it's fair to wonder whether it's working even now."

Bowa complains, somewhat rightly, that when things were going well he didn't seem like such a bad manager. And yet it's been obvious almost since the beginning of the season that the Phillies either have underachieved or were never quite as good as we were led to believe. Yes, the team is in the thick of a playoff race, as we hoped they'd be at the end of August, but all year long the Phils have seemed play below their capabilities. Simply put, it feels as if they should have won more games than they have.

As Conlin noted in his piece, the clock ticks on a manager the day he's hired. It's the nature of the beast. Bowa was a spectacular failure in his first big league managing gig, with the Padres, and had to wait many years before being given another chance. He claimed to have heard all the voices telling him to calm down and to realize that today's players can't be bullied. And yet. . . .

Fiery managers can still succeed. Lou Piniella won a lot of games in Seattle, even after the departure of Alex Rodriguez, while throwing bases and scowling through entire seasons. But he knew when to tone it down. Bowa never appeared to have learned that lesson, and while he may have been the right guy to blast the Terry Francona-enabled lethargy out of the Phillies three years ago, today he looks to me like the wrong guy for the job.

Thar She Blows!

A couple of nights ago, in the middle of the night, the missus misread the numbers on the clock radio and, thinking it was wake-up time, retrieved the youngest member of the Shallow Center household when she began to fuss. By the time the missus discovered her error, I was too awake to fall back asleep swiftly. Tired, cranky, and certainly not at my best, I picked a petty fight at 1 in the morning and eventually woke up feeling so bad about my boorish behavior, I apologized for it.

All of this is to explain that I understand why Larry Bowa finally unleashed his fury on the Phillies, who after Thursday's blanking by the Expos were 1-9 on their awful road trip and had fallen into something like a six-way tie for the National League wild-card spot. When things aren't going well, it's easy to, ah, externalize your frustrations.

Bowa peeled the paint off the Olympic Stadium visitors' clubhouse walls with a profane outburst directed at his underachieving team. Shortly thereafter, young, headstrong, and talented starter Brett Myers got into it with pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who reportedly has irritated his staff by suggesting the Phillies' recent struggles are due in part to a failure to follow his plan. The pitchers said in anonymously sourced stories that they resent being micromanaged and criticized in the media.

Both Rich Hofmann and Phil Sheridan predicted Thursday's detonation would be the season's turning point. Writing in Friday's Daily News and Inquirer, respectively, each suggested that the team either will take Bowa's diatribe to heart or will finally turn on him and mail it in for the rest of the year. Everybody's story -- beat writers, columnists, wire-service guys -- noted that the explosion came only hours after Bowa had awarded himself a gold star for not having blown up before then.

The long-term effect remains to be seen, of course, but last night, after limping into New York, the Phillies pasted the Mets, 7-0, behind Kevin Millwood's three-hit effort. Pat Burrell, who morphs into Ted Williams when he walks into Shea Stadium, powered a two-run homer, and -- this being the completely hapless Mets -- there was no danger of a comeback similar to the one staged by the Expos earlier this week.

Today's game stories also point out that a couple of unnamed veterans conducted a players-only meeting on the bus to the Montreal airport. On the record, Jim Thome and Millwood called the meeting very helpful. One wonders whether the Phils decided to give Bowa a team-wide F-you and prove him wrong by turning it on for the season's final four weeks. Hey, whatever works.

Traveling Travails

The Phillies, nine games into a make-or-break, two-week road trip, have become a car accident. Desperately wanting yet unable to avert your eyes, you are compelled to watch as they stagger across North America and find ever new ways to lose games.

In Montreal, the Expos minutes ago completed a three-game sweep to draw to within a game of the Phils and Marlins, who are undergoing their own troubles these days. Also a game back are the Diamondbacks and Cubs; the Cardinals are a half-game behind them. And the light-hitting Dodgers are just two games out of the wild-card lead.

After Monday's night's blowout, the Phillies last night endured what must be the most heartbreaking regular-season loss I've ever witnessed. Leading 8-0 and 10-3, Philadelphia imploded in a flurry of bullpen failures and lost, 14-10. Tonight, the Phils battled back from a 6-1 deficit to tie the game on Marlon Byrd's grand slam, only to see the overworked relievers again fail to hold on. Expos 9, Phillies 6; the home nine are now 1-8 after dreadful series in Milwaukee and St. Louis and nearly at the end of the Montreal trip, which concludes today with a day game. Next stop: Shea Stadium for a weekend set with the Mets.

It is time, finally, to scale back expectations on this group. All season long, the Phillies have struggled to find consistency. Earlier in the season, impressive starting pitching covered up for a puzzling lack of offense; lately, the starters have struggled, negating an improvement at the plate. My mistake was to assume that the off-season additions and the team's reasonably solid start meant an automatic playoff berth. The reality is that the Phils simply have too many holes to warrant such consideration; they will have to thrash and tear their way into the wild-card slot. Expectations are a hell of a thing, and as the Fightin's are vividly illustrating, tamping them down can be easier on the fan base.

Even if they do make the playoffs, it will be just barely; Ed Wade cannot afford to stand pat this winter. Changes will have to be made if the Phillies hope to challenge the Braves as the class of the division.

Montreal Mauling

There's no shame in losing two of three to the Cardinals at Busch. But taking into account an inexcusable sweep in Milwaukee and last night's savaging by the Expos, the Phillies have begun the most important stretch of their season in awful fashion. Playing less like a team in the playoff hunt and more like the Phils of old, waiting for golf season to start, they've won one of their last seven. Worse, on the surface, anyway, one senses little urgency from anyone but the manager, and even Larry Bowa's comments have the feel of a guy going through the motions. The home nine have been much more fun to watch than in previous years, and it's wonderful to be debating playoff chances in late August -- but this problem has been going on all season. (See "The Sounds of Silence.")

Amazingly, for as bad as the recent slump has been, the Phillies awoke this morning to find themselves in a first-place wild-card tie with the Marlins.

Looking at a half-full glass, the Inquirer's Bill Lyon points out today that as flawed as the Phils are, they appear less flawed than the teams chasing them. ESPN the Magazine's Tim Kurkjian, writing Friday, agreed, noting the Phillies had begun to hit and that their "starting pitching is pretty good."

In Montreal last night, however, the DN's Rich Hofmann argues for the half-empty glass, accusing the Phillies of spending this season as they have seasons past -- taking the safe, nurturing path instead of making bold moves. Promoting Chase Utley instead of making a play for Aaron Boone, and patching holes with Mike Williams and Amaury Telemaco rather than seeking better arms on the trade market, Hofmann writes, make Florida and Arizona the wild-card favorites.

Each viewpoint has its merits, and the typical Philadelphian in me is inclined to side with Hofmann. But to look at the race dispassionately is to see the Phillies are the best and most balanced team in the hunt. They may not win the wild card, of course, but they've put themselves in the best position to do so. Now it's just up to them. (Cue ominous background music. . . .)

Bowa on the Block?

The fallout from the Phillies' jaw-dropping sweep by the Brewers has manager Larry Bowa questioning his players' toughness after yesterday's loss in Milwaukee. Of greater interest is the Daily News's Bill Conlin launching what is, to the best of my knowledge, the first open speculation that Bowa's job might be in jeopardy.

Conlin, whose baseball work this year has been really good stuff, after a few years of mailing it in, notes that the Phillies are making the kind of mistakes that eventually come back to the manager. Additionally, Bowa's handling of his pitchers and his slumping $50 million man, Pat Burrell, has come under quite a bit of scrutiny.

Bowa's hiring was meant to serve as an antidote to the Terry Francona era of player coddling and soft management. To be fair, he's done a nice job over the last few years kicking the young guys in the ass when they need it, and the Phillies, even when their talent wasn't up to the task, hung around in a couple of divisional races. But this is a different team -- older, more veteran, and, perhaps, no longer as receptive to Bowa's brand of intense leadership.

After all, you can get yelled at and abused only so many times before you start to tune out. Especially if you have a guaranteed contract that brings you wealth beyond your wildest dreams.

Players should play, regardless of what they're being paid and whom they're playing for. But Bowa increasingly is looking like the kind of manager who can get the Phillies to the brink of success without pushing them over. Hmmm -- Joe Torre always seems on the verge of a falling out with George Steinbrenner. Think he'd be interested in coming down the Jersey Turnpike for a few years before retiring to his inevitable broadcaster's gig?

(Completely irrelevant aside: How funny is the Seinfeld episode in which Steinbrenner (played by Larry David, filmed from the back) calls himself "Big Stein"?)

Cover Your Eyes

The Phillies just got swept by the Brewers. This is not a misprint.

The 5-2 loss at Miller Park was as gruesome as it was disheartening. Mental mistakes and a continuation of the team's season-long inability to hit consistently in the clutch doomed the Phils to an embarrassing loss, one that at this moment draws Florida into a first-place tie in the wild-card race.

In the eighth inning alone, Tomas Perez turned a single into an out when he overran first base on an infield hit, juked toward second when the throw went wide, and was tagged out by Richie Sexson after turning and strolling back toward first; then Tyler Houston was pegged trying to turn a Texas leaguer into a double, when the pitcher covered second in place of the two infielders converging on the pop fly.

An inning earlier, with the Phillies down by a run, Bobby Abreu eased into third on a softly hit single to right, only to be waved around. The delay proved costly, as Abreu was punched out at home and turned his ankle to boot.

What a sad way to start this brutal stretch. Three ghastly losses to baseball's third-worst team -- this is unspeakably bad stuff. Unacceptable, really. Milwaukee obviously came to play, while the Phils, perhaps expecting the Brewers to roll over and throw their paws in the air, offered a passionless, wussy performance that earned them a broom out of town. May they be forced to drink the Miller Brewing Co.'s bland swill as penance on their charter to St. Louis.

You Can Not Be Serious!

I'm not one to channel John McEnroe, but it's simply impossible for a Major League Baseball team to lose two straight games to the Milwaukee Brewers. Yet the Phillies, the playoff-contending Phillies, with their two best starters on the hill, have dropped a pair to the awful Brew Crew at Miller Park. It's an extraordinarily inauspicious start to a vicious road trip that has the team away from the Vet for two weeks, and without a day off for nearly a month.

On Tuesday, with Kevin Millwood starting, the Phillies battled back from an early deficit to tie the game in the eight, but failed to grab the lead despite loading the bases with no outs. In the bottom half of the inning, pinch-hitter Mark Smith (all together now -- who?) crashed his first homer in nearly two years, a three-run shot that put the Brewers up for good. Final score, 6-4

Last night, Randy Wolf was hammered for seven runs on seven hits in four and a third innings, and the Phillies left a staggering 18 men on base in a 10-1 loss.

It's been a season-long conundrum: How can the team that looked so balanced and professional in sweeping the Cardinals be the same squad that can't get out if its own way against Little League-level Milwaukee? Damned if I know, but if they don't figure it out, Larry Bowa & Co. will be pulling out their 7-irons sooner than they hoped.

Luckily for the Phils, the Marlins are on a tough trip of their own, the dreaded Colorado-San Francisco swing (followed by three games against the Bucs at PNC Park). The Rockies did the Phillies a favor by pummeling Florida twice, so the Phils retain their half-game wild-card lead. For now.

Wayne's World

Tom Hanks's charming little 1996 film That Thing You Do! took its title from the song recorded by an Erie, Pennsylvania, one-hit wonder that presciently named itself the Oneders.

The song is an impossibly catchy slice of musical perfection. It's played in pieces or in its entirely at least eight or 10 times as the film unspools, and not once does it get repetitive.

"That Thing You Do!" (the tune, not the movie) was written by Adam Schlesinger, who in his day job is part of the stellar North Jersey quarter Fountains of Wayne. FoW recently released their third CD, Welcome Interstate Managers, which has been jangling through my iPod headphones quite a bit recently.

If the music world had any justice, Welcome Interstate Managers would have gone quadruple platinum by now. The record is an explosion of guitar-driven power pop, tight harmonies, sweet, smart songwriting, and hooks whose addictive properties approach crack cocaine levels. FoW has produced a work of immaculate musicianship, an accomplished collection of songs that are clever without being smug and that bounce joyfully around your head all day long.

Welcome Interstate Managers has spawned a modest hit in the form of "Stacy's Mom," the record's first single. "Stacy's Mom" tells the story of an adolescent boy's crush on his friend's mother, and is vividly illustrated by the song's bright, cheery video, featuring a smoking-hot Rachel Hunter as the title character. It's a snappy, accessible song from a snappy, accessible album.

Indeed, Fountains of Wayne have long been critics' darlings. That label sometimes serves as a warning to casual music fans and non-nerds to stay away. (See Radiohead.) In this case, the reviewers got it spot-on. Impeccably produced and fun without being sophomoric, Welcome Interstate Managers marks a step up in FoW's showmanship and in its maturation as a band. The Oneders would be proud. Grade: A

Beef Kerry

John Kerry is a serious man. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a U.S. senator who is vying to represent the Democrats on the 2004 presidential ballot. No one has every questioned Kerry's smarts, conviction, or patriotism; you can disagree with his politics all you want, but it's impossible to say he's unqualified to lead the country.

Unless, that is, you pay attention to what happens at a corner in South Philly, where mayoral, gubernatorial, and presidential candidates annually traipse through for the ritual tasting of a cheesesteak from Pat's or Geno's.

(Never mind that each of these establishments qualifies as a tourist trap, and nothing more; if you want a real cheesesteak, you're better off at Jim's on South Street or Larry's on 54th Street or any of the scores of great neighborhood pizza and steak joints that dot the Philadelphia landscape as bagel shops do New York's.)

At Pat's last Monday, Kerry had the temerity to order his steak with Swiss cheese -- the horror! -- and then to ask that photographers refrain from snapping his picture while he attempted to eat it. A proper cheesesteak experience, as any Philadelphian knows, involves lots and lots of napkins, and if you're a Boston blueblood looking to increase your appeal to the common man, it can be a daunting challenge.

In fact, it was a challenge Kerry failed to master. He tentatively nibbled at his cheesesteak the way Survivor castaways delve into whatever stomach-churning creatures comprise the native cuisine of the land they're inhabiting. The senator was hit by a balled-up, greasy paper napkin from the Inquirer in a Tuesday sidebar to the paper's main story reporting on the Democrats' town meeting the previous day. The Daily News's Don Russell and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank(!) piled on in Wednesday's editions, and Inky restaurant critic Craig Laban, who was quoted in Milbank's piece, weighed in with his thoughts on the matter Saturday. Laban noted that he had been contacted by Good Morning America, and while I'm not a regular viewer of the show, I have to think his Herculean efforts to conceal his identity from Philadelphia's restaurateurs compelled him to turn down the invitation.

On one level, the amount of attention devoted to what the DN termed "Kerry's Mis-Steak" is patently ridiculous. This wasn't Michael Dukakis in a tank or George Bush the elder marveling at supermarket scanners. This was a forgettable photo op way early in the campaign, and one with absolutely no policy implications whatsoever. Had Kerry chowed down later in the week, the moment would have been lost among the countless broadcast hours and column inches logged by coverage of the Northeast power outage.

But on another level -- admittedly, a policy wonk kind of level -- the incident speaks in a small way to the senator's preparedness. The Pat's/Geno's voyage is a standard by now, and surely someone on Kerry's campaign staff would have discovered, through even a minimal amount of research, that Philadelphians may be quirky as hell, but we take our cheesesteaks seriously. (Too seriously, sometimes.) Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, a Penn alumnus and the city's former mayor, could have told Kerry that there is no dainty way to eat a cheesesteak, that in fact the sandwich tastes better the messier it gets.

After all, some would say, if we can't trust a guy with a cheesesteak, how can we trust him to safeguard the Republic?

UPDATE/8.19.2003/12:55 p.m.: Shallow Center's Washington correspondent e-mailed a reminder about a cheesesteak faux-pas committed by then-Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign.

On a stop in Philadelphia, Governor Dukakis, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, was giving his standard rally-the-troops stump speech. He tailored it to fit the location whose citizens he was addressing, and here in the City of Brotherly Love, he was attempting to get in good with us by referencing our delicious, legendary sandwich of choice.

The problem, though, is that he mixed up the pronunciation. The standard line was that when he won the presidency, he'd return to town to celebrate with whatever food marked the region's cuisine. So Governor Dukakis told the assembled throng that he was going to win, and then he'd come back to Philadelphia "and celebrate with a bottle of beer, and a cheesesteak!"

Yes, with the emphasis on the second syllable. As with John Kerry's Swiss cheese gaffe, even a minimal amount of research would have revealed that you pronounce it "cheesesteak," not "cheesesteak." More importantly, an alumnus of Swarthmore College shouldn't have needed to be told how to pronounce it.

Of course, then-Vice President George Bush went on to hammer Governor Dukakis in the November election. Coincidence?

Phillies 5, Cardinals 4

Earlier in the season, when the Phillies were reintroducing themselves to Philadelphia after an extensive off-season makeover, a group of young fans took to honoring one of the newcomers with a sign in the upper deck of the outfield that read "Thome's Homies."

I haven't seen that sign at Veterans Stadium in a while, but Jim Thome doesn't seem to mind. Last night, for the second straight night, Thome climbed out of the dugout for a curtain call after blasting a key home run, this one a bomb to centerfield that gave the Phils a one-run lead over St. Louis in the sixth. Mike Lieberthal followed Thome's at-bat with a poke into the leftfield bullpen, and his solo shot turned out to be the difference after the Cardinals plated a run in the seventh.

While Scott Rolen, who must want in the worst way to shut up the Vet's clueless, classless masses, made up for Friday's hitless night with a dinger and a double, the more significant storyline was the reintroduction of Jose Mesa as the Phillies' closer. A couple of weeks ago, after more than a season of living on the edge, Mitch Williams-style, Mesa turned in one cover-your-eyes appearance too many, and was shipped to Joe Kerrigan's We Fix Pitchers chop-shop. That he hadn't been yanked even earlier in the year was amazing; a limp fastball and a tendency to begin every ninth inning with a four-pitch walk have been Mesa's hallmarks over the last season and a half.

The Phillies closed by committee while Kerrigan tuned up Mesa, and they did a decent job in his absence. With the sound on my TV down, I wasn't able to hear the crowd's reaction when he strolled in from the rightfield bullpen to start the ninth last night. But when Mesa got the first strike on Albert Pujols, then threw four straight balls, I easily imagined the uneasy murmuring rippling through the stands. In many, many ways, that, and not anything churned out by Gamble and Huff, is the Sound of Philadelphia.

He recovered, though, inducing a popup out of Tino Martinez. That brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the form of Rolen, who, as noted above, had already had himself quite a game. To the delight of most of the 35,000 in attendance, Mesa, after giving up a couple of hard fouls down the left-field line, whiffed Rolen on a dangerous fastball just above the belt and right down the middle. Bo Hart then punched out on a breaking ball in the dirt, and the Phillies maintained their half-game wild-card lead over the Fish, who just refuse to lose. Credit Brett Myers with the win and, yes, Jose Mesa, Joe Table himself, with the save.

Amaury Telemaco returns to major league action for the first time in two seasons tonight, as the Phillies attempt a sweep of the Cardinals on national television. Telemaco takes Brandon Duckworth's spot in the rotation, and is attempting to complete a comeback from major shoulder surgery in 2001. A win would be enormous, a great chance to build momentum before a brutal two-week road trip and to bury St. Louis even further in the wild card standings.

Mainelining

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my vacation was a month ago, and whatever happened to the second book that I read? While Moneyball was a flawed but successful look at how a Major League Baseball team can succeed on a minor league budget, what did I think about Empire Falls, the novel I took in? Dozens of e-mails have demanded the answers to these questions, and I'm happy to report in.

Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winner is an atypically accessible work of literary fiction. As fine writing so often does, Empire Falls proves highly perceptive, offering insights into the heart and soul that rang so true I found myself nodding in agreement while reading on the train between New York and Boston. Yet Russo's prose is extraordinarily readable; Empire Falls is a Great Book disguised as a page-turner.

Much of today's currently lauded work comprises little more than artfully written character studies. The writing often is breathtaking, but once you close the book you feel more that you ought to have liked it than that you actually garnered real enjoyment out of reading it. Nothing much seems to happen, though the characters are always sharply sketched and brilliantly nuanced. E. Annie Proulx and Alice McDermott fall into this category, as would 80 percent of the stories that show up in The New Yorker. The stuff is worth reading, but the words feel vaguely detached, approaching sterility.

What makes Empire Falls so breathtaking is its humanity. Vividly drawn characters -- even the minor ones have their moments -- move through the book with a lot to say and do. The action moves briskly, and while you're reveling in, say, the middle-aged author's ability to channel the special brand of hell that makes up high school in 2003, 50 pages have melted away like an ice cream cone spilled on the blacktop.

The book tells the story of Empire Falls, Maine, a once proud and now-fading former company town whose destiny lies seemingly in the hands of an aging but strong-willed matriarch. The protagonist, Miles Roby, was one of the few people to make it out of Empire Falls, but returned before finishing college in order to care for his terminally ill mother; now, 20 years later, he's managing the Empire Grill, the breakfast and lunch place that's a second home to many of the townspeople. There is, of course, a dark family secret that manages to influence the characters' lives for decades; but mixed in among the heartbreak and tragedy are healthy doses of joy, hope, and compassion.

Shallow Center's self-styled Washington correspondent astutely points out that Empire Falls's signature strength is the obvious affection Russo has for his characters, and it's hard to disagree. From the opening page, he writes with extraordinary empathy about real people. There are no stereotypes here; everyone, from the corrupt, piss-ant, small-town cop to Miles's bitter ex-wife, is treated fairly and is permitted to display the full range of emotions and behaviors that comprise the human condition. That is, every character, no matter how major or minor, gets his or her full due. This is another significant departure from contemporary fiction, with its almost joyful rendering of the dysfunctional and its sneering dismissal of how men and women actually live their lives.

I never read Russo's novel Nobody's Fool, but the film version was an understated, sharp, and, yes, affectionate look at small-town life. Empire Falls seems more ambitious in its scope, and is a marvelous success.

The first writer who came to mind after I finished Empire Falls was Michael Chabon. His debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, was a well-written and solid, though not spectacular, look at young people in the Steel City. Wonder Boys, though, was completely fantastic, like Empire Falls a seamless merging of character, plot, and craftsmanship. Coincidentally, Chabon's own Pulitzer winner, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, sits on my nightstand to be delved into once I complete Charlie Pierce's collection of nonfiction magazine pieces, Sports Guy.

Phillies 7, Cardinals 4

Last night's victory over St. Louis was, I think, the kind of game a lot us envisioned the Phillies playing when the season began. Filling in for Marlon Byrd, Ricky Ledee led off the Phils' first with a dinger, and they went on to score four more times in the inning to take a 5-0 lead. Starter Vicente Padilla cruised for a few innings, then was touched for a pair of two-run innings -- including a monster, upper-deck roundtripper from Jim Edmonds -- as the Cards made it interesting.

With the home crowd restless, Jim Thome sealed the deal. His seventh-inning tater, a moonshot that just barely cleared the right field wall, gave the Phillies a comfortable three-run lead and earned the big fella a curtain call. Excellent relief work from Terry Adams, the rejuvenated Turk Wendell, and Dan Plesac nailed down the win, allowing the Phils to maintain their half-game wild card lead over Florida, which hammered San Diego, 10-0.

As noted yesterday, this series is an important one for the Phillies, and it was heartening to see them beat both a good pitcher in Woody Williams as well as a good team. Padilla, who appears as capable of throwing a no-hitter in any given start as he is of getting bombed before notching an out, showed exactly that form last night. The Phils could use much more consistency out of their No. 3 starter.


Boos' Clues

The Cardinals' trip to Veterans Stadium meant that Scott Rolen visited his old stomping grounds for the first time this season. And it gave Philadelphia a chance to display its pathetic inferiority complex yet again.

Look, the City of Brotherly Love gets knocked around pretty good by the national chattering class, and a lot of it is unfair. Folks in New York and Boston and Chicago and Washington and Los Angeles boo just as hard as we do, and occasionally as inappropriately. That's why it's so frustrating to hear sports commentators ragging on us when it happens at the Vet or at the CoreStates/First Union/Wachovia Center.

But once in a while, we deserve all the abuse we get. Rolen was booed, loudly and viciously, every time he came to the plate last night, and all because he had the temerity to not want to play for Larry Bowa, who in the old days would have been described admiringly by the press as "fiery" -- which in today's words means he's an a-hole. I've been watching baseball for 30 years now, and can think of no other Phillie who attacked the game with the kind of abandon Rolen did when he played here. He was exactly the kind of guy Philadelphians are supposed to love -- modest, from a middle-class background, loves his parents, doesn't showboat. Just comes to the park and plays his ass off, every game, every at-bat, every pitch.

But after making up his mind that criticism from Bowa in the Daily News and Dallas Green on WIP wasn't his cup of tea, Rolen became a marked man. He declined to sign a new contract with the Phillies, and the team, in a move reeking of pettiness, leaked the amount Rolen turned down, turning him into an instant pariah among the leatherlungs at the Vet. It was as if Philadelphia took Rolen's decision personally. Because big-mouth blowhards Bowa and Green couldn't keep their pie holes shut, Rolen opted out, and the rest of us somehow saw that as a slur on Philadelphia -- and on us.

And thus the booing last night. All it does is cheapen us, and further our reputation is a resentful, second-rate city that would much rather focus on what it's not than on the wonder of what it is. Rolen is no J.D. Drew, a puppet of his agent who turned down fantastic money he hadn't earned so that he wouldn't have to play for a team which at that time didn't appear committed to winning. He is, rather, a lot like us -- a man who wants a pat on the back when he does a good job, and a private chat, not a public ass-kicking in the media, when he doesn't. Why that makes him such a bad guy to so many is beyond me.

The flip side is that when Bowa went to retrieve the ball from Vicente Padilla in the 6th, there were more than a few boos wafting down from the stands. Perhaps it's because the Phillies marketed Bowa for so long in their promotional materials, but you get the sense that some are taking out the Phils' underachievement on the manager. For a while he had carte blanche; he was the feisty former shortstop and the popular choice among fans to ride herd over the collection of young and disaffected players (Travis Lee, anyone?) who were then sleepwalking through season after season. Now that GM Ed Wade has loaded up on veteran talent, you'd think the Phillies would be neck and neck with the Braves inside of trying to fend off the Marlins -- the Marlins, for God's sake! -- and hold on to the wild card. This is, of course, not the case, and it's interesting to see Larry Bowa begin to feel some heat.

A Return to South Philadelphia

Shallow Center's self-styled Washington correspondent points out that there have been no Phillies-related posts since last weekend's unlikely win in San Francisco. He wonders if it's because they actually lost a game to the lowly Brewers at the Vet this week.

Well, no, the real reason is that I spent most of the week trying to get the site's new look right. Coincidentally, though, I was already planning on posting a few thoughts on the Milwaukee series, so this one's for you, D.C.

Specifically, the three games strike me as a microcosm of the Phillies' season. The wretched Game 1 loss, marked by No. 5 starter Brandon Duckworth's lousy effort, one which cost him his job in the rotation, went down very poorly. The offense exploded in Game 2, with Jim Thome crashing two homers and leading the Phils to the easy win. And last night, the Fightin's got just enough offense to supplement Randy Wolf's outstanding start and a nice job by the bullpen, especially Turk Wendell, to secure the series with a 4-3 win.

Inconsistent offense, generally good pitching, and sloppiness out of the bottom of the rotation. You want to know why the Phillies are out of the division race and locked in a wild card race? Check out the series against the Brewers and you'll have your answer.

Mrs. Shallow Center accompanies me to the Vet tonight for the opening game of an important three-game set against the Cardinals. St. Louis is in a doozy of a race with Chicago and Houston in National League Central, and whoever doesn't win the division will be battling the Phillies, Marlins, and Diamondbacks for the N.L. wild card slot. Scott Rolen and J.D. Drew always draw the attention when they return to Philadelphia, but as the Inky's Jim Salisbury points out, the Cards' real attraction is the inhuman Albert Pujols, who in less than three seasons has established himself as arguably baseball's most dangerous hitter. Look for a report tomorrow.

Link Up

As promised, here's the reasoning behind the recommended links in the right-hand column. I see this as a fluid list; as more sites find a prominent place in my browser, they'll be included, while others might fall off as I visit them less often. The only criterion for inclusion is that these sites -- or the entities they represent -- interest me in some way.

* Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News: The City of Brotherly Love has two daily papers, both owned by the same chain (Knight-Ridder), published under a joint operating agreement, and sharing the same building. Despite the coziness, the Inky and DN compete fiercely against each other, especially in coverage of local news, sports, and, of course, gossip (see here and here).

* WXPN/88.5-FM: The University of Pennsylvania's noncommercial, listener-supported radio station is a national treasure, offering up a mind-blowing diversity of musical styles and artists. If I ever leave Philadelphia, I'll be hard-pressed to decide what I'll miss most: 'XPN or cheesesteaks.

* Only a Game: Boston's NPR affiliate produces this hour-long gem, which chronicles the sporting life in much the same way Marketplace covers business. In other words, you don't have to be an insider or an expert to enjoy it. Heck, just listen to Charlie Pierce's weekly segments alone and you'll get a laugh. Alas, Philly NPR affiliate WHYY-FM dropped Only a Game a few weeks ago; when I e-mailed the station to complain, I got a terse reply saying it was part of a larger programming effort to enhance the listening experience, or some such nonsense. So a big Bronx cheer for 91-FM.

* Radio Paradise: The Web is lousy with radio stations, many of which, like 'XPN, are listener-funded and thus can stretch beyond the realm of classic rock and Avril Lavigne. Radio Paradise just happens to be the one I glommed onto; nice mix of the old and new, and the familiar and eclectic.

* Jayson Stark: The former Inquirer baseball writer was one of many lured to ESPN. Stark has one of sports journalism's deepest source lists, and infuses his writing with a pop-culture sensibility and a combination of respect for and skepticism of the game. He pulls his punches a bit now that he has a national audience, but it's still an entertaining, informative read.

* Tuesday Morning Quarterback: He's a Brookings Institution Scholar, an Atlantic Monthly contributing editor, and the author of a ton of highbrow articles and books, but Gregg Easterbrook's greatest achievement, for my money, is his weekly column on ESPN.com's Page 2. In addition to a detailed look at each weekend's NFL tilt, Easterbrook slips in commentaries on politics, movies and TV, babes, and more. This guy has found a way to use his incredible smarts in a very fun way.

* Slate Sports Nut: Microsoft's online magazine publishes regular sports stories by good writers. They're a nice diversion from Slate's D.C.-centric orientation.

* King Kaufman's Sports Daily: Slate's chief competition, Salon, runs daily sports commentaries. Kaufman is a decent writer who often presents provocative ideas, and his work, like the Sports Nut column, provides a welcome change of pace, in this case from Salon's lefty coverage of politics, technology, culture, and society. Not that lefty coverage is wrong, but after a while it kinda wears on you, y'know?

* Carolyn Hax Live Online: Finally, an advice columnist for people under the age of 60! Hax supplements her syndicated Washington Post column with a weekly chat that is at turns hilarious, heartbreaking, and inspiring. She kicks people's asses when they need it and provides a shoulder to cry on when that's what's called for.

* The Onion: If The Daily Show had a real online site, this would be it. That it reads so much like a real paper is a testament both to its writers' talents and to the pathetic state of contemporary journalism.

* TopFive: Remember the list of movie titles translated into Chinese and then back into English? It ran as a news story in a bunch of major outlets, including ABC's World News Tonight. Well, it was bogus, and it was from here. There is much hilarity at TopFive.

* Get Fuzzy: I'm the rare 34-year-old who reads the comics pages every day, and this is my new favorite strip. It sounds really stupid when you explain it -- there's a guy and his irritable talking cat and hapless talking dog -- but in reality it's subversive, offbeat (in a good way), and slyly amusing. Hell, just the rendering of the cat is funny. Yesterday's strip, which featured the rare neutering joke, made me laugh out loud. That's just something you don't get with Ziggy.

Happy linking!

Hot New Look -- Same Great Content!

As you can see, Shallow Center has gone and dressed itself up.

The templates, or skins, offered by Blogger were pretty lame, and from the beginning I was never a fan of how the site looked. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, a quick Google search turned up BlogSkins.com, which offers a collection of several hundred free blog templates that have been designed by members. Including this one.

All primary content remains the same, and the site is archived week-by-week along the right-hand strip. I've added some links to sites I find interesting; I'll explain why in a post in the near future.

I like to think we clean up well here at Shallow Center, but drop me a line and let me know your opinion. As always, thanks for reading, and please do send a link to the site to anyone you think might be interested.