Randy Johnson’s retirement leaves Pedro all by himself

As someone that came up in the early-90s, I have a special place in my heart for the top pitchers of that era: Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez and the now retired Randy Johnson. Sorry Roger Clemens fans (all three of you), but this is a douchebagless list I’m running here.

I’m not sure we’ll ever know if what we saw out of that group was “un-enhanced”, but all I do know is Randy Johnson led that group with some of the most ridiculous stats this game has ever seen, post-integration (and I say post-integration because I’m not impressed by what Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson did against a segregated population). And even if The Big Unit was roided out of his mind, the man struck out 372 equally roided-up guys in 2001 on the way to winning the World Series.

If it weren’t for the strike-shortened seasons of 1994-95 and battling injuries in 1996-97, Johnson could have had 10-straight years with 300+ strikeouts. As it stands, he still hit that mark in six of the those seasons and had 294 and 291 in two other seasons during that span. In other words, the man was a pitching god.

Of course, most folks in Philly will remember Johnson for making John Kruk shart in his pants a little during the 1993 All-Star Game. Just by watching that video again makes you think that standing in there against Johnson must have been like you or I standing in there against an average major leaguer. That’s just how dominating this guy was for most of his career: He turned major league hitters into bloggers.

It looks like Pedro’s all we have left, and it was a pretty nice treat to have him pitch in this town while he did, even if he couldn’t get us past the Yanks. I’d love to see him back here, but he’s definitely the last holdover from a time when pitchers were somehow putting up video game numbers on the mound against hitters with video game numbers at the plate.

The truth of the Cliff Lee situation shall set us all free

We give a then 45-year-old Jamie Moyer $13 million after a sub-par 2008 postseason and now we send Cliff Lee packing after plowing through the eventual World Series champs like he was Tiger Woo…ok, nevermind. But something ain’t right here, Rube.

I heard on 97.5 The Fanatic this morning that the Phillies presented Lee with a contract extension offer about a week before the deal went down and within hours of presenting a counter-offer to the club, Lee was headed to Seattle for prospects.

If the above is true, then the Phillies essentially offered Lee a contract extension knowing he wouldn’t accept it right away and were talking to Toronto about trading for Roy Halladay in the meantime.

To me, that’s pretty damn shady of Ruben and the Phillies to dismiss Lee just because you want to bring in Roy Halladay. As great as Halladay has been and will probably be for the Phillies, I think Lee has earned the right to be treated as a king in this town for what he did this year instead of being heandled like Adam Eaton’s soiled draws.

Personally, I wouldn’t have made the deal if it strictly came down to keeping Cliff Lee or taking Roy Halladay. Halladay’s got the deeper resume, but you can’t do any better than 4-0 and shutting down the Yankees twice in the postseason, so I’m not tinkering with a great thing.

The only reason I initially liked the Halladay deal was because of the rumors about Lee wanting too much money and wanted to walk after the season.

Of course, most of this will fade when Halladay heads out there and does what Halladay has done for some time now, which is dominate anyone holding a bat 60 feet away from him, but we still have to wallow in this mess for the next couple months. What would make it worse is if Halladay or Cole Hamels goes down at some point — or worse — if Cliff Lee pitches out of his mind in Seattle and we’re left wondering what could have been in Philly for 2010.

I just want the truth of what really went down because it’s sounding like the Phillies screwed Lee over and if that’s the case, it’s going to be hard to stand behind a team that rolls that way when he gave you the most thrilling pitching performances this franchise has ever seen.

Phils end 126-year drought, win 2009 Trade Deadline

The Philadelphia Phillies are winners of the 2009 Trade Deadline for the first time in franchise history. The Phils clenched the title with the surprise acquisition of Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco in exchange for dinner scraps, pocket lint, $14 in Monopoly money and Carlos Carrasco.

The Phillies effort in trading for Joe Blanton last season came up short as the Dodgers ultimately came away with the title by trading for Manny Ramirez and his defective lady bits.

Historically, the Phils have helped other teams secure Trading Deadline titles by dealing players like Curt Schilling (to the Diamondbacks) and Scott Rolen (to the Cardinals). Between the two deals, the Phils netted what amounted to a large bushel of pubes while the Diamondbacks and Cardinals both won World Series shortly after each respective deal.

Schilling retirement upstaged by premier of ‘Super Baseball Fun Time’

No one paid much attention to Curt Schilling’s retirement announcement due to the premier of the Japanese-themed variety show Super Baseball Fun Time featuring hapless baseballers in 9 innings of thrilling, super fun antics.

Unfortunately, the highly-anticipated variety show was canceled three minutes into its premier due to lack of a sentient audience. Despite the cancellation, Schilling still couldn’t manage to find a credible news outlet to cover his retirement and was forced to release the news via his blog at 38pitches.com.

“It is with zero regrets that I am making my retirement official,” said Schilling on his blog. “Except playing for the Phillies. Those were the worst nine years of my life and I wish I could have those back. Seriously, I regret I ever played in that pit-stained town.”