Family, friends worried about Jamie Moyer’s baseball use

Though Jamie Moyer insists his baseball use is purely recreational and he could stop whenever he wanted, family and friends expressed concern that the free agent pitcher suffers from what one family member describes as a “crippling addiction to baseball.”

“This is the second time in a matter of months he’s been put in the hospital, but he’s already talking about doing baseball as soon as he’s out,” said longtime friend and teammate Raul Ibanez. “That’s all he talks about now: Where he’ll do it, how long he’ll do it and who he’ll do it with. It breaks my heart.”

An intervention was held on Tuesday to address Moyer’s problem, but the 48-year-old told everyone “[he] don’t need no help” before leaving to sell his body for a 1-year contract.

Oldest man in baseball pitches like oldest man in baseball

Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer, who is baseball’s oldest player at 47, made headlines on Friday for actually pitching like you’d expect a 47-year-old man to pitch against a major league team.

Moyer allowed nine runs while recording only three outs against the Red Sox after pitching like a man in his prime in his previous six starts (2.76 ERA over 42.1 innings).

“He’s been pretty good for us lately and you kind of forget about his age for a minute there,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said of Moyer. “But then he gives up nine runs and you’re like ‘oh yeah, why is he still playing?’”

While the Phillies are hoping that Moyer regains his 45-year-old form, the team is also concerned with Joe Blanton, who has pitched like a 86-year-old with glaucoma and a touch of the gout.

Jamie Moyer defies age to become oldest player in baseball

Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer has overcome his many critics and advanced age to become baseball’s oldest player for a third straight season.

Moyer, who pitched a two-hit shutout against the Atlanta Braves on Friday, has had to answer questions about his age for many years, but the 47-year-old is hopeful that this third straight title will finally put an end to the discussion.

“People are saying I’m too old for this and that, but I think this says otherwise,” Jamie Moyer said of his distinction. “I’m the oldest player in the game, and that’s something Babe Ruth could never claim. I’m not saying I’m better than Ruth, but that still sounds kinda badass doesn’t it?”

Phillies rotation set with Moyer in final spot, Kendrick to bullpen

As someone that’s said numerous times that Jamie Moyer is more of a burden than a help at this point, I have to admit the man earned his spot.

Somehow, he morphed into Cliff Lee in his two spring starts (0.77 ERA over 11.2 innings) and took the fifth spot from Kyle Kendrick, who also had a very impressive spring (1.66 ERA over 21.2 innings).

Normally, I’d be talking about how you can’t judge someone based on two starts, especially during spring training, but the guy held most of the regular Yankee lineup to one hit over six innings. There’s no amount of luck that will carry a pitcher to that kind of performance. If even for a brief moment, he showed he’s got something left.

I don’t think anyone has much confidence that Moyer will stay there the entire season or even make it through April without people talking about demoting him once again, but he did what he had to do, which was dominate and show he still belongs in the majors.

Charlie Manuel: Moyer kinda like an old guy that won’t retire

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel reiterated on Monday that Jamie Moyer still leads the race for the fifth spot in the Phillies rotation by endorsing the 47-year-old pitcher as “that lovable old guy at the office that doesn’t know when to hang it up.”

“Everyone loves and respects those guys,” Manuel continued. “People write stories about them. Despite the criticism and well-below average production, they show up to work every day as if nothing has changed. How can you not respect that?”

Kyle Kendrick is currently competing with Moyer for the final spot in the rotation and echoed Manuel’s praise for the 23-year veteran Moyer.

“I think everyone is glad he’s still hanging around here,” said Kendrick. “Not because we feel like it’s wrong to want an older guy to step aside when we all know his time has passed, but because we genuinely respect what he’s trying to do. Which is to literally pitch himself to death, I think.”

Carlos Ruiz reluctantly agrees to hair extension

Though it looked like Carlos Ruiz and the Phillies were ready to end negotiations, the two sides were finally able to come to terms on a new hair extension.

“It looked like we weren’t going to get anything done for a while there,” Ruiz said on Tuesday. “I was asking for an actual contract extension, but they wanted me to work for free. So, we met in the middle, and now I look like a douche.”

The extension should last about three years and includes a 2013 club option to pay Ruiz actual money — $5 million — but the Phillies will probably find a way to waste that cash on Jamie Moyer.

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.

Would Halladay and Lee be in the same rotation if Jamie Moyer retired?

I think everyone with at least one finger on the Phillies’ bandwagon would say ‘yes’, Cliff Lee would probably be our number two starter right now if Jamie Moyer retired either during or after last season.

I’m not necessarily saying that Moyer is the sole reason why the Phils will not march into the World Series with a stacked lineup and rotation this season, but he’s certainly not helping the situation. The Phillies owe Moyer around $8 million for 2010 to compete to be our fifth and final starter in the rotation behind Halladay, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton and J.A. Happ. And by ‘compete’, I mean that he may not even get the job and we could have an $8 million long reliever on our hands.

Moyer balked when he was pulled from the rotation late last season, even when it was the best move for the team. Now it’s looking like Moyer is interfering with the team’s improvement again, but this time it’s without even throwing a pitch.

I’ve got nothing against Moyer and he was as much a part of 2008 as anyone else, but when I think about how we could have had Cliff Lee — for at least 2010 — over a 47-year-old pitcher who was bumped out of the rotation last season and is coming off of several surgeries, I think that’s a no-brainer.

I don’t think any of us would have passed on signing a 2-year $13 million deal like Moyer did, so I blame the Phillies for giving a 45-year-old that much money for two years, but at the very least step up and say you’d defer some of your money to next year so we can afford to keep Lee on the team.

Of course, the deferring money thing applies to everyone else on the team as well, like so many others have said. Are we to understand that there was no possible way to keep Lee here at all? I call shenanigans on you, Ruben…and whoever else was involved in this whole process.

As always, I’ll reserve my more viscous judgment until later on, but if Moyer tanks again or we make it to the World Series and Halladay’s the only pitcher pulling his weight, we’ll look back on this trade and know that this is where we went wrong.

Moyer loses glasses, rotation spot in awkward senior moment

Jamie Moyer was visibly ornery against the Cubs on Tuesday as he had lost both his reading glasses and his spot in the rotation in a span of five minutes.

“I know these things don’t just sprout legs and walk away,” Moyer repeated several times as he tore through the Phillies’ visiting clubhouse. “They have to be around here somwhere.”

Scott Eyre eventually gestured to Moyer that his glasses had been on his head the entire time but had no such answer for his lost rotation spot.

“I’ve had that thing for over 16 years now,” said Moyer of his valued spot. “The real kicker is that I honestly have no clue how or when I lost it either. I just hope no one stole it.”

Pedro Martinez was reportedly seen strutting around the field on Wednesday with a spot that looked very similar to the one once ownd by Moyer.

“I didn’t steal anything from anybody,” said Martinez. “I got this spot from Ruben [Amaro], so you’ll have to ask him where he got it.”

Philly hit with over three inches of Halladay-generated drool

The mere thought of adding Roy Halladay to the defending World Champions’ roster has left some Philadelphians waist-deep in their own slobber and without power last night.

The situation in the Delaware Valley may get worse before it gets any better as more and more fans realize just how freaking incredible the Phillies would be with Roy Hall-of-Fame-some-a-day atop their rotation.

“I was out at P.J. Welihan’s with my boys talking about the whole Halladay situation,” said Ryan Billings, a South Jersey Phillies fan. “The next thing we know, everybody in the bar is talking about it and we’re all wallowing in our own saliva. Sounds really gross, but we didn’t really care. We just want Halladay.”

Halladay would give Phils fans the opportunity to look back 10 years from now and say they witnessed not only the greatest team in franchise history, but possibly one of the greatest in major league history.

By 2019, Chase Utley will have officially become the greatest second baseman to play the game. Ryan Howard will be the most prolific home run hitter since Babe Ruth. Jimmy Rollins will have punched his ticket to Cooperstown with his 3,000th career hit. The rotation of Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, Jamie Moyer and Pedro Martinez may end up with the largest career win totals of any rotation ever. Jayson Werth will have his own statue in front of The Bank, capturing his signature strikeout, fall-on-one-knee swing and best of all, the Phils will have won back-to-back World Series and quite possibly an unprecedented twelve-peat.

EDITOR’S NOTE TO PHILLIES FRONT OFFICE: Stop farting around and get this done.

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