This afternoon in Clearwater, the Phillies announced some brand spanking new promotional items to handout to ticket holders for various games throughout the course of the 2010 season. I’m sure you’ve seen most of them, like the 2009 NL Champs Pennant (April 12), the 2009 Champs shirt (April 14), Shane’s foam finger (June 6), and that sweet ass Roy Halladay bobble (May 18). But now they’ve added more to their free shit arsenal, and I figured we might as well check ‘em out.

The highlight of the bunch is a game against the Braves on Tuesday, July 6th where children 14 & under get an official 30″ Louisville Slugger wood bat featuring Charlie Manuel’s name and signature, and PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES screen printed on the label.

I was under the impression that they stopped giving these away at games in fear of people getting beat to death with blunt wooden objects, but I guess they’re trying to counteract that by giving them to kids only. Either way, it’s BADASS:

Close-up:

So make sure to rent-a-kid for that game if you want a bat. At least school’s out.

After the jump, check out another giveaway. This one possibly being inspired by The Fightins…

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It didn’t take youngster Domonic Brown all that long to get accustomed to major league pitching. 

In just his 11th — and what would wind up being his last — Grapefruit League game in ‘10, Domonic Brown had the unenviable task of going up against perennial Cy Young contender for the Detroit Tigers, Justin Verlander.

In his first AB vs. the hard throwing righty, Dom got in a quick hole but stayed in there fouling pitches off until he finally worked the count full by laying off a pitch that was just a millimeter low and inside.  On the very next pitch, the kid caught up to a fastball middle-in and fucking WALLOPED it out of Bright House Field on into oncoming traffic on RTE 19.

It was a picturesque blast (that I tried to capture above, with his Strawberry-like swing and follow through) that made just about every Phillies fan in the world a little less worried that their team might be on the verge of losing Jayson Werth after this season.

Of course, I knew what kind of player Dom was cause I can spot raw talent a mile away, but at least the rest of you late comers got a glimpse of The Future®.  If you’d like to watch the officially licensed MLB video of his two homer, 4 RBI day, click HERE.  If you’d like to watch Dom talk, followed by Ryan Howard & Charlie Manuel practically salivating over the kid, click HERE.

See you in September (if not sooner), Domonic.

Oh yeah, and next time — spell his fucking name right.  Thanks.

There were obviously more that 15 great moments for the Phillies last year.  However, for that sake of making our list divisible by 5 (a must if you want your list to be taken seriously) while at the same time keeping it short enough so the bottom of it is still memorable, we’ve left off a few of our favorites.  And this next one certainly qualifies as one of *my* favorite moments of 2009.

On May 30th of last year, the Phillies were taking on the Washington Nationals at Citizens Bank Park in the second of a three-game set.  I remember how nice it was that day, so my buddies & I headed down to the sports complex sometime in the late afternoon and got intoxicated in the parking lot in preparation of Shairon Martis getting LIT UP by our Fightin’ Phils. And get lit up we he did.

After the Phils fell behind 3-0 in the top of the 2nd inning on the strength of a Wil Nieves 2-run double and Anderson Hernandez RBI single, power hitter extraordinaire Ryan Howard hit a solo shot in the bottom half the inning to trim the lead to 3-1. An inning later, in the bottom of the 3rd, Chooch walked followed by a Cole Hamels sacrifice and Rollins RBI single to make it a 1-run game. Then Victorino drew a walk, and with runners on 1st and 2nd, Chase Utley reached base on an infield single to load the bases.

So up steps Ryan Howard looking to add to his day’s RBI total. Martis, obviously still shaken up from the last time he faced Howard, threw a garbage first pitch changeup that landed in the dirt and made it a 1-0 count. At this point, it was quite obvious that Big Brown wasn’t gonna see a fastball for the rest of the at-bat, so he sat back and patiently waited for him to leave that shitty change up in the zone.

Turns out he didn’t have to wait long, because on the very next pitch…

HOLY SHIT RYAN HOWARD JUST KILLED A BASEBALL.

A 476 foot murdering of a baseball, to be exact.

I still remember the shit-eating grin on my face as they guy who caught the grand slam above the Powerade sign in Section 303 was escorted out of his seat to get the ball validated or whatever the hell they do with the people who catch home run balls. But I knew at that moment I had just witnessed the most powerful human being in baseball put all 250 lbs. of his behind a swing and absolutely CRUSH a baseball the way no one else can. And let me tell you, it was pretty fucking impressive.

The Phillies cruised from there, winning the game 9-6. But if you ask anybody that was at The Bank that day, they’ll tell you the game ended on a 1-0 pitch to Ryan Howard with 1 out in the 3rd inning.

<3 you, Ryan.

Albert Pujols is not coming to Philadelphia. Got it? Good.

Despite reports from ESPN’s Buster Olney that the Philadelphia Phillies had “internal discussions” about trading Ryan Howard for the St. Louis Cardinal’s first baseman, the reality of it actually happening lies somewhere between “in your dreams” and the third act from “The Matrix.”

But most of us are smart enough to know that. While the idea of adding Pujols to an already talented lineup is admittedly exciting, it would take nothing short of a miracle to convince John Mozeliak to jettison the game’s best position player at the risk of burying the franchise while single handily ostracizing a fan base.

However, these rumors tend to have a mind of their own, and once the internet caught wind, there was no stopping the tidal wave of speculation and misinformed logic that drew criticism from fans, players, and managers.

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If you thought the botched photoshop job on the 2010 Topps Cliff Lee card was bad, wait until you get a load of their interpretation of Roy Halladay in a Phillies uni. It’s a doozy:

Now as far as I’m concerned, Topps has the artistic freedom to make their Roy Halladay ’shop as ugly as they want — I’m not nit-picking that. BUT they gave the man the retired #32 jersey number of Phillies legend Steve Carlton! INEXCUSABLE! You would think that Topps employs the sort of baseball-knowledgeable folks who would catch such an egregious error before it made its way to mass production, no?

For shame, Topps. FOR SHAME.

Fresh from Philly.com’s Insider Michael Klein, Phillies legend Roy Halladay has bought a 1.66 acre property in Newtown Square (I used to have orchestra practice there!), in the vicinity of Cole and Heidi’s year-old house on West Chester Pike. It’s believed to be worth $2,288,500, according to the Delaware County books.

Welcome to the area, Roy. We’ll be sure to stalk you.

The purpose of this exclusive The Fightins dot com feature is to foster a rivalry between the Phillies beat writers by keeping a running tally of who scoops who on Twitter and turn it into a year-long dick joke. You can play along by reading their tweets in this convenient list.

The scores as of March 15, 2010:

Ryan Lawrence took the most points home this week, but the scores were definitely less lopsided than the previous two weeks, with all but one scoring at least a few. Scott Lauber made a nice push in his final week as a beat writer for the Phillies, breaking 20 points before pulling up stakes and heading to the Boston Herald.

And I’ve decided to give John Finger the very first “This Week’s Awesomest Tweet” award, good for +5 and a free small fries at the Roy Rogers by Exit 17 on the Garden State Parkway:

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Jamie Moyer collected his 249th win on April 26th, 2009 against the Marlins. It would take him more than a month and 6 more starts to become the 44th pitcher (and 11th lefty) in MLB history to reach 250.

On May 31st, en route to a three-game sweep of the hapless Nationals, Moyer would pitch 6 full innings, giving up 3 hits and an earned run (on a Willingham solo shot, his first of 2) while striking out 4, improving his season record to 4-5 while whittling his ERA down to a svelte 6.75.

What made this all the more exciting was the unforgettable post-game quote from the Undisputed King of Soundbites himself:

“It’s not about the personal things, I’m more excited about us winning,” Moyer said. “I really haven’t thought about [winning 250]. It takes so much effort to prepare and play. I was taught to play the game as a team, not as an individual. When you play 20-some years, some of these things can happen.”

This game was loaded with all sorts of unlikeliness: Moyer went 6 strong innings and won, Chris Coste hit a home run, Pedro Feliz collected an RBI (on a very likely fielder’s choice), Ryan Howard tripled and Brad Lidge pitched a scoreless 9th.

Even though I stopped buying tickets to Moyer’s starts after the May 25th loss to the Marlins, I’m glad he did win it at home, because of my favorite things in the world is fan-made stadium cellphone videos on YouTube, complete with disembodied attempts to sound like Harry Kalas:

May 31st Recap | ESPN.com

Look, people — I know it takes some getting used to when a guy just all of a sudden springs something on you like, “Hey, you’ve been spelling my name wrong. Would you mind spelling it Domonic — with an “o” — from now on?” I mean, I remember back in ‘91 when Akeem Olajuwon told everyone he wanted to be known as Hakeem and it took me until about ‘97 to get it right, but he was already an established player. This is Domonic’s first bit of national exposure with the major league club. The spelling of his name should not be an issue. But then, on myphl17’s coverage of the Phillies/Twins game on Saturday, this happened:

GRRRRRRRR

In unrelated news that doesn’t anger me, I’d just like to publicly congratulate the fellas over at The 700 Level on their new partnership deal with Comcast SportsNet. When I was a wee blogger with zero internet connections on a startup baseball website, the people who helped me out the most — BY FAR — were Enrico and Matt P. They are stand up gentlemen who run an incredible website, and I wish them nothing but the best.

Not only is this move well deserved, but it’s long overdue.

So congrats Enrico, Matt P, Kulp, and Andrew. I’m looking forward to the next time I see you so you can buy me a bunch of beers with your new Comcast money. SHOTS ON ENRICO!

Look at this abomination of a t-shirt please:

Dear Lord, where to begin?

First off, that’s the same Chase Utley picture that we use in The Fightins banner at the top of the site (meaning, it’s old), the singular usage of “cheesesteak” is utterly fascinating, Chase Utley isn’t even a Philadelphia export (we got him from Cali), and I don’t know what the fuck they’re so excited about using that exclamation point. Seriously, I’d be offended if those bootleggers outside CBP tried to sell that garbage to me for $5, but Modell’s? They should be ashamed of themselves.

(I want it soooo bad.)

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