Just a few weeks after learning our beloved Scott Lauber was leaving his post as Phillies beat writer at the Wilmington News Journal, for Red Sox beat writer at The Boston Hearld, two more scribes are leaving their Philadelphia nests. Andy Martino of Phillies Zone, and phillyBurbs’s (and my favorite Intelligencer sports writer growing up) Mike Sielski are moving to the (gulp) New York Mets beat.

The Delco Times’s Ryan Lawrence has the beat and the funny (this is major points in the beat-off, right, Tug?):

So, yes. Another couple Phillies writers gone, to the Journal and NY Daily News. And as much as it sucks to know that they’ll be writing in New York, for the cot damn Mets, it’s a great chance for both, and we should be happy for them. And the blow is a little softer, because semi-newbies Matt Gelb and the aforementioned Mr. Lawrence are doing a fine job themselves, as you can tell from the beat-off. They have yet to pull off a Sarge fedora like Martino, though. Yet.

In other, more uplifting news, the next 5 Phillies games (if this goes up before 1 o’clock Satuday), are on TV! (Another big-ups to Ryan Lawrence for noting this beautiful little television statistic).

Today’s (Saturday’s) game against the Tigers is on MYPHL17, featuring Doc Halladay. Sunday vs the O’s is on CSN/MLB Network, Monday vs the Damn Yankees is on ESPN, Tuesday vs the Rays is on TCN (aka CN8), and Wednesday vs the Bravos is, once again, on ESPN. All games are at 1:05.

Ladies and Gents, baseball!

Who here thought it could get any worse for Lenny Dykstra? …(quiet enough that Jamie Moyer could hear a pin drop)…Well give yourselves a proverbial pat on the back! It’s been awhile since we checked up on ol’ Nails, so let’s sift through some of the latest wreckage.

A week ago, The Huffington Post reported a shockingly non-publicized story about Dykstra being sued for sexual harassment by a former employee. The document, originally obtained by The Smoking Gun, says Lenny called “Estate Manager/Personal Assistant” Jacqueline Massaro (whom he just hired) to drive 3 hours to his estate in Woodland Hills, CA. He was apparently drunk upon *his* arrival at 1 am, which was an hour after his assistant arrived. From The Gun:

When he got there, Dykstra, 47, yelled at her to get to work. Since it was nearly 1 AM, Massaro asked, “what he could possibly want her to do.” Dykstra, who played 12 Major League seasons and won a World Series championship with the New York Mets, then told Massaro to get the “fuck out of my house, it’s not going to work out, just leave.” Massaro contends that when she went to her room to pack for the return trip to San Diego, Dykstra came into the room and said, “So, you have nowhere to go, give me a blow job and you can stay the night.”

Massaro claims he then grabbed her breasts and pushed her onto the bed.  She screamed, then ran out of the house, presumably sans luggage, and drove back to San Diego. Some really, truly horrible stuff that, if true, that Met-born doucher should pay for. But because there’s literally been no coverage of this case, anywhere, I remain cautious in terms of it going too far.

Much more Nails-like,  Manhattan Style reported Thursday that The Dyke is suing JP Morgan for 100 million dollars for predatory lending. 100 million dollars.  You see, when he bought his 17.5 million dollar mansion, JP apparently promised him full financing. But that’s not what happened, according to Lenny.

…(Lenny) feels that he was duped by Washington Mutual, now owned by JP Morgan, into buying the home because he was promised 100% financing. At the last minute he claims the bank reneged and would only lend him 12.5 million, and he was forced to find secondary financing on the property. The inability to pay the interest on the two loans, coupled with the housing crisis forced Dykstra into a spiral of selling his remaining assets, most notably his interest in his car washes.

And as the article goes on to question, why the FUCK did he buy a 17.5 million dollar house on a claimed 1.2 million/year salary? Did he really love Wayne Gretzky that much? It was The Great One that unloaded his Sherwood CC home on him over 2 years ago.

So, does the suit come in response to the sexual assault allegations, to (successfully) change focus? Does he want the extra money to pay bail, pay for lawyers, or settle with Jacqueline Massaro out-of-court? Or is it just a culminating suit to shit on the financial ‘guru’ that trusted him enough to give him a daily spot in his online newspaper, Jim Cramer?  Well, we only know one thing, and we’ve known it for awhile: Lenny Dykstra is screwed.

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 Phils and Fish played the first game of their 2009 series on April 24th of that year, with the Marlins sitting in first in the NL East, 4 games ahead of the 3rd place Phillies. I don’t know about you, but even 16 games into the season, I thought this first series would set an important tone for the rest of their head-to-head season. And I was…wrong. The series ended tied 9-9. But in terms of the Phils’ overall season, the 9^th inning of the first game proved to be a big wake up call.

After a 3-run homer by Dan Uggla in the top of the first against Ed Wade loverboy Brett Myers (a play in which current Brian Bocock loverboy Ross Gload scored on), there was 8 innings of pitching dominance and boringness from young Marlins ace Josh Johnson. But Brett and the bullpen kept the team in it, not giving up any more runs.

Matt Lindstrom jogged in for what should have been an easy save with the way the Phillies were playing, but there was a weird vibe as the team realized Matt Lindstrom was pitching. But the last chance for the Phils started depressingly enough, with The Big Piece grounding out to the aforementioned Dan Uggla (not to overload here, but another loverboy)  at second. But Jayson Werth (circa BB 2009) hit a one-out double to center, followed by a RAUUUUUUL walk. First-half sensation Matt Stairs got the scoring going with a single to right, scoring Werth and making it a 3-1 game. Lou Marson then walked to load the bases for… Eric Bruntlett to strikeout on 3 pitches!

But Bruntlett doing his thing actually helped the team, as Marlins skipper Fredi Gonzalez was confused into thinking Matt Lindstrom was still effective. This allowed Jimmy Rollins to walk, forcing in RAUUUUL to make it 3-2. And as everybody in the stadium but Fredi knew, Matt Lindstrom was in Broxton-like “this guy’s going to lose this game” mode. So of course, Shane Victorino came through with a pond-clearer to right that put the Fightins up 6-3, and to add insult to injury and destroy Lindstrom’s ERA even more, Chase Utley went backsies with Shane down the right field line to end the scoring, 7-3. Gonzalez gained some sense, put in Reynel Pinto, and, after allowing Howard and Werth on base, got RAUUUUL to strike out swinging. Ryan Madson got the save.

The Phillies went on to win 8 out of 10 (albeit with a 2-game losing streak consisting of the Nationals and Mets to split 4 game winning streaks), and Shane was relieved he didn’t have to get hit in the ribs to get the run in.

“I said, ‘OK, let me not get hit in my ribs, but somewhere else,’” Victorino said. “I’m just trying to get a hit, walk, whatever.”

Good times, Shane. Good times.

The highlight of the Phils’ first Spring Training game today, other than Doc Halladay completely pwning Yankee ass, would be this graphic shown during the ridiculously boring middle innings today.

From the looks of this wonderful comparison of two aces in action, it looks like baseball is going to be fucking awesome on CSN (or Xfinity SportsNet at some point during the regular season) once again. I actually really enjoyed the Doc, Forehead, and Kendrick interviews from the booth boys today. The radio boys seem to be in mid-season form as well.

(pic via our very own Chris; UPDATED pic in crispy 1080px width via @dhm)

Behold, my friends. Jayson Werth is your Jesus.

(pic via Todd Zolecki)

During the Phils’ Interleague romp in Toronto this June 25-27, there’s another party coming to the 416. The G20 summit is scheduled at a building next to the Rogers Centre June 26-27, which means a shitload of rich, foreign important dudes and world leaders could be surrounded by thousands of drunken Canadians.

For those that don’t know, (including myself), generally the following attend the G20 Summit, made up of about…20? or so countries all around the world, including Canada and the US. From the NYT’s Exonomix blog:

Usually, the attendees of the annual meetings are the finance ministers and central bank governors of the member countries, plus top leadership of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This is the first time that heads of governments will attend a G-20 meeting.

Now, that ‘first time’ is in regards to its first summit, this weekend, in Korea. I assume it goes the same for the June meetings.

KJ Mullins’s Digital Journal article about G20 interfering with Toronto Gay Pride week activities has the slightly more detailed deets:

Pride officials aren’t the only ones to face problems with scheduling. The Toronto Blue Jays were to host the Philadelphia Phillies on those two days. The location of the Rogers Centre and the planned venue of the summit are next door to each other. In order to protect world leaders the games have to be rescheduled.

No word on any dates the games could be rescheduled to.

The one thing we do know, however, is that Matt Stairs will not be attending.

As most of the Phillies battery crew prepares for Spring Training in just 9 motherfucking days, noted UFC superfan Shane Victorino (whom only loves it so because of the league’s acronic-resemblance to ‘WFC’) attended UFC 109 in Las Vegas yesterday. The big story from the fight was Tito Ortiz ‘lipping off’ Mark Coleman, whose ass was just handed to him by Randy Couture. Coleman then said “F— you too, Tito. Any f—ing time. Anytime, douchebag.” This was preceded by nobody giving a shit. And yes, if you’re wondering, all Shane-like UFC fans look like douches (that’s Chuck with the Fasano in the front). Shane memorizing every single little movement Chuck Liddell makes:

Pic, along with “Just spotted Shane Victorino sitting behind Chuck Liddell at tonights UFC fight. I’m sure he’s being a dick to absolutely everyone in there while marketing his new t-shirt line”, via the watchful eye of Fightins commenter Adam Eaton…or was it Adam Eaton? He has the time.

Your National League champion Philadelphia Phillies aren’t just baseball players- they’re community servicemen! I’m not sure what school this is, but for reading Clifford the Big Red Dog (sorry for evoking any Cliff Lee memories) and Curious George, these kids, courtesy of the Phillies Be A Phanatic About Reading Program, and their fine Twitter account, got a big ol’ surprise from none other than Chase Utley. (And yes, it’s OK to be jealous as shiiit of these 10 year olds right now.)

In other Chase-related news, yesterday he finally spoke about trading Cliff Lee (from David Murphy’s Philly.com article).

“Halladay is one of the best pitchers in baseball,” Utley said. “He’s a workhorse. Everyone I’ve talked to who has played with him or against him has nothing but good things to say about him. I’m excited to see him work.”

“I got to play behind Cliff. He did a wonderful job for us. Hopefully 1 day I’ll get to play behind him again. But it’s a business, and every year we realize there will be new faces in the clubhouse.”

“I trust what the front office has done. They’ve done a good job getting good players and putting good people in the clubhouse. It’s been a big part of our success. I trust what they do.”

Chase  was also asked about the Phillies bringing back the dude with the forehead that the Phillies got rid of so Chase could play second base

“When we were here kind of platooning a few years ago, him being the veteran guy, I guess if he really wanted to he could have made the situation uncomfortable for me. But he didn’t do that at all. He was extremely helpful, trying to help me get better, telling me things that might help me out. When I think back on it, that’s pretty cool.”

Also found this gem on the Phillies twitter page:

During these busiest days the Phillies have had since inking Doc, they’ve found their answer to the missing foreign mid-to-late innings reliever problem incurred after losing Chan Ho Park. First reported by ESPNDeportes stud Enrique Rojas (and first translated by Beerleaguer), the Phillies have signed 38 year old SP/RP Jose Contreras to a 1-year deal, terms unknown.

Most seem to believe he will end up being a direct replacement for current free agent Chan Ho Park. He had pretty horrible numbers starting for the ChiSox last year (5-14, 114.2 IP, 5.42 ERA), but after being traded to the Rockies he pitched 17 pretty good innings (17 innings, 1.59 ERA, 17 Ks) and threw in the high 90’s.

Oh yeah, that’s right, he also gave up an RBI single to today’s birthday boy, CHOOOOOOCH, in Game 3 of this past NLCS against the Rockies. Think that’s fucking weird? Check out the Fightins’ latest addition:

And for any of you that are reading this in the next couple minutes, CLIFF LEE SEATTLE PRESSER AT 6 PM ET. Check it out here.

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