Before Pat Burrell was a #1 draft pick for the Phillies back in the ‘98 amateur draft, he was breaking records and winning Golden Spikes and College World Series MVP awards for the University of Miami. Then in 2008, 10 years after his college career ended, Pat was honored for his collegiate efforts by being inducted into the prestigious sports hall of fame located down there in Coral Gables, Florida. 

So why am I bringing all this up now?  I’m glad you asked.

The fine folks who man the umsportshalloffame YouTube account have been tirelessly uploading various intro videos and induction speeches from years past.  Lucky for us, one of the players they just added was Pat Burrell.

First up is his introduction video, and after the jump you can check out his speech.  I have to warn you though, the University of Miami’s sound engineers didn’t too such a good job with the volume, so you’ll more than likely have to turn it all the way up then place your ear to the speakers. 

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The Reading Phillies (or the R-Phils, as they’re more affectionately known) have just released their promotional schedule for the upcoming 2010 season earlier today. As usual, the pro team’s double-A affiliate has come up with some rather unusual giveaways and attractions to get fans out to FirstEnergy Stadium (personally, I’d just call every night “Watch Domonic Brown play right-field night!) including R-Phils Mike Schmidt Maroon Batting Practice T-Shirt night, Mr. Belding Schools Out Teacher night (where Dennis Haskins of Saved By The Bell shows up to sign autographs and sing karaoke), and 28 — count ‘em, TWENTY-EIGHT! — fireworks nights.

But the ultimate giveaway this year BY FAR, to be handed out on August 3rd when the R-Phils take on the Trenton Thunder, is Ryan Howard Garden Gnome night.

The R-Phils describe it thusly:

Fans of the R-Phils, the Philadelphia Phillies and of 2006 NL MVP Ryan Howard, will want to come out to the Tuesday, August 3 game against the Trenton Thunder for a one-of-a-kind Ryan Howard Garden Gnome, presented by FirstEnergy. The Ryan Howard Garden Gnome depicts a kneeling Howard in his R-Phils uniform, sporting a Gnome Beard and Gnome hat. The first 2,500 adults attending the 7:05 p.m. contest will receive this instant collectible of the former R-Phils first baseman. Howard, who has compiled at least 45 home runs and 136 RBIs in each of the last four seasons, launched an impressive 37 home runs for the R-Phils in 2004, en route to Eastern League MVP and Rookie of the Year honors.

So fellas, ladies — make sure you’re one of the first 2,500 lucky fans through the turnstile that night so you can show your love for the R-Phils, Ryan Howard, and garden gnomes in general as you proudly display it on your front lawn for the rest of your life.  Or at least until one of your neighbors steal it.

Check out the rest of the R-Phils promotions HERE.

A rough translation of what he said, for all you monolingual cats out there:

Hello, my name is Antonio Alfonseco. I’m here with Hugo at the barbershop, the best barber shop there is.

BOOM. There you have it.

I know this is the second Chase Utley/flashback-themed post in a row, and yes, I pulled both off them off the same “The Chase Rolls On” show that featured Utley’s first MLB hit, but believe me — it’s worth it.

This quote from Phillies skip Charlie Manuel was actually featured on this here website back in September of ‘08 when Chase Utley barreled over Jesus Flores of the Nats trying to score from 3rd on a throw over to first and consequently knocked Flores out of the game, but I never had video footage of it. [On aside: I highly recommend going back and reading the whole post. It's easily one of the funniest comment threads of all-time. Some Nats blogger named Steven accused me (us?) of cheering the injury (which I didn't) and then started rambling on about how Cole Hamels was gonna get injured because he had so many IP and how Brad Lidge would never keep his save streak going, blah blah. It's even funnier in retrospect because Hamels went on to win World Series MVP and Brad Lidge went 48-for-48. HAHA YOU SUCK STEVEN. Just read it.]

Anyway, after the game, Charlie Manuel was asked his thoughts on Chase’s aggressive play.

His response:

“That’s not old school, that’s good school. That’s the way you play the game unless you want to put some rouge and makeup and lipstick on.”

That’s great, right? Well, what if I told you the video of it was 100000X better?

Watch (In HD, if that’s your thing):

Look how angry that question made him! He had an underbite he was so mad! Awesome.

Seriously, when he goes into his imitation of a nancy-boy, like, “Ewwww I gotta run over this guy” I fell in love with Charlie all over again.

Let us hark back to the time when a 24-year old upstart named Chase Utley got called up to the bigs for the first time, shall we?

Early on in the season in 2003 — April 15th to be exact — then-Phillies second basemen Placido Polanco got hit by a Josh Beckett fastball smack dab on his finger which forced him out of the game. While he waited for his finger to heal, utility man Tomas Perez filled in (admirably, I might add) at second. But nine days later, Placido realized the pain was far too bad to even grip a bat, so the Phillies retroactive’d him to the DL and called up this skinny little punk from UCLA named Chase Utley to take his roster spot.

Then, on April 24th, Chase made his first start as an MLBer batting in the 8-hole behind David Bell (hahahhahahhahah), and in his very first at-bat*… he flew out to shallow left. BUT, on his second, Chase absolutely CRUSHED an Aaron Cook pitch and hit a grand slam to right scoring Jim Thome, Mike Lieberthal, and David Bell.

Watch it:

*Whoops. Forgot about this.

When I got word that my boy Dave Brown (of Yahoo! Sports fame, not the former Flyers brawler) was headed down to Clearwater yesterday to mingle with the Philadelphia Phillies at Spring Training, I had two simple requests:  touch Jayson Werth’s beard, and find out what number Domonic Brown wants to wear when he finally makes the big league squad.

The first request was because I wanted him to go down in history as the first person (on record) to get to touch the glorious patch of hair that has been growing on Mr. Werth’s face since the end of last season, but the second — the Dom Brown number thing — was purely selfish.

You see, a little over a month ago, I got the bright idea that I wanted to be the first human being (before Domonic Brown, even) to have a Phillies jersey displaying the name and number of my favorite phenom with the sweetest of left-handed strokes.

So I went to Phillies.com and ordered my customized #3 Domonic Brown batting practice jersey.

Since then, besides getting a bunch of “who the hell is Brown 3?”, I’ve been concerned that perhaps I got the wrong number on the back and my fairly expensive jersey would be rendered obsolete once he made the majors and picked a different digit.

But then Dave Brown came through and made me feel better about my purchase:

Come the time for him to play in the majors, Brown says he would choose to wear No. 3 if available. It’s Brown’s favorite number because he was born on the third day of September.

Right now, Ross Gload wears No. 3 for the Phillies. If he or another player is blocking Brown come the time he reaches the majors and bribery won’t work for a switch, Brown could go for No. 24 or No. 30 — numbers worn by his favorite player as a kid, Ken Griffey Jr.

Whew!

But that ain’t the only thing Dave Brown found out, folks.  Head over to read his Dom Brown report from Clearwater to check out the rest, including Charlie Manuel mistaking (mispronouncing?) Domonic for The Human Highlight Film.

You must check it out, even though he still won’t tell me whether or not he got to touch Werth’s beard.

Name and number, please: Phillies’ Brown just happy to be here | Big League Stew
(Photo via Rants, Raves, and Random Thoughts)

Look who made his first television appearance of the Spring yesterday evening –

CHRIS WHEELER, EVERYBODY!

Looking pretty dang sharp in his kick-ass leather jacket (surely for his motorcycle), readjusted hairpiece, Penn State sweatshirt (DYK his cat’s name is Nittany? Of course you did), and invisible eyebrows, Muffin showed up on Daily News Live to drop some knowledge on the viewing audience and look good doing it.

I’ll bet you Chris has to beat those vixens from the local retirement community off with a stick!

I don’t wanna be too hard on CSN Philly because, frankly, I get a good percentage of my material from their station and don’t give them nearly enough credit. BUT (you knew there was a but), what they did today during Charlie Manuel’s segment was extremely disrespectful and bordering on sacrilege. As Michael Barkann was interviewing the Phillies skip, a graphic popped up on the screen to identify who was speaking, and…

THEY SPELLED CHARLIE’S NAME WRONG! GASP!

Have a look-see:

Charlie Mauel? I’ll tell you one thing — that graphic operator better thank his lucky stars that this is still Spring Training, because a mistake like that during the regular season could potentially cost his team a shot at the pennant. Or even worse — GET YOU CUT.

After the jump, watch the end of the Barkann/Mauel one-on-one where Charlie can’t possibly get out of dodge quick enough and leaves Mikey B hanging.

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(Photos by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

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Hey, who’s ready to check their answers against the book contest answer key and find out which three lucky contestants will be the recipients of the all-time #1 bestselling book in the long, storied history of the Triumph Books publishing company*, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, and Gut-Wrenching Moments From Philadelphia Phillies History” by Todd Zolecki foreword by Scott Franzke?

Not so fast, pal. Let me explain how I picked the winners.

First of all, thanks to everyone who entered. I was literally overwhelmed by the response we got from this contest, and I normally like to do things at night other than sit on the computer and grade ridiculous quizzes, so I decided against going through each individual e-mail to mark for accuracy and instead opted for letting everyone become eligible. That’s right — if you went 8-for-8? YOU’RE ELIGIBLE! 3-for-8? Fuggit, YOU’RE ELIGIBLE TOO! Honestly, the point of having the quiz was to weed out the people who can enter a contest willy-nilly from those who had to at least use their brain a little bit. And as my reward to you, if you even attempted to answer to questions, you got 100%.

haha, I’d be the shittiest teacher.

* projected sales

Find out the answers & winners, after the jump…

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