Baseball Genius Charlie Manuel Starts Roy Halladay in Game 1

Are you sick of this picture yet.

I’m not putting it up here because you’ll find it literally anywhere on Phillies and Giants websites, so I’ll just use my marching word-army to describe it to you.

Dressed like he’s headed to the office, Roy Halladay has his top-button undone because its only, you know, the All-Star Game and why not cut a little loose.  A cell phone is clipped to his belt, in which is probably contained the phone numbers of his family, his agent, and the police commissioner.  He doesn’t enjoy the camera, but he will tolerate it, because he is patient, understanding, and above all, used to it.  A brief twinge of excitement flashes across his face as the rare Halladay grin stretches out as he acknowledges his rival starter in the 2009 All-Star Game.

Tim Lincecum looks like he just fell out of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater at the tail end of a disastrous Kickflip McTwist.  The amicable gaze of a youngster, staring through the aquarium glass at a man-easting sea beast is on his face.  The “whatever, brah” image he produces makes the talent boiling within all the more alarming, as you wonder where such a terrifying force would hide in the kid’s frame.  He’s almost assuredly wearing ripped jeans and a pair of frayed sandals off screen.

Halladay pats Tim on the shoulder and they laugh at all of this.

“My god,” Tim is thinking, “We could kill every one in this room with a single pitch each.”

Halladay is nodding to him, having clearly overheard his thoughts via ESP.  “You’re learning to embrace the power,” he fired back into Tim’s head.  “That’s good.  Our day will soon come when humanity will be an unfortunate blemish on the passage of time, and we, the dominant few, will take our rightful positions as their tyrannical lea–”

“Whoa,” Tim thought out loud.  “Is that a cheese fountain?”

He wandered off.

A lot of apocalyptic scenarios on the blog this week.

Anywho, I bring this up because with Charlie releasing his rotation for the NLCS, the internet gets to revisit it’s Chemistry.com perfect match, Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum.

And that means the above (described) picture, the one from over a year ago that would never have meant anything if these pitchers weren’t starting this game, is going to be everywhere.  ESPN shows it off again, because they’re the ones who took it; the affiliated blogs run it, because they can get it from ESPN; the higher tier blogs take it because they always seem to shift around copyright infringement, and the bottom-feeders (HELLO!) then get it because they know how to copy, paste, and upload.

Originally, sure, the mystery was that perhaps Cole Hamels would pitch Game 2 instead of 3 because of his nagging troubles at AT&T Park.  Hilarious “But Who Will Start Game 1” jokes overran the world.  Well, it was announced that despite his 2-1 record and 6.12 ERA in the Giants stadium, Charlie Manuel gave a statement indicating his theory on the decision that included the word “whatever.”

"“I like Cole pitching in AT&T Park. I like it because of the size of the park and whatever.”"

Whatever indeed!

Why don’t I leave you with a couple of class A photo captions, courtesy of ESPN’s interest in the “story” of Halladay vs. Lincecum, NLCS Game 1.

"“A no-hitter in the playoffs? Nothin’ to it for Halladay.”"

Yeah, we get it.  Mainly because there’s nothing to get.

"“Colorful look and colorful language — all part of the Lincecum package.”"

*vomitting*

There better not be a picture of Cole Hamels and Jonathan Sanchez playing cards out there or something.