Tyson Gillies Given the Honor of Playing Near Bryce Harper in Arizona Fall League

Phillies prospect Tyson Gillies has been granted permission to play in 2011’s Arizona Fall League for prospects, along with some of baseball’s other known prospects such as Everything That is Good, Bryce Harper.  Phillies brass has yet to indicate what exactly these specific seven prospects have done to deserve the honor of experiencing Harper in the Flesh, but it must be something in the vein of saving an innocent child’s life or donating an extremely important organ.

Seven of the Phillies prospects will be playing in the AFL with the Scottsdale Scorpions, which, despite having a goofy, alliterative name, is not a team from a Matt Christopher book about a kid who starts playing baseball, suffers a minor setback involving injury, confidence, or magic, and eventually overcomes the odds.

Joining Gillies will be B.J. Rosenberg, Cody Overbeck, Tyler Cloyd, Colby Shreve, Jacob Diekman, Darin Ruf, and Not Matt Rizzotti.  Ruf has been absolutely terrible to minor league pitching.  Overbeck doesn’t have a position.  Cloyd is coming off a recent bedazzling.  Any worries these seven may have about an absence of stories to tell their grandchildren have dissipated, as they can look forward to years of enthralling wide-eyed babes with tales of the time Bryce Harper passed within several feet of them during a home run trot, or were struck by some wayward spittle as he screamed himself hoarse at an umpire.

The league is held every season so that prospects of many Major League teams can be put on display to show off their skills while shadowy executives monitor them from afar.  In the Phillies’ case, the league is used to register the unchecked development of young talent, which is recorded in a top secret ledger and stored for when the team will be trading anyone of value in some sweet, sweet deal in late July 2012.

No word yet on any of the Phillies’ prospects reflections on playing nearby Bryce Harper this autumn, but we can assume that it will be greatest fucking moment of their lives.