Chooch Hits Three Run Homer, Continues to be Adorable

Watching Prince Fielder play first base for the Detroit Tigers brings me back to my youth. The year is 1990.  Detroit is captivated by a rotund slugger how proceeds to lead the majors in home runs, RBI and hamburger commercials starred in.  He was the first player since George Foster in 1977 to hit 50 home runs and since this predated the steroid era, people seemed to be pretty happy about it.  He was listed at 6’3″ and 230 pounds.  Cecil Fielder’s left leg probably weighed about 220, so this listing may have been slightly inaccurate.

Now here we are in 2012.  Cecil’s kid is the first baseman for the Tigers after signing a mammoth free agent deal.  Prince is a little bit shorter, but he sure looks like he could win a pie eating contest against any major league player save Bartolo Colon.  It makes me happy to watch star first basemen leave the National League while simultaneously harkening back to my youth.  It doesn’t hurt that he is heavy, thus making sprinting in any way shape or form an adventure.  The new-look Tigers have a shit ton of fat guys that should probably be DHing and they welcomed the Phillies to Joker Marchant Stadium (???) to defend their undefeated spring record.

Roy Halladay gave up two home runs to Eric Patterson.  This will never happen again.  Doc started to get stretched out by throwing three innings.  I always wonder how upset this type of outing makes Halladay.  I think he would try to murder the Rich Dubee if he tried to take him out in the third inning.  In his three innings Roy allowed three runs and four hits.

The offense didn’t get going until a sixth inning Carlos Ruiz three run homer off of Adam Wilk.  The Phillies followed the sixth with a four run seventh.  The Phillies relief corps made the seven runs stand up on their way to a 7-5 victory.

I learned a few things about the Phillies in this game.  Larry Andersen hates umpires more than any person in the world.  Tyson Gilles is really, really fast and Detroit Tigers fans really like Brandon Inge.

Joe Blanton climbs the bump tomorrow against the Baltimore Orioles.