The Phillies gave him a shot in September, and he hit a few home runs, gave some people reasons to mark him the next king of the boroughs.  It was a fun little narrative to learn about periodically while growing increasingly unkempt and unhygienic about the Phillies.

This year, Darin Ruf is out – the kid is old news, and we at TBOH are all about the cutting edge.  

Ruf is somewhere in Lehigh Valley, getting directions on how to get to the movie theater.  Down in Clearwater, Aaron Altherr – the guy whose name sounds like the first page of a children’s book about the alphabet – is being Darin Ruf even harder, and he’s not even limiting himself to home runs.

Damn…Aaron Altherr is at it again. 4-4, with a single, double, triple,ru, rbi and SB.

— Phuture Phillies (@PhuturePhilz) April 25, 2013

After 20 games, the 22-year-old right handed center fielder is hitting .342 with a .908 OPS, 25 hits, and nine doubles.

If he plays his cards right, he might just get to be mostly ignored, live the sweet life of a September call-up, get called “the something something” of the future by fans, put in some speculative projections for the 2015 opening day lineup, and then be forced by Phillies management to learn a new position because they’ve already got an outfielder lined up for next year and they don’t feel like dealing with all that darn paper work.

February 25, 2013; Glendale, AZ, USA; Chicago Cubs right fielder Jorge Soler (68) in the dugout before a spring training game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Camelback Ranch. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

After a bang-bang play at second in which he felt wronged by Threshers’ second baseman Edgar Alonso, Soler and Alonso argued until both benches cleared and everybody got really serious.  No one took any action, though, and the situation simmered down after teammate Javier Baez and coach Marinao Duncan pulled him away.  Soler apparently thought he was stepped on.

Afterward, Soler had clearly not attained a sense of closure on the incident, grabbed a bat, and sprinted meaningfully for the Threshers’ dugout.  He was stopped before anyone got hurt.

“Daytona manager Dave Keller told the News Journal those few seconds were ‘kind of like a nightmare.’”

–Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune

He never actually got to swing the bat before his teammates were on him, and obviously, the league and/or team will be invoking repercussions.  Though a Cubs writer had one thoughtful suggestion.

Cubs still looking into Soler incident. Apparently he challenged a whole team to come fight him.Bring him up!trib.in/17s4kvF

— Paul Sullivan (@PWSullivan) April 11, 2013

When pressed for comment, Delmon Young shook his head and muttered, “That’s why I always go with the long range attack.”

Derick E. Hingle-US PRESSWIRE

So many words include the letter”F.”  But that’s enough for you, is it?  No, you–a Phillies fan–are way more interested in the “F” sound when a “PH” is making it.  It’s basically the only way you can read it anymore.  After such blinding fandom all these years, the “F” appears as little more than a bizarre, alien hieroglyphic in the first third of the alphabet.  It’s everything you remember learning in childhood–and then a strange, top heavy symbol that’s supposed to mean something to you.

But the Phillies, see; they get us.  They understand that the world is a big, scary place, full of letters that are hard to read, and words that become impossible to understand.  Why, if it weren’t for spellcheck, every “F” word in these paragraphs would be wrongly spelled, in accordance with the so-called correct, dictionary-defined way of spelling things.

And that brings us to Phinley’s Holiday Run Phor Phun, a fundraiser with such mismatched lettering, it borders on ludicrous.  But it’s not meant for those who turn to things like “the dictionary” to spell things correctly.  It’s meant for us; those Phillies fans who fall into the demographic of “not completely literate, physically healthy, South Florida-residing” fans.  They will be the ones who run through the tape of the fundraising 5K or 10K on December 1 at the recently not flooded anymore Brighthouse Field.  There’s a tiki party, a bouncy castle, and awards for the first 50 finishers or either gender.

Obviously, that’s a trek for us dubiously employed Phillies bloggers, who actually can’t physically run anywhere without the assumption that they are chasing the people in front of them because they “just have that kind of face,” according to the police report.  But for those lucky enough to be geographically fortunate as the northeast turns grey, and able to participate in another Phillies affiliate’s copious fundraising; may you run as though actual Threshers have learned to walk on land and are chasing through the streets of your fair city.