Boiling with momentum, the team cruised into their final five games with a wild-eyed fire not seen since the ’80s.  They then lost four of their last five games.  Dusty Wathan stepped off of a professional baseball field for the last time.

This week, he was revealed as the next manager of the Reading Phillies, replacing Mark Parent, who replaced Steve Roadcap the year before.   It seems they have a tradition in Reading of filling vacancies with less and less Major League experience.  Except in Parent’s case.  Look, the point is, it’s a different guy.

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Mark Parent is gone; he made his choice.  Now he’ll spend the next year filling out lineup cards for the Chicago White Sox and taking over if Robin Ventura gets thrown out of the game.  It was a career move, not a personal one, but it sure felt personal when he sat silently in the corner at First Energy Field during our birthday party, then said he was going out to get some cigarettes and he was taking everything he owned with him for some reason. (more…)