You’re a 16-and-older male, out on the town.  What are you, headed for the mall to scam on some chicks?  ?  I just hope your plans don’t include getting the free giveaway at a Phillies game.  Because you are part of the most scorned demographic to spin a turnstile in Citizens Bank Park.

Fortunately, it was just the Father’s Day celebration at CBP; the game a year that stadium employees hand you something from a box on your way in.  Yes, even if you’re not a father.  What’s that?  You “…think you’re not a father, but who knows?”  Oh, right.  Because of all those anonymous sexual encounters you’ve had.

Congrats.

Well, over the years, the Phillies have given you a variety of gifts, all of which seem to fall under the category of “hat.”  Here are my personal thoughts on those I’ve received.

Hats! HATS!!!

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Father’s Day.  A gorgeous afternoon.  Fans Citizens Bank Park-over were adorned in this year’s particular ridiculous Father’s Day giveaway.  Roy Halladay was getting pushed around.  And the Phillies, as is their custom, were losing.  The faint breaths of offense and pitching we’d seen within the last few days were becoming precious memories as, for the second day in a row, a jilted loss looked to befell the Phils.

Or… was it…?

Valdez stepped into the batter’s box known to some–mainly those who happen to be near my during Phillies games–as a “Fireballing shortstop with a bat made of garbage.”  His home run the day before was an oasis in a desert of sandy K’s and GIDP’s.  Already, as the “fifth inning bitter-wave” swept over me, I was demanding that he was not capable of pulling off the feat again.

For the first time ever, I was proven wrong about something in baseball.  Valdez clocked a pure Pavano 352 feet over the left field wall.

“And the game is tied!” Tom McCarthy wrongly informed television viewers, forgetting the Twins had scored again the previous inning.

But even so.  One run can start a revolution.  One unlikely spark can light up a team.  One holiday hero can save the day.  Maybe, on a day to celebrate our fathers, Wilson Valdez was about to lead the Phillies’ offense in a relentless assault to make the Twins call him daddy.

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I don’t want to spend another season bitching about Brad Lidge, and you certainly don’t want to read it.  Why would you?  It’s bleak and pointless and I run out of jokes by mid-July, so really, I’d despise being forced into that position.  And I already used the “giant spider” joke so clearly my A-material is almost out.

But after a little horse shit ballet he performed in the final moments of the first Twins game on Friday, and the sequel with the dark ending he put on last night, I look to the horizon and see a future heavy with blown leads, despondent post game interviews, and a division lead that keeps slipping further and further away, just because that one final out is, like chasing a sexy model through the woods in a cologne commercial, so very, very elusive.

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