Phillies Look to Replace Irreplaceable Davey Lopes

Justin Klugh — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:39:36 +0000

When I played little league ball, the coach would usually stick one of the sad sack reserve playesr with no chance in hell at making contact with the ball as first base coach. It was usually an afterthought, too, like “Whoa, if one of these dweebs actually gets on base, there should be somebody over there to tell them what to do, and I’m going to be too busy screaming myself hoarse with racial slurs aimed at the opposing coach to follow the ball.”

Since then, I’ve seen the value of the position, and when you’ve got a guy like Davey Lopes out there, sending dudes and timing pitchers’ windups and generally just being a dagger in the thigh of pitchers and catchers across the NL, it’s even more valuable. Sadly, the Phillies don’t have a guy out there like Davey Lopes anymore.

If the season started today, like a week after it ended, our first base coach box would be nothing more than half a chalky white rectangle with no gruff former manager of a subpar team to populate it.

So let’s talk a walk through the backgrounds of the possible replacements.

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Phillies Look to Replace Irreplaceable Davey Lopes