Mike Schmidt Finally Gets Nerve to Ask For Phillies Job
By Justin Klugh
Well, that little experiment in futility is over, as TBOH was pulverized by Phillies Nation in The Phield’s Phillies blog bracket, 588-185. As I mop my dignity off the floor, and pocket the tender comments left by loyal readers to savor later, the blogosphere keeps on churning.
Former Phillies with their numbers retired have a problem: They keep being crazy. Jim Bunning won’t stop breaking the government with old people-isms. Chuck Klein died from what has only ever been known as “undisclosed causes.” Steve Carlton stopped celebrating his birthday and Christmas because he thought it would stop the aging process (and boy, was that just the tip of the iceberg for him).
So you’ve got to wonder what Mike Schmidt’s angle is when he starts seeking out an “expanded role” with the Phillies organization. Because I’ve got to warn you Mike, I was an employee at Citizens Bank Park for a few months, and when you’re standing there, arms full of Shane Victorino memorabilia, screaming at the kids in front of you for understanding how a “line” works, while your boss patrols the stadium wondering why the hell you aren’t doing the job you’ve been hired to do, the “employee discount” doesn’t really factor in as an effective counter weight.
Schmidt’s had a “guest instructor” position with the Phils at Spring Training for the past few years, which is, I guess, the position from which he’d like to “expand.” “I’m so glad the organization welcomes me back,” he says, as if somebody found a bloated Phillie Phanatic corpse in his bathtub ten years ago or something.
Its Philadelphia, and you’re Mike Schmidt. I’m pretty sure you could hogtie Charlie Manuel and, with a giant fake mustache, try to steal his identity, and people would be cool with it. And Charlie doesn’t even have a mustache.
Though this makes sense. I was wondering who the third voice in the booth was yesterday as I drifted in and out of consciousness during the Phils-Rays game. It wasn’t Tom MacCarthy, and it wasn’t making my brain curdle, so it wasn’t Gary Matthews, either.
So Schmidt had hopped in the booth (and at one point called Joe Maddon out for one of those god damn weird Joe Maddon play calls, like “Oh, how about a sac bunt with runner in scoring position, no outs, and our best hitter at the plate? I’m a baseball man”), though I’m not positive if that’s the job he’s looking for.
Maybe he’s just Goldilocks-ing the organization, trying everything out to see where he’d fit in–He’s been in the booth, he’s coached the Threshers, he’s done this guest instructor thing (Which, even if you didn’t have a real interest in a coaching job, but were given the chance to fly down to Clearwater every spring to talk baseball at a bunch of young’ns who will literally do anything you say, its a no-brainer that you’re sitting on the plane).