Charlie Manuel’s Dreams of Simple Contract Extension to be Realized

This junior high dance has gone on long enough; the Phillies lingering by the punch bowl, wanting nothing more than to cross the cafegymatorium floor and ask Charlie Manuel to dance, but being capable of naught but the occasional amorous glance.As one of those things that feels like its just not happening for no reason, Charlie Manuel’s contract has been a source of unnecessary stress.  We’ve got plenty of necessary stress; Dom Brown’s hand bones, Chase Utley’s knee riddled with cortisone shots, the Flyers are only recently scraping their guts off the ice and slapping them back in their torsos, and all of its happening as we suck down nationally recognized levels of horrific air pollutants.  Also, unemployment and violent crime.  Remember them?  They’re still around.

So, not to insinuate to Charlie that he’s less important than some of his players’ body parts, it’d be great if the Phillies could get the ball rolling on this seemingly fixable problem.  And according to Jim Salisbury, they finally are.

The Phillies are dropping the ladle in the punch bowl, gathering all the mojo they can muster, and strutting across the multi-purpose room to ask Charlie to dance.  Only this dance is going to cost them $3.5-4 million.  And it will last two years.

… aupposedly.  Again, the Phillies aren’t prepared to totally release us from the vicelike grip of baseball’s pressures; all of this is still preliminary and unsaid out loud.  But I’d like to hope that the Phils know what’s best for them and are willing to shell out around 1/30 of the amount they paid for Ryan Howard’s extension to keep Charlie around.