Reading Phillies Become Good Thanks to Inspiration from Mean Blog

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but those Reading Phils are a hell of a ball club.  A hell of an awful ball club!  Ha ha ha. I–

**Door is kicked in as Matt Rizzotti, Austin Hyatt, and Michael Spidale burst into the room, furious**

No, wait, it was just a–

**I receive a vicious beating and am left for dead.  The remainder of this blog post is typed out over a series of seven very painful hours**

Actually, as the Eastern League All-Stars whom I will not be filing felony assault charges against out of fear will tell you, the Reading Phils are putting the “baseball” back in “Baseballtown, USA.”  Winning five of their last six, the team has moved out of the loss column and into a comfortable duplex under the “W.”

So when Rizzotti is popping cheap, affordable home runs over the outfield wall at First Energy Stadium or Josh Zeid is trotting out from the bullpen to let the other team in the game just enough for their to be a flicker of hope and then smothering that hope with utter nightmares from his arm, we can all agree it was this blog that got them back to over .500 (41-40).  This season has been a rocky road of life lessons, culminating in heartfelt moments that bonded the team together I assume.

And what bonds people together the fastest?  A common enemy.  I am the ‘Dallas Green’ of Phillies blogs.

"“The first baseman and his teammates have learned runs and hits can sometimes be difficult to find.”—Reading Eagle"

Some would argue that intense, relentless verbal abuse is the opposite of encouragement.  But those people are cowards who often are guilty of some hideous, child-related crime that no one knows about yet.  Every coach/teacher/parent I’ve ever had has been nothing if not profanely supportive.  Nothing gets in a batter’s head more successfully than an adult with their lawn chair parked right behind the backstop rattling off a frightening collection of vulgarities.  And in the Phillies blogosphere, I like to think we fill that role .

So I have this to say to the Reading Phillies:  You’re welcome.  Even though most of you are probably giving most of the credit to Mark Parent, or yourselves, and have probably never heard of this website, just know this:  We’ve heard of you. And we helped.