Media Outs Several Phillies as Soulless Cyborgs

This is the time of year when very little happens.  Sure. you can turn on Sports Center and let them tell you that some bowl game sponsored by a pharmaceutical company that makes cold medicine and boner pills and featuring to .500 teams is the GREATEST SPORTING EVENT OF THE YEAR.  

But the truth is, there’s not a whole lot going on, especially if you’re following baseball, a sport that is not in season.  Until Prince Fielder goes somewhere, the headlines won’t be set on fire on MLB.com, and so with the internet sitting here, unused, writers sometimes have to scare up some horseplay to keep people coming back.

Sometimes, that horseplay goes too far.  Sometimes, it forces them to tap into a walled off section of their psyche, where their greatest fears lie snickering and slithering wait for them to drop their guard for even a second.

Casey Feeney of CSN was the first writer in the Phillies blogosphere to succumb to his own insanity this winter, and it was a doozy.

First, Feeney Googled a quotation with the word “robots” in it to support his point.  He found one, in the form of Erich Fromm and, like all great writers do, used it in his introduction.  I believe Feeney started out with the objective of pointing out how complacent the Phillies have become, but in the end, he allowed his callous terror of the coming technological revolution take too firm of a hold on his pen, and began throwing out accusations with reckless abandon.

“The Phillies of recent years, however, have become more like a machine than a team.Roy Halladay: RobotCliff Lee: RobotChase Utley: RobotPlacido Polanco: RobotRaul Ibanez: Robot”–Casey Feeney

What is this, Salem during the witch trials?  Or Salem, 1,000 years in the future when an alien parasite is creating a similar sense of paranoia, as was the case in Arthur Miller’s little known follow-up to The Crucible, Salem 3102 AD?

As someone who often only speakers in hyperbole, draws wild parallels between things, and concocts metaphors from nowhere, even I was shocked at Feeney’s ruthless allegations.  At least Joseph McCarthy showed his face during the Red Scare.  It was a stupid, cowardly face, but you know.  There it was.

The point is, if robot overlords have inserted themselves into humanity via a terrific baseball team in Philadelphia, then Feeney has blown the lid off the second most important news story of the decade, the first of course being Cliff Lee re-signing with the Phils.  However, until we have actual proof of his suspicions, we have no choice to do denounce his somewhat unfocused, baseless accusations.

And of course, if they all turn out to be true, I think we can all agree that they are the COOLEST ROBOT OVERLORDS EVAAAAARRRR.