Environmental Group Foolishly Pins Hopes to Phillies’ Offensive Output

For some causes, to barrel through the eternal adversity and challenges provided by a thoughtless world, they must attach themselves to a power greater than their own.  Through greater exposure, a wider support base, and rising popularity, perhaps then; then they will be heard, and forge change where there was once only silence.

And in this case, that entity–that power–is the Philadelphia Phillies offense.

Guys, the environment.  It’s a mess, apparently.  Being a full time Internet Centurion, I haven’t seen it in a while.  Is the environment where honey badgers live?  I am so hopelessly ignorant it’s amazing that I am permitted by law to interact with other people during visiting hours.

But maybe that’s why the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society thought of the Phillies in the same breadth as the environment it works to preserve:  Because both are sort of a mess.

Yes, the team is putting their hands in the middle with ARAMARK and the PHS to get this area bursting with tree life again, just like it was in that previously recorded golden era of plants that must have happened at some point.  For every home run the Phillies hit, a new tree will be planted in a key spot like a park or a wildlife reserve.  Got a house?  Not if it’s in a spot they want to plant a tree and Carlos Ruiz just parked one in the right center field bleachers, you don’t.

But there’s a catch:  The Phillies offense has been terrible.

The team has had enough on their plate trying to hit enough home runs to win baseball games.  Now, they’re being asked to hit them for the good of all humanity.  I’m not sure if applying more pressure is the answer to their offensive woes, especially for a club attempting with varying degrees of failure to execute small ball (which is a thing that, even when done correctly, calls for the opposite of home runs).

I’m not a baseball historian, but it wasn’t very long ago that Matt Kemp was single-handedly out-homering the entire Phillies roster.  If anyone should have the future of a planet attached to their success, it’s him; not a lineup currently featuring bench players and old people and human body parts that once belonged to All-Stars.

However, trees are important, according to science, and seeing as how we just can’t help but blast them out of the way to make room precious, precious strips malls, the Phillies are taking some initiative in righting a wrong, before we let it become even more too late for the environment than it already is.

I don’t want to talk down about a perfectly honorable and environmentally progressive program just because the Phillies are a pitching-first team!  I’m just saying that this might be the worst time to do this exact thing that the Phillies are trying to do.