Sports: Baseball: Phillies hold their own, Nats surprise of the season; Jays seek breakthru past triumvirate

The Philadelphia Phillies, into whose fandom I oscillate, are holding their own, after a good start. Key player, Jim Thome, is recovering from a leg fracture, but should be back soon enuff to do some good in the last half of the season. But then there's the head-office dithering about whether to keep that young first baseman, and benefit from his drive down the road, or trade him and benefit from his drive down another road; or, trade him and keep, contretemps, vet player in the same field position on first, Ryan Howard, who is lackluster but steady. I'd go for keeping the now-injured Thome. In any case , out of loyalty to my favourites from childhood, I'm rootin' for the Phillies, and expect some good to come of it. But certainly not the championship, especially after the mid-season All-Stars game between the National Baseball League and that other one ... yeah, the American Baseball League.

But in the NBL, no one can help but stand amazed at what happened to the old refugees from "the former Montreal Expos, neither financially nor athletically successful, transplanted to les Etats-Unis and flourishing in its baseball-starved capital," Washington DC, where they've metamorphosed into the Washington Nationals, and now head the Phillies' own National Baseball League's Eastern division.

Bidding for transfer of ownership from the DC government to private investors is hi; but the real excitement is in the ballpark where enthusiasm is over the top from the crowd, and of course at the box office too.

Just so, it's been amazing too, recently, that the Phillies went to Natland and won 2 out of 3 games. This was not just a surprise, but a cause celebre, according to sportswriter Rich Hoffman who found a Phillies in the event.

Winning 2 out of 3 at a most strategic time, the Phillies also

found their pulse, however faint. And yesterday, their pulse's name was [none other than vet first-baseman] Ryan Howard [replacing the regular Jim Thome, out due to an injury, as said above - Owlb].

"This is huge," Howard said, overstating the facts by several magnitudes, but so what? He had golfed a two-run, game-tying home run over the centerfield fence in the bottom of the eighth inning. He had three RBI on the day, and was in the dugout when teammate Ramon Martinez knocked in the game-winning run with a pinch-hit single in the 12th.

"The players are going to come back relaxed and ready to do our jobs," Howard said, in a clubhouse where most of his teammates had already fled for the airport and their All-Star breaks.

"Everybody gets to go home and relax," he said.

This might not have been huge, but it wasn't nothing, either. The managerial fireworks, they were nothing; Robinson was mad that Manuel was yelling about how long the Nationals' Jose Guillen was taking to pull himself together after nailing himself with a foul tip in the sixth inning, but the two didn't get within 30 feet of each other before the umpires intervened.

As for the rest, though, the bottom-line truth was that the Phils needed to win this series against the first-place Nationals, and they did. They needed to begin the slow, messy climb out of their current predicament, and they did. At the break, they are 7 ½ games out of the division lead, and five games behind in the National League wild-card race.

The way I tell it, and cut-and-snip my quotes from the sportjournos, you'd think this League this year is all about the Phillies vs the Nats. Well, to some of us it is. - Owlb

In the ABL, the Yankees have edged their way to the lead by a nose, after a long frump. Now, the contest rages in ABL East in a triangulated struggle at the top between Yanks (50-41 in the standings), Bosox (50-42), and Orioles (50-42). Now, in baseball that sure is livin' at the edge!

Right now, the Toronto Blue Jays are just beneath the triumvirate in fourth place with a standings stat of 45 wins and 47 losses. Come on, Jays! You can do it! - Owlb