Chapter Three, The Homer Seen Around New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware

Paul Lo Duca with his latest Girlfriend

Paul Lo Duca and his latest bird are eating a large meal – kir royales, grilled sardines, rare steaks, French fries and house red at Pastis, a terrific downtown restaurant, my favorite place, in fact. Mr. Lo Duca needed to stoke his stomach to renew all the energy he expended when he hit the third solo home run in a row off Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels Thursday June 7th. Lo Duca stopped, then threw his bat in the air like a cheerleader’s baton on a Friday night in Odessa, Texas.



Pitcher Hamels didn’t see Lo Duca’s reaction immediately because he was watching the path of the ball, according to Scott Lauber in the Delaware NEWS JOURNAL. Phew! When he saw the instant replay he was incensed: “He’s a veteran. He should know better. It’s the old sacred game thing. There are little kids out there that are looking up to you. They look at what happens. That’s not the right way to do things.”

Conclusion: Mr. Lo Duca probably did not play Little League ball. Or belong to the Boy Scouts. And he would have looked so dashing in the Scouts uniform:



CHAPTER THREE

The NYTimes shows very interesting timing in an article by Jere Longman on Tuesday June 12th regarding the fact that the Phillies have an upcoming milestone: their 10,000th defeat. ‘WHAT PHILLIES FANS ALREADY KNEW’. And this, at a time when the Phillies have chalked up an impressive number of statistics as of today, June 14th:

• Pitching – Hamels, 9-2 (.818), tops.
• Strikeouts-Hamels .104, tops.
• Runs-Rollins.51, Utley,47
• RBI-Utley,53, tops.
• Hits-Utley,80
• Doubles-Utley,27, tops.
• Triples-Rollins,8
• Home Runs-Howard,13
• Stolen Bases-Victorino,20

The Phillies are tied with the Braves for 2nd place in the National League East, having won 35 games and lost 31, just 2 ½ games behind the Mets, whom they swept three times last week, coming off a three game dustoff of the Chicago White Sox this week. This included a grand slam by Centerfielder Aaron Rowand whom the Phillies acquired from the Sox in the Jim Thome trade of 2005, who said, ”it was just great to be able to help us get closer to the Mets.”

OBVIOUS QUESTION DEPARTMENT: Was Rollins correct when he said last Spring, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after the World Series: for they shall be filled.”