Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Only the Philadelphia Phillies, the first team in MLB to 50 losses, would hire a guy whose last name is partially pronounced fail — with a ph in the case of Andy MacPhail, the new club President effective at the end of the season.
The Phillies have a mascot called the Phanatic, also with a ph, and their team and city start with the same letters. However it is spelled, failure is a familiar word in Philadelphia these days, so it should not have been too surprising that MacPhail’s first press conference with the team on Monday was also an epic fail.
That’s is due to two reasons. One, MacPhail never outlined what his plan would be to rejuvenate the franchise and two, current GM Ruben Amaro Jr. was allowed to sit at the same table.
If MacPhail really wanted to endear himself to his new fanbase, he would have insisted his press conference be combined with Amaro’s departure. That’s because if the Phillies are going to move forward, they have to jettison any perceived ties to the past. Amaro has been rightly blamed for presiding over the current demise of the organization due to giving long-term contracts to players on the downside of their careers.
It also did not help that Amaro had to trade pitcher Cliff Lee once and then trade to get him back. He got nothing for Lee the first time and now that Lee is on the disabled list, he is getting nothing out of that second trade. MacPhail failed to outline what he would have done differently. Now that he is a special consultant to current President Pat Gillick, he is supposed to come up with some recommendations to be implemented at the end of the season.
If his next press conference is to announce Amaro is gone, it will be considerably more well-received than his first one was.
Mike Gibson is a MLB Featured Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @papreps , “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
