And you wonder why Phillies fans are so fed up?

[jiminphilly]

Anatomy of a droughtWhy have Phillies gone so long between playoff appearances?
By PAUL HAGEN
More on the Phillies

EARLY ON THE morning of Oct. 1, 2000, in his room at the Marriott Marina in Fort Lauderdale, Terry Francona got the call he had been expecting. Club president Dave Montgomery and general manager Ed Wade wanted to see him before the Phillies played their final game of the season against the Marlins at Pro Player Stadium. It didn't take long to get to the point. After 4 years as manager, Francona was fired.

Since both executives liked the skipper personally, idle chit-chat filled the awkward moments that followed. Somehow the conversation turned to what had gone wrong. As Francona recalls the scene, he casually mentioned that some things would have to change if the Phillies hoped to win. Montgomery was curious. Would he be willing to share those thoughts? It was agreed that the club president would visit the now ex-manager at his Bucks County home.

The meeting never happened. Montgomery said he isn't sure why. Francona said he thinks that he simply forgot. At any rate, an opportunity was missed to explore a fascinating question:

Why haven't the Phillies won?

The basic facts aren't in dispute.

• Since 1983, the Phillies have been to the playoffs once. Of the 26 teams that were in existence at that time, 23 have been in postseason play at least twice. Only the Brewers and Expos/Nationals have been shut out in that span.

• In those 22 years they have finished above .500 just six times and won as many as 90 games just once.

• Since they made their last postseason appearance in 1993, 22 of the current 30 big-league clubs have made it to the playoffs at least once. The only other teams to be blanked are the Brewers, Pirates, Expos/Nationals, Devil Rays, Royals, Tigers and Blue Jays. That's not exactly the kind of company they want to keep.

• The Marlins, an expansion team in 1993, already have won a pair of world championships, twice as many as the Phillies in their 123 years of existence.

• The Arizona Diamondbacks, who didn't play their first game until 1998, have been to the playoffs three times and won the World Series once.

But why? Some of the explanations for how a big-market team has had such remarkably little success over such an extended period of time are pretty straightforward.

• A once-proud farm system was allowed to lapse into disrepair in the 1980s, including the disastrous decision to abandon Latin American scouting.

• The progress Mike Arbuckle made in rebuilding the system after his arrival in October 1992 was ultimately undermined by a series of go-for-broke moves that cost the team prospects and compensatory draft picks in an ultimately futile attempt to capture a playoff berth.

• The Phillies were well behind the curve during the stadium boom that began when Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992, changing the economic face of baseball.

• The team's financial situation was worsened by the extended lockout of 1994-95. According to chairman Bill Giles, then the club president, that cost the franchise $30 million.

All are valid points. Still, that doesn't seem to completely address the issue. After all, some teams that didn't have well-regarded farm systems made multiple postseason appearances in that era. Every team was impacted by the ruinous work stoppage. Some teams with lower payrolls won pennants and even world championships during that time.

The Minnesota Twins, playing in the dilapidated Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, have won the World Series twice since 1987. The Marlins also have won twice despite playing in a renovated football stadium. Since 1983, the Athletics and Cardinals have played host to eight postseasons each in round, multipurpose facilities that resemble Veterans Stadium. The Braves began their streak of 14 straight division titles at another cookie-cutter park, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

So, again: Why haven't the Phillies won?

To find the answers, the Daily News interviewed more than two dozen people who have a knowledge of the organization's inner workings. Several themes emerged from the conversations with insiders who agreed to share their opinions, most only on the condition of anonymity. They painted a picture of a sometimes out-of-touch front office in which:

• Winning baseball games isn't always the first priority. Said one respected baseball man: "The place is too intense on too many things that don't help the baseball side."

• Decisions are sometimes made for the wrong reasons, such as how popular a player is with the fans. Gee, thanks, fellas but I'd rather have an asshole playing 3rd base who can help us win games rather than a nice guy with a bad back.

• Dissent is discouraged and the corporate culture is marked by suspicion, secrecy and an unrealistically sunny view of the short-term outlook. "It's too secretive. Everything is like the CIA there," one former executive said. "If you don't trust us, fire us. Like trades. The players know. The agents know. It's paranoia. They need to get more out in the open, be a little more honest with people."

• There has been virtually no turnover among non-baseball executives. "They depend too much on their Phillies good-old-boy network," said the executive. "And I'm not talking just about the people in uniform, or who were in uniform. It's a stagnant organization. It's almost like somebody's got to die before they leave... It's the same bleepin' faces every year, from the parking-lot attendants on up."

What follows is an attempt at taking an even-handed look at the factors that have contributed to all those empty Octobers.


Bill Giles points to the only sustained period of success in franchise history - five division titles, two pennants and the only world championship the team has ever won, from 1976 through 1983 - as the beginning of the downturn because it meant they were drafting toward the bottom in most of the years that followed.

That situation was exacerbated after Paul Owens and his top lieutenant, Dallas Green, took on new roles. Green, after managing the Phillies to their only world championship in 1980, left 2 years later to become general manager of the Cubs.

Giles also concedes that he should have acted more quickly in making changes when it became glaringly obvious that the developmental system was faltering. "We weren't running our farm system very well," he said. "When Paul Owens started to manage [in 1983], we didn't do very well acquiring young players.

"[Former general manager Woody Woodward] wanted to fire [farm director] Jim Baumer and [scouting director] Jack Pastore [in 1988]. And looking back, he was probably right."

Giles fired Woodward instead.

At the same time, the team was overrating prospects such as Juan Samuel and Jeff Stone, who they thought would become the headliners of the next generation after the Wheeze Kids in 1983.

"I think in '83 we were clearly a veteran club," Dave Montgomery said. "We thought we had some emerging young players. And we did, Sammy being the most notable of them. We had traded for Von Hayes. I think there was a recognition that we couldn't live with that same group and we had to get younger. And we didn't do that, frankly, with the success we thought that nucleus would bring."


By that time, the trend to retro ballparks was clear. When Ed Rendell was the mayor of Philadelphia, he publicly supported the notion that the Phillies should have a fancy new playpen to help them remain competitive.

The project, however, bogged down in political infighting. The park didn't become a reality until John Street took office.

By the time Citizens Bank Park came on line in 2004, a dozen new revenue-boosting ballparks had sprouted across the country. In the process, the Phillies went from one of the top-grossing teams in the majors to one of the lowest.

And the delay was costly. "After 1993, the good players got hurt. And then we didn't have the finances," Giles said. "We didn't have the money to participate. The [work stoppage] of 1994, that cost us a lot of money. Thirty million dollars. And we didn't have the wherewithal to compete for free agents.

"That's when I started working on getting a new ballpark, because I saw when the Baltimore Orioles built Camden Yards, their revenue increased by $60 million."

Nobody will deny the correlation between payroll and winning in recent years. It's also true that the Phillies ranked 17th in payroll in 2002, 15th in 2003 and fifth each of the last 2 years, according to the USA Today Baseball Salaries Database.

Yet, in those years, 15 of 32 teams to make it to the playoffs (46.9 percent) had lower payrolls than the Phillies.

It wasn't until after the 1996 season that the Phillies decided to admit that the patch-and-fill approach wouldn't work. They openly embarked on a rebuilding program and asked their fans for patience. Ten years later, the customers are still waiting to see results.

In the interim, some teams have managed to turn themselves around in a much shorter time frame. The Marlins won the World Series in 1997, staged a drastic fire sale that resulted in a 108-loss season and then won the World Series again in 2003.

The Indians signaled their own rebuilding after losing local icon Jim Thome to the Phillies as a free agent before the 2003 season. In 2 years the payroll dropped from $92.7 million in 2001 to $48.6 million, as the Tribe went from winning the division to losing 94 games.

Last year, though, Cleveland won 93 games - five more than the Phillies - despite a modest $41.5 million payroll... less than half what the Phils spent on player's salaries.

Maybe it's not surprising, then, that patience is running thin in Philadelphia.
The ownership group formed by Bill Giles bought the Phillies from the Carpenter family before the 1982 season. The Wheeze Kids pennant of 1983, therefore, could properly be credited to the previous administration.

Since then, the Phillies have had hundreds of players, dozens of coaches, nine managers and five general managers.

The only constants have been the ownership, remarkably unchanged since the beginning, and the absence from the postseason. They have had only six seasons above .500 and only one with more than 88 wins to go along with the lone division title in 1993. Many observers have made a connection between the two.

Noted the executive who has since moved on: "I'm not saying they should fire the good people. But there are too many people there who have been there too long."

One front-office person recently admitted: "We don't fire well."

The lack of turnover might make The Phillies Inc. a comfortable place to work. But many believe this clubby atmosphere ultimately creates a climate where it's difficult to assign responsibility when things go wrong.

"Nobody wants any accountability. Everybody wants to pass the buck," one longtime staffer said, a sentiment echoed by others.

At the same time, those in the know say, there is an almost obsessive concern about secrecy. Time and energy is wasted trying to ferret out sources to stories that have appeared or are rumored to be in the works. This can breed tension and distrust. The atmosphere has been described variously as "tiptoeing through a minefield" and "walking on eggshells."

A few years ago, a high-ranking Phillies person was asked a question before a game. "No comment," he replied. In the third inning, the reporter's cell phone rang. "You're not going to quote me on that, are you?" he asked anxiously.

One baseball man said: "They're too worried about what the press is going to say, what the radio station is going to say, instead of what's best for the team. It's all about perception. They don't seem to understand that the one thing that draws people and creates interest is winning."

Said another: "My sense ever since I came here is that everybody is so concerned about the reaction to moves that it's difficult to step back and do things that will help in the long term. You can't worry about what the fans will say or what the media will say. You have to make good decisions. If you have good baseball people making the decisions, things will work out."

Others question the organization chart itself, a hands-off ownership group that allows the club president wide latitude. The theory is that the president spreads himself too thin tending to the owners while simultaneously overseeing all facets of the organization, not just baseball.

Dave Montgomery rejects that out of hand. "I don't spend much time dealing with ownership," he said. "It's fortunate they've given us that type of confidence or trust... They're just very supportive. They've put in substantial dollars the last few years and they're on the hook, obviously, for a good bit of the ballpark. There's very little time spent [dealing with ownership."

Still, the model for many teams that have been consistently successful is to have one person at the top of the pyramid - whether it's principal owner George Steinbrenner with the Yankees or general manager John Schuerholz with the Braves - who is focused solely on winning baseball games.

On the dark November day last fall that he was introduced at Shea Stadium as the Mets' new closer, Billy Wagner listed the reasons he decided not to stay with the Phillies. "In the end, I think they were more interested in being competitive than winning," he said.

Curt Schilling and Scott Rolen had previously voiced similar sentiments.

Comments of that sort exasperate Montgomery. In the middle of a lengthy answer about the farm system, he sighed. "I don't want to use the word patience, because it implies we don't want to win now. And we're very anxious to win now," he insisted.


John Felske was standing behind the batting cage at Wrigley Field in June 1987. Greg Gross was taking some swings. The Phillies' manager made the offhanded comment that he'd really like to start Gross and play him every day.

Well, a listener asked, why don't you just put Gross in the lineup? Didn't the manager have the final say in such matters?

Felske's eyes narrowed and he pulled the guy back from the cage. "You don't know how things work around here," he said. "Baseball people don't make those decisions. Last winter we could have made a trade that would have really helped our team. But the marketing department shot it down. They had spent a lot of time promoting the player we were going to trade, so the deal didn't get made."

Felske was fired the next day. But it appears that little has changed in the relationship between baseball people and the front office in the 20 years since; every manager that has passed through since has, from time to time, become frustrated when nonbaseball concerns crossed the white lines.

Example: It's been common practice to "suggest" that the manager play as much of his regular lineup as possible in spring-training games that are being televised back to Philadelphia.

"I was told that a lot," Francona, now manager of the Red Sox, said. "I used to be told a lot they didn't like my Sunday lineups [during the regular season]. Our Sunday record was much better than our [overall] percentage. Because we tried to plan ahead and we had guys who had energy and we tried to match up. And I used to try to tell people that. But it didn't seem to make a lot of difference.

"Or Curt Schilling. They'd want us to bump him back a day and pitch him at home. That was hard."

Example: On one occasion a year ago, Randy Wolf was scheduled to pitch in a split-squad exhibition game on the road. Instead, he ended up pitching in Clearwater. Everybody in the clubhouse believed the change was made because the partners were in town for their quarterly meeting.

Example: Rookie of the Year Ryan Howard was pulled out of camp the last week of spring training this year to fly back to Philadelphia for a photo op with Mayor Street.

Said one prominent ex-Phillie: "This game is hard. The season is a haul no matter where you play. It's a grind. But in Philadelphia, there are so many extra obstacles that you don't have as much energy when it comes time to play the game. Sometimes it makes it hard just to go out on the field.

"Every part of that organization has a job to do. I get that. But what about just winning and letting the rest of it fall into place?"

Both Montgomery and Giles are unapologetic about the emphasis they've placed on the marketing of the team.

"At the end of the day, we have to pay bills," Montgomery said. "Do players like Photo Day? No. Should you do Photo Day? Absolutely, I believe.

"I vividly remember investing hour upon hour in spring training trying to convince Scott Rolen to come to the Opening Day luncheon. And he said he wouldn't do it because we have sponsors there. I said, 'Scott, come on. Where does the money in the game come from?' Others say they won't do anything for TV. Come on. The fact is that their paychecks has an extra zero or two because of sponsors and TV."

Giles laughed when asked if he thought the marketing department had an undue influence. "It's never the marketing department. It's me," he said. "Everybody knows I was a marketing guy all my life. I do believe a lot in getting exciting players. Eddie Murray, John Olerud, Todd Zeile. They were pretty good players but, to me, they were boring players. This guy has no business running a baseball team.

"I definitely have a bias toward fun-type players. And it may have hurt somewhere along the line." No fucking way. You think?

How much influence the general manager should have over the manager is an ongoing debate in baseball. In Oakland, GM Billy Beane openly treats the manager like a subordinate, instructing him on the strategies to employ and the lineup he should use. Montgomery noted that, at times, it's difficult for the manager and coaches to retain their objectivity.

"No staff, if they watch a guy 5 days in a row and he's struggling or he's ticking them off, doesn't say, 'Let's get rid of this guy.' And that's where the GM has to say, 'Wait a second. Are we really improving ourselves by doing that?' " he said.

Countered Francona: "It's funny. I don't think I'd make a very good scout. But when I'm around these guys every day, I know what they can do. And sometimes you're the last to [be able to give your] evaluation."


The Phillies under Ruly Carpenter gave the baseball people a lot of breathing room. "We were allowed to argue and scream and yell about what we wanted to do," Dallas Green said. "And then we'd go out and make sure the baseball players did it. And, thankfully, Ruly would go along with us."

Baseball doesn't work that way anymore. The game has become much more corporate and the Phillies are no exception.

"There are only two or three places in all of baseball where the front office doesn't interfere. Minnesota. Atlanta. St. Louis," one longtime baseball man calculated recently.

Now, these are all franchises that have a pretty good track record. And it would appear that it was the autonomy given the baseball people that led to the success rather than vice versa.

Montgomery unfailingly describes himself as a club president who takes no active role in baseball decisions. Many people around the team, both past and present, contradict that. They say he is a micromanager who is deeply involved in every aspect of the organization.

"Let the baseball people do their jobs," one highly regarded baseball man suggested when asked how the Phillies could improve. "If you do that, everything else falls into place. That's just common sense. Look at Atlanta. Look at Toronto when Pat Gillick was there. That's the way clubs that have been successful do it.

"Of course, make sure you have the right people. And you have to hold them accountable. But it's only fair to do that if you let them sink or swim with their own decisions."

Montgomery was asked about a few of dozens of occasions when he is said to have influenced baseball decisions.

Perception: Ed Wade wanted to fire manager Larry Bowa midway through the 2004 season and wasn't allowed to.

Montgomery: "That's a sensitive one for me. There is some truth to that. But that was only the circumstances. Wade should have been the one fired, not Bowa.

"There was a point in time when doing that would have been done in a very awkward and public manner that I didn't think was the right way regarding Larry and a couple important people in this organization. And I said, 'Can't we find a better time?' I said, 'If you want to do it, do it.'

"So was it stopped for 72 hours because of my feelings? Yes. And did people rethink it as a result of that? Yes. There's truth to it. But this is a man who was a spectacular player for us, an outstanding third-base coach in my opinion and a good manager. And there was some frustration that created a desire to do it at what I thought was an awkward and inappropriate time. Then as it turned out, the team played better after that and people decided to wait. I didn't decide to wait.

"Guilty as charged."

Perception: When the Phillies first had a chance to trade second baseman Mickey Morandini for Doug Glanville from the Cubs in December 1997 the deal almost didn't go through because Montgomery was too fond of Morandini. At the time Glanville was a decent CF for the Cubs and the Phillies had a huge hole to fill at that spot. Morandini was done. What a joke.

"We had to talk [Montgomery] into it," Francona said. "He didn't want to do it because of Mickey's popularity. I said, 'We've got to do this.' And Eddie [Wade] went in and had to fight. And that turned out to be a great trade. I didn't understand why we had to fight to get that done."

Montgomery: "That probably would have been true. I remember talking to [Cubs president] Andy McPhail and him saying we had just gotten one of his favorite players. And I said, 'Ditto for me.'

"Look. We're all human. Does somebody's personality and the way they carry themselves become a factor in your desire to retain somebody? Sure. You're definitely going to want to do that. But I certainly didn't try to stop it, because we did it."

One Phillies insider who was close to the situation at the time said, however, that this illustrates the problem with Montgomery's deliberate style. While Bill Giles was often criticized for being too impulsive, Montgomery is rapped for sometimes appearing indecisive.

"[Montgomery] always wants to wait, wait, wait. He wants to think it over," he said. "Sometimes patience is a good thing. But not all the time. Sometimes there are windows of opportunity and you have to be willing to make a move while the window is still open."

Perception: Catcher Mike Lieberthal was given his most recent extension (in August 2002) because Montgomery liked the fact that he's made a lot of personal appearances on behalf of the team.

Montgomery: "The baseball people gave it to him. That was all driven by Jason Kendall. Jason Kendall was supposed to sign a $9 million deal with the Pirates. And the recommendation was that if we wanted to go ahead with Lieby, we should strike now. Do I like Mike Lieberthal as a person? Yeah. But that's really revisionist history. I don't vote in that stuff.

"I think now a lot of people are saying Lieby's skills have diminished, but it's difficult to roll back. Why did we give him the option? Because he wasn't going to sign without it. And the thought process at the time was that we wanted to lock him up as long as he was healthy.

"I've said this many times. I have the ultimate authority. Hopefully I've absorbed some baseball and I love it. But I sit in a car with Pat Gillick and [scout] Don Welke and I'm learning every minute. So if Pat comes to me and says, 'This for that'... I might say, 'Jeez, are you sure you want to do that? Why?' But at the end of the day, if they want to do it, they do it."


It is part of the enduring lore of the organization that Bill Giles used to sit in the press lounge after games in the early 1980s, composing on cocktail napkins fanciful lineups of Phillies prospects that he believed would be the foundation for future championships.

Fast-forward to the organizational meetings in October 2004. At one session, the names of all available bench players were listed. Tomas Perez was ranked far down the list.

"I guess we don't value him as highly as we thought we did," Ed Wade observed.

Yet, a few days later, Perez signed a 2-year contract with an option for a third season.

"I remember that little centerfielder we got from the Mets [Ricky Otero]," one ex-baseball man recalled. "We were in a meeting and [former manager Jim Fregosi] said he might be a fourth or fifth outfielder. Bill Giles and Dave Montgomery said, 'What are you looking at? He's going to be our next Lenny Dykstra.' "

Every team tends to overvalue its own players, but the Phillies seem to have made an art of it. And that, in the end, was the primary message Francona would have delivered if he and Montgomery had ever gotten together after the disastrous 2000 season.

"I wanted to tell him that our pitching wasn't good enough. That we were going out there and we weren't even close," he said.

"Everybody is the next somebody. When you're evaluating your guys in player development, there are so many times they say, 'He's the next... ' Do you know how good you have to be just to be an everyday player in the major leagues? It's hard. On a good team, it's hard. They don't come along very often. So when you see a guy coming and you think he's here, nine times out of 10 he's not."

[4 king guy]

Dude,

That's TOOOOOOO LONG!!!

[Adelpiero]

or it could be watching Phat Albert crush taters into orbit!





0-2 pitch and he cruches a nasty 92 MPH fastball, which he tomahwked for a deep shot!

[Adelpiero]

oh yeah, Pujols is still under contract for 7 more years!



10 year 100 million, talk about a steal!

[Bizzarofelice]

Dude,
That's TOOOOOOO LONG!!!

but its a really good read. Thanks for the link.

The Phillies walked 9 batters last night and not a one got in to score? Where's the timely hitting, Tony? I think Juan Encarnacion alone left 9 runners on base. Sheeyat.

[jiminphilly]

Dude,
That's TOOOOOOO LONG!!!

but its a really good read. Thanks for the link.

The Phillies walked 9 batters last night and not a one got in to score? Where's the timely hitting, Tony? I think Juan Encarnacion alone left 9 runners on base. Sheeyat.

Cardinals are fooking scary good. The guy I think it going to pay huge dividends for them is Aaron Miles. I'm already impressed with his approach at the plate. Nice steal from the Rockies.

[BBMarley]

I'm fed up because of that fudge packing excuse of a catcher named Lieberthal. Fucking asshole.. they need to sit his on the bench and put in Fasano or bring up Ruiz. Either would be better than this fuck

[helmet]

Yesterday some asshole was yelling at the (numerous) Cardinals fans in earshot..."Hey Cardinals, how'd you like our sloppy seconds with Rolen?"

Well, dipshit, we were in the World Series a couple years ago. I guess he's worked out just fine, thanks. Granted, he's no David Bell, but we'll take what we can get.

I sat behind a guy with a Willie McGee jersey yesterday.

[Bizzarofelice]

How'd they like our sloppy seconds with David Bell or Nunez?

[helmet]

Don't forget Rheal Cormier.

[jiminphilly]

Comon guys, stop. You got your sweep now leave the Sillies and their fans be for now, ok?

[Bizzarofelice]

We usually take the high ground, but the North Siders are kicking our butts right now.

[helmet]

It's ok, jim. The Eagles' schedule was just released, so no one in town will be talking about the Phillies for another couple of weeks. You'll have to wait until the Flyers lose in the playoffs...

[jiminphilly]

It's ok, jim. The Eagles' schedule was just released, so no one in town will be talking about the Phillies for another couple of weeks. You'll have to wait until the Flyers lose in the playoffs...

Hockey season doesn't start till the playoffs and if one of those goaltenders gets hot.. watch out.

Eagles.. They could realistically go either 11-5 or 7-9 depending on how they carry their early season success into the 2nd half of the season. Howard Eskin has them going 16-0 though so I guess he's right. (I assume you've listened to that idiot).

[helmet]

If Eskin says it then it must be true.

[Funkywhiteboy]

My allegiances lie with the teams in my native DC area,
so I don't give a rat's ass about the Phillies. :P