Philadelphia Phillies
Average ticket price: $26.08 (3rd in majors). 2003 attendance: 46.9% of capacity (24th in majors).
Ongoing promotions:
All season: “We’re Finally Out Of The Vet.” No discounts, but plenty of reasons to celebrate.
The miracles of modern medicine amaze me. A couple seasons ago the incident where Rich Aurilia had bone chips removed from his elbow and returned in the 15-day minimum seemed to me to be about the most serious injury a player could recover from in 15 days. I stand corrected. Austin Kearns may come back from a fractured ulna in the minimum. Think about this: Two weeks ago, I said “While three to four weeks is the public prognosis by some, six weeks is more likely.” No one could have predicted such a recovery, and this is one of those moments where we may have to adjust timetables due to improving medical methods.
Bret Boone has taken to wearing a brace under his uniform. This isn’t a normal brace or even one designed for some medical purpose. According to published reports, Boone is wearing a weight-lifting belt to help support him. I hope the Mariners trainers think this is a better idea than it sounds. The Mariners can ill afford losing Boone for any period of time without some sort of return.
Darin Erstad hits the DL, improving the Angels almost immediately. Losing Alex Gonzalez might have some ill-effects on the Cubs. Angel Berroa is signed to a four-year deal, hopefully enticing Carlos Beltran to stick around. Joe Thurston gets his last shot to make a mark in Los Angeles. James Baldwin gets a shot with the Mets, for reasons we’re not quite clear on. And losing Placido Polanco will, unfortunately, give Larry Bowa fewer roster options over the next couple weeks. All this and much more news from around the league in your Tuesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
“Addition by subtraction” is one of those terms that seems exclusive to sports, and more specifically to baseball. While it would seem to apply in other walks of life, you just don’t see it used very much. “Tina, you know Bob from accounting? He quit.” “Heck, that’s addition by subtraction; he never made deadlines, and he was always hitting on me.”
In baseball, however, addition by subtraction has a long and storied history. Over the past 48 hours, we may have the seen the concept have its all-time peak.