I happened to see this old mural last month when I took a wrong turn on the way back from Jim Thorpe. Last night's game with the Cubs reminded me of a postcard I recently sent to a cinema buff, of a scene from a silent film called Riders of the Night. The scene is a prison yard. Prisoners look through the barred windows at the heroine, standing on the scaffold and about to have a noose fitted around her neck. According to the caption, she is saying, "I can't remember what I did to deserve this."
The Phillies continue to play mind-boggling baseball. It is not just the lack of offense, which I'm starting to take for granted, but the plain bad ball: defensive lapses, erratic baserunning, and sloppy all-round play. Roy Halladay had a dreadful game but the Phillies still had a chance, until the Cubs put the game away in the 7th. The final was 11-6 but, as in the other games in the series, the Phillies posted most of their runs in the 9th. In only one game did the runs matter. Ryan Howard did have another home run, always good to see, but where was the offense when it still counted? Say hey, Jayson Werth had a walk.
I watched only the first inning on TV and got to hear Joe Morgan say that before the game Charlie Manuel had said to him, "We had it, Joe, we had it." But not this season, at least not so far.
The Cubs won this series and won the season series, the first time they have done that since 2001. The Phillies are 7-8 this July. Last July they went 20-5. The month is half gone, guys.
