Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Team

Kyle Abbott couldn't wait for tonight's All-Star game. Not that the Philadelphia Phillie rookie left-hander will play in it. Heck, he probably won't even watch it on television or listen to it on the radio. Nope. What Abbott wants out of this three-day break in the major league schedule is to catch a break himself, a brief respite from the miserable season he has endured thus far. Abbott, once a top prospect in the Angels' organization, is living a pitcher's nightmare.

Joe Torre caused quite a stir in 2006 when he dropped Alex Rodriguez to the eighth spot in the New York Yankees' lineup. The Yankees were facing playoff elimination and Rodriguez had one hit in 11 postseason at-bats that year, but the relationship between Torre and Rodriguez was never the same thereafter. Ryan Howard batted .158 through the first five games of the World Series, with 12 strikeouts in 19 at-bats. Philadelphia Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel said he gave no thought to dropping Howard from the cleanup spot for Game 6. "What kind of message do I send to Howard, after three or four years he's been in the big leagues, all of a sudden on a big, important game in the World Series, I drop him?"

The New York Yankees celebrated their latest championship long and loud, dancing and giggling into the wee hours of this morning. This is the championship the rest of America curses, the title the Yankees bought last winter, not that they really care what anyone else thinks. "You can call us anything you want," General Manager Brian Cashman said. "You're going to have to call us world champions." The Yankees, desperate to end their 0-for-this-millennium rut without a ring, committed $423.

It was early July, and Randy Ready was late for one of his life's highlights. Accompanied by the three children whom he serves as both father and mother, the utility player for the Philadelphia Phillies was hurrying to Veterans Stadium and the Phillies' annual father-son game. Andrew, 7, and twins Colin and Jared, 5, were dressed in tiny Phillies uniforms. They chattered excitedly about playing on a big field, with real equipment, alongside their hero.

Scott Rolen, the Philadelphia Phillies' third baseman, ended the Dodgers' five-year hold on the National League rookie-of-the-year award Tuesday when it was announced he was the unanimous choice of a committee of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America. A Dodger had won the award every year since 1992, but the unprecedented streak involving Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo and Todd Hollandsworth ended with no Dodger receiving a vote.

Philadelphia Phillie first baseman John Kruk had to make a stop on his way to Veterans Stadium Monday morning, to undergo another in the long series of radiation treatments intended to speed his recovery from testicular cancer. It was not your typical opening day ritual, but it didn't seem to cramp his style. Kruk arrived at the ballpark a few hours later and made his 1994 debut with a three-hit performance that turned the sellout crowd of 58,627 into his personal booster club.

History will show that the Dodgers lost when Jonathan Broxton's fastball was hit. Honesty will show that they lost when his fastball was haunted. The crack of Jimmy Rollins' line drive, the roar of a stunned crowd, the shaking of a chilled stadium will live forever in the minds of those who witnessed an incomparable Dodgers' heartbreak. But it is the soft shuffle of Matt Stairs jogging toward first base three batters earlier that will live forever with the man who caused it. With two out in the ninth inning Monday, two strikes from a Dodgers victory that would even this National League Championship Series, Rollins hit a two-run double into the right-field gap against Broxton to give the Philadelphia Phillies a shocking 5-4 victory and probably insurmountable three games to one lead.

All-Star center fielder Lenny Dykstra and catcher Darren Daulton of the Philadelphia Phillies were seriously injured in an alcohol-related automobile accident early Monday morning. Dykstra suffered a broken right cheekbone, a broken right collarbone and three broken ribs, according to a spokeswoman at Bryn Mawr Hospital in suburban Philadelphia. A broken rib punctured a lung and his heart was bruised.

Chicago Cub pitcher Bob Scanlan and Philadelphia Phillie third baseman Dave Hollins were suspended for four games each for fighting during a game last week.

He'll be on national television tonight, the worst nightmare of many a Dodgers fan: Pedro Martinez , pitching in the World Series for the Philadelphia Phillies. "I'll be watching," Fred Claire said Tuesday. "I've always wanted to see him do well." Claire freely admits his worst trade in 12 seasons as the Dodgers' general manager: Martinez to the Montreal Expos for Delino DeShields . In 1993, the Dodgers considered Martinez a fragile middle reliever, in part on the recommendation of Dr. Frank Jobe . They needed a second baseman, and the cost-cutting Expos had one of the best in the game.

If the New York Yankees bid for John Lackey this winter, we'll know why. The Yankees ought not to run out of starting pitchers, or anything else, not with their practically infinite resources. But they could not identify four men to whom they would entrust a playoff start, so they demanded extraordinary labor from CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. They got away with it Sunday, with Sabathia. They did not get brilliance. They got just enough. They did not get away with it Monday, with Burnett.

The Phillies are taking the World Series back to New York, but they may be missing their starting center fielder when they get there. Shane Victorino was hit on the hand while trying to bunt an A.J. Burnett fastball in the first inning Monday and eventually had to leave the game because of severe swelling. "He had X-rays, and it's not broken," said Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel . "But as the game went on, his finger kept swelling. He couldn't grip the ball and couldn't grip the bat."

Chase Utley saw his first World Series game when, as a 9-year-old growing up outside Los Angeles, he went to see the Dodgers play the Oakland Athletics in 1988. "Game 2," his father, Dave, said. "The game after Kirk Gibson." For two decades that was the closest Utley would come to a dramatic World Series home run until Monday, when he hit two in Philadelphia's 8-6 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, extending the Phillies' season for at least two more days.

The Yankees may have scored the go-ahead run on Alex Rodriguez's ninth-inning double. But if you ask Rodriguez, they won Sunday's game two batters earlier, when Johnny Damon fouled off three two-strike pitches before blooping a single to left to start the game-winning rally. "For me, the whole key of that whole inning was an unbelievable, tenacious at-bat by Johnny Damon," Rodriguez said. "This guy is just a great competitor. Put us in a position to get a big hit there in the ninth."

You can tug on Superman's cape. Even spit into the wind. But hitting Alex Rodriguez with a baseball? That's probably not such a good idea. Because he'll make you pay. Just ask the Philadelphia Phillies. They tried to intimidate Rodriguez by plunking him three times in two days only to watch him hit back Sunday with a tiebreaking double, sparking the New York Yankees to a 7-4 victory that moved them to within a win of their first World Series title since 2000. "There's no question I have never had a bigger hit," Rodriguez said.

Nick Leyva became baseball's youngest manager and the youngest National League manager in 22 years Monday when he was hired by the Philadelphia Phillies to replace Lee Elia. Leyva, 35, is the youngest to manage a National League team since Dave Bristol led the Cincinnati Reds in 1966 at age 33. He is Philadelphia's youngest manager since Gene Mauch, who was 34 when he replaced Eddie Sawyer in 1960.

He was the living, breathing, reincarnation of the poster that hangs in the back of his locker. It is a poster of the late Don Drysdale during his heyday as a Dodger workhorse and warhorse, a scowl on his face, his sidewheeling right arm ready to strike with the fury of a snake. "That poster and Johnny Podres' words," Curt Schilling said of the Philadelphia Phillies' pitching coach, "say everything there is to say about pitching. "Nasty, aggressive, dominant, but in control."

These can be the saddest of possible words: One strike away. Defeat found Brad Lidge one more time this season, perhaps for the last time. He was baseball's perfect closer last year. A generation of Philadelphia fans had lived for the moment when Lidge dropped to his knees last fall, when the Phillies had become World Series champions for the first time in 28 years. The Phillies had been one strike away. Lidge got that strike, and bedlam reigned. The Phillies were one strike away Sunday night, not from winning the World Series but from heading to the bottom of the ninth with the score tied.

With the World Series tied at a game apiece as it moves from New York to Philadelphia for Game 3 tonight, the Phillies are counting on a couple of factors to give them the home-field advantage. For starters, the loss of the designated hitter in the National League ballpark will cost the Yankees one of their big bats. And the vocal Philadelphia crowd has unnerved opponents before, helping the Phillies win 11 of their last 12 postseason games at home. "Our club is not necessarily built to come into this ballpark," Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said before his team's workout Friday at Citizens Bank Park.