No Sitting Still

Rico Brogna, the Philadelphia Phillies' first baseman, was at his workstation, minding his own business. One of the Chicago Cubs, third baseman Tyler Houston, had reached first. Another batter stepped in. The pitcher peered in to his catcher. The din of Wrigley Field filled Brogna's ears. Suddenly he heard the runner standing beside him speak. "Tell you what," Houston said. "You guys got a good club."

The numbers the game produces are ruthlessly truthful, but baseball conversation is often false or fulsome. What is honest stands out, and Houston was telling the truth. He had no motivation to do otherwise. And Brogna had confirmation of something he had suspected but didn't know for sure: The Phillies were finally getting some respect.

That was in late June, when the Phillies took two out of three from Chicago. Over Independence Day weekend the Cubs came to sweltering Philadelphia for three games at Veterans Stadium, the cement-and-turf relic from the '70s. (The locals are hoping to get a smaller, grass field, retro ballpark in 2002 or 2003.) By the end of the series on Sunday, three wins and 41 home team runs later, the word was out. The Phillies' hangover—which began in October 1993, when the club, led by a bunch of burping, beer-loving, well-seasoned pros, lost the World Series to the Toronto Blue Jays in six games—is over. The new Phillies have arrived. They are quiet and earnest and modest and good. They command respect.

Last Friday night the house was packed, 50,498 announced, lured mostly by Sammy Sosa and the promise of postgame fireworks. Sosa took some big whacks but had no homers. The fireworks were spectacular, lighting up South Philadelphia on an otherwise limp and muggy night. To Philly's baseball buffs, the important stuff was in the box score. The home team scored 14 runs on 17 hits, while their starter, 22-year-old rookie lefthander Randy Wolf, who was called up from Triple A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on June 9, pitched eight innings and gave up a lone run, lowering his ERA to 3.13 and improving his record to 4-0. Right about then the guys in the Philadelphia scouting department were looking like geniuses. Wolf had been their second pick in the 1997 draft.

Last Saturday night the Vet was bursting again, 58,086 announced, lured once more by Sosa and another round of fireworks. Sosa homered for the 31st time this year. The postgame pyrotechnics shook the windows of the row houses on Broad and Oregon and South 26th streets. But the explosions during the game were even more impressive. The Phils scored eight runs in the first and seven in the fourth and tacked on a few more here and there on their way to a 21-8 win. The Philadelphia starter, righthander Paul Byrd, didn't have his good stuff and didn't need it. He gave up seven runs in five innings but still improved his record to 11-4. Even after a bad outing his ERA was a respectable 3.72. Right about then Ed Wade, the Phillies' 43-year-old general manager, was looking like a genius. Wade had claimed Byrd from the Atlanta Braves off the waiver wire last year.

On Sunday afternoon, the Fourth of July, the Vet was a sweat-box. A meat thermometer stuck in the turf measured 160°. Ace righthander Curt Schilling was on the mound for the Phils. Sosa was in the lineup for the Cubs. But there were no postgame fireworks scheduled, and the announced crowd was 20,097. By the seventh-inning sing-along, it appeared that half those fans had departed. Take me out...just take me out, period. In this baseball inferno, Schilling was spectacular. Over seven sweaty innings he struck out 13, showed pitch speeds that nearly matched the temperature readings and gave up two solo homers, one of which was a Sosa smash, his 32nd. Schilling improved his record to 12-4 while his ERA fell to 3.20 and his strikeout total reached 128, second in the league at week's end.

In the early part of this season, before anyone was saying that the new Phillies had arrived, Schilling, a Hall of Fame talker, took on the brass, going a few rounds with Wade and team president Dave Montgomery, who are determined to take a long-term approach in their rebuilding program. Schilling is 32, the only holdover from the '93 team. He wanted his bosses to make trades, spend money, make the team good now. By late Sunday afternoon—supper-time approaching, sitting at his locker with his four-year-old son, Gehrig—Schilling did not sound satisfied. After all, his team was in third place in the National League East; by day's end the 43-37 Phils would be six games behind the first-place Braves and two behind the New York Mets. How Schilling sounded was hopeful.

"I feel good about the 25 people in this clubhouse," Schilling said. "The guys on this team score runs, run the bases hard, play great defense. This weekend showed that when our starting pitching is good, we're good enough to play meaningful games in September. But a lot of teams can say that."

Three dependable starters is one or two more than most teams have. Schilling, who has been a Phillie since '92, has been a quality starter for a long time. Byrd is 28, and he began this season with a career 12-8 record. He was signed by the Cleveland Indians, reached the majors as a Met, was traded to Atlanta and wore a gleeful smile on the August day last year when he learned he was being placed on waivers. "There was no place for me to pitch in Atlanta," the righthander says. "Anyplace was bound to be better." The Phillies are the first team to give him the chance to be a regular starter. His fastball looks like a Schilling changeup, but his location has been superb. He's more than willing to work the inside of the plate. "When your fastball tops out at 86 miles per hour, you better work inside," he says.

Wolf works the whole plate, too. Bill Conlin, the sublime baseball columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, compared Wolf to Whitey Ford as a rookie. Wolf has much in common with the young Ford: Not a big man, he is a lefty with a buzz cut and great control and tremendous movement on all his pitches. But Ford was cocky, even as a rookie with the Yankees in 1950. Wolf is like nearly all of his teammates not named Schilling—quiet and unassuming. He was asked about the comparison to Ford. "It's a very nice compliment but undeserved," Wolf said. "He's one of the best lefthanders of all time, and I've been here for three weeks."