I approach this article with extreme trepidation. Cautiously I peck at my keyboard knowing full well I have no right to be typing. Since the dawn of time, Athletic Support has been the domain of an intelligent and knowledgeable source of athletic wisdom known simply as Brett “The Hitman” Harsch; but due to unforeseen “work obligations”, Support has been neglected and lesser men must fill in. I am such a man. Let’s get started.

When it comes to sports I am extremely biased. I love the Phillies. I appreciate all teams from Philadelphia, but at the end of the day I don’t lose any sleep stressing out about the Sixers, Flyers, or even the Eagles state of affairs. Well, except when the Birds went to the Super Bowl and decided not to run a hurry-up offense, even though they were down ten points with five minutes to play in the game– I started screaming and spitting, and cursing, and flailing around, and breaking things. I don’t generally behave that way, even when watching the Phils; it’s just that the Birds’ “game plan” was maddeningly idiotic and brutal. But I digress. The point is, I love baseball and I love the Phils. That being said, like many Phillies Phans, I am constantly faced with the reality that, no matter how much I care, the team rarely loves me back. It can be quite draining investing yourself in a team that undervalues pitching in a game in which good pitching wins championships every year, and, after a while, any Phillies Phan begins to wonder if all the other teams are pulling their pitchers from a secret source of which the Phillies are unaware. Some would posit that this secret source is actually two sources, codename “Latin America” and “Japan”. I’m sure these codenames are anagrams that can be rearranged in order to spell the countries’ names from which these great pitchers are spawned, but I’ve never been very good with puzzles. I’ll leave the decoding to you, and we’ll call this the “reader interactive section” of the article.

All that being said (and if you allow me take the codenames at their face values) there might be hope for the Phan yet. His name: Antonio Bastardo! The man with the greatest name in baseball; hell, the man with the greatest name ever! No, he doesn’t throw a gyroball, but he has posted an ERA of 1.89 in 22 games in the Phils’ minor leagues with 161 strikeouts. He was also born in the Dominican Republic, which means the Phils must have acquired him by confusing him with someone else, or assuming that no Latin player was actually named “Antonio Bastardo”. You have to admit, it seems unlikely!

So, is Bastardo the real deal? Who cares! The point is, that with a name like that, there is no way this guy is related to Adam Eaton or Mike Zagurski, so how bad can he really be? And maybe, just maybe, this represents a strategic shift in the Phils’ minor league scouting for years to come. [If you're not rolling your eyes right now, you're an eternal optimist, or you don't follow the Phils.]

It has long been assumed that the Phillies were one of the few teams in baseball who, for reasons that escape all reasonable logic, don’t believe in scouting in the Dominican Republic, even though phenomenal talent is produced there every year, fairly regularly, since the 1950’s. Some chalked it up to an underlying racism that ran deep through the organization; others blamed various curses having to do with William Penn, Sports Illustrated, or whatever; but the sad truth may be that the organization simply had its head so far up its own ass, it just didn’t notice the success of pitchers like Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez.

The same head-up-its-own-ass theory may be true of the Phils apparent inability to notice the more recent influx of Japanese players, especially pitchers, into Major League Baseball; since Hideo Nomo signed with the Dodgers in 1995, the Phillies have scouted exactly zero players directly from Japan. Only last year, a personal favorite, Tadahito Iguchi (2B), became the first Japanese player ever to put on a Phillies uniform, having already played in the league three years, and So Taguchi (a thirty-nine year old –apparently washed up– utility outfielder) carries the distinction of being second. Neither player was scouted by Philadelphia. Needless to say, this is a far cry from Cleveland’s signing of Masahide Kobayashi (currently sporting an ERA of 2.08), or Boston’s signing of Dice-K Matsuzaka (you know, of the current World Series Champion Boston Red Sox).

I’ll end with this: let us all pray for the continued success of Bastardo! Personally, I’m sick of watching mediocre pitching. I’ll learn another language, if that’s what it takes. For God’s sake, Charlie Manuel speaks Japanese, so how hard can Spanish really be?

‘Till next time… Hola… Konnichiwa!

*could refer to Luis Castro of the 1902 Philadelphia Athletics!