Cliff Lee

The Philadelphia Phillies have been one of the most successful baseball teams in the MLB the past three seasons. Recently, as most of you have heard, the Phillies lost their all-star left fielder, Jayson Werth, to the Washington Nationals for a ridiculous amount of money, but also gained the most coveted free agent in the 2010 class, Cliff Lee.

Everyday on the way to school, I pick up a copy of AM New York, a local newspaper in New York City. While sifting through the pages, I see an article entitled “Yankees wait on Cliff Lee.” Just then, my phone vibrated. It was an e-mail from my fellow writer Steve Lenox. “I was right,” he said, and went on discussing the Cliff Lee deal.

Late Monday night, word came out that not only was there a mystery team in the Cliff Lee sweepstakes, but that they had won his services.

The Phillies got back the piece they sorely missed last post-season, and in the process put another 500 pounds of pain on the Yankees off-season.

Cliff Lee is a happy man.

Forget the fact he swindled himself out of more than $30 million to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies. Okay, maybe not swindled, because Lee voluntarily left that money on the table.

He knew what he was doing. He knew he’d be the most at peace in Philadelphia. His trial run there in 2009 — despite the fact the Phillies failed to sign him that time around — was nothing short of magical.

Philadelphia has just acquired another ace in Cliff Lee. The lefty has arguably been one of the best postseason pitchers of all time. Lee will be joining a rotation that already consists of Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels. 

While we were all waiting to see if Cliff Lee would choose to be in Texas or the Bronx in 2011, he went out and LeBron-d us.

Lee will be taking his talents to the city of brotherly love and join Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt to create one of the, if not the, greatest starting rotations that the world has ever seen.

The Cliff Lee signing has put together one of the greatest pitching staffs in recent memory.

Isn't it ironic that both Cliff Lee and LeBron James got their careers started in Cleveland?

Isn't it also ironic that both men are considered to be at the top of their respective sports in terms of talent and ability, and left via free agency to join teams that have a wealth of top tier talent?

Let's just tap the breaks on that last part for a minute.

I certainly didn’t see this coming.

There was no way that the Phillies could sign Cliff Lee.  While a lot of Phillies fans may have had it in the back of their minds as a wonderful fantasy scenario, most of us were sure that it wasn’t going to happen. 

In the middle of the night, while many East Coast baseball fans were sleeping, possibly dreaming of the glorious news that the Yankees had finalized a deal to bring Cliff Lee to the Bronx, the unthinkable occurred: somehow, the Yankees didn't get their man.