Opinion

Ryan Howard cost the Philadelphia Phillies a game they desperately needed last night in the NL East playoff chase.

The Phillies are 2.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves for first place in the division. With the Braves losing last night, the Phillies had an opportunity to make up a game on the division leaders.

Instead, Ryan Howard was ejected in the 14th inning while arguing a check swing that resulted in his fifth strikeout of the night.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to hiring a general manager for a Major League Baseball team: Either you hire a businessman or a baseball man.

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have gone the businessman route with Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein and have been successful.

Top Five Stories Yesterday

1. Sidney Rice reveals he had hip surgery on Monday and he may miss the first half of the 2010 season.

2. Texas evens its series with Minnesota coming from behind twice to beat the Twins 4-3.

3. Bobby Bowden revealed he was essentially fired at the end of last season by the administration at Florida State in promoting his new book.

With two outs in the 9th inning, the Phillies' Jimmy Rollins homered to tie Houston at 2-2.

With two outs in the 16th inning, and two men on, Ryan Howard should have been in a position to win the game 5-4.

But Howard had long hit the showers.

Why?

He was tossed from the game several innings earlier by third base umpire Scott Barry, a minor league replacement ump.

Howard's crime?

Although the Atlanta Braves have been leading the NL East for some time now, they made a number of trades to try and strengthen their team for the stretch run.

With the Phillies getting key players back in their lineup seemingly every day, the Braves were looking for guys like Rick Ankiel, Derek Lee, and Kyle Farnsworth to fill in some holes that the team had.

Tony La Russa refers to it as “Fuzzy Baseball.”  He uses the term to describe his team’s focus when they commit errors, run the bases poorly, and generally play bad fundamental baseball. 

This type of play is abnormal for La Russa’s teams and the St. Louis Cardinals.  But this season it’s been a frequent problem.

With his retirement now as a player and manager complete, Lou Pinella will wait for a call from Cooperstown as one of this generation's most successful managers having won 1,835 games with five major league clubs.

A World Series-winning manager with the Cincinnati Reds in 1990, Pinella won six divisional championships in 23 seasons including a record 116 games versus just 46 losses with a Seattle team that included future Hall of Famers Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson in 2001.

Johnny Damon is a touchy subject for the Red Sox nation even though it's been almost five seasons since he wore a Red Sox uniform. Some of us are thankful for the 2004 World Series he helped win and some think he should be forever shunned for joining the Yankees. 

Damon clearly thinks that the Nation favors the latter. 

First of all, no one is anointing Mike Quade the next manager of your Chicago Cubs. He is an interim manager and there will be plenty of available candidates and many interviews for Cubs GM Jim Hendry to sort through this offseason.

Still, it is reasonable to assume that Quade's assignment is an indication that he is, indeed, one of the candidates for the permanent job going forward.

As Quade himself stated, "It's absolutely an audition."

I'm not going to throw the towel in quite yet on the Chicago White Sox season, however, with each passing day, the playoff window is growing smaller and smaller.

Chicago currently stands four and a half games behind the impressive Minnesota Twins (7-3 over the past 10 games) for first place in the AL Central. 

This season had been a bumpy road so far.