The 2005 Philadelphia Phillies just won’t go away, and I can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

I feel asleep to the dulcet tones of Vin Scully sometime in the sixth inning last night and awoke after Pat Burrell’s home run in the eighth, just in time to see Ryan Howard almost hit one completely out of Dodger Stadium.

LA stinks, San Diego isn’t much better and Washington is collapsing worse than an overcooked soufflé. Follow that up with three each against Pittsburgh, the Giants and Diamondbacks, and by the end of August the Phillies could be back in the thick of the NL East race, not to mention the Wild Card.

And now there are rumors of Ed Wade’s contract being extended.

Sometimes the Philadelphia sports fan masochist in me just wishes the Phillies would cave in already and get it over with. Anyone who watches this team regularly knows they aren’t a playoff caliber club, so dragging this thing out into September only prolongs the inevitable and worse, possibly prolongs the tenure of Wade.

Wade has built a average-to-good team that simply isn’t capable of competing with the best in the National League. Unfortunately, through a series of poor long-term contract decisions, he’s put all his eggs in one basket and now a few of those eggs (Bell, Lieberthal, Wolf) are broken.

However, with Wade out of the way there are a few things the Phillies could do to get over the hump as early as 2007. Let’s face it, as much as some of us complain about some of the members of this quadrumvirate, Abreu, Burrell, Rollins, and Utley are a nice nucleus to build around. And depending on how the Thome/Howard situation plays out, either way it only makes that group better and makes a real tradeable commodity out of the other one. That leaves catcher, third base, centerfield and the starting rotation as the problem areas for the next few years.

The Phillies are stuck with Bell and Lieberthal’s contracts for one more season, but that doesn’t mean they can’t show some guts and bench or release both of them. Looks like there’s a chance the Braves could be convinced to give Estrada back (maybe they’d like to tinker with Corey Lidle?), and hopefully the Phillies first pick in this year’s draft will be ready to play third base in the majors by 2007. As for centerfield, that seems to be the one place the Phils have a glut of prospects.

That means the focus should be on setting up the starting rotation. Lieber is here for two more years. Myers has finally emerged as a big-time pitcher. God-willing Vicente Padilla has finally straightened his head out, because we all know how good his stuff is. If not, that makes for more trade bait and Ryan Madson can be moved into the rotation where he was supposed to be all along. Add Gavin Floyd, who seems to be working out his kinks with Johnny Podres, along with lefty Cole Hamels, and that’s looking like a pretty good five-man staff.

Yes, the Phillies are 1½ games out of the Wild Card spot and I’m already playing GM for 2006. How sad.

DATELINE: April 26, 1990; Arlington Stadium, Arlington, TX
Chicago White Sox vs. Texas Rangers

The box score doesn’t show it, but in the top of the second inning, a sluggish, journeyman outfielder/DH named Ron Kittle hit a weak check-swing blooper over the head of a scrawny first baseman named Rafael Palmeiro, who was in his second year with the Rangers. A handful of steps onto the outfield grass would have resulted in an easy catch, but Palmeiro tripped and fell flat on his face, allowing the ball to land safely in the shallowest part of right field.

Little did those of us in the stands that evening know at the time, but that would be the only hit allowed by Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan, who proceeded to strike out 14 more hitters (he had already struck out two in the first inning) on route to a one-hit, 16 strikeout masterpiece.

Yes, if Palmeiro hadn’t fallen all over himself, I would have seen what at the time would have been Ryan’s sixth no-hitter. He actually pitched his sixth a few months later.

Pete O’Brien would have made that play.

******

Ever since that warm April night in Arlington, Texas, I’ve had it out for Palmeiro, and I freely admit it. He botched a simple play and ruined my chance to see one of baseball’s rarest accomplishments live and in person. To this day, I have still never seen a no-hitter from start to finish, either on TV or in person, and I’ve watched a lot of games. I probably never will see one.

Since that night my animosity towards him has borne close scrutiny of his career. Time and time again during his two stints in Texas my family and I watched this paper tiger hit one futile two-run home run after another, usually with the Rangers trailing by six-to-eight runs in the late innings. And time and time again we watched him fail with the game on the line, usually with a weak ground ball to the right side or a lofty pop-up.

Sure, his career stats look good on paper; but if all those stats were piled up in meaningless game situations, doesn’t that reduce the value of those so-called Hall of Fame numbers? Does anyone really think Rafael Palmeiro belongs in the same breath with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays? Ask Orioles fans if they’d rather have Palmeiro or Eddie Murray up with the game on the line. He was never even the best player at his position in any season (not counting DH, which he “played” often).

Here’s a project for the Elias Sports Bureau: go over the box scores and find out how many of those home runs and RBI actually affected the game in which they were produced. I think people would be shocked at the inefficacy of his career; just as shocked as many were to hear of his positive steroid test yesterday.

As for the question of his steroid use, I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves. In Palmeiro’s first three years of full-time play, starting in 1988, he hit a grand total of 30 home runs (8, 8, 14) in 1,737 at-bats (that’s 579 ABs per season). He then moved into the 20s for a few seasons before averaging 39 home runs per year from 1993-2003. And while Palmeiro has never been considered a particularly big guy, go back and check out the photos of that scrawny guy I referenced earlier.

Naturally, all of this is allegorical. All we know for sure is that he tested positive this year. Of course, if you believe his excuse that he didn’t knowingly take a banned substance, I’ve got some swamp land in Arizona that might interest you.

Then again, any professional athlete who admits to needing another certain performance-enhancing drug deserves all he gets.

Ed Wade stayed put and didn’t mortgage the farm on a rent-an-arm.

Bravo.

The cold hard truth is that unless Wade could have suckered another team into taking Bell and/or Lieberthal off their hands, the Phillies were stuck. The only talent worth trading the likes of Ryan Howard for was A.J. Burnett, and he wasn’t coming to the Phillies. All of the other pitchers on the block were mediocre at best, and none of them warranted the asking price of their teams.

The only other option was trading Billy Wagner for a near-major-league-ready catching prospect, but for some reason Ed Wade thinks this team can make the playoffs as is, so he made no move.

Between a rock and a hard place.

The Phillies realistically aren’t good enough to make the playoffs in their current form, nor was any trade going to improve their chances of making said playoffs. Damned if you do…

There is one potentially positive light at the end of this year’s tunnel: In case anyone missed it, Gavin Floyd (who has been working with former Phils pitching coach Johnny Podres in Scranton) pitched eight innings of four-hit ball yesterday. If he gets it back on track, he could really help the rotation down the stretch.