Morning Report: Charlie getting last chuckle

The mythology is already starting and the Phillies haven't yet dispatched the Dodgers in the NLCS.

But from the Left Coast to the Delaware Valley yesterday, on talk radio, on TV and in angry blogs and furious e-mails, fans and even some media folk are creating a myth for the ages.

They're saying the reason the Phils are on the verge of their sixth World Series in 125 years is because Charlie Manuel is outmanaging Joe Torre.

Dodger fans are roasting the man who won four World Series rings with the Yankees for getting snookered by Uncle Charlie, who understands that a manager's primary job is to keep his players happy. Executing arcane strategic "moves" is not nearly so high a priority.

Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune related an anecdote yesterday that pretty much describes Charlie's attitude toward strategy.

Souhan pointed out that Manuel once managed in the Minnesota Twins' minor-league system.

"Manuel's favorite sign when he coached third base was not the bunt or hit-and-run," Souhan wrote. "He'd pretend to adjust a telescope to the sky, his way of saying, 'Hit it real far, boys.' "

Exactly.

Whether a hitter connects in the clutch is between the hitter and the pitcher. The manager has as much to do with it as he does with flying the Space Shuttle.

Which brings us back to Monday night in Spaceship Los Angeles.

Torre, trying to avoid going down, three games to one, brought in closer Jonathan Broxton in the eighth inning. The game was tied, 5-5, with two outs and a runner on first. The Dodgers badly needed an out, and getting late-inning outs is Broxton's job.

Torre is being flambeed for that move. But it's exactly the same move he made for 12 years in New York - bringing in the closer to get four outs when he had an open date the next day. The difference, of course, is that in New York he had Mariano Rivera, who usually avoided what came next.

Broxton faced Matt Stairs, making his third at-bat of the postseason. Stairs, a muscleman acquired by the Phillies in August for just such a job, is a one-dimensional slugger - the ultimate strikeout-or-homer guy.

If a pitcher is stupid enough to throw the ball right at his bat, Stairs usually will hit it a very long way. If the pitcher uses common sense and keeps the ball away from the bat, Stairs usually will strike out.

Broxton chose to throw a fastball right at the lower part of Stairs' strike zone and the ball landed halfway up the stands in right field.

Now none of that is due to Joe Torre's incompetence or Charlie Manuel's cagy manipulations. It was between Stairs and Broxton, and Stairs won.

Don't get me wrong. I love Charlie. Nobody has defended him more than I have and no one is happier to see him silencing the vicious haters and condescending smirkers who have hated him beyond all reason since he got here.

Manuel was despised the day he got the job here, for two totally irrelevant reasons: He replaced fan-fave Larry Bowa and he wasn't Jim Leyland, the man the fans wanted in his stead.

His hillbilly accent did the rest, and a significant portion of the fan base has hated him ever since.

Well, Charlie needs one more win to get to crow for the rest of his life.

But he didn't beat the Dodgers on Monday night.

Matt Stairs did.