Pat Burrell and Phillies Fans: Mutual Bond Lingers
|
|
|
|
|
Pat Burrell, formerly leftfielder and #5 hitter in the Phillies lineup behind slugging 1st baseman Ryan Howard, went on to the Tampa Bay Rays in free agency, but the mutual bond between Burrell and Phillies Fans lingers on.
Maybe it was Burrell’s white-hot April and May, 2008, maybe it was his winning hit in game 5 of the 2008 World Series against the Rays, maybe it was 251 career homers, many of them in the clutch or maybe it was his ability to protect clean-up hitting Howard (despite many detractors of his ability in the media), or maybe it was all of the above and more which endeared him to the Phillies fandom.
Burrell seemed soo taken by a standing-O given him in Clearwater during spring training, as well as by his treatment by Phillies fans over the years, that he “thanked the fans for sharing a championship parade with him” in ads he bought in The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News.
It may well be that Raul Ibanez replaces Burrell capably with the bat, from the left-side, and in leftfield and the Phils thus may not skip a beat in a march to repeat in the NL East, the NL and in the World Series. But it seems that it may take him longer to fill Pat “the Bat’s” shoes with the fans.
Here’s wishing Pat Burrell great success with the Rays (except against the Phillies) — Pat “the Bat”: a class act!
del.icio.us |
digg |
Furl |
Reddit |
YahooMyWeb |