Pat Must Go

Clearly, Pat Burrell has worked his way into becoming one of the most unliked players in the city. He's right up there with Todd Pinkston, Dhani Jones, Chris Therien and Samuel Dalembert. Judging from conversations with Phils' fans recently, he's far surpassed Abreu as the corner outfielder we'd most like to see leave town, even it meant getting little - if anything - back in return. Unfortunately for us, it didn't have to be this way.

When "Pat the Bat", the first overall pick of the 1998 draft, joined the Phils in 2000, everything looked so promising. He hit 37 HR's in 2002 and when the Phils signed Jim Thome it looked there would be no containing his potential by having another big bat to protect him. He was loved by the fans, especially those of the female variety. Even when Burrell had a catastrophic 2003, hitting .209 with only 21 HR's and 64 RBI's, the fans stood behind him in support and did not viciously boo him. (In fact, the fans' reaction to Burrell's season long 2003 slump is still one of my favorite reactions from the Phils fan base. I use this reaction to counteract claims by non-Philly fans that we are a horrible a fan base which only boos their own players.) However, just like Lindros, Barkley, Randall and T.O. before him, things fell apart at the seams pretty quickly and Burrell is now on the outs with the fans and apparently the Phils brass.

I can't pin point the exact moment when the fans turned on Burrell. It seems to have been a gradual annoyance. We have just grown tired of his continued failure to hit in the clutch, especially his inability to hit with men in scoring position and two outs. Personally, I'm tired of his lack of fire and "I don't care" attitude. I really can't stand how many times he strikes out looking, or when he tries to influence an ump's call by jumping back off the plate three feet even though the pitch was barely off the inside of the plate.

Plus, he seems more concerned with partying and chasing skirts than bettering himself as a player. (In order to avoid potentially libeling the guy, I'll keep the various stories I've heard to myself, but here's one I found on another site .) Hey, I'll never blame a guy for having a good time, but there comes a time for a guy to grow up and fulfill his potential, especially when his partying affects my beloved baseball team.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that once Burrell got a 6 year, $50 million deal after the 2002 season with only one stud season under his belt, he got lazy and stopped working as hard on his game. I've read in many places that you never know how an athlete will react to getting a huge guaranteed contract. As such, I've always had respect for guys like Jordan and LeBron, who continued to strive to be the best despite being financially secure for the rest of their lives. It just goes to show that some great athletes have the drive to be champions no matter how much money they are making, the rest take the money and come play in Philadelphia. Lucky us.

In any event, the Phils' need to get rid of this cancer and let him bring his brooding attitude and faulty swing to another team. If it means we just get rid of him as part of a salary dump, I'm all for it. We can do better than this latter day Dave Kingman. I'd roll with David DeLucci in a hearbeat. We just need to find a sucker to take him off our hands. Maybe Gillick can find the Major League Baseball equivalent of Billy King and pull off a trade.