It’s been a long time since Philly had a player they could rally around. Just look at the roster photos sometime. That’s a bunch of nondescript folks if I ever saw ’em. Rowand looks like a suburban wigger thug. David Bell looks like a high-school stoner. Tom Gordon will swallow your soul. Not much character there. Just a bunch of un-photogenic journeymen. No fun at all.
And then along comes this guy:
Sal Fasano – perpetually mulleted, moustachioed, minor league dago from Chi-town – here to save rough and tumble Philly and it’s low-down team from the depths of stylistic mediocrity. It was like high times again. Sure, the Phils may suck – a 14 games out, fourth place and falling, in danger of being worse than the ex-Expos kind of suck – but at least there’s one man out there hustling like Rose, wearing a ‘do like Wild Thing and Dutch, moustache-ing it like, well, Rollie Fingers. It was like the early 80s and ’93 all rolled up into one. Without all the, you know, winning and stuff.
And now Sal’s gone. Out of baseball, presumably, given his resolution not to return to the endless monotony of the minors. Clear skies, my friend. For a few brief months you reminded a tortured city that baseball is supposed to be fun.