Bill Conlin: History no cure for 2008 Phillies hangover

IF YOU'VE been following the ebb and flow of the Phillies' fortunes most of your conscious life, you're probably in the throes of the George Patton syndrome. Thirty games into this season in progress, you are gripped with a powerful sense that both you and the Phillies have been here before. And you would be right. You haven't been here often, but you had this same feeling of walking down a familiar road, perhaps in 1951 if you are an old-timer, in 1981 and '84 for you baby boomers, and in 1994 and the present for Gen-X fans.

Gen. George S. Patton was a brilliant but erratic World War II tank commander who was a big enough character to rate an Academy Award-winning movie with his name on it. Patton experienced deja vu all over again long before Yogi Berra coined the term that is now considered correct usage for the phenomenon of sensing a present event was experienced in the past. When Patton stood on a battlefield from some long-forgotten war, he sensed he had played a role in that battle in a previous life.

One calendar month into the 2009 season, we are obsessed with the epic slump of Jimmy Rollins. We are numbed by the injury-marred and black-catted performance of double-postseason MVP Cole Hamels, who has produced just one victory so far. We argue whether 46-year-old Jamie Moyer is approaching the day when it will be necessary to remove the "ageless" modifier from his name. Or is Dr. Moyer's unseemly 7.26 ERA going into last night's matchup with LA's Randy Wolf linked more to hooking up with umpires calling a less generous strike zone? And we are beginning to wonder when Ryan Howard, much improved as a ballplayer, will go on the tear that will return him to the top of the slugging charts. Howard, with just six big flies, has teammates Chase Utley (10) and Raul Ibanez (9) between him and the Phils' home-run lead.

But the elephant in the clubhouse is a pitching-staff longball rate that makes the joke lines about batting-practice stuff closer to reality than hilarity. A staggering 21 percent of the 48 hits Brett Myers has allowed in 43 innings have left the yard. The staff was on pace to throw 286 homers, an average of 23.8 for each of pitching coach Rich Dubee's 12 pitchers.

So the focus and community angst is understandably on the events of the Phillies' first calendar month rather than a franchise history that suggests this is a typical start to a season in the hangover years that have followed the club's five World Series appearances since 1915.