1,000 thanks, Vance

WHEN VANCE WORLEY took the mound for the Phillies in the top of the ninth inning against the Rockies on Saturday, he wasn't just relieving Jose Contreras.

According to reader Dennis Orlandini, of Irvington, N.J. and Spring Hill, Fla., the righthander became the 1,000th player to play for the Phillies since the post-war 1946 season.

The first player, according to Orlandini, was Johnny Wyrostek, who appeared with the Phils in April of '46.

Orlandini wrote that among the documentation he used to support his findings was retrosheet.org, one of our favorite baseball sites.

If nothing else, it makes Worley the answer to one of the most obscure trivia questions in Phillies history.

Cowboys' Bryant starts own tradition

 

There's trouble in Cowboyland, with a capital T, and that rhymes with D, and that stands for Dez.

Dallas rookie Dez Bryant, the team's first pick in this year's draft, bucked tradition yesterday by refusing to carry the shoulder pads of fellow receiver Roy Williams.

Veterans routinely have rookies carry their pads. It's a rite of passage.

But Bryant wanted no part of it.

"I feel like I was drafted to play football, not carry another player's pads," Bryant told the Associated Press. "If I was a free agent, it would still be the same thing."

Williams, a 6-year vet, said he didn't balk about it when when he broke in with the Detroit Lions in 2004.

"I carried pads. I paid for dinners. I paid for lunches," Williams said. "I did everything I was supposed to do, because I didn't want to be that guy.

"No matter if you're a No. 1 pick or the 7,000th pick, you've still got to do something when you're a rookie," Williams said.

Unless, it seems, your name in Dez Bryant.

- Tom Mahon

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