Oswalt's absence makes priorities clear - family first

It might not be to some, but to Roy Oswalt baseball is just a game. It does not define his life, and it certainly does not define him. It is a means to an end that will come sooner rather than later - maybe after this season, maybe after the next.

Oswalt plays the game and enjoys the game, but he loves his high-school sweetheart Nicole and their three little girls: Arlee Faith, 6; Ainslee Grace, 3; and Aubree, 6 months. He adores his parents, Billy and Jean, and still lives in his tiny hometown of Weir, Miss.

So when, for the second time in a year, a tornado rolled through Choctaw County last week and flattened everything in its path, of course Oswalt had to leave the Phillies. He had no choice. At that moment, baseball meant nothing. His family meant everything.

General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. could have balked at Oswalt's request for a leave of absence from the Phillies, and it would not have mattered. Knowing Oswalt, he would have left anyway, and maybe never come back. He is that kind of guy; he has all the money he needs to own hundreds of acres in Mississippi and live on them the rest of his life, comfortably, with his family.

But on Thursday, Oswalt did return to the Phillies. He landed in Philadelphia in the early afternoon and took a regular between-starts bullpen session several hours before the Phillies' 7-3 win over the Nationals. While he admitted to being rusty after more than a week without a baseball in his hand, he said he very well could be ready to pitch as scheduled against Atlanta on Saturday night.

If he does, that means Oswalt will have missed only one start - Tuesday against Washington - to tend to his business in Mississippi. The time away was invaluable. Oswalt would have been worthless to the Phillies without it.

"The town next to us is completely gone," Oswalt said, sitting in the Phillies dugout before the game. The tornado "went right through the high school and the town. . . . The good thing was, on our family's side, there wasn't any damage to anybody, just a lot of clean-up, a lot of patching. Hopefully, [we will] get things back to normal down the road a little bit."