Chase Utley

Looking back to Game 2 and Chase Utley's maybe/maybe not hit-by- pitch. Derek Jeter did something similar during the regular season. Thereafter, both Utley and Jeter received some criticism from do-gooder types. I had no problem with it. I'm an if-you-ain't-cheatin'- you-ain't-tryin' kind of guy. Where do you two stand? That's not cheatin, it's craftiness, a prized trait in baseball since the days of High Pockets Kelly. It's only cheating if the other team does it. It's like when the day before a big Latin test I transcribed notes, as a studying aid, of course, onto my hand.

It could have been the play that turned the World Series - if Chase Utley hadn't been alert. Go back to the top of the seventh inning, just after Rocco Baldelli hit his game-tying, into-the-wind, momentum-stopping, oh my Lord, maybe they're not destined to win this thing home run. Shortstop Jason Bartlett, up next for Tampa Bay, singled to left field. The crowd at Citizens Bank Park turned tense as J.P. Howell sacrificed Bartlett to second. Two outs. Akinori Iwamura hit one up the middle.

The Phillies clubhouse at Bright House Networks Field is a little quieter these days. Chase Utley is with Team USA. Bobby Abreu and Tomas Perez are with Venezuela. Rheal Cormier, Scott Mathieson and Aaron Myette are with Canada. Robinson Tejeda and Eude Brito are with the Dominican Republic. And there's a single player each with Panama and Australia. But while the Phillies are missing nine of their players in big-league camp (plus a minor-leaguer) for the World Baseball Classic, Bright House never had as much energy and noise as yesterday, where the Phillies played the Venezuelans in a split-squad exhibition.

Chase Utley was asked about the chronic knee condition that threatens the remainder of his career and, like all great athletes for whom confidence is a vital tool in the arsenal, he said he would beat it. "I think I can overcome this, without a doubt," Utley said. "I have pride in how I play, the way I play, and that's not going to change. " He meant it when he said it, and he said it on Feb. 23 in the Phillies' spring-training complex in Clearwater, Fla. Well, here it is, with July crowding June, and Utley still hasn't played an inning of major-league baseball this season.

With shortstop Jimmy Rollins landing on the disabled list, manager Charlie Manuel and the Phillies' players fielded a lot of questions before Wednesday's game about how the offense would perform without its leadoff man. So far, the answer is even better. "Jimmy is a tremendous player, but that's part of what you go through," Manuel said. "You've got to make the best out of it you possibly can. " The 21st century version of the Big Red Machine continued to pummel opponents en route to a 14-7 victory over the Washington Nationals before a sellout crowd of 45,438, the seventh largest to see a regular-season game in the seven-year history of Citizens Bank Park.

Dallas Green has seen his share of Hall of Fame second basemen in his lifetime. He traded for Ryne Sandberg. He managed against Joe Morgan. "He's there with Morgan. He's certainly there with Sandberg," Green said. "He's got to be right there with those guys, and really in all phases. " He is Phillies second baseman Chase Utley, who is starting his third consecutive All-Star Game on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. There have been 10 second basemen in Phillies history who have made the National League all-star team: Emil Verban (1946-47)

Wearing sunglasses, gym shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes, Chase Utley walked out of the clubhouse and onto the emerald grass at Bright House Field about 10:30 yesterday morning. Utley spotted a reporter and good-naturedly said, "I'm invisible. " Try as he might, Utley will be anything but invisible as the Phillies spend the next seven weeks under the Florida sun preparing to defend their World Series title. In fact, Mr. Invisible will be the most watched player in camp.

The game itself was played in 3D - dull, dull, dull. Two hits through seven innings, six hits total, and one eighth-inning run in a 5-1 Phillies loss to the Miami Marlins was far less than the 45,356 had hoped to see Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park. Joe Blanton's fourth consecutive futile trip to the mound was not a crowd pleaser, either. The scenes afterward once again were surreal for a last-place team that has been unable to sustain any momentum this season.

THE IRONPIGS are sold out Tuesday night. The first 3,000 fans 18 and older get bobbleheads in the likeness of John Mayberry Jr. Coincidentally, Chase Utley also will make his only scheduled Triple A rehab start. There hardly could be a better juxtaposition of iconic elements in this Phillies season. Without Utley, the guts of the franchise, the Phillies are a spineless 35-40. Mayberry, considered the organization's Prime Outfield Prospect, is hitting .238.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Time, not an MRI machine, will reveal whether the pain in Chase Utley's right knee is a momentary February concern or the first sign of bigger problems. Most of what time does isn't good - not for professional athletes and the bodies they push and punish and abuse. As much as he comes across as some kind of android - a baseball-bot programmed to hit and catch and run, but not to feel or speak or indulge in other human behavior - Utley turns out to be made from the same fragile stuff as the rest of us. The diagnosis on his right knee was tendinitis in the tendon that connects the kneecap to the lower leg. With rest and treatment, the pain should subside and Utley will return to the field.