Fastball

The Philadelphia baseball season might not end with the World Series. There is this Ed Rendell-Todd Stottlemyre thing left to clear up. Stottlemyre, the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher scheduled to start Game 4 tonight against the Phils' Tommy Greene, last night vowed to pay his way back to Philadelphia after the Series to go one-on-one with the mayor at Veterans Stadium. The mayor accepted the challenge, with a few conditions. It could be quite a matchup. The whole thing started on the SkyDome field in Toronto before Game 2. Somebody asked Rendell about the Phils' chances, and the mayor said he liked the Phils' hitting against the Jays' pitching, particularly after the first two Toronto starters, Juan Guzman and Dave Stewart.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Domonic Brown knows this is his moment. He has been blessed with great talent and cursed with great expectations, set back by injuries and set aside by a franchise in constant win-now mode. "I think I've been through a lot," Brown said Tuesday afternoon. About 90 minutes earlier, he had hit a baseball about as hard as a man can hit a baseball. It was a 2-2 pitch from Yankees prospect Zach Nuding, and it soared over the batters' eye that looms behind the center-field wall.

It wasn't exactly that Larry Bowa couldn't bring himself to compliment Chan Ho Park, who took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. He did, praising the Dodgers righthander's stuff. Then came the postscript. "It might be a combination of his good pitching and our terrible hitting," the Phillies' manager said. "I think our hitters have no clue right now. Every pitcher we see looks like Cy Young to me. " The Phillies closed out their April schedule with a whimper at Dodger Stadium yesterday, losing their fourth consecutive game, 4-1. They were swept over the weekend by a team that had to make do without Gary Sheffield and Mark Grudzielanek for the entire series.

When wonderfully forthright Juan Guzman walks to the mound in Game 3 of the World Series tonight in Toronto, he will do so with all the enthusiasm of a coward on his way to the dentist. In a profession overloaded with macho glares, chips on shoulders, wacky self-absorption and bluster, the Blue Jays' curly-haired righthander takes a basic human approach to postseason games. He'd rather watch them from the bench. "The situations I've been in the last two games are hard," said Guzman, who was referring to victories that clinched the division and pennant for the Blue Jays.

Sophomore and junior years are prime time for many NCAA Division I prospects, and that's when Jordan Prutzer did practically nothing on the softball field. The lefthanded pitcher sat out her sophomore season at Methacton because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee. She sat out her junior season because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. She missed most of her travel-team seasons, too. "After my knee injuries, I wasn't sure if Division I would ever happen for me," Prutzer said.

READING, Pa. - The Phillies introduced Jonathan Pettibone to the two-seam fastball late last season and he fell in love. "I wanted to pick up that fourth pitch, and the two-seamer gave me a pitch that I could throw in to righties and away from lefties," Pettibone said last week before a double-A Reading game. "I wanted more run than my straight four-seam fastball was giving me. " Pettibone, 21, had always excelled at throwing strikes during his climb through the Phillies' farm system, but a two-seam fastball - the pitch that has helped make Vance Worley a success at the big-league level - is not nearly as easy to control as the four-seam fastball.

Here are the last words from the Phillies' clubhouse late Friday after their 7-4 win over Cincinnati in Game 2 of the National League division series. Cuban Missile Crisis The Phillies' first encounter with hard-throwing Cuban lefthander Aroldis Chapman turned into an adventure - or, to be more precise, a series of misadventures for the Cincinnati Reds. Thanks to a hit batter, a fielder's choice that did not account for an out and two errors that led to two runs on the same play, the Phillies scored three times to turn a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 lead against Chapman in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and often the easiest road to success in the world of rock 'n' roll. Take Fastball - the Austin, Texas, band currently riding up the charts with the super-infectious getaway anthem "The Way," from their album "All the Pain Money Can Buy. " With its Mexicali-rock verses harkening to the Eagles' "Hotel California," and bouncing bass chorus evoking Squeeze, this is one tune that listeners are finding user-friendly....

Gary Carter, the final victim in Terry Mulholland's no-hitter last night, was smiling when he recalled his at-bat. "That was an ultimate high for me," said Carter, who pinch-hit for outfielder Mike Kingery. "I tell you, I was pumped. I was going to break up that no-hitter, no matter what. " Carter's at-bat yielded just what he wanted - a hard liner. But as the ball headed toward the left-field line, Phillies third baseman Charlie Hayes snared it for the final out of the 6-0 victory.

PHOENIX — Every Phillies hitter had to pass Charlie Manuel before stepping into the on-deck circle Saturday. The manager positioned himself at the top of the dugout steps for the entirety of a 3-1 victory over Arizona. He talked strategy with Michael Young. He patted Ryan Howard on the back. He shook his head, slammed his fists together, and watched more offensive futility. "I was thinking there during the game," Manuel said. "We have 125 games left. We're going to hit. " On this night, three runs patched together by walks, singles, stolen bases, wild pitches, and sacrifices were enough despite 11 stranded runners.