Power Surge

A few times this season, Phillies manager Jim Fregosi has been asked for his theories about the incredible surge in offense that baseball has experienced this season. The thing is, Fregosi has attended only games involving the Phillies, whose .227 team average remains the lowest in either league. So he hasn't witnessed much of this boom. Dusty Baker has. He manages the San Francisco Giants, which means he sees Barry Bonds play every day. Bonds, who has 17 home runs and 46 RBIs, is on a pace to hit 74 homers and drive in 201 runs.

Phillies third-base coach Larry Bowa had a distinguished career as a major-league shortstop, but he never played for his high school baseball team in Sacramento, Calif. Three times, Bowa tried out for the team. Three times, he was cut. Wendell Magee Jr., a powerfully built 6-foot, 220-pound outfielder who is the newest member of the Phillies, can relate to part of Bowa's story. Magee never played in high school. Like Bowa, he was cut from the school baseball team three times.

It is the nightmare of the modern workplace - more dreaded than rush-hour traffic, more terrifying than a morning without coffee. And it happened to Stephen Drabouski's company. Simply put, one day last year the computer went kablooey. As a result, Transworld Technologies, a Harleysville software firm of which Drabouski is president, filed suit in Montgomery County Court this month charging that negligence by Philadelphia Electric Co. (now Peco Energy Co.) and one of its contractors sent one of Transworld's computers to that great electronic graveyard in the sky. Along with punitive damages, Transworld seeks reimbursement for money the company says it spent to replace and retrieve information from the computer's hard drive, which died on June 28, 1993.

Still looking for proof of what a power play can mean to a club starved for goals? Consider the two games the Flyers played this week against the Chicago Blackhawks. A power-play goal was the difference Tuesday night in Chicago, and two power-play goals in the second period last night ignited the Flyers in a 5-2 come-from-behind victory at the First Union Center. In all, the Flyers had three power-play goals, a season first. That's four straight games in which the Flyers have scored with the man advantage.

Betty Volikas was standing in the kitchen of her Paxon Hollow home on Memorial Day when a power surge shot through the appliances. "I had the TV on in there, and it went -" She made a sound like the hiss of a cat. "The recessed lighting in the kitchen made a funny noise; it went pop. " When the noises stopped, she said, three of her family's TVs, two VCRs, her daughter's compact disc player and a clock radio had been so badly damaged that...

Curt Schilling rediscovered his muscular confidence. Kim Batiste started to build up his own. Batiste, the third baseman of the moment after Dave Hollins' injury, tied the game with an eighth-inning homer, then slapped a two-run single as the Phillies scored three times in the ninth to defeat the reeling Mets, 5-2, last night at Shea Stadium. "Dave's a great third baseman," Batiste said. "But I'm part of this team, too. I've got to do the best I can to help us win. . . . I really haven't played (third)

When James Smith's 1989 Camaro careened off Foulk Road and struck a utility pole last week, the 20-year-old Wilmington man emerged with minor cuts and abrasions. But Smith's seemingly insignificant accident about 10:30 a.m. Nov. 12 on a lonely stretch of road with no other vehicles in sight left a wake of damage for miles around. "I was on the portable phone at the time," said Gail Groff, a resident of nearby Longmeadow Development. "All of the sudden, it just flat-out died.

When a cutting crew took down a tree in Westtown two years ago, it landed on some power lines. The lights in the neighborhood went out, and the lawyers' eyes lit up. The power surge burned out microwave ovens, garage door openers, video players, televisions and computers. Now, at least 183 residents are joining in a class-action lawsuit to get money back for their fried electronics. The suit is against Peter Piraino, president of Thoroclean Service, which sent out a crew on Oct. 3, 1990, to cut down a tree on Ponds Edge Road in Westtown.

Admit it. At least once on the bus, you've recoiled from another passenger. Maybe it was the waxy skin or the vacant expression or the inarticulate voice. You just didn't want to know from her. Or maybe you thought you knew all there was to know. Precious is such a girl. She is 16, morbidly obese, and illiterate. She won't look you in the eyes because she can't bear to see you avert them. She doesn't have the words to communicate that how she looks isn't who she is. And even if she did, she would be unintelligible.

Several business owners in New Hope told the Borough Council Monday that they were suffering substantial financial losses from electrical problems in the borough. Since July 5, borough residents and businesses have dealt with eight power outages and one major electrical surge, the group said. Most outages occurred during storms. John Larsen, owner of John & Peter's Place, 96 S. Main St., said he had suffered a $1,700 loss as a result of the power surge, which he said had damaged the jukebox and cash register in his bar. The surge occurred, he said, when a high-tension line crossed another wire.

WASHINGTON - Josh Thole had three RBIs, including a two-run double that put the Mets ahead in the sixth inning, and New York ran its winning streak to five games Tuesday night with a 6-4 win over the Washington Nationals. Thole's double to the corner was just beyond the reach of leftfielder Michael Morse and brought home Jason Bay and Ike Davis, breaking a 3-3 tie. The hit came off lefty Doug Slaten, who entered to face Thole. Ryota Igarashi (1-0) struck out Jayson Werth to end the fifth inning.

Matt Rizzotti's listed position earlier this season at single-A Clearwater was designated hitter. That might be OK if Clearwater were an American League affiliate, but, of course, it is not. It is a member of the Phillies' farm system and, unless a change in rules is on the horizon, Rizzotti is going to be required to play a position in the field if he ever gets to the big leagues with the team that selected him in the sixth round of the 2007...

Matt Rizzotti's listed position earlier this season at single-A Clearwater was designated hitter. That might be OK if Clearwater were an American League affiliate, but, of course, it is not. It is a member of the Phillies' farm system and, unless a change in rules is on the horizon, Rizzotti is going to be required to play a position in the field if he ever gets to the big leagues with the team that selected him in the sixth round of the 2007...

Jim Yezzo tied the Bishop Eustace single-season record with his 15th home run, Greg Brodzinski drove in seven runs on a pair of blasts, and Scott Carcaise also left the yard, as the second-seeded Crusaders battered No. 3 seed Red Bank Catholic, 14-0, on Friday in a South Jersey Non-Public A baseball semifinal. Yezzo, a senior shortstop, tied the school home run record established by Chris Branigan in 2009. Brodzinski, a senior catcher, went 4 for 4, scored three times and his second homer - a grand slam in the fourth inning - ended any suspense.

It's not always the biggest players who make the best power hitters, as Washington Township's Nick Favatella demonstrated last year. The 5-foot-10, 170-pound senior shortstop went on a power surge, hitting nine home runs while driving in 26 runs and earning Inquirer first-team all-South Jersey honors. Favatella is much more than a power hitter. He batted .556 and had a .686 on-base percentage, but his propensity to go deep added another dimension to his game. "He is strong as an ox, he works out a lot and has a lot of bat speed," Washington Township coach Bill Alvaro said in explaining Favatella's power.

Admit it. At least once on the bus, you've recoiled from another passenger. Maybe it was the waxy skin or the vacant expression or the inarticulate voice. You just didn't want to know from her. Or maybe you thought you knew all there was to know. Precious is such a girl. She is 16, morbidly obese, and illiterate. She won't look you in the eyes because she can't bear to see you avert them. She doesn't have the words to communicate that how she looks isn't who she is. And even if she did, she would be unintelligible.

Jayson Werth hadn't even had time to get cool yet. The Phillies' perpetually hip rightfielder, who's got bop in his strut and pop in his bat, shook himself the way a wet dog does as he entered the batter's box with two outs in last night's first inning. For Werth, trying to get into the groove he'd occupied throughout most of the 2009 season and now into October, it was a wake-up gesture. He almost certainly hadn't been expecting to bat until the second inning. But after Vicente Padilla got the first two Phillies in the first, the erratic Dodgers starter walked Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in rapid succession.

Jayson Werth hadn't even had time to get cool yet. The Phillies' perpetually hip rightfielder, who's got bop in his strut and pop in his bat, shook himself the way a wet dog does as he entered the batter's box with two outs in last night's first inning. For Werth, trying to get into the groove he'd occupied throughout most of the 2009 season and now into October, it was a wake-up gesture. He almost certainly hadn't been expecting to bat until the second inning. But after Vicente Padilla got the first two Phillies in the first, the erratic Dodgers starter walked Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in rapid succession.

A clutch home run came from an unlikely source yesterday as the Colorado Rockies beat the Phillies, 5-4, in Game 2 of the National League division series. Catcher Yorvit Torrealba hit a 1-1 hanging curveball off Cole Hamels for a two-run homer to left field in the fourth inning, extending the Rockies' lead to 3-0. The catcher's home-run trot was admittedly rusty. He hit only two this season, and his last one came May 6 against the San Francisco Giants. Torrealba went his final 56 regular-season games plus the first game in this series without breaking out that trot.

There were quite a few bumps on the Phillies' momentum highway yesterday, including a rain delay of nearly two hours and another forgettable performance by Adam Eaton, this time in relief. However, the Phillies overcame early adversity for the second straight day, with fives running wild. They rallied from a five-run deficit with the help of a pair of five-run innings and hit a season-high five home runs, including the go-ahead blast from No. 5, Pat Burrell. But they still had to hang on for a 12-10 victory over the Atlanta Braves at Citizens Bank Park.