Charlie had to feed the bear

Observations, insinuations, ruminations and unvarnished opinions . . .

 ALL CHARLIE Manuel did in that discomfiting, 3-2, come-from-ahead loss to the D-backs Tuesday night was sign off on what Roy Halladay has been doing throughout his career.

When the man has gotten into a ninth inning with a lead, it's as safe and secure as that annoying ad the broadcasters are forced to tack onto any play that results in a safe call.

Manuel's strongest suit is his sometimes maddening consistency. He is almost always gonna dance with who he brung to the prom. Doc's pitch count was 100. He would match his career high of 14 strikeouts. He made two bad pitches in the inning. The second one delivered two runs.

Fess up. Had Charlie lifted his ace after the eighth, you would have been booing your butts off.

Hey, sometimes the bear gets you . . .

That appears to be a question on a lot of minds now that Charlie Manuel's surrogate son has joined the elite 600 Home Run Club and is all but guaranteed first-ballot Hall of Fame election.

Matt Stairs will never have to pick up a dinner tab in Philly thanks to one mighty eighth-inning swing of the bat on Oct. 13, 2008, in Dodger Stadium. It was Game 4 of the NLCS, the Dodgers led, 5-3, after seven and threatened to deadlock the series, 2-all.

But with one out, Shane Victorino tied it with a two-run tracer into the rightfield pavilion off righthanded reliever Cory Wade. With two outs, Carlos Ruiz singled to right and hulking Jonathan Broxton lumbered in to challenge pinch-hitter Stairs with his intimidating heat. Stairs was one of those blessed ballplayers who could get up in the middle of a midnight Eastern Canada blizzard and hit a line drive while swinging a snowshoe.

In this game, and at that moment, however, Stairs was swinging a bat and he turned a Broxton heater into an epic launch that came down halfway up those bleachers. The air whooshed out of Dodger Stadium. Fortunately, nobody was killed in the stampede to the exits.

Stairs was acquired from the Blue Jays on Aug. 30 for a player to be named (Fabio Castro). He had just 17 at-bats before the postseason, but managed a pair of homers.

Jim Thome has hit 12 homers for the Twins in 189 ABs this season and has struck out 60 times, which is his normal ratio.

Stairs had hit 11 homers in 320 ABs for Toronto before the Phillies picked him up.

With the head of the stretch looming and another East pennant looking more and more like a mortal lock, the Phillies have been getting by without a lefthanded threat off the bench. Ross Gload was the game's most productive pinch-hitter last year, but the solid, professional, hitter has been hobbled much of the season. He has driven in just six runs in 76 ABs and has yet to hit a homer.

Charlie Manuel will not repeat the Domonic Brown mistake this postseason. The 23-year-old has been scuffling at Lehigh Valley since the acquisition of Hunter Pence made his on-the-job training better suited for Triple A.

Ruben Amaro has picked up veteran Jack Cust, but who would you rather see lumber off the bench with a playoff or World Series game on the line? For Thome, you would go screaming nuts, that's who.

The Twins, who are out of the AL Central race, re-signed Thome to a 1-year, $3 million contract in January. There is an unspecified plate appearance incentive he probably will not reach. Last season, he needed 250 ABs to kick in a $100,000 bump.

There is no denying the sea change the December 2002 signing of Thome brought to the Phillies organization. His 6-year, $85 million contract changed the baseball culture around here. The cheers of the hard hats building Citizens Bank Park when Thome visited the site as a trolling free agent drowned out the echoes of the Curt Schilling and Scott Rolen unpleasantness. With Schilling already gone and Thome establishing himself as a Local Hero, the unhappy Rolen was moved to "Baseball Heaven," St. Louis, for a package that looks a lot better now, thanks to Placido Polanco's two tours here, than it did then.

But for all the psychic income Thome provided, the unintended consequence was that heir apparent Ryan Howard should have been here at least a year earlier. And to make room for Howard, the Phillies had to devour the remaining $22 million plus buyout of Jim's contract.

The Phillies got Aaron Rowand - a forever face-plant highlight reel - and a barely warm body named Daniel Haigwood. Some lefthanded kid named Gio Gonzalez became the player to be named. Gio became the Ghost of Bad Trades Past. First, he and struggling righthanded prospect Gavin Floyd (Phils-record $4.2 million signing bonus, remember?) were shipped to the White Sox for former Mariners ace Freddy Garcia and his $10 million salary. Freddy won one game for the Phils. Floyd has done reasonably well for the White Sox, but Gonzalez was an AL All Star in July for the Oakland A's.

There is still a dissipating mushroom cloud drifting out to sea from those accumulated fiscal disasters.

But, yeah, having Thome back for a few prodigious October hacks would be nice if Ruben can work it out.

Hard to trick Barney Google these days, particularly with a question that even I was able to answer. Player-managers Joe Cronin and Leo Durocher were blocking Pee Wee Reese. But after Boston traded him to Brooklyn, Leo retired as a player.

This week: Whose major league home-run record did Babe Ruth break when he hit his 120th home run?