Phils fall back in arms race

The Phillies' attempt to win back-to-back National League East titles for the first time since 1978 just got a lot nastier.

The New York Mets yesterday agreed to send four minor-leaguers to Minnesota for two-time Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana.

The Mets got a 72-hour window from baseball to negotiate a new contract with the hard-throwing lefthander, who can be a free agent at the end of the 2008 season.

The Mets coughed up a historic choke last September and still finished just one game behind the Phils. With Santana in the rotation, and the Phillies still short-armed in both the rotation and the bullpen, the arrogant New Yorkers may again have the talent to match their mouths and egos.

So here's a friendly little road map that could guide the Phillies back to another of those scintillating stretch runs with their most hated (is it even close?) rivals.

First, send something to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Matt Morris, who has 121 career wins and too big a price tag for the team with the majors' fourth-lowest payroll. (Since Morris is scheduled to make $9.5 million this season, the Bucs might be willing to accept Wes Helms, who makes about a third of that.)

Then ship Adam Eaton to Minnesota, which will be seeking an arm to fill out its rotation. The Twins could have some big problems without Santana: Francisco Liriano missed all of last season after elbow surgery and former Phillie Carlos Silva signed with Seattle as a free agent.

If you know who Scott Baker, Boof Bonser and Kevin Slowey are (the rest of Minnesota's rotation), you get a stack of old Mike Lieberthal cards.

Morris has won at least 10 games in seven straight seasons and won 22 with St. Louis in 2001. He has had a losing record the last two seasons, but that may have had more to do with his teams (San Francisco and Pittsburgh) than him.

Is he Johan Santana? No. But neither is anybody else out there. And with every single arm in the Phillies' projected rotation a question mark, Morris would be a welcome addition.

Classic canceled. The Baseball Hall of Fame Game began in 1940 and will end after this year's game between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres on June 16 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Hall officials said the "complexities" of the major-league schedule meant the game had to go.

Only a cynic would say the millionaires no longer were willing to play an exhibition in the middle of the season.

And another part of baseball's fragile bond with its fans has slipped away.