Morning Bytes: Will the real Phillies fans please stand?

Another Phillies season nears. Time to get a new scorebook, rub a little neat's-foot oil on my Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones mitt, squeeze on my size 75/8 maroon Phillies cap with its 1970s "P," and renew my membership in Club Curmudgeon.

It's also a good time to lay a few ground rules.

You're not a real Phillies fan if:

You call them the Fightin's. While the adjective in "Fightin' Phils" might seem an appropriate moniker now, during the franchise's run of unprecedented success, try to avoid it. After all, no one called them the Chokin's or the Stinkin's when those would have been apt descriptions.

You tweet, text, e-mail, telephone at the ballpark or take part in any activity more technologically advanced than scorekeeping or conversation. Trust me, your Facebook friends don't really care if (a) the seats are awesome, (b) the foul ball dropped two rows away, (c) you got juiced in the parking lot, or (d) the ball girls are hot.

You complain that the broadcasters on national games are anti-Phillies. Please. The absence of fawning is not evidence of animosity.

You wear more team merchandise to a ball game than Cole Hamels. To beat a dead horse, if you want to wear a Phils hat or a T-shirt, fine. But when you start dressing in players jerseys and look like a toddler on Halloween, it's time for therapy. Confession: I once trick-or-treated in a Phillies outfit. BUT I WAS 7! Nobody wears scrubs when they go to the doctor's. Remember, no matter how much Phils gear you don, Charlie Manuel is not going stick you in his lineup.

You tailgate. What other football abominations will soon be marring the once-pure baseball experience? Cheerleaders? Marching bands? Nick Saban?

You spend more than half an inning strolling on Ashburn Alley. It's a baseball game, folks, not free funnel-cake night at the King of Prussia Mall. Sit down. Have a hot dog. Watch the game. Laugh at the 320-pound guy in a Jimmy Rollins jersey.

You're one of the growing chorus people who claim Ryan Howard chokes in clutch hitting situations. They whined the same thing about Mike Schmidt until late in his career. You don't drive in 748 runs in 5½ seasons with nothing but meaningless hits. Where were you during all those Septembers when Howard carried the club?

Your knowledge of team history goes back only as far as Jim Thome. Phillies history might not be pretty, but it's interesting. Put down the video game and read about Horace Fogel. Or Ed Bouchee. Or John Kennedy. Or Charlie Ferguson.

You don't follow the rest of baseball. Don't be like all those Americans who aren't interested in international news. Everything, except for a few of Ozzie Guillen's synapses, is connected.

More SEC trouble. Court documents in Alabama revealed the involvement of four Auburn football players in a robbery.

Michael McNeil, Shaun Kitchens, Antonio Goodwin, and Dakota Mosley were charged with first-degree robbery and dismissed from the team.

Yet another reason to wonder what, if anything, SEC stands for:

Several Ex-Criminals?

Surely Everybody Cheats?

See Education Collapse?

Some Embarrassed Colleges?

Severely Ethically Challenged?

Lost golfer. Slumping golfer Sergio Garcia told reporters he was "searching for his enthusiasm for golf."

Is anyone else on Tour looking for something? Funny you should ask.

Tiger Woods is still looking for a slightly bent 9-iron.

Bubba Watson is looking for the barber who gave him that haircut.

Vijay Singh is looking for another new putting style, one that requires neither steady hands nor a strong mind.

Retief Goosen is looking for his personality.

Dustin Johnson is looking for a rule book.

British Open winner Louie Oosthuizen is looking for his magic lamp so he can be granted a second wish.

Ryan Moore is looking for the rest of his hat.

Rickie Fowler is still looking for a mirror.

Another sport ruined. Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco said that during the NFL labor impasse he might try out for Kansas City's Major League Soccer team, thus seriously jeopardizing soccer's status as the world's most popular sport.

Danica Patrick's fourth-place finish at a recent event elicited the kind of responses you might expect from an enlightened NASCAR chat, this one on the From the Marbles blog.

Someone with the screen name 59PANHEAD said: "The best thing to happen to her is a front end hit into the wall @ 200 mph. . . . She needs a Dale E tap going into a corner . . . Nascar has turned into a whimpy pile of [manure]. . . . Get rid of her and the Toyotas and give us our American racing back!"

Or this one from R.U.SIRIOUS, last name not likely Friedan: "She shouldn't have married so soon. Men know women are a distraction. A husband is a distraction for a woman."

And finally one from DAVID: "Once again a woman is ruining sports for all of us guys. And as usual she's smiling about it. . . . I want to see her out of NASCAR."

- Frank FitzpatrickEndText