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Phillies throw scouting party to prepare for Yankees

NEW YORK - In a hotel conference room in the middle of Manhattan, they laid out the battle plan. For much of the previous month, a team of Phillies scouts and personnel men had tracked every move of every American League contender until only one remained, and now it was time to brief the troops.

NEW YORK - In a hotel conference room in the middle of Manhattan, they laid out the battle plan. For much of the previous month, a team of Phillies scouts and personnel men had tracked every move of every American League contender until only one remained, and now it was time to brief the troops.

In the room were the six men who 2 nights before had watched the Yankees knock off the Angels to clinch the ALCS: Gordon Lakey, director of major league scouting; Charley Kerfeld, special assistant to the general manager; Howie Freiling, special assignment scout; Craig Colbert, advance scout; Mike Ondo, pro scouting coordinator; and Chuck LaMar, assistant GM.

On the phone via conference call from his Delaware home was Paul Murphy, a scout who first started blanketing the Yankees on Sept. 28.

What followed was a session that last season the Phillies credited as a major factor in their run to their first title in 28 years.

Advance scouting is as old as baseball itself. But as the stakes of winning have increased, so too has the emphasis on mining for every potential strategic advantage. Over the past month, the Phillies have had more eyes on Yankees uniforms than Hideki Matsui's nameplate. Murphy started following the team in the last week of the regular season, and as each potential opponent was eliminated, more resources were allocated to the ones who remained. During the ALCS, two personnel men scouted the Angels and two scouted the Yankees, with Lakey floating in between.

Usually, one scout handles his team's hitters, while the other handles the pitchers.

What are they looking for? Everything.

"It's what they are doing right now, what other teams might be doing against them, what guy is struggling, why is he struggling, if a guy is red-hot, why is he red-hot?" said Ondo, who is responsible for coordinating the scouting coverage. "Pitching, you're looking for tendencies, anything different from what you saw earlier in the year. Just the stuff that you normally think of. Just something to give them maybe a little bit of an advantage."

The results are relayed to the Phillies coaching staff in both a presentation and a 60-to-90 page handbook, which are used by coaches to formulate their in-game strategies. Can it win a World Series all by itself? Ondo doesn't think so. But, the thinking goes, every bit helps. *