Nick Piccone
It’s been a crazy few days in Philadelphia after Thursday’s signing of Bryce Harper. The excitement for baseball in Philly is back, and the Phillies are milking it in every second of the day. As they should.
Tuesday morning, Phillies principal owner John S. Middleton appeared on the WIP Morning Show with Angelo Cataldi for his first radio interview after playing a huge part in the Harper signing. It was a fantastic 23-minute interview. Middleton explained how his general manager Matt Klentak said his comment about spending money and “being a little stupid about it” raised the bar for the off-season. Middleton explained:
“It was an intentional comment, it wasn’t just something that slipped out. As I thought about the offseason and what we had to do, I wanted to send a clear, concise message to our fans, to the team, to our organization that I expected us to get a lot better.
“Sometimes leaders have to eliminate the easy way out. They have to say to their people, to their organization, I’m gonna push you beyond what our traditional comfort zone is and part of doing that is to cut off our escape route.”
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Middleton said Klentak passed his “test” with “flying colors.” He also mentioned how a Todd Zolecki poll on Twitter “tells you something” when he was thinking about signing Manny Machado and/or Harper.
So what do you WANT to happen and what do you think WILL happen?
— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) February 18, 2019
Possibly the best part of the interview? “I think we’ve taken a significant step towards getting that bleepin’ trophy back.”
You can hear the entire interview below.
You can follow Nick Piccone on Twitter (@nickpiccone) and e-mail him at [email protected]. You can read his pro wrestling articles on PhillyVoice here.
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