Because of all the media news during the off season on the BALCO investigation and subsequent findings from the Mitchell report, I sensed some sort of agenda or worse, a hidden collusion by a majority of MLB owners to denied Barry Bonds to continue playing with the lame excuse that his desired contract is exorbitant. There is even a strong possibility that Bonds may be denied entrance to the Hall of Fame by the writers having a similar prejudice (think Mark McQuire). What are Mr. Kingston’s feelings on this subject?

I asked him a few things like if he had to build a new organization around one player, who it would be. He didn’t give a solid answer, but a few of the names he threw out there were Peavy, Utley, and Hanley Ramirez.

I also asked what the Phils should do when Benson gets healthy. He said he wasn’t big on Benson to begin with and that he didn’t think much would come of it. He also wasn’t aware of how bangin’ Benson’s wife is.

The last thing I asked was what the Phils should do about locking up Howard. Again, not a solid answer but he hinted towards the concept of taking it to arbitration every year and then we’d finally have to let him go because the two sides would disagree too greatly on his value. He also said that a lot of why we lost the Howard case this year was because it was the last case and the clubs were 5-0 at that point. There’s a real big advantage to having your case heard earlier, if you’re the club, that is.

In the end, both bullpens collapsed but I’m confident that with the way Lidge is pitching right now, we would have held onto it even without that explosive 8th.

Also, I’d like to share a little bit of cool information. I take a baseball history class at school and we had the pleasure of meeting and hearing from Jeff Kingston, director of baseball operations for the Padres, this morning. For those that aren’t aware, that’s Theo Epstein’s old position.

=)