Phillies fan wins Best Fan Catch in MLB awards

Good morning! And happy high school reunion day across the Delaware Valley. Here’s what’s going on:

• MLB honored Dennis Pollock with Best Fan Catch in its annual awards. Pollock, who lives in Philadelphia, snared a Freddy Galvis foul ball that nearly hit his wife Louise.

Congratulations Dennis, who’s the only person to win an award this year for the Phillies. (Unless you count the entire farm system as a person.)

• Here’s a quick warning about bad rumors. A site called Headlines and Global News has a story headlined “MLB Trade Rumors: New York Yankees looking to sign Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Vince Velasquez to contract.” Which is interesting, because the Phils would have to trade Velasquez to the Yankees before he can sign anything. If you click on that link (you don’t have to), you’ll read a poorly written piece that ultimately does acknowledge a trade would be made, and it says what the Yankees would give up to get Velasquez. Here’s the problem: the story is basically rehashing a piece from a Fansided blog called Yanks Go Yard, which wrote a hypothetical about why the Yanks should be looking at Velasquez as a trade target.

This is a problem. Tons of fake sites will tell you complete lies. Don’t believe news unless it’s reported from reputable sources – for the Phillies, we’re talking reporters like Todd Zolecki, Jim Salisbury, Ryan Lawrence, Meghan Montemurro and Matt Breen. Also, hypothetical trades are fun to write about (we did it ourselves), but those are squarely hypotheticals. Don’t believe anyone who tries to blur the line.

• Finally, we introduced a new writer Tuesday. Say hello to Michael Sadowski, whose first piece posits reasons we can be thankful as Phillies fans this year.

Michael and a few others will be contributing regularly starting in December. More fun stuff ahead!