While there was some circumstantial evidence to suggest a team meeting might have taken place Wednesday, no one with the Philadelphia Phillies would publicly say as much.
However, Matt Gelb of The Athletic reports that the Phillies did indeed have a team meeting before an eventual win over the Miami Marlins Wednesday, citing multiple team sources.
We’ll likely never know what was said in the meeting, and that’s by design.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Nick Castellanos said when asked before Wednesday’s game if the Phillies had a team meeting.
Manager Rob Thomson also shut down any inquiries into the possibility of a team meeting after the Phillies pushed back the time that the clubhouse would be open to the media approximately 70 minutes.
“Well, just so you know my policy, I don’t announced meetings,” Thomson said. “What happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse, and that’s between us.”
Yesterday was team photo day, and that wrapped up around the 3:10 time that the clubhouse was initially supposed to open to the media. Around 3:45, the Phillies re-emerged to do on-field work pregame. Thomson spoke to the media shortly after 4:00, and the clubhouse opened to the media at 4:20, rather than the initial 3:10 time it was originally supposed to.
The reality of what took place in the meeting is likely not sexy. If you envision Thomson flipping the spread in the middle of the clubhouse like Danny Glover did in the 1994 movie “Angels in the Outfield,” well that’s not really how these things work.
First of all, there aren’t spreads in the middle of the clubhouse. Secondly, the cartoonish screaming at a team full of accomplished veterans wouldn’t go over well. That’s not to say that there isn’t a time for a manager to get upset or be stern, but this was likely a situation where players were reminded and/or reminded each other not to try to do too much, to use the whole field, pass the baton etc.
Even if the Phillies wouldn’t publicly confirm the meeting took place, you also wonder how much of the meeting was to appease fans and media who like to suggest closed-door discussions as a remedy when nothing else seems to be working. Maybe one day we’ll find out specifics about the meeting if Wednesday proves to have been the point where the Phillies got back on track en route to a World Series run.
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