Conlin: Phillies have best infield of baseball’s modern era

“What kind of a fool do you think I am?
You think I know nothing of the modern world”

And ponder this . . . Has any non-expansion team ever had the three best players in franchise history at the same time? The closest I could come was Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider from Brooklyn’s Boys of Summer.

And how often have you seen a major league infield line up 1-2-3-4 in the batting order?

These are giddy, historic, times for the Phightins.

There will be challenges to my best infield of the modern-era assertion, of course, including a couple I debated myself.

You could throw a blanket over the numbers put up by the Phillies and Yankees infields in 2009. New York’s quartet of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira slammed 112 homers, three more than the Phillies with Feliz at third. But the Phils’ Fab Four won the RBI war, 393-373.

...Pat Gillick was the Baltimore Orioles’ GM in 1996, when an infield of B.J. Surhoff, Cal Ripken, Robbie Alomar and Rafe Palmeiro put up some sick numbers. With Rafe “With God As My Witness” Palmeiro leading the way by producing 39 homers and 142 RBI, that infield pounded 108 homers and drove in an amazing 420 runs, an average of 105 for each infielder. But, sorry, Palmeiro hangs an asterisk on those numbers. Just as A-Rod hangs one on his Yankees infield.