Philadelphia Daily News: Conlin: CHARLIE’S IQ RISING WITH EVERY VICTORY

Charlie Manuel…passing the dreaded Stanford-Binet-Conlin test.

Suddenly, Charlie Manuel has gone from Mayberry to Mensa. If you rated the guy’s IQ at around the 100 range during those awful Aprils, you’ve got to think it went up about five points a win during the nine-game winning streak. That’s 145 - an IQ of 135 to 144 indicates a highly gifted intellectual. OK, deduct five points for the messy Wednesday loss to the Mets. But the Phils have won four straight since then, including lights-out starting pitching by wunderkind King Cole Hamels, Jon Lieber and Brett Myers, and the fortuitous slugging of Ryan Howard. Howard went directly from the ER to baseball history. Of the four hitters in baseball history who have now hit a pinch homer plus a second homer, he was the only one recovering from food poisoning.

So let’s tack 20 more points on Charlie’s IQ, which computes to 160. People with IQs between 155 and 164 fall into the “Genius Nobel Prize winners” category. A sweep in Milwaukee would take Manuel to 175-high genius.