Sept. 22 -- SERVE & PROTECT

WASHINGTON -- On the way back to my hotel last night, I was strolling through DC when I came upon America's most famous address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was pretty late, but there were a few lights still on. Clearly, President Bush was burning the midnight oil.

Earlier in the day, he took time out of his schedule to meet with Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Brett Myers, Cole Hamels, Charlie Manuel and Phillies travel director Frank Coppenbarger in the Oval Office. Bush is a huge baseball fan (he used to own the Rangers), and, according to Myers and Hamels, he finds time to watch Baseball Tonight. Bush, you see, knew exactly where the Phillies stand in the NL East and wild-card races. So, he chit-chatted with the Phils for about 20 minutes, leaving them in complete and total awe. Utley, who gets political when the subject turns to global warming (he was moved by Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth"), said Bush did most of the talking. For the most part, the Phillies just listened, nodded and took it all in.

Anyway, as you can imagine, it wasn't easy for Manuel to decide which players to bring on the White House expedition. The trip, arranged by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), limited him to six players, and Manuel took his best.

Well, sort of.

"[Aaron] Rowand had already been there," Manuel said, referring to Rowand's trip as a member of the 2005 World Series-winning White Sox, "and I figured [Tom] Flash [Gordon] needed the rest."

Understandably.

Gordon, Myers and J.C. Romero have pitched in nearly every game for the past week. When they appeared in last night's 6-3 win over the Nationals at RFK, it marked the fourth straight game for the Big Three. Gordon and Myers have pitched in seven of the last eight. Romero has pitched in eight of the last nine. And, if you're worried about the effect of that workload, you're not alone. Manuel said he didn't want to use the Big Three last night, but when Adam Eaton allowed two runs in the fifth and walked the leadoff batter in the sixth, he knew he was going to have to, especially since all three told him before the game that they were ready to pitch.

"With eight games left, this is no time to be sitting around and saying, 'I can’t pitch today,'" Myers said. "Not unless your arm is falling off. That’s when I'll quit, when it falls off."

After meeting with Dubya, I guess you could say Myers was inspired. "He gave us a lecture about how you need to make decisions, make them fast and not worry about what people think," Myers said. "He kind of compared his job to what we do. I thought, 'You have to worry about everything, and all we have to worry about is playing the game.'"

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Kevin Noonan explores Jimmy Rollins' MVP candidacy, which grew even stronger last night when he became the first player ever to have at least 200 hits, 15 triples, 25 homers and 25 steals in the same season. Last week, I wrote that David Wright would be my NL MVP pick. I may have to reconsider, even if the Phillies don't make the playoffs.