Dallas says Pat “The Bat” needs to grow up

Dallas Green, who was the General Manager of the 1980 Phillies World Series champion team and is now a consultant for the organization, is speaking out about what ails Pat Burrell.

Green thinks Burrell’s social life is the problem:

Not that this makes him a bad guy, but Burrell has a reputation for enjoying the Philadelphia nightlife.

“Probably well-earned,” Green said. “I’ve been out with him a couple times in Florida. We have a secret (watering) hole every now and then.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. There are tons of guys in the Hall of Fame that were like that.

“It’s neat to have money, it’s neat to have good looks, and it’s neat to have broads all over you. Every place I’ve managed, I’ve talked to kids about the same thing. It’s a hell of a life. But there comes a time in every player’s life when he needs to get his act together.”

It’s not so neat when your left fielder strikes out in the clutch on a regular basis. But it’s hard to imagine that Burrell’s socializing is the problem. From all reports, Burrell is the first one in the cages and the last one out. If he drinks a lot of beer, he must be doing a lot of sit-ups, too, because he doesn’t have a gut. And even if he did have a gut, so what? A beer belly hasn’t hurt the swings of Ryan Howard or David Ortiz.

Maybe it’s the ladies who are messing with Burrell’s head. In the late 1990s, Sixers star Allen Iverson developed a reputation for fading late in games and at least one Sixers beat writer suggested (off the record) that it was because Iverson was up all night having sex when the team went on the road.

Maybe Burrell’s problem is that he spends too much time in bed doing everything but sleep. But cut him some slack. What’s the point of being a star athlete if you can’t use that fame to score chicks?

Burrell works hard. And he parties hard. And odds are neither fact has anything to do with the fact that he strikes out way too much.