Punting With Pat The Bat

Reaction to yesterday's Four Tiny Tidbits on the Philadelphia Phillies continues to pour in (OK, we've had two e-mails), with one reader recalling his own memories of current Phillies outfielder Pat The Bat Burrell and his childhood nemesis, Tom Brady. Let's go right to the action.

"Hey, Deadspin, For the record, the capsule says that 'Pat Burrell was a junior quarterback for Bellarmine Prep in San Jose in 1995, the same year that their West Catholic Athletic League rival, Serra High of San Mateo (Calif.), was starting a senior quarterback named Tom Brady.' According to my records, Burrell and Brady both graduated in 1995. Burrell's last season of football was in the fall of 1993, when he was a junior. He played only baseball his senior year, in the spring of 1995. Brady obviously played both sports as a senior, football in the fall of 1994 and baseball the spring of 1995. In fact, I was at the Bellarmine-Serra baseball game in San Mateo their senior year. I watched the sold-out showdown peering through the chain-link fence down the right-field line. Standing next to me was Royce Clayton and his dog. "In 1993, I watched Bellarmine at Serra in football. The starting QBs that Saturday were Tom Brady and Pat Burrell. Put that in your seismograph and smoke it! Combined gross annual income these days: $12.75 million. Burrell was also the Bells' punter, and the Bellarmine long-snapper was so brutal he got Pat The Bat pummeled two times in the second half. It was great watching Burrell scurrying and groveling for those two misguided snaps ("Follow it around ... see what it eats!" is what I screamed from the sideline the second time), then try to allude seemingly the entire Serra special teams unit as he attempted to get the punt off on the run at the same time. Pure slapstick. Of course, after the second botched punt, Burrell screamed at everyone, from head coach Mike Janda to the poor long-snapper to WCAL commish Ed Fennelly sitting in the stands. Burrell was bitter. Probably bitter, more than anything, because I was mocking him." — John Allen.

(ADDENDUM: The accompanying photo is from a Philadelphia Weekly gossip column item circa 2004, purportedly of Burrell, "drunk off his ass, doing his Usher impersonation," at Bar Noir in Philadelphia.)

Pressler's Miscellany [Philadelphia Weekly] Four Tiny Tidbits On: The Phillies [Deadspin]