Photo Credit: Douglas Jones-USA TODAY Sports

Photo Credit: Douglas Jones-USA TODAY Sports

We know Ruben Amaro just recently figured out that Ryan Howard shouldn’t be here anymore. By then, it was too late to actually do anything reasonable about it (it was actually too late as soon as he signed his last contract), but that’s the past. And also the present. But at least one person is jealous of the treatment Howard has gotten here: Michael Jack Schmidt.

Schmidt told Mike Missanelli:

“[Howard is] myself in the late ’80’s. There was Von Hayes. And there were a bunch of young kids who were just trying to learn how to play the game and compete in the Major Leagues. I really needed to be a DH on a contending team. That’s where I really needed to be. No one said that to me.”

If only, Schmidt says to himself, I had been able to collect so much money while batting .223 and then just bounce over to some contender to go on a pennant run I don’t deserve. That’s the dream.

It’s a sad state of baseball in this city when Mike Schmidt, one of the all-time greats, is wishing his career went a little more like Ryan Howard’s. Schmidt continued, stating the blatantly obvious: “It might be better for everyone if Ryan Howard were somewhere hitting 30-35 home runs and driving in 100-110 runs for a contending team.”

Believe me Mike, we’d all prefer that.