John POWERS Middleton, son of billionaire with billionaire hair and Phillies point owner John Middleton, and friend of Leo, laid into Jonathan Papelbon after reading the latter’s comments about his former team:

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LOVE THE MIDDLETONS. So much feist. Where you once had David Montgomary singing Kumbaya about impending departures, you have the Middletons calling former players “morons” and taking goddamn charge at rebuilding press conferences. Did we really doubt that a family of cigar magnates would be perturbed over their product’s absence in the Phillies clubhouse for four-straight years? Of course not. Cigars don’t lose, baby. The Johns Middleton being content with the current state of things would be like a milk man who owns a racing team being OK with just top-5 finishes. Gotta pour that dairy, smoke those stogies.

Anyway, Middleton then took aim at the Daily News for reasons I’m trying to figure out:

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It would seem that Lawrence’s original story changed from a Q & A-style transcript (understandable, seeing as though it went up almost immediately after Papelbon met with the assembled media on Monday) to a more traditional story, both living under the same URL. It’s a fairly common evolution. But something about it tweaked POWERS. Maybe just because he was so damn riled up about Papelbon’s comments:

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Love this era. Love it! If Donald Trump’s campaign success – which had to end last night with his hideous performance at a debate which, somehow, made Jeb Bush seem cool – is any indication, what America what the Phillies need right now is a no-nonsense straight-talker. Or talkers. The Middleton’s may be just that. I mean, BILLIONAIRES UNITE:

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MAKE THE PHILLIES GREAT AGAIN!