Phillies' trade bring Glanville home

Doug Glanville will compete for the starting centerfield job of the Phillies against a rehabilitated Lenny Dykstra. He rewrote the Bower Field record book, earned Academic All-American honors in the School of Engineering at Penn, was drafted 12th in the nation by the Chicago Cubs in 1991 and hit .300 in the major leagues last season. He even wrote a 1993 transportation-engineering thesis explaining why a baseball stadium on 30th Street was logistical suicide. That was five years before the city of Philadelphia arrived at the same conclusion. Now 1992 Penn graduate Doug Glanville meets his most difficult challenge yet -- engineering the last-place Philadelphia Phillies out of the National League cellar. Glanville, 27, was traded from the Chicago Cubs to the Phillies December 23 for second baseman Mickey Morandini. He will join a Phillies outfield with other possible starters Gregg Jefferies and Bob Abreu. Now back in his college environment, the Teaneck, N.J., native is picking up where he left off outside the lines. The third-year outfielder arrives at The Jenks School, located on 13th and Porter streets, this afternoon to kick off the Phillies/Comcast Caravan promotional tour. Baseball and otherwise, he is back for a second stint. "It's a good feeling even when I landed," Glanville said. "I had a good experience at Penn and it's nice to come back." Glanville had a tough transition from the Ivy Leagues to the park with an Ivy wall. After spending five sporadic years in the minors, he hit just .241 in 83 at bats with Chicago in 1996. Last season, however, the 6'2", 175-pound outfielder blossomed, batting .300 with four home runs, 35 runs batted in, 79 runs scored and 19 stolen bases. Defensively, Glanville also shined, displaying both a solid glove and arm. The defensive skills took less time to develop, once tagged by a 1991 Cape Cod League scout as "the best that he'd seen in 15 years." "We identified him as the type of player who fits with what we are trying to do, defensive skills," Phillies General Manager Ed Wade said. "He can be our centerfielder and leadoff hitter for a long time." In addition to hitting .300, Glanville proved especially valuable in crucial situations, hitting .348 from the seventh inning on in games and .688 (11-for-16) with the bases loaded. Even more impressive was his .359 average on 0-2 counts, a testament to his ability at lay off bad pitches when behind in the count. "The 0-2 pitch is a mistake pitch," Penn baseball coach Bob Seddon said. "Initially, they may have not been as careful with him." Glanville's only competition for the starting centerfield job is Len Dykstra, 34, who has been out of action since July 1996 back surgery. Nicknamed "Nails" for his toughness, Dykstra insists he will follow in former Philly Darren Daulton's footsteps and make a healthy return. But the Phillies front office would prefer to see the younger, cheaper Glanville in the lineup. "[Phillies manager] Terry Francona and I have talked quite a bit," Wade said. "And if Lenny is playing, we will see Glanville still gets playing time." Wade's interest in Glanville emerged before the 1997 all-star break, when the outfielder showed that he could potentially fill Dykstra's void on an everyday basis. Initially, neither Cubs General Manager Ed Lynch nor President Andy McPhail planned to trade their former first round pick. But the situation changed during winter meetings, after the Cubs snagged power-hitting leftfielder Henry Rodriguez from the financially troubled Montreal Expos. "It got serious contact just before Christmas," Wade said. "It was them needing to fill a need at second base with Sandberg retiring that caused interest in Mickey." In addition to the Cubs' need to fill its void at second, the Rodriguez transaction, which joined him with fellow all-star outfielders Sammy Sosa and Lance Johnson on the Cubs' roster, made Glanville doubly expendable in Chicago. "Getting him was a good move," Glanville said. "I thought they'd be looking for a leftfielder because my natural position is center. But I didn't expect to be traded. I thought it was a decision between Lance and myself." In Glanville, the Phillies get not just a solid athlete but also a dedicated individual. At Penn, where academics were his number one priority and athletics extracurricular, the outfielder confronted decisions that displayed this ethic. Sophomore year, Glanville turned down an opportunity to tour Taiwan with the U.S. National Team because travel interfered with his Engineering midterm schedule. As a junior, then-Angels scout Al Goldis planned to observe Glanville play in a meaningless game against Temple. However, Glanville missed the contest by choice to study for an exam. "[Goldis] came to me and said, 'Where's Glanville?'," Seddon said. "Goldis was shocked that he missed the game because of exams. But I approved of the decision." Glanville viewed his own decision as a prioritization issue, not a baseball issue. "As a result, the criticism I took was that I didn't have passion for the game," Glanville said. "It took about three years for me to live it down. But sometimes, you just have to do what you believe in. It would have been easy to play where I had a free ride, fans and not focus on academics. To play [at Penn], you really have to want to play." Glanville left Penn after his junior year, accepting a $250,000 signing bonus from the Cubs, but returned in the off-season to finish his degree. His final project was an oral presentation discussing why Philadelphia could not adapt its transportation systems enough to permit a Major League Baseball stadium at 30th and Market streets. "Talking to Septa, the main thing was where to store the blue lines," Glanville said. "Veterans Stadium can store extra trains, but building storage capacity at 30th Street would have been very expensive." At first glance it is more difficult to attribute similarities to Engineering and baseball. The differences are glaring, but it is the precision, dedication and careful attention to detail of the the science and the American pasttime that cooperate in the end. These attributes travel with Penn alum Doug Glanville to work everyday, whether he's laying the groundwork for a better Veterans Stadium or helping to improve the team that plays there.

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