FORT MYERS, Fla. -- At the beginning of spring training in 2011, Roy Halladay, Joe Blanton, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels sat shoulder-to-shoulder and held a news conference. In the back of the room, leaning against a wall next to a trash can, the man who brought together these pitchers for the Philadelphia Phillies couldn't help grinning.
"When you have the opportunity to have that kind of rotation," Ruben Amaro Jr. said the other day, pausing as the smile crept back across his face, "that's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime situation.