Ruben Amaro joined chucklehead Tom McCarthy and Jamie Moyer in the booth today to explain to everyone why things are not going to be OK and we’re all fucked. That’s when he displayed a complete lack of even a rudimentary understanding of the sport in which he generally manages.

T-Mac brought up Jimmy Rollins being one hit away (currently) from Mike Schmidt’s all-time Phillies hit record, and mentioned that J-Roll™ will do it in slightly fewer at-bats. This is what Ruben Amaro actually said in response [verbatim, sic’d and all that]:

“Yeah, we were checking it out. In fact Schmitty was in the booth yesterday when we were talking about it, and, um, I think it’s about a thousand difference in, ah, plate appearances. Pretty amazing. But their batting averages aren’t that different, which is kind of… weird. I don’t quite understand it.”

WALKS, you dope! WALKS. Mike Schmidt walked a lot more! Holy Christsack.

Rollins has 8,320 career at-bats. Schmidt had 8,352. Virtually identical. But Schmidt had 10,062 plate appearances, Rollins only has 9,168– a difference of 894. Schmidt walked 1,507 times, Rollins only 723– a difference of 784, which, when combined with Schmidt’s additional 32 at-bats, totals 816, leaving room for 78 plate appearances that resulted sacrifices, hit-by-pitches and catcher’s interferences, thus explaining the difference. Get fired, Rube. Get fired.

UPDATE:

Here’s the audio:

And Tom McCarthy referred to him as Phillies Assistant GM right after asking if he liked the broadcasters’ new Tommy Bahama shirts. H/T to readers Chris and Ellen