PHILADELPHIA -- With all due respect to Tom Boswell, a fine veteran of a baseball writer (even if he did spill coffee on me in the eighth inning -- right on deadline - at the 1981 All-Star Game in Cleveland), his assertion that the Brewers are abusing CC Sabathia is wrong. The only way the Brewers could do that is if Sabathia didn't want to pitch. Guess what? He wants the ball.

One thing that has become very clear over the last three months with Sabathia is that he doesn't mince words. He's direct and on topic when a question is asked. And he spent about 20 minutes Wednesday explaining why he is willing to pitch on three days rest. Apparently, that isn't enough for Boswell. It certainly is enough for me.

I was shocked that Boswell couldn't recall other pitchers who were willing to do something like this. I realize it was a different era, when starting pitchers were expected to make almost 40 starts a year and throw well over 200 innings, but it wasn't too long ago (for me) to recall pitchers making three starts in seven-game World Series after being part of a four-man rotation that worked regularly on three days' rest during the season.

We were chuckling the other day that up in heaven, George Bamberger, the former Brewers manager who made his name as a pitching coach with the Baltimore Orioles, is watching Sabathia and throwing around his favorite word (not fit for print, even here) in praise of Sabathia. Incidentally, Bamberger was the pitching coach for the 1971 Orioles, the last team to have four 20-game winners in its starting rotation. That happened because Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson and Jim Palmer regularly worked on three days rest. That's why no team will match that again, unless Sabathia starts a trend.