ESPN discovers the ellipsis

"I do at times, but it's a timely thing," Manuel said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We're still hustling. We're still playing hard. We might be trying to do too much. For me to go in there and stand up and throw a fit, I can go in there and tear the whole ... locker room up. I could come here and throw every ... chair in here out. What the hell? I don't see how that's going to do me any good."

From an article about Phillie's manager Charlie Manuel's fervent desire to get all UFC on sports radio guy Howard Eskin. Typically, ESPN (and other journalistic enterprises) choose to avoid publishing expletives by replacing them in quotes with "[expletive]" or some variant. I wish they would follow comic strip convention ("&*@#!"), but it seems they've moved on to simply using an ellipsis to open up our imaginations, and also perhaps to leave open the possibility that Charlie Manuel, in a fit of rage, chose to insert a long and distracting subordinate clause rather than a selection from the trucker patois. Let's fill in these ellipses.

What ESPN quotes Charlie Manuel as saying: "I can go in there and tear the whole ... locker room up."

What Charlie Manuel actually said: "I can go in there and tear the whole--and by whole I mean, entire--and really, we're blessed with a really large locker room and meeting space, so for me to tear this place apart would not only show a real disrespect for the architects, designers, front office, and our great support staff of janitors and equipment guys, it would really exhaust a guy my age, and while I do work out, I'm really in no shape to rip and entire locker room up."

What ESPN quotes Charlie Manuel as saying: "I could come here and throw every ... chair in here out."

What Charlie Manuel actually said: "I could come here and throw every, single solitary piece of furniture, much of which is quite comfortable (not to mention heavy, like I said, I'm not in great shape) and really wouldn't fit out in the hall, so I could throw a chair or two but I wouldn't throw every chair in here out."

And then there's lots more blither-blather about Charlie Manuel and Howard Erskin's mutual professional distaste for one another, and some commentary on the Phillies slow start, and no mention of the particular game (Phillies lost 8-1, remember? Didn't think so) until this:

As for the the team's famously caustic fans? They mounted an "E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!" chant in the seventh inning, choosing to praise the city's successful NFL team rather than bury its baseball team.

Good to know that whoever is writing for ESPN took 10th grade English and read at least the most famous part of Julius Caesar, even if the allusion is a little muddied here.