Utley lets his game scream while his mouth stays silent

PHILADELPHIA -- Chase Utley doesn't make time for the media, but we'll get even with that SOB. Actually, we already have. For five years Utley has been on one of the more unique individual tears in modern baseball, combining average and power and speed and patience, but he has never come close to winning MVP of the National League.

But maybe he'll win MVP of the World Series. Maybe he already has. Utley hit two more home runs Monday night in Game 5, powering the Phillies to a season-saving 8-6 victory that sends the World Series back to New York for Game 6.

Whatever happens from here on out, and that includes a title for the Yankees, there is a compelling argument to be made for Utley as MVP of the World Series. That argument is as simple as a single statistic: He has hit five home runs in five games, tying Reggie Jackson's record from 1977 -- a World Series that created the legend of Mr. October.

Utley is the anti-Reggie, which means he refuses to use the media to further his agenda. Thing is, the media likes to be used. Use us, please -- just don't ignore us. That's the one thing we cannot abide, but Utley doesn't play along. So neither do we. Since 2005 Utley has averaged 29 home runs, 101 RBI, 111 runs and a .301 batting average, and he has done it while playing a premium defensive position and stealing 15 bases per season, drawing praise from Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt as the best player in baseball.

MVP results, as voted by the media? Minuscule. Utley has never finished higher than seventh in the MVP voting. Since 2005, he has finished 13th, seventh, eighth and 14th. Maybe that will change this season -- MVP voting hasn't been announced -- but I doubt it.

If Utley is bothered by this lack of respect, he doesn't let on. Maybe he's used to it. Maybe he'd better stay used to it. After Game 5, in which Utley had two home runs, four RBI, three runs and a stolen base, Fox Sports gave out its nightly one-game MVP award -- the American Express "Take Charge Player of the Game" -- and gave it to Cliff Lee. What the ...

Nothing against Lee. He picked up the victory, his second of the World Series, by going seven innings. He gave up five runs, which by normal parameters isn't a terribly good outing, but the Yankees lineup is not normal. Lee did great. But he wasn't the MVP of this game.

The MVP of this game was the greatest player you know the least about. Utley isn't smiling on Subway commercials like Ryan Howard or offering ridiculous predictions -- some work, some don't; maybe he wants my job -- like Jimmy Rollins. Those are the last two Phillies to win NL MVP, by the way. Could be a coincidence. Not sure.

All we know about Utley are snippets that we can try to piece together, like in 2008 when the Yankee Stadium crowd booed him as he was introduced before the Home Run Derby, and Utley was caught on camera saying, "Boo? [Expletive] you." Some people loved that. Some hated it. Me, I was stunned. Chase Utley? That guy said that? What a fascinating reaction from a bland guy. Maybe, I remember thinking to myself, he's not as bland as he lets on.

After Game 5, as Utley spoke to the media in obviously intelligent sentences that said absolutely nothing, he was asked three different times about his personality, or lack thereof.

"It's not my favorite part," he said, referring to interviews. "My favorite part is playing the game. Obviously it comes with the territory. I'm getting a little more used to it, but I'd rather just go out and play."

Utley doesn't exactly do that. He has one of the shortest, easiest swings in baseball, but the game isn't as easy as he makes it look. Just go out and play? Not Utley. He's usually one of the first Phillies to get to the ballpark, arriving five or six hours before the first pitch, and he uses the time to study video of the opposing pitcher and then to go through an elaborate process of hitting off a tee, then from soft tosses, then in the cage inside the stadium before taking batting practice on the field.

Utley has a routine, and he doesn't stray from it. If I knew him better, which is to say if I knew him at all, maybe I could tell you that he has some obsessive-compulsive issues. Wouldn't surprise me, given the way he protects his routine every day, every month, every year ... but who knows? Who knows anything at all about Chase Utley?

About the only thing we know is this: All that work has made Utley one of the toughest outs in baseball, including in this series, when he has homered three times against CC Sabathia. Understand something. Sabathia is a left-hander, maybe the most overpowering lefty in baseball, and he surrendered three home runs all regular season to lefties. And he has surrendered three home runs in two games to Utley.

After Game 5, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel called Utley, along with Kirby Puckett, his favorite player ever, and said he tells his other Phillies to emulate Utley -- telling them, "Just play with Chase, because if you play with Chase, you've got a chance to be a pretty good player."

And then Manuel said something else about Utley. It was something interesting, but not surprising -- not at all:

"Sometimes I don't like to talk about him," Manuel said, "because he doesn't want me to."