CLEARWATER, Fla. - In order for Ryan Howard and the Phillies to make it through 2016 with anything close to a functional relationship, the first baseman will need to be more honest with himself than he was with the media on Tuesday afternoon.
That's not an impossibility, even after a news conference in which the one-time superstar sounded incredulous that somebody might harbor doubts about his role with the club moving forward. Even back when he was hitting 50 home runs per season as one of the most productive cleanup men in the game, Howard's sensitivity to criticism sometimes led him to react to questions in a way that suggested he was living in a different reality from the rest of the world.