The Reading Phillies’ crazy Home Run Derby is going to be an all-out assault on your senses

We gotta give the Reading Phillies some credit. While the rest of us just write articles on how to improve the home run derby or make nominal changes like adding gold baseballs, the Double-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies has emptied its imagination and made it an onfield reality for this year's home run derby for the Eastern League All-Star Game. But we also must ask the question: What's in the water over there in Reading, Pa.? The plans for the derby/hitting challenge are so colorful and weird that you figure they were conceived by a bored mini-golf course manager on an acid trip. (That is a compliment, by the way. Or at least we think it is.) The plans for the July 10 event are also so nutty they require an entire video for R-Phils' GM Scott Hunsicker to illustrate all of them. Jump to the 1:00 mark for the start of his explanation. So, to recap: • The team will host a party for 500 people on an infield that features a bar, a full-service grill, an oyster ba...