What do the Phils do with Ryan Howard? How do you reconcile the unreconcilable? How do you try to fit Howard into your future when Jim Thome is drawing more than $45 million to be your first baseman for the next three seasons? In a way, the Phils can't win. Each Howard moonshot builds the bond between him and their fan base, each 425-foot homer whets those appetites. And with each dream of Howard in red pinstripes for the next decade dashed by Thome's presence, the public's former love affair with Big Jim gets chillier. But maybe the Phils can't lose. If they can't keep Howard, if fiscal sanity says he must go, each of those monstrous blows raises his value to the power-starved teams who soon will be lining up to enter the bidding for Howard's services. A guy who doesn't watch a lot of Giants games was watching when the Phils went to San Francisco a few days ago. The guy saw how inept the Giants are without Barry Bonds. If ever the guy doubted Bonds was the MVP of all recent seasons, such doubts ended. And then the ball went sailing toward those kayak-free waters. A Ryan Howard ball. And suddenly the bulb went on. The Giants must land a Ryan Howard, whatever the price, whatever the raid on their own future. They need a left-handed power bat like that to make the franchise viable again.