APRIL 6, 2004 8:44 PM
PHILADELPHIA, PA
(stuff about the On Deck Series & Opening Day)
"You can see the fucking city!"
-my dad, bless his soul, on April 3.
Been neglecting the blog lately as I'm working on a new short story to present to my writers' group. But it has baseball in it so everything's okay. The thing I write after that won't have any baseball in it; not a scrap. Nary a pitch or catch.
After a few days of vague nervousness, culminating in my realization while at work on Friday afternoon -- "Good lord, it's tomorrow, isn't it, it's really happening!" (or something along those lines) -- went to check out Citizens Bank Park at the aforementioned exhibition game on Saturday afternoon. See my dad's charming quote above to get an idea of our general gape-mouthed reaction.
I'd like to add: Holy Shit.
We're profane idiots. No more profanity from here on out; that's a promise.
Anyway, we walked up from the subway -- taking yet another look at the Non-Vet nearby, which still gives me some new, sinister breed of willies -- toward the big brick thing that I had been watching them build for the past 2+ years. Finally, I was going to get to go into it. As we approached I felt like I was going up the first hill of a roller coaster, both dreading and anticipating the inevitable drop into excitement and terror and wild frantic movement. (Actually that's a lie, I didn't feel like that at all; I only thought of that tenuous metaphor just now.) But what I
did think about was the times I had been to Camden Yards and Shea and Fenway and had thought that those places looked familiar -- generally baseball stadium-shaped -- but still like a parallel universe, strange and different in odd, subtle ways. (This isn't the Vet. Where's the ramps? Where's all the concrete? The turf, man, where's the turf?) But now, of course, I'm in that parallel universe forever. Andrew agreed with me later; it felt like another planet; Baltimore, specifically. And yet later, in this foreign land, were our Phillies wearing their home whites... where am I?
We wandered around the concourse for a little bit and got rather lost. It's going to take me a while to get the hang of the place. We did find ramps, after all, ramps that seem largely needless but I like the very subtle and probably unintended homage to the Vet's endless ramp system. (They're even on the side of the stadium facing the Vet.) Though we got close to the actual field I refused to look out onto it until we reached Our Seats; I wanted that to be my first look at it. Finally we figured out the stairways to the Terrace Deck, took Our Seats, and looked out and discovered that, yes, by god, no fooling, you can see the @$&# city!
However: it's not ready.
I mean it, the place isn't really ready. The bathrooms, I am sorry to report, are filthy. Filthy in the "they were out of paper towels by the fifth inning except, I'm told, for certain other bathrooms where they had plenty of paper towels but no trashcans to put them in, also there was lots of mud and dust lying around from the construction, and they should really have a dude, or dudes, monitoring and cleaning the bathrooms at all times during the games like they had at the Vet" sort of way. I suspect that they will indeed have those dudes in future, and trashcans and plenty of nice fluffy paper towels, and the mud will be gone, and everything will be great, and this was just an aberration... so treat this as isolated complaining and not an actual condemnation of what I'm sure will become my favorite place in the world. I think I already like it more than Camden Yards. Camden Yards is beautiful and fantastic and fun, but its major problem is that the Orioles play there, and that's no good.
My other complaint is that it was cold. Really, horribly, painfully, un-baseball-y cold, so essentially we were really into the game and having fun for like three innings and after that our excitement was blown away by the cold and we were left with the very strong desire to stop watching a meaningless exhibition game and go somewhere and not be cold. But again, that won't be an issue later in the year, like in July... unless this weather never, ever goes away, as I sometimes find myself believing.
Pre-game stuff happened. Then the game started and we were off! Various thoughts:
Our Seats: I like them. It'll take a while to get used to them, I think, and I never really got very comfortable at any point during the game because, again: cold. Also I can't see the Phils dugout very well without leaning forward, which means I missed Thome's curtain call (see below) and I missed the traditional late-inning Phanatic dance, but then again I'm not six years old so I'll live.
Relish Machines: The one I used didn't work but it's a cool idea.
The View of the City: I could go on for hours and hours about why I'm so crushed the stadium isn't downtown but I don't feel like it and you don't want to hear it, so I won't, and also there's one common argument for not putting it there (traffic) which I have to admit is pretty convincing. So, with the knowledge that it's too late and the Phillies shall remain at the Sports Complex for decades to come, I'll let it go and say that the view of the skyline is very, very cool, except for three complaints: (a) the giant white billboard that says "Phillies" and blocks everything and very desperately needs to be torn down (other people have been saying this too, I'm told) and (b) the kind of not very interesting view of I-76 which nothing can be done about, and (c) the Holiday Inn which is hideous and they should maybe try to find a way to get rid of too. Just a thought.
The Game: I called two things that happened. First, I had a feeling that Thome would hit a home run in his first at bat and he did indeed. He crushed that thing absurdly. It was frightening and beautiful. I later described it as "brutally awesome". This amazing roar erupted because it was one of those inevitable home runs that you just know are gone. And, folks, the CBP Liberty Bell Home Run Spectacular didn't work! It lit up, but the clapper didn't move and it didn't ring. Maybe they're saving it for the regular season. Yes, I'm going to assume that they are. (It was sort of like Spring Training for everybody, really. The scoreboards never really worked for any extended length of time. At various frequently interchanging points we were told that the score of the Mets-Marlins game was 11-10, 5-5, and 21-10 before they seemed to settle on the apparently correct 13-11. The whole place, as I've said, had a ramshackle quality: missing signs, mysterious wetness on the concourse like they had hosed it down a few minutes before we arrived, empty rooms where I'm guessing restaurants or stores are going to be.) The other thing I called was in the 6th when the Indians had a man on first with one out and I guess correctly that the next guy would fly out and the guy after that would hit into a DP. It happened. I didn't tell anyone I had guessed this, so you're going to have to just assume that I really thought that and I'm not just lying like a bragging jackass.
Also I correctly called (a few months before, in fact) the exact thing that the Phanatic would do when he made his first appearance on the field: spin around and act baffled, as if to say "What is this? What is this place? What?!" Again, I never told anyone I thought this would happen, so all I could do was just be quietly satisfied with myself. I'm a lunatic.
Burrell hit a home run too but I didn't call that.
I
don't like the throwing back of visitors' home runs. What are you, stupid? I understand that it's not a Phillies home run, so we're upset about it, sure, but I object on principle doing anything that equates us with Wrigley Field. Don't people realize that this is precisely one of the reasons why the Cubs are such a lame, pathetic operation, because their idiot fans have this ridiculous tradition? The Cubs can bite me. Curse of the Goat, my ass.
Then again I'll probably get over it.
WAY TOO COLD, so we bailed and spent the final two innings wandering around. The view from the outfield is surprisingly good. The Build-A-Phanatic thing was doing a shocking amount of business, which is odd because it just seems so silly.
Phils lost, 6-5... they had kind of a good comeback but then gave up another home run and I'm supposed to not worry because it was meaningless, but I never listen...
SUNDAY, APRIL 4: Final exhibition game. Another loss. No tickets for me, but I did, god help me, it's true, have tickets for the SOUL at the Wachovia Center. It was fun for a while but the thing about Arena Football is that even they, apparently, don't take themselves very seriously, so they have to interrupt the game every 30-45 seconds to have some kind of contest or promotion or advertisement or burst of deplorable rap-rock. It's all so loud that you can barely handle it and Jon and I left after the third quarter... it's a shame because it's still (kinda) football, so the game is reasonably entertaining in and of itself, but I can't handle all that peripheral crap.
Back to baseball. All right, enough of this exhibition nonsense; let's play some ball!
APRIL 5: PIRATES 2, PHILLIES 1 @ PNC PARK, PITTSBURGH, PA
(Trying to come up with some kind of format for the Diary. Figured I'd put the date and score in bold. But I have to come up with some distinction for games I was actually at. I'll work on it.)
Didn't see much of this one. Heard the beginning on the radio (Scott Graham is the man, by the way) as Dad drove me and my siblings to Bensalem for Passover festivities. Saw a bit more when I got there but I was ordered to turn the TV off during the seder, so that was that. Rather callously ignoring the thing in the Haggadah about how you're not supposed to "turn to other forms of entertainment" after the seder, I checked the score and saw the bad news.
Phils gotta get it together, man. I'm a bit wary about the stuff in the paper this morning about how "it's just one game" and they'll "be okay" because that's what they kept saying last year for like four months straight. It wasn't until mid-August that the Phillies seemed to realize they were in a playoff hunt, a fact they celebrated by getting swept in Milwaukee. And that's just dumb.
And now, after 30+ exhibition games and the tease of Opening Day... no game today. So I shall resume my Phillies-ness tomorrow.
Final thought(s): Hockey Team vs. Devils begins Thursday night. Sixers: playoff bound? Who can say?
