6/29 (DH) & 7/01: New York Mets at Philadelphia Phillies

So, I wasn't super-informative about where I was going to be when, apparently, but I drove out from the western side of Ohio to the general Reading, Pennsylvania area on June 28, which took about 11 hours, given the fact that I had to stop to pee about a gajillion times on the way. (Note to future roadtrippers through Pennsylvania, the turnpike is kind of 1) crazy 'spensive, 2) chock full o' "construction." I don't really have a problem with one of these things at a time, but if I'm paying $14.50 to drive on your road for five and a half hours, I better be able to drive 65 mph on pretty much all of it, y'know?)

In Reading, I caught up with my girl Leanne, who is a ginormous Phillies fan. (The ginormousness being her fanitude, not her body shape. She is actually rather wee, which is mostly notable because I dig hanging out with people who make me feel less short.) Leanne's AL team in the '90s was the Cleveland Indians, which is, of course, why we are friends, in spite of the fact that I really never paid attention to those teams, because that was when I was in junior high and high school and was mostly into, like, wearing black lipstick and listening to The Cure and occasionally going to minor league hockey games. Um.


Anyway, some of Leanne's buds canceled on her, so I got hooked up with tickets to both ends of the day/night Phillies/Mets double-header at Citizens Bank Park last Friday. I'd never been to Citizens Bank Park, and that last time I was in Philly it was part of a fat-camp daytrip when I was, like, 12. (You think I'm kidding?) And the last time I actually, like, saw the Phillies play a game in person was, like, what? 1993? Back before John Kruk had a job on ESPN anyway.

We got up crazy early (for me, anyway), and drove down to the train station and headed into Philly with our many shirts and our sign for Cole Hamels for the night game. I now understand the "Cole Hamels can make SEPTA run on time" joke from Cole Hamels Facts. I mean, not that any other public transportation with which I am moderately familiar is particularly punctual, but SEPTA was notably bad, although we did manage to catch the express to the sports complex once we were in Philly most of the time.

I found Citizens Bank Park a little bit too... much. I don't know. There was a lot of stuff going on. It was a little carnival-y. Also, upper decks in the outfield is, like, a lot of seats. I don't know. This is probably just Jacob's Field being a little more unassuming than the general hugeness of Citizens Bank Park.

Before the first game, we went down and did the whole autograph thing. J.A. Happ was signing really early, and Leanne kind of freaked out because she recognized the dude from all the Reading Phillies games she's gone to. So they had this whole conversation, which was primarily made up of Mr. Happ being all smiles about getting called up, if just for a spot start on Saturday (and for which he wasn't officially called up until they sent Geary down after the double-header, but whatever). Dudes on their first trip to the Big Leagues are pretty much the cutest.

Then Jamie freakin' Moyer came out, and by that point we'd been doing some wandering about and Leanne grabbed my hand and we ran over to the Phillies' side of the park again so she could get her boy's autograph, since she has a crush on every boy... over 40.

Let me take a moment to talk about how pretty much awesome Jamie Moyer was with the local fans. He's apparently a PA guy and came out for about 20-30 minutes before every single game we were at to sign for people. Dude is pretty much awesome with the Philly fans. I tip the cap I am not currently wearing to you, Mr. Moyer.

Eventually we made it up to our seats, which were behind a really cute dude who was scoring the game. At first we thought he was pretty quiet and nice, but then some Mets fan spilled beer on his scorebook, and Mr. Phillies Fan's friends showed up, and by the eighth inning we had a dude who was perfectly willing to heckle a four-year old sitting in front of us. It was kind of amazing, in a horrific and also a little bit awesome kind of way.

Like, you know how you have that friend in your group who's a total jerk to everyone in the group, but he's also a total jerk to everyone outside of your group, too? And he's really funny when he does it, in that completely unapologetic about being an asshole kind of way? So you can't really bring yourself to stop being friends with him because then you'll miss all the hilarity? That was this guy. We almost tried to hook him up with our extra ticket for the night game because we wanted to keep him around, but were too intimidated. Also, a little bit of hilarious asshole sometimes goes a long way, and flipping off four-year olds is really only funny once per week.

So, uh. The Phillies lost that game, which sort of sucked, but I was mostly only rooting for them because, you know, guest!

We got shuffled out of the park in between the games, so we wandered over to the Holiday Inn next door to suck up air conditioning and change our shirts. And buy more waters at a slightly less inflated price than they charge actually in the ball park.

The second game of the day we ended up in the last row of the 300 level in right field, which was pretty sweet. We ended up hanging up our Cole Hamels sign on the fence behind us.

I admit, once it became obvious that 1) Cole Hamels did not bring his A Game to the game, and 2) The Phillies apparently don't believe in patience at the plate, I kind of got distracted by the bickering between Mets and Phillies fans around me. There were some Mets fans in front of us, one of whom kept trying to flirt with every female Phillies fan he could find. And there were a lot of them in our general area. Mr. Mets fan did not flirt with me, but I introduced myself as "an Indians fan in disguise," when he was all upons Leanne, so I mostly got brushed off. Clearly the dude was all about ladies who kind of hate him. Which I mean, whatever, dude. Some people are into skinny blonde girls, some people are into ladies who wear a lot of leather, some people are into David Wright, whatever gets you going, I guess. And he wasn't handsy or anything, just into bantering with ladies who kind of hate his favorite team. I guess I'm okay with that, although I might not be okay with that if, like, you know, some White Sox fan came to the Jake and did that to me.

Across the aisle from us there was the Worst Phillies Fan Ever, who kept touching and clapping at and generally being a dick to the Mets fan sitting in front of him. There may have been a fight.

With an usher.

I don't know. It was a little crazy. There were a lot of people who had been drinking since the start of the day game, I think.

Leanne, who is very pro-being-a-dick-to-Mets-fans-when-they're-in-your-house actually went up and apologized to the Mets fans, and they were kind of, you know, "hey, it's cool. We know you're not all like that." So that was actually a little heartwarming.

The train out of Fern Rock was crazy late getting into the station, and we ended up not getting home until about 1:30 in the morning, so we did not go to a Reading Phillies game the next day, but instead we hung out in our "shirts we don't leave the house in" (That is, her Glavine Mets shirt and my Santana Twins shirt), and watched the Phillies game and then the Marlins game on TV and ate crackers and watched all the back-issues of Teen Girl Squad.

Sunday (July 1), we headed back into Philly for the next game, for which we had seats in the last row of the 400 level, which was a little bit vertigo-inducing, I admit. The atmosphere at this game was much pleasanter than the first two, and random people gave us soft pretzels and mustard. Leanne also totally abandoned me near Jose Mesa when we were down along the baselines autograph fishing again, so she could run over and see who was signing over by the Mets dugout, since none of the Mets had signed at either game we attended.


By which I mean she got Tom Glavine's autograph and we jumped around and screamed like morons about it for a couple seconds. Uh. As you do. I don't know. Sometimes you just get crushes on dudes over 40. (I still love you, Roger O'Donnell!)

Leanne is totally going to kill me over me publicizing her thing for Glavine.

Anyway, we spent most of the game making lame Teen Girl Squad-inspired jokes about the game ("A-Row'd!" being my favorite, but "CHILDREN!" being the most often stated because there were many cute children in our surrounding area.), and quoting The Dugout at each other, and making lots of jokes about our made-up world about A Very Wee David Wright and his Fondness for Other People and Sometimes Food.

In the realm of the Vegan Baseball Roadtrip, I discovered during the night game that on the Pavilion (200) Level on the right-field side the South Philadelphia Market has vegan gardenburgers. The water ice from Philadelphia Water Ice is also dairy-free. Beyond that, you're stuck with your standard ball-game fare (that is: soft pretzels, and if you're living dangerously, french fries).

We didn't try to do any away-from-the-ballpark eating on our treks due to time constraints and our autograph/photograph obsessions, but there's really not a lot directly near the ballpark anyway, since it's out in this ginormous sports complex that's mostly surrounded by several miles of parking lot. I am only kind of kidding.

You can check out the full photo album from the games here.

My report from PNC Park coming soon.

Hopefully.