Four Schnooks and a Baseball Game

Master Bates, The Concierge, Nails and I made the trip to Philadelphia to see the Mets vs. the Phillies on Saturday afternoon. Because the game was a 4pm start we had plenty of time to get there and enjoy the stadium, lovely Citizens Bank Park. But of course, when I went to pick up The Concierge, he was still in the shower.

We did get to the stadium in plenty of time to walk around. The sports complex is huge, plenty of parking surrounding Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field and the Wachovia Spectrum (the old Spectrum).

The concourse around the lower level of seats is what they call Ashburn Alley. Basically it's a wide, clean concourse, with the stadium on one side and restaurants and concession stands on the other. But they don't have typical concessions, they have cheesesteaks (Rick's and Tony Luke's) and bars (Harry the K's in the outfield) and each little beer stand has a different quality microbrew, and they are all actually cold.

Also along the alley is a Standing Room Only area, which actually surrounds the concourse on all decks. Some of the views are actually pretty good. I wouldn't want to stand the whole game, but I think the SRO tickets are only $12, so it might not be that bad. And the restuarants, you can sit there during the whole game and watch while eating and drinking and the views aren't bad. And restaurants tables are given out on a first come first served basis, they don't require a $100 deposit.

Once you get to the seats, all the seats are good, they are all pointed towards the field, and they all give you a nice view of the action.

I really hope the designers of CitiField take a trip to the Cit and copy or improve upon some of the fine amenities.

This game was also PSPCA day at the ballpark. Dogs available for adoption were entertaining fans in a special section of the concourse, but I didn't even go over to look because I know I would fall in love and Mrs. Poop would never let me adopt another dog. But they kept showing the dogs on the screen between innings, they all had baseball names (Schmitty, Pug McGraw, Slider) and I almost adopted Homer. Although maybe Homer was named after the Greek poet.

Once the game started the Mets gave us a good time, but you can read about that on the Recap.

When Carlos Beltran made a spectacular catch on a deep drive to center, right before crashing into the wall, I denoted it with a star in my scorecard. This is a practice I know Jems encourages, but evidently, the three idiots I went to this game with don't like this, as they asked for an asterisk on every play for the rest of the game.



The Concierge elected to take the Walt Whitman Bridge because he wanted to honor a famous gay American.

Philadelphia has some of the same between innings gimmicks that the Mets have. They do the Kiss Cam, and they played "Can't Get Enough of Your Love Babe," which is nice, but all the Phillies fans they showed were worried that their parole officer might see them on the big screen.

They don't have anything as fun as Learn Spanish with Professor Reyes.

At one point a dirty sweaty Mets fan proposed to his girlfriend on the big screen, she cried, said yes and then he rolled up his sleeve to show off his Mets logo tattoo on his biceps.

Speaking of biceps, the Philles employ a "Flex Cam" where sweaty guys in wifebeaters act like tough guys. Typical Philly.

Also typical Philly, we went to Geno's for dinner after the game. For the Concierge and Nails this was their third cheesesteak in 6 hours. We all ate steaks on arrival, but only Nails and The Conch opted for the Schmitter right at game time. The Schmitter is just a fancy cheesesteak, they use 3 pieces of cheese separating some fried salami, steak, tomatoes, and a special sauce. Master Bates was very proud of himself for rhyming Schmitter and shitter in a sentence.



Also typical Philly, cars park in the median, right in the middle of the road on some busy streets. I have never seen this before. Also a typical Philly greaseball (like the kind they show on FlexCam) was sitting in his apartment in his wifebeater leaning out the window. I only bring this up because as the Conch was driving, and complaining about Philly he said "look at that guy in the window." I have no idea how he saw him.

The Concierge and I didn't have too many arguments, perhaps because everytime we tried to talk Nails and the Master shouted out "they're arguing again." But we did disagree on Delgado's 2006 batting average, he said .265 and was exactly right. He also said Delgado would be within .015 of his career average at the end of this year. Assuming a like number of at bats from now until the rest of the season, he'd have to bat nearly .300 for the rest of the season.

The Concierge insisted that "Raging Bull" won Best Picture in 1980, which of course it didn't ("Ordinary People" did), and I think I could have bet him on it, but my initial offer was $1000 which Nails pointed out was a sure sign that I definitely knew I was correct. The Concierge also claimed that "I see dead people" isn't one of the most famous movie lines of the past 10 years, but Nails shut him down before he could spend an hour naming more well known quotes.

So it was a nice day trip to see a good ballgame and a nice stadium, and a good time was had by all.