Chick-Phil-A

Little Lenny looks just like Dad

So, as you may or may not know, my friend Tug has spent the past 6 weeks or so traveling around the Southern US states watching minor league baseball games  - all a part of his Casual Fan Project.  Needless to say, I am extremely jealous that he will be spending his whole summer watching baseball, but thankfully his blog about his experience is amazing.  Every morning I get to read his game reaps, look at some sweet photos, and laugh at the goofy things that go on in a minor league ball park.

Yesterday he was in Myrtle Beach to see the Myrtle Beach Pelicans vs. the Potomic Nationals.  And he got to see Lenny Dykstra's son, Cutter, in action. (Cutter was sent to the Nationals organizationin a trade that moved Nyger Morgan to Milwaukee)

I was pretty excited to see photos of Little Lenny, seeing that Big Lenny was my favorite Phillie when I was a kid.

WOW the kid looks just like him - see here yourself - just need a mit more mullet in the back:

 Thanks Tug for letting me use your photo.

Anyway - you should check out Tug's Casual Fan blog - it's pretty awesome.

Let's see if this works - trial run from the apple tablet thingy

With a test photo of a unique way to serve 2 for 1 bottled beer for happy hour at Duffy's in Jupiter, FL. I'm a fan of the individual cooler for the extra beer. Kinda like getting the extra milkshake in the metal cup at a soda fountain!

Update: well except for the photo being sideways. Ha. We will figure this out eventually!!

Remembering HK - photos

April 17, 2009 in front of CBP.

Harry getting ready to throw out the 1st pitch before the World Series Ring Ceremony Game, April 8, 2009 - the last home game before he passed.

2 years later - remembering HK still...

Two years ago I had taken the red eye home to Newark. I drove home and passed out for a few hours on my couch, in an effort to recouperate from the Viva Las Vegas rockabilly weekender I had just come home from. My nap didn't last too long, as I was woken up by texts and phone calls alerting me that our beloved Phillies announcer, Harry Kalas, had passed away.

I immediately turned on CSN and didn't sleep a wink the rest of the day. Harry was the one constant in all of my life of Phillies fandom. His voice was instantly recognizable - whether it was on the radio and tv calling Phillies baseball, in an NFL films production, or a chunky soup commercial - Harry's voice had been in my life as long as I could remember. It was the voice I was first introduced to through the little battery operated radio that my grandfather had down the shore all those summer days and nights - be it in the little kitchen of the house, out in the backyard, or Sunday afternoons on the beach - listening to Phillies games.

As I got older, Harry's voice was the one my brother and I would imitate as we'd flip through our baseball card collections, saying each name as we had heard Harry say it, or narrating our wiffle ball games in the side yard.

Anyway, there's not a lot to say that hasn't been said already about HK. I'm excited for the statue to be put at CBP. And as @phils08champs said on twitter earlier,"Every time I see Tom McCarthy's tits I miss Harry Kalas more and more."

Play Ball!! Phillies vs. Los Mets, Cole's 1st 2011 start 4/5/11 @ Citizens Bank Park

Date, Time: April 5, 2011, 7:05 PM

Venue: Citizens Bank Park

Opponent: Los Mets

Pitching Matchup:  Cole Hamels vs. Chris Young

Pregame:  My first "after work" game of the season.  I took the shuttle from my office at the Navy Yard up Broad St. to the corner of Broad and Pattison and walked over to the 3rd base gate.  I tried not to get blown away by the wind.  There were people handing out free Snapple at the subway station.  It was apparently a cross promotion with NBC and The Celebrity Apprentice - some wacky diet Snapple flavor created by Brett Michaels calledTrop-a-Rocka - and it was awful.  Plus, it was in a glass bottle, so you couldn't even take it into the stadium if you wanted to.  There was quite a collection of hardly drank bottles of this Snapple hanging out 0n the bases of the statues along Pattison between Broad and CBP.

I got in to the stadium, got my free T-shirt, and headed upstairs to say hi to some twitter folk ( @kchristine, @dmc0603, & @mdschaeff).  It was crazy windy. 

Seats: Back to the regular seats for the 1st time all season in section 327.  I love these seats because there's always a nice breeze during the really hot summer games.  Well, that breeze was here tonight too, in the 45 degree cold.  And it was more like gale force winds.  COLD!!!!

Food/Drink:  I finally got some Crab Fries at this game.  Yum.  And when I was in line for them, I was serenaded by the Cinnaminson High School marching band's rendition of "We Didn't Bolg the Fire".  Quite nice.

Thumbs Up: I was watching baseball live in person for the 4th consecutive Phillies game.  Free t-shirts are nice.

Thumbs Down:  Lack of Phillies offense, Cole not making it out of the 3rd, People booing Cole as he left the game. Oh and have I mentioned how cold and windy it was?

Photographic Evidence: It was too cold for me to get the camera out tonight, but here's a view from our seats.

   

Tonight @ The Fire in Philly - American Speedway

Tonight I'm heading to the Fire on Girard Ave. to check out my brother's band, American Speedway, as they play a home show in the midst of their 3 week east coast tour. 

 
 
The Phillies game will be over already, the Flyers and Sixers are off - so what are you doing tonight?  If you enjoy fast, hard rock, beer, sharks, loud noises - you should come out to the show! 

They have played all over the country, toured with Eddie Spaghetti (of the Supersuckers), play Heavy Rebel Weekender every year, etc... 

They are on tour to support their new album that is coming out on 4/26/11 called "A Bigger Boat" (their debut album was "Ship of Fools").  Here's what some other people had/have to say about the band.

From Static:

A Bigger Boatis really a lot of good fun; there isn’t much to say beyond that. Sometimes simplicity is where it’s at. American Speedway like to call themselves “real rock and roll” and their electrified semi-throwback sound certainly warrants that description. Punkified bar-rock is also a good one, if I may be so bold as to offer my own humble attempt to label them. What they do, they do well. It’s nothing new, but the attitude and presentation is just right; they’re having fun and so am I listening to their stuff. This band sounds like more than just a rowdy Friday night at the local dive; it sounds like a gang of demon-bikers coming to get you.

From Mass Movement:

Sure, they’re fuelled by punk rock fury, but the music they out crank is pure, good old fashioned rock-n-roll and played with more guts, heart, passion and soul than a whole continent full of emo bands could generate in a lifetime. This is rock-n-roll as it should be, music that make you want to sing-a-long, raise you beer high, nod your head, tap your feet and dance each and every night away like it was your last on Earth.

Here's a clip from ESPN about Ride for the Cause that features American Speedway music.

Anyway - it's a good time, so if you are looking for something to do, come on out!!

Play Ball!! Phillies vs. Astros, Roy O's 1st 2011 start 4/3/11 @ Citizens Bank Park

Date, Time: April 3, 2011, 1:35 PM

Venue: Citizens Bank Park

Opponent: The Houston Astros

Pitching Matchup:  Roy Oswalt vs. Bud Norris

Pregame: Today, instead of tailgating, we decided to sleep in a bit and just head straight to the stadium to actually take a walk around and see what was new in the park this year.  We even got a ride from our parking spot to the left field gate in the Citizens Bank Park extendo-cab golf cart!

 Hitchin' a ride!

First stop, the Majestic Clubhouse store, where I was excited to find a ton of new women's merch that wasn't pink!!  The new women's specific name and number tees are great - a softer, thinner jersey fabric with a more flattering cut for a girl.  They are running a 2 for 40$ special on mix and match name and number tees right now, so I took advantage and picked up a red Halladay and a powder blue Lee. 

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, and the sun was shining down warmly on Ashburn Alley.  We checked out the new jackets available at the Mitchell & Ness store before getting ready to head to our seats.  Of course, in the sea of 45, 000 people at the stadium, we randomly ran into some friends on the Alley before heading up to the 200 level.

Seats: Section 202.  We bought the tickets off of a buddy for this one.  We finally were able to see the new HD video board in action today sitting there, though we had no idea what happened when Benny Fresh ran into the wall catching that fly ball.

Food/Drink:We actually made it through the entire weekend without getting anything to eat at the park.  More Wawa waters/pretzels today as well as some See's lolly-pops and various snack packs of cookies/crackers we brought from home.

Thumbs Up: The long ball showed up early today - both Ryan Howard and Ben Francisco going yard in the 1st inning.  Oh and that new HD video board - it had a brand new graphic to play when RyHo homered.  Big Brown Delivers - on the side of a big brown UPS looking truck that had Ryan's face on it. Also, the weather - it was just awesome.  And the continuation of the Phillies offense!! Oh, and SWEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!

Thumbs Down:  Traffic after Sunday afternoon games, not the same as traffic after a weeknight game.  Wayyyyyy worse.

Photographic Evidence: I didn't take the whole camera kit to the game today, so you just get one iPhone shot today.  The view from 202!

 

Once around the rotation....

So now we've seen the Phillies go one time round "the best rotation ever assembled in the history of assembling rotations."

4-1 start.  Can't complain about that.

Though these last two games were a bit on the heartburn inducing side.

Tonight was the 1st game this season that I didn't attend in person - it felt a bit funny driving past the stadium tonight around 7:30 seeing the game going on as I listened on the radio  (the HD radio in fact - on WOGL 98.1 HD-4 - Phillies 24/7).

Anyway - this season I want to keep a diary of sorts of all the baseball games I go to in person.  Not a "game recap" like stats, who won, who lost, etc... but just a few notes/photos from each game of things I want to remember about the experience.  That's what all these "Play Ball" posts are - my way of keeping track of the games I go to and giving me motivation to get photos edited and on the web! ha ha.

Anyway, thanks for looking around and reading.  Looking forward to a summer full of baseball, music, and arts and crafts to share with all of you .

Play Ball!! Phillies vs. Astros, Cliff Lee Day 4/2/11 @ Citizens Bank Park

Date, Time: April 2, 2011, 7:05 PM

Venue: Citizens Bank Park

Opponent: The Houston Astros

Pitching Matchup:  Cliff Lee vs. Wandy Rodriguez

Pregame:The lack of rain/snow today made for better tailgating than on the day of home opener.  We again braved the K lot (even parked there this time) to meet up with a bunch of people from the internet.  Wayyyyy more people that on Friday.  We all shared beers, burgers, cookies, cupcakes, and drunken gummy bears (courtesy of @sweetbabette).

 
Seats: SRO baby!!  Got a good spot on the lower concourse, right behind section 116 to get a good sight line of Cliff Lee.

Food/Drink:again, bought NOTHING in the stadium today but did indulge in some home run sticks (aka Twizzlers) and waters brought in from Wawa.  Plus, all the pre-game food.

Thumbs Up: The approximately 40 standing ovations given to Cliff Lee.  Seeing Chooch, Roy O, Doc and Shane being presented with their post season awards.  Not waiting until the 9th inning for the offense to kick in.

Thumbs Down:  Lack of a speaker in the section that we were standing behind, so I couldn't hear the "Ask the Phillies"  answers.  Or anything Dan Baker said for the most part.  Oh and the whipping wind and cold in April.

 Photographic Evidence:

 




 I love the artwork for Kid's Opening Night...
That sign pretty much sums it up.

As usual - see the rest of the photos on the ChickPhilA flickr page. 

Play Ball!! Phillies vs. Astros, Season Opener 4/1/11 @ Citizens Bank Park

It seems like forever ago that Spring Training started.  Everyone was optimistic.  We had the very best pitching staff.  We had everyone healthy and ready to go.  We were already talking about who we were going to face in the World Series.

Then Chase was "sore", Brad was "sore".  Polly's elbow was still a bit tweaked up. And the doomsday pessimism followed.  All of the sudden, the Phillies were NOT the team to beat.  They were old, hurt, and had an offense that was anemic.  All of the sudden, we were the underdogs.

I was just ready for the real season to start.

Date, Time: April 1, 2011, 1:05 PM

Venue: Citizens Bank Park

Opponent: The Houston Astros

Pitching Matchup:  Roy Halladay vs. Brett Myers

Pregame: Met up with some fine twitter folk in Lot K for a breakfast tailgate after it stopped snowing.  Oh and apparently this:

  
Seats: Section 144

Food/Drink: amazingly bought NOTHING in the stadium today

Thumbs Up:Helllllo WALKOFF!!!!! The return of Lady Pha Pha. The general fact that baseball games that count were being played again.

Thumbs Down:Brett Myers making the Phillies offense look a bit silly.  Wearing almost as many layers to a baseball game as I would to go snowboarding.

Thumbs Indifferent: Maybe it's time we figure out a new "Opening Day" routine....the walking in from 10th street and trying not to fall down some steps coming out the outfield was awesome the first time I saw it, but I'm ready for something new...

 Photographic Evidence:

 
 
 And as always - check out the rest on myFlickr feed.