Chick-Phil-A

Photos: Philadelphia Vintage Base Ball Expo

A few weeks ago I went to check out the Philadelphia Vintage Base Ball Expo that was being held at the Navy Yard Parade Grounds in South Philly.  It was hosted by the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia, a team that consists of guys (and gals) who enjoy re-creating 1864 era base ball games.  The best I can describe what they do is like this:  They are like Civil War reenactors except they play baseball.

The Athletics play pretty much every weekend from April through September.  Their home matches take place at Memorial Field in Fairmount Park.  If you are interested in all about the history of baseball in Philadelphia, go check out a game and talk to the players, they have done a lot of research and are full of info.  You can also follow them on Twitter here.

More photos after the jump.

Celebrating Harry Potter 7.2 @ the Trenton Thunder/R Phills game

Last Friday we finally made our way up to Trenton to check out a Thunder game.  They were playing the Reading Phillies for a 4 game set, so the place was packed with both Yankees and Phillies fans.

Friday also marked the day that the new Harry Potter movie - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 - debuted at the box office, and the Thunder were having some fun with that.

They have 2 mascots: Boomer and Striker.  Striker was looking a bit different tonight, though, with a cape, a mini-bat wand, and some round glasses.  He had transformed into Harry Striker.

They were also having some fun on the scoreboard - for both Reading and Trenton players.

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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.

   

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!

 

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.

He Was Born This Way (in the Galapagos Islands) - Lady Pha Pha returns

Last year at the Phillies home opener we were entertained by a different version of the Phillie Phanatic - Lady Pha Pha - who looked like a slightly larger, greener Lady Ga Ga in the red lace outfit from her Bad Romance video.

 Lady Pha Pha's 1st performance  in 2010

 
This year, Lady Pha Pha returned - with a whole new gig.  This time as Ga Ga at the Grammy's - being carried in a giant egg and all - and performed to Born This Way.  Pretty funny.  Here are some snapshots of the performance.

 Gaga in her egg at the Grammys

  Lady Pha Pha being carried in, pre-hatch.

 

   Hunter Pence is enjoying the performance while he trys to get ready for his at bat.

36 HOURS!!!!! (and opening day art project update)

Until I am inside the gates of Citizen's Bank Park getting ready to watch BASEBALL!!!

Happy MLB Opening Day!!

Happy Phillies Opening Day Eve!!!

(In my opinion - it's way better than Christmas).

I mentioned on Twitter the other night that I was cleaning up my craft basement in order to start work on a little Phillies project.  I got that clean, gathered supplies over the past few days, and have everything ready to assemble tomorrow night.

Here are all the supplies - will assemble tomorrow.  Stay tuned for updates.

 

 

It wasn't perfect, but it was FUNNER! Roy's NLDS No-Hitter (with video!)

I am sitting here on my couch at home, watching the Yankees/Twins game, and uploading photos and video from tonight's historic Phillies game.

Historic!! Yes - tonight Roy Halladay became the 2nd pitcher EVER to pitch a no-hitter in a postseason game.  And I was there to witness it with Mr. ChickPhilA.

We found out Monday night that a pair of tickets were being over-nighted to us for the game - for free to boot!! - and my awesome boss agreed to let me leave work in time to get to the game.   Mr. ChickPhilA picked up me and one of my other friends who had tickets from work at 4 and we were in our seats by 4:30, just in time to see the new 2010 season highlight video on the big screen.

I didn't move from my seat from that time on.

We all know what happened next.  After Scott Eyre threw out the 1st pitch.  After Tugger's niece sang the anthem.  After balls were thrown at the Phanatic from the Reds' dugout, Roy took the hill for his 1st ever post season start.

Can he be another lefty out of the pen for us again?

Getting hugs from the hug-master!

Roy took just 10 pitches to get out of the 1st inning and you could feel the energy everywhere in the crowd.  Rally towels were flying.  People were pumped (understatement).

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 Roy's 1st Postseason Pitch!

The offense did their part to put runs on the board early, and Doc kept motoring along - out after out after out.  He even got a hit and RBI's!!!

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Roy gets a hit!! 

It was after the 3rd inning that I first started to think about what was going on - 9 up, 9 down.  But I kept the thoughts to myself.  It had started to rain, people were leaving their seats.  We didn't move.

There was this cool faint rainbow that came out though, and as I tweeted - Roy + Rainbow = Awesome!!

Even after Roy walked Jay Bruce, breaking up the perfect game in the 5th, I still had a feeling we were going to see SOMETHING special.  He ended up being the one and only base runner for the Reds the entire night.

After Lauren Hart sang "God Bless America" (subtle reminder that hockey season starts tomorrow), I could hardly stand still.  Surely Roy will be able to get through the bottom  2/3rds of the Reds line up again.

The rest of the game - a blur - I did manage to get the camera out again though to capture some more of the moments.

Puttin' up Zeros (oh wait, my bad, that's Cliff Lee's phrase ;))

1st pitch of the last out...

I had the flip cam on hand and Mr. ChickPhilA recorded the last out.  Got chills watching it over and over again on the car ride home.

I still can't believe how incredibly lucky we were to witness this in person.  On the way home, JJ said on the post game that this is only the 2nd time ever in Phillies history a pitcher has thrown even just a complete game shut out in the post-season.  The 1st time?  Curt Schilling's gem in game 5 of the World Series in 1993.  Crazy  - I was at that game too, screaming my head off with my mom, dad, and brother.  Feeling the Vet shake when Elvis Costello's "Pump it up" was blasting.

Citizen's Bank Park was shaking tonight, and it's only the beginning of another crazy postseason ride.

See you back at the Bank on Friday for Roy.2 (and hopefully a 2-0 lead in the series :) )

Pearl Jam @ MSG (with special appearance by Joe Buck)

Last night while Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, and Jayson Werth were taking care of beating up of the Boston Red Sox during the first Inter-league game of the season, I headed up to New York City to take in the last night of Pearl Jam's 2010 North American tour at "The World's Most Famous Arena", Madison Square Garden, with Mr. ChickPhilA.

Mr. ChickPhilA was lucky enough to go to Thursday's show as well, and kept texting me with highlights from the set - "State of Love and Trust", "Porch", "Leash", etc... - I hoped that they would have enough awesomeness left for Friday night's set.

After a lovely dinner of Tater Tots and grilled cheese while being serenaded by old Elvis videos at Trailer Park, we headed over to the Garden.

We picked up our tickets and were excited to find these in the envelope too:

Woo Hoooo aftershow!!

We spent the time before Pearl Jam's set trying to guess what they would open with.  Mr. ChickPhilA FTW with Corduroy.  Complete set list was as follows:

Main Set:
Corduroy, Hail Hail, Do the Evolution, Worldwide Suicide, Got Some, Breath, Nothingman, I'm Open (Dedicated to Howard Zinn), Unthought Known, Grievance, Amongst the Waves, Present Tense, Not For You/Modern Girl, Push Me Pull Me, Rats, Daughter/WMA, The Fixer, Why Go

Encore 1:
The End (w/ string quartet), Just Breathe (w/ string quartet), Slow Lukin (w/ strings), Black Red Yellow, Sweet Lew, Given to Fly, Spin the Black Circle, Rearviewmirror

Encore 2:
Wasted Reprise, Betterman, Black/We Belong Together, The Real Me, Hunger Strike, Alive, Kick Out the Jams, Yellow Ledbetter/Star Spangled Banner

So yah, the set was amazing.  The crowd was out of control.  The entire first verse and chorus of Betterman was sung just with the crowd and Eddie's guitar.  I didn't think that the show could be any better than the last night of the Spectrum, but this one came close.

Afterwards we slapped on our passes and went across the arena to wait for the aftershow.  As we stood waiting to go backstage, we heard a familiar voice coming from the next section over.  We looked over to see non other than Fox Sports own Joe Buck (with an all access laminate no less).

I remember Buck blabbing about the PJ concerts happening at the Spectrum during the World Series, and I know that the band came over to Nov 1 game at the Bank.  And we know that Eddie is a big baseball fan.  So it did make sense that Buck, in town for the Yankees/Mets series, was at the show too.  In any case, it became my mission to say something to him before we left the Garden.

People with laminates got led backstage first, then the rest of us with the stickies.  We made our way into the hospitality rooms to grab some drinks and try to find other people we knew.  (The rooms, btw - visiting team locker rooms with black drapes over the lockers....pretty neat.)  We ended up right smack dab next to Buck and the people he was with.

Some guy was talking to him about Justin Bieber and the possibility of doing something in St. Louis with Albert Pujols (just hearing grown men talk about Justin Bieber was amusing).

Then when there was a break in the conversation, we happened to be right next to Buck, so Mr. ChickPhilA turned to him, held out his hand, and said "Hi Joe, I'm Mr. ChickPhilA, just wanted to say hi, introduce myself."

I then stuck my hand out and introduced myself as a huge baseball fan, so I had heard a lot of his work over the years.

A guy behind Buck then said "Oh not his football work though?" to which I laughed and said, "Sorry Joe, I have to listen to Merrill Reese call the Eagles games, the TV goes down and the radio goes up."

He laughed and said he was glad I at least listened to 50% of his work, to which I then said (and I actually can't believe I said this to him when I thought about it afterwards) - "Well, I can tolerate you on the baseball".

I told Joe Buck I tolerate him as a baseball announcer.  Not that I am a fan of his work, not that I like to listen to his work on baseball, that I merely tolerate it.

He laughed and was a good sport.  We all chatted about the games that had gone on that night, how my one friend was sneaking glances during the show of a TV showing the Yankees/Mets game, how I kept checking MLB at bat for Phillies updates - he actually was a pretty nice and chatty.  I then asked if we could get a photo with him and he was more than happy to oblige.

Me, Joe Buck, and Mr. ChickPhilA - backstage @ Pearl Jam, MSG

So all in all a great night. 

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Getting ready to head over to the Phills/Sox game in a few minutes.  Meeting up with an old friend of mine who I haven't seen in like 10 years at the game.  He's a Red Sox fan (he's at least from Vermont, so it's his natural team to like).  Should be a good time.  We have SRO tickets today so we'll be wandering - anyone else going to the game?