Chick-Phil-A

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. 

Is it Feb. 13th yet?

Not because it's almost Valentine's Day (I hate that "holiday" anyway).  But because pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training that day.

And this year will be different from any other year becuase of the events that happened this past week in Philadelphia. 

The Phillies pulled one over EVERYONE in baseball when they got Clifton Phifer Lee signed to a 5 year contract to bring his left arm back to the Phillies starting rotation.  A rotation that already was thought to be one of the best in baseball, with 2010 Cy Young winner Roy Halladay, 2008 WS MVP Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt.

 
Daily News Cover

When this postseason started, I had convinced myself that Jayson Werth wasn't going to be back in red pinstripes.  And even though I may have hoped and joked about the possiblility of getting Cliff back, deep down I was sure he was going to go to New York, to the super rich Yankees who could pay him an arm and a leg to go pitch with his best buddy from Cleveland, CC Sabathia.  When a Mystery Team got in on the Cliff Lee bidding at the end of the winter meetings, I didn't even think it would be the Phillies.  I was sure it was the Nationals (J Werth trying to get his buddy onto the same team).  That was ruled out Sunday when the Nationals tweeted that they indeed were NOT in the Cliff Lee running.   Still didn't think it was the Phillies, though.

I got home from work around 8:10 pm on Monday and took a look at twitter.  I had been crazy at work all day, hadn't been keeping up at all.  But it looked like I was just in time for what was going down that moment. The Phillies had been outted as the Cliff Lee "Mystery Team".  I spent the next 4 hours trying to watch TV while keeping up with the emerging info, but to be honest, it was hard to concentrate on the TV. 

I kept saying to Mr. ChickPhilA that there was no way I was going to be able to go to bed until we knew what was going on with Lee.  I was giddy.  And the whole Phillies Twitterverse was giddy right there with me.

When I saw this tweet from Joel Sherman of the NY Post, I was getting reallllllly excited.

 
Of course, ESPN still had the football game on.  MLB network was showing a program about the 1985 season..... I was going batty trying to find any kind of coverage of the impending Lee deal.

Finally the football game was over.  Sportscenter was starting.  Stupid Brett Farve was on the screen, but the scroll along the bottom confirmed what everyone was hoping:  Yankees are OUT on Lee.

Then it changed to Yankees/Rangers OUT.

Oh.

My.

God.

The only other team left was the Mystery Team.  Our Mystery Team.  The freaking PHILLIES!!!

While Farve continued to babble, all the sudden the side bar countdown thingy changed to a large icon:  Breaking: Phillies to sign Lee.

I actually teared up a bit.  I was so excited.

Sure the guy had only been on our team for 3 months - but what a crazy awesome 3 months they were.  From  his very first game with the Phills, a Friday night complete game win in San Francisco where he took a no hitter into late innings and even slapped a double off the wall in left field, to the crazy behind the back catch in the world series to the laid back post game interviews where he talked about "throwin' strikes" and "puttin' up zeros".  We loved how he sprinted on and off the field every inning.  We loved the phantom throw to second after every mid-inning warm up.  We loved that he loved to hit.  Hell, he even stole a base.  In a playoff game.  He was insane.  Philly loved him.

 
The "Phantom Throw" to 2nd

 Everyone was freaking out on Facebook and Twitter.  I called my mom at 12:15 to tell her the news.  I didn't think I would be able to sleep without knowing what was going to happen, and now that I knew Lee was coming back, I was so excited it was hard to get to bed anyway.

Anyway - to say I am ready for baseball to start would be an understatement.  Just like Cliff said in his press conference yesterday, I too " Can't wait to get to spring training and get this thing going."

While you wait for the next Cliff Lee Phillie start - check out the video of Cliff Lee from after his 1st Phillie start from mlb.com.

And while you're at it - watch this video too, of Cliff and Mitch Williams after the press conference yesterday - where Mitch tells Cliff not to show up in St. Pete for spring training since the Phills train in Clearwater. Ha.