Chick-Phil-A

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.

Complete Game Loss - Roy Halladay Bobblehead night

I was so excited when my friend Joey emailed me last week with an extra FREE ticket to last night's Phillies game.  I had come to terms with the fact that a Roy bobblehead was not in the cards for me, and then out of the blue, a ticket appears.

The weather didn't look promising all day, but with the Pirates not scheduled to come back to Citizens Bank Park the rest of the season, I didn't think for a second that they would cancel/postpone it. I was glad that we were able to have a relatively dry game that started on time to boot.

It was interesting to see the amount of people who actually took their tickets, went in the gate, grabbed a bobblehead, and then left.  Maybe they had Flyers tickets too??  I guess they just really wanted the "bobble figurine".

Ryan Phillippe threw out the first pitch because he's from DE and is a Philly sports fan - oh and he's in MacGruber (which comes out this Friday).  He bounced it in front of the plate. If you take away the 2nd and 3rd P's from his name, it spells Phillie.

I met up with Joey and co. about 6:45 and we got our Roy bobbles, then headed over to the Hunt Auction stand (which was right behind our section) to see the real live Honus Wagner card that was on display, which was neat.  Grabbed a dog and a brew, then headed down to our seats, which were awesome - 1st row behind Diamond Club handicap section on 3rd base side.  

Nice view!

I don't think I have ever been at a game where the pitcher threw a complete game loss, so this was a first for me.  It was kind of weird, Roy was AWESOME, but the bats didn't show up today.  It may have been the best "non win" game I have been to.  In the top of the 9th when Roy had 2 strikes and 2 outs, everyone was on their feet, screaming and yelling - like it meant we were going to win when Roy struck this one last guy out...  very surreal.

Of course, it wouldn't be a game at CBP without a Phanavision proposal (seriously, there's one at like every game now).  And speaking of the the Phanavision, we ended up on that too between the top and bottom of the 9th.

I'm hoping that Chase is feeling better soon - would like to see him in the line up against the Cubs tomorrow night.  However, I won't complain about getting to see my favorite bench player Mr. Greg Dobbs get some playing time, like he did tonight.  Didn't come up with a huge pinch hit, but at least he did get on base.

Dobbs working on a walk.

I'm heading back to the Bank tomorrow night with Mr. ChickPhilA for the cubs game, hoping Father Time can keep up the good games he's been having lately for a Phillies W.

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How annoying is Hanley Martinez Ramirez?  The part about that story though that I keep thinking is kinda funny - that Wes Helms is a clubhouse leader for the Fish.

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It's been funny to see the Mets media/fans catching on to the awesomeness that is the Braves Organist this week.  He does a great job down there at the Ted - kinda wish we had one here for the Phillies...

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I know a lot of Phillie Tweeps were at the game tonight, but everyone seemed pretty content on staying where they were during the game (myself included - I loved my seat).  We really need to schedule a time where we can all meet up before the game starts.  Oh - the Phillies set this thing up to do just that at Phillies Social Media Night on August 19th - I'm thinking about possibly going to this - anyone else?

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Pearl Jam @ MSG - now I am going on Friday night instead of Thursday after some last minute schedule shuffling.  Can't wait!!!

How Trustworthy are the Phillies Beards?

You know, we all love the facial hair on the Phillies, but do we really know why?  I may have found part of the answer yesterday, with this handy dandy chart on the "Trustworthiness of Beards."  Maybe just having some kind of facial hair makes us feel a certain way about a player, or perhaps the player has a certain type of facial hair to instill a certain feeling in his opponents.  Let's explore it now.

Here you have your "very trustworthy" facial hair:

So I guess that Eric Bruntlett was somewhere between Philosopher and Full Beard - so very trustworthy, not threatening at all, just a good dude with a beard who turns unassisted triple plays.

But what about Jayson Werth.  Untill this year, he was rocking the "landing strip" which, according to the chart, is only threatening:

Now, here is where it gets a bit tricky, how would you classify Werth's beard now?  Is it a werewolf (because of the length of his actual hair too?).

If we go with werewolf, then Jayson has gone from threatening to DANGEROUS -as shown here:

So maybe Jayson came to camp this year really wanting to be more than just a threat against the opposing team, and to really make the point, he grows all the hair out - to put in the subconscious of the opponents that he is indeed, DANGEROUS.

How do other Phillies facial hairs stand up to the chart?  Well, here is Chase on Opening Day:

  

Chase was rocking a bit of a soul patch, so Chase = Threatening.

 

And here is Roy Halladay at the Phillies home opener - full beard.  Roy = Very Trustworthy

 

Here's the whole chart (or go to the website to see it in more detail) so you can asses the threat levels of beards on your own:

 

 

 

Phillies Opening Day - A National Halladay

Made the trek to Nationals Park for Phillies opening day today w/ Mr. ChickPhilA and our friend @WWBD102 (a.k.a. Eric Bruntlett's biggest fan).  We left @ 7 am, got back @ 8 pm, and what happened in between was amazing opening day baseball in our nation's capital.

Highlights include feeling like we were in CPB south with the amount of Phills fans in DC, getting Kyle Kendrick to laugh at @WWBD102's awesome shirt, yelling at Nyjer Morgan all game (and also yelling at Shane and Jayson - who totally heard us and kept acknowledging the crowd - very fun).  Oh and watching that Halladay guy DOMINATE through 7 innings while we put up almost a dozen runs in support.  (Let's hope they saved some run support for King Cole on Wednesday!).

I took almost 500 photos - so have to sift through them over the next day or so and get them up here and on the flickr, but I have a few goofy ones to share now:

I had no idea Jack Bauer was on the Nationals! He looks like he may have put on a few since he saved the country last time...

 

Presidents outside the park - Poor Teddy who never wins!!

 

Metal Detectors - for the actual President. Lines were not bad (this was about 10:50 am), though I did have to turn on every camera/phone/flip cam/etc... that we had.  Apparently they messed with my camera settings too when they were making sure it wasn't a bomb, and I didn't notice until halfway through BP - so a bunch of photos did not come out...

 

And last but not least, @WWBD102's game day outfit (we made many friends through out the day with this get up):