Chick-Phil-A

Phillies Opening Day in Pittsburgh

We made the trek out to western PA for the third season in a row to take in the Phillies/Pirates series. It's extra special this year, though, since it's also opening weekend for the Phillies.

The weather was great, the beverages were flowing, and Roy Halladay dominated as the Phillies squeaked by for a 1-0 win over the Buccos.

Here's a few of the photos I took, more can be found on my Flickr page. I'll post more as the weekend goes on.

Watch out for that ketchup, Chooch!

Beautiful view from our seats.

The full rosters, ready to play ball.

Pap warms up.

Papelbon's first pitch as a Phillie.

 

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.

Opening Day Arts and Crafts - A Chooch to answer all your questions.

Since seeing the commercial for MLB 2K11 with Roy Halladay talking to a Carlos Ruiz pillow I have wanted a Chooch pillow of my own to guide  me in my daily decisions.  I did some brainstorming to try and figure out how to make one.

Finally, this week, I had some time to gather supplies and actually attempt this project.  I thought it would be fitting for an Opening Day arts and crafts project.

I gathered all the supplies I would need - a white twin sheet from IKEA, Iron On transfer inkjet printing paper, pollyfill, and a few photos of players I had taken in the last year or so.

The paper only comes commercially in regular letter size, so I decided to start small and see how it would turn out.

I used Photoshop Elements to extract individual players from photos to use as the graphic for the mini pillows.  I then flipped the image and printed it onto the transfer paper.

 Supplies gathered!

I cut out each player shape, ironed it onto the sheet, cut it out with a matching back and sewed around the edges.

 Roy's all sewn up.

Not much left to do but stuff with pollyfill and hand stitch the opening where I stuffed the mini pillow.

 Shane's stuffed!

And here are the finished products:

 

 

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Our cat, Rhett, became very curious about these new mini people...

 It was pretty easy to do.  Now I am going to keep a better eye on my camera subjects to make sure I get some good "pillow worthy" shots and make a few more.  I think it would be fun to have a mini plush 25 man roster.  Or take mini Chooch around and take photos of him visiting places, like the Travelocity gnome (ha ha).

 Chooch says: "Keep running"!  He's like a mini motivational figure on my treadmill.

Anyway - time to get a move on and get to the game.  See all you crazy kids in Lot K around 10 am!!

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.

 

 

Phillies are hot so far in April - how nice! (and more photos from Opening Day)

One of my favorite shirts I saw in DC on Monday proclaiming love for Doc.

The first week of the 2010 season wrapped up this afternoon with a battle between two Roys down in Houston.  And what a week it has been.  The Phillies are off to their hottest start in 17 years - yes you have to go all the way back to 1993 to find the last time the Phills started the season 5-1! I'm not used to the "hot start in April" thing we have going on here this year, but I have enjoyed watching it unfold so far, mainly due to the following things:

• RYAN HOWARD before today, Ryan had only struck out ONCE in 5 games. Sure today he added 3 more K's, and, sure, he's left the bases loaded like 4 times already, but he also is currently tied for the NL lead in RBIs with 10 - my favorite of those came when he came back from an 0-2 count to draw a walk with bases loaded and two outs on Saturday night.
• PLACIDO POLANCO - WOW!! just wow.  Though it is kind of sad to see Pete Happy playing on the lackluster Astros after being a part of the WFC's, you forget all about that when his replacement is getting hit after hit after hit.  He's not only leading the team with 13 hits, but that's good enough to be leading the NL at this point too.
• THE REST OF THE OFFENSE - I know it's early, but the Phillies are leading the league in runs (43), hits (69), and walks (34).  Seriously - we are going to score a gazillion runs this year.
• ROY ROY ROY ROY ROY!!!! - Sure, everyone kind of gasped and held their breath as he gave up a hit on his first pitch Monday against the Nats, but he settled down and is performing as advertised.  We have the best pitcher in baseball.  The Phillies do.  Crazy.  Even today, without double digit run support, Roy shined, getting out of not one, but two men-on, no-out jams in the 6th and 7th.  The bullpen didn't stir even once, it was Roy's game to win.  And even though he had thrown over 100 pitches when he came out to pitch the 9th, with the Phillies only up by a run, I had no fear that Roy wouldn't get the job done.  What an awesome feeling that is.

Sure, the first two series that the Phills have played have been against terrible teams, and there are still many many games to go, but I've got a real good feeling that this season will be awesome and memorable yet again.  

Is it 3:05 Monday yet??

After the jump - more photos from Opening Day in DC!!