Ugh.

     Last week my best friend asked me if I wanted to accompany him and his wife to this evening's Mets game.  I eagerly took him up on the offer since the Mets have been playing halfway decent baseball of late.

Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes

We pre-gamed at a local pub by them in Astoria and made our way out to Citifield via the 7 train.  And look, I was in my Seaver Jersey by the Seaver gate.  It would seem to be kismet.

And lemme tell you, you couldn't ask for a better night for a ball game.  It was 73 degrees with no humidity and nice light breeze coming off the bay.  The weather was beautiful...and by far the highlight of the game.



I should have known when they scored seven runs on Monday that it was their entire week's allotment and that there was no way they would get around to scoring that many again.  I predicted they would be three hit.  I was wrong, they were seven hit.  The Phillies hit a couple of solo home runs early so the game was close for a while.  Then Chase Utley, my best friend's wife's favorite player, hit a grand slam.  Did I mention she is a huge Phillies fan?  Yeah.


I think this picture says the proverbial thousand words about how I feel about this awful game.   At least it didn't rain.

Dispatch From Dollar Hot Dog Night.

       As I have for most of the last decade, I got my brother tickets to a baseball game for his birthday.  Last year, he turned 42, so it seemed quite appropriate to take in Jackie Robinson Day in Philly to watch our beloved Mets (slowly implode and lose).  This year, while perusing the Mets/Phillies dates early in the year, I was presented with three choices of premium: T-Shirt Night, Schedule Night, or Dollar Hot Dog Night.  That is a pretty easy decision; I mean, what the hell am I gonna do with a magnetic Phillies schedule and I certainly have no use (other than cleaning up after the dog) for a Phillies T-Shirt.  But two, shall we say, robust gentlemen at dollar hot dog night?  Now you're talkin'!

Plus, I decided not to skimp on the seats, either, getting 14th row behind the Mets' dugout.  Seeing as my brother was nice enough to get me this beauty for Christmas, it was the least I could do.  This wonderful view would be the high point of the evening, baseball wise.

Dillon Gee set the Phillies down 1-2-3 on eight pitches in the bottom of the 1st, so it seemed like this was gonna be a nice tight pitchers duel between him and Cliff Lee (Gee vs. Lee!).  Sadly, it was not to be.  Lee held up his end of the bargain, but Gee pitched a little batting practice in the second inning, giving up four runs - and he was lucky it wasn't more.  Fortunately, we had Dollar Hot Dogs to drown our sorrows:

That is a pile of six hot dogs purchased in a major league stadium.  Normally, that requires a home equity loan, but not on this glorious night. Much to my surprise, there was no limit to the number you could buy and they were real hot dogs, not discount crap ones.  Fatty McGee here was in heaven.

My brother was impressed by this initial haul and after we polished them off in quick order, he said "That was great, want some more?" and I was like "damn right!"  So I got up to go get more.  Suddenly, my brother chimes in, "hey! I'm gonna come with you, I want to see this gigantic pile of hot dogs..."  This decision would come back to haunt us.  In 20+ years and 100's of ballgames, we had never, ever gone to the concessions stand at the same time.  While standing on this line with an endless sea of Phillies fans, Dillon Gee gave up not one, not two, but three home runs...all in the span of eight pitches (sound familiar?).  As the frenzy died down around us, I looked at my brother and calmly said "We are never fucking going to the concession stand at the same time ever again." He could only nod his head in agreement.

The game was now 7-0 and, the way Lee was pitching, clearly out of hand.  When this happens, you have to find other ways to pass the time at a ball game.  Aside from stuffing myself with dollar dogs, I found two sure fire ways to amuse myself at this massacre.  #1 Bird Watching:

And I don't mean Marlon Byrd.  My eyes quickly found this redheaded punk rock girl in a Kirk Nieuwenhuis jersey.  She was sitting with a dude in a Carlos Ruiz jersey.  I should have rescued her and whisked her away to be with a real fan.  Twenty year old Max would have not thought twice about doing this.  Man, am I getting old.

#2 Antagonizing the locals:

The dude in the very lowest right hand corner had a Dave Cash Phillies jersey on (and kudos to him for being the only Phillies fan I have seen in the last few years with a throwback/vintage jersey other than Mike Schmidt).  After Jimmy Rollins made a terrible play on a ball, I made a few cracks about how he is wash up, how he had a rag arm, how undeserving of his MVP award he was, etc. etc.  Dave Cash dude immediately stood up to defend him and we got into it pretty good.  The mood sort of hung in the air for an inning until Ruben Tejada booted a grounder and I also made a crack about how he has 6 errors in like 7 games.  We then had a laugh about the whole thing.  Overall, I enjoyed his moxie.  Also keeping up the cliche of Philly fans was the girl who was drunk, passed out, and throwing up by the 4th(!) inning.  Stay Classy, Philadelphia.

The final score of the game was Phillies 8 Mets 3.  And it wasn't that close.  More importantly, in the battle of the titans, I eked out a victory over my bro: 6 hot dogs to 5.  And honestly, I could have eaten many more but my brother threw in the towel after five.  I had a good nine or ten in me, if I had to.

Quick Postgame.

Here was my pregame view from the upper deck of Citizens Bank Park.

The game was a slog of Big Pelf putting guys on and getting out of it - at one point the Phillies had 12 hits and 6 walks and only three runs  - and the Mets not being able to hit Cole Hamels after putting up two quick runs.  It looked like those two runs might hold up, but then human gas can Manny Acosta decided throwing strikes was optional and walked in a bunch of runs.  The Mets eventually bowed meekly 8-2.  At least the post-game meal of Pat's Cheesesteaks was good...and by good I mean life-alteringly delicious.

As one other quick aside, I have an issue with the march of time and technology.  For years and years, my ticket stubs have mostly looked like this:

...and yes, I am the kind of nerd who saves all his ticket stubs...
 
If I wanted to dig into a deeper, more hidden box, I could find ticket stubs going all the way back to 1985, my first major league game - which was actually games, because it was a doubleheader (imagine that).  Now, I am not even going to lament the passing of the scheduled twin bill, I am going to lament that unless I buy tickets at the box office or from a season ticket holder, my ticket stub looks like this:

Or, if you have a color printer and the willingness to waste all that color ink (like my brother does), like this:

A folded up 8x11 piece of paper is not a ticket stub.  It ruins the whole tactile joy I get when I periodically find my pile of ticket stubs and go through them.  I wonder if Stub Hub would consider allowing you to print your online tickets like a ticket rather than an office memo?