Veterans Stadium

Philadelphia, PA

New York Mets @ Philadelphia Phillies

May 23, 2002

The Road Trip

This year the MLB schedule pushed us towards a northeast trip which was good because we wanted to snag the Expos before Bud Selig moved them to the Greater Milwaukee Little League where they would face off against the Twins (champions of the greater Minneapolis Little League) in the Great Lakes regional finals. Philadelphia would be the first destination on our 2002 venture and we had an "expanded lineup" for our journey this year. Mike, Lumpy and Dauber, of course all made it and we had some new recruits this year. Andre, a Mets fan made the trip up from Florida just for the first 2 games of the trip since both involved the Mets. Bill, from the Bronx (also a Mets fan) was on board for the whole trip as was Joker who is an Army captain stationed in Maryland and Horshack who is a self-described "hick from New Jersey", and a friend from college. Vin, Mike's next door neighbor, would be in for all games but the first. Dauber flew in to Bradley Airport, hooked up with Lumpy coming down from Mass., rented a mini-van and crashed at Mike's in CT the night before the first game. We drove down to Westchester, NY and picked up Bill and Andre, and continued across the Tappan Zee bridge bound for Philadelphia. Horshack lives right near the crossing of the NJ Turnpike and the Garden State so we scooped him up along the way, taking a few minutes to stop in his house and admire the merciless killing adorning the walls.

With mini-van nearly full, we continued on toward Philly. No one knew exactly where we were going but we just headed for the dumpiest looking part of town, knowing what Philadelphia was like and that the Vet wasn't in the best of neighborhoods. Judging by the small sampling of America that we've been getting on these trips over the past three years, we've come to the conclusion that one out of every four major cities in the U.S. is painfully boring. The 2000 award went to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Even the Mall of America couldn't save them. The 2001 race was tight between Cincinnati and Detroit with Cincinnati edging out the Motor City simply because there was absolutely no one around. It may have also had something to do with the abundance of flaming cheese in Detroit.

We're not civil engineers or urban planners (though Dauber is an architecture major) but some thought could have been put into the geography of Philly's sports venues. It's understandable that the Phillies and Eagles share the Vet and if football is starting to overcome baseball as America's sport then by all means it should be situated in an industrial part of town. If that's the case, they did a fairly good job then because The Vet was smack in the middle of an industrial desert. No bars, no restaurants, nothing. Nothing but warehouses, semi trailers and construction. The formula for successful sports venues seems to be pretty simple in this century. You have to hand it to the guys who founded the Camden Yards paradigm for popularizing it. Take one part major sports franchise, one part new venue, twenty parts alcohol, one part nostalgia, and one part pride and you can sell out night after night without even having a winning team. The Phillies have the franchise and even the nostalgia, but without any pubs or even the post-game opportunist peddling sausages in a cart they're as good as doomed. Let's not digress too far, but the city of Philadelphia has sentenced all their major sports franchises to the same fate by cramming together The Vet, the Spectrum and now the "new ballpark" being constructed right next door, into this wasteland part of the city. It's a shame.

One upside to "industrial" location sports venues is they usually make for great tailgating (especially venues which also host NFL)! It was a 3:00 game and we rolled in around noon with BBQ grill, cooler and snacks in tow. We were disappointed as we pulled in to the stadium parking to see "No Tailgating" signs but other people had some grills going so we figured we were OK and set up camp. As we were standing around the grill, someone realized that the min-van seats unclip from the floor so we popped them out and used them as patio furniture. Totally rad! Check us out... The only one missing was Joker who was trying to get off work and head up from MD. We got a call from him from the road saying he'd be getting in about 1:00 or so. We were running low on beer so we asked him to pick up a "two-four of Yueng-Ling" (pronounced "Ying-Ling"). Now, for those of you saying "What the hell is a Ying-Ling?", it's a beer very local to Pennsylvania and popular among PA colleges. We always have a "when in Rome" attitude so if we're in PA, we're drinking Ying-Ling. Joker is from PA so he knew exactly what we were talking about, but despite it's abundance, he had a hard time getting it. He's dressed in full Army fatigues and stops at a convenience store near the stadium. The guy at the convenience store refuses to sell him the beer because he says that their prices are rip-off and he refuses to rip off a serviceman, so he makes him go to the "beer store" a good ways down the road. So Joker treks onward to get the beer and ends up stuck in a bunch of traffic getting into the stadium. We were on a cell phone with Joker directing him to where we had set up tailgate camp. We had a prime location and saved him a parking space but they had closed this lot off at this time of day. I guess it's some sort of special lot that they only let regular fans into when they arrive 3 hours before the game. So Bill did something smart and went up to the security guy directing the traffic, explained the situation, and then slipped him a $20 to move the barricade and wave Joker into the lot. You should have seen the look on the other drivers' faces when they tried to sneak in too but were denied. It's great to see capitalism at work! Joker joined us for some more BBQ'ing and the Ying-Ling's he brought were nice and cold.

Getting Tickets

We didn't get tickets ahead of time since we knew it would be a weak selling game. There wasn't as much scalping action as we expected though with the # of people we had it would be next to impossible to get seats all together so we just went to the box office. For about $25 we got lower level seats in right field inside the donut. There must be some weird astronomical phoenomenon surrounding the Vet because it sure seemed like we sat in direct sunlight for the whole game as if the sun was just sitting still, beating on us. See the position of the sun in this picture? Well, that's where it sat the entire game. We looked like a pot full of lobsters in the van after the game.

Proof of the "Veterans Stadium Perpetual Sun" Theory can be seen in the face of this security guy. We've seen better skin on a potato. His body is so accustomed to the heat that his blood has thinned to the point that he needs to wear a turtlekneck to keep warm in 75 degree heat.

The Stadium

"The Vet" is one of the old donut shaped stadiums a la roman coliseum, though it hasn't been busted open in center field like Cinergy Field. The location is pretty dismal, like something out of an old Bruce Springsteen video, though there is some construction in the neighborhood for the new football stadium, next to which lies the First Union Center. There is not much in the neighborhood in the way of bars and restaurants like Jacobs Field; this is more like an "in-and-out" visit to the ballpark like Yankee Stadium. Seating here is not the best, with all the foul territory you tend to be far from the field. Veterans Stadium is on the "destined to be replaced" list (2004) so it was great to be able to fit this one in our trip before it's too late.

One impressive thing about this place is that they've added some fan friendly features to the park to help you cope with the fact that you are in an otherwise poor sporting facility:

-Sticks by Stan makes full sized baseball bats on site. They'll turn it on a lathe and engrave you name in it during the game to be picked up before you leave. Dauber got a bat with "Ballpark Roadtrip 2002" on it.

-For 10 bucks you can sit in a mock press booth and call a 1/2 inning of the actual game. They'll record it so you can take it home.

-Unlike Fenway Park, they have an engagement package where they'll record it and show it on the PhanaVision Jumbotron if you have the guts to pop the question in front of a ballpark full of fans who will all be howling "Don't do it!"

-Catch a foul ball and receive an honorary Phillies contract

-Fans visiting the ballpark for the first time can get a certificate signed by Larry Bowa commemorating the event. We all got 'em!

-There's a speed pitch booth but we didn't get there in time to give it a shot. That would have to wait 'til Montreal.

In light of all these speial features at the park, 2004 might bring a great ballpark to Philly as long as management stays fan-focused. We had low expectations of the Vet and our actual experience was no surprise. There really is not much offered here and that's why they are building a new park. With that said, we had a great time in kicking off our trip. Despite the fact that there were "No Tailgating" signs, security came by to check up on us several times and never had a gripe. They even commented on the quality of our setup and were probably just making sure we didn't drink too many Ying-Lings and blow up our mini-van. They were also very receptive to a $20 palm greasing to get Joker in the preferred lot and avoid a half-hour wasted in parking traffic. We love places where money talks. Getting tickets to the game was not a problem and no one gave us grief inside. When we couldn't find postcards, one of the vendors offered some oversized stats cards as an alternative. They worked wonderfully. We even borrowed a pen from one of the security guards.Hopefully, the atmosphere will be as laid back when the new park opens.

Pros: Allows tailgating, many fun activities inside stadium, Phillies play in an exciting division, interesting mascot in the Phillies Phanatic.

Cons: No postcards sold at the stadium, no longer wear baby-blue Mike Schmidt era uni's, perpetual sunlight melts your skin, bagel stadium makes you wonder if that's Maximus in the bullpen

The Town

We really didn't spend much time in Philly to give it a chance but can you blame us? The area around the stadium makes us miss Cincinatti. It's difficult to get in and out of and you have to go through Jersey at some point. With New York close by and Baltimore to the south, it will be difficult for the Phillies to draw from outside the local crowd. Philadelphia itself may have some beautiful historic sites but this will never be a town built around baseball. The sports venues are too far out of the way for it to achieve a Cleveland or Baltimore like status. When we think we miss Philadelphia, we'll just rent the movie Rocky.

The Game

The tailgating here was great but the game itself left a lot to be desired. Hats off to Duckworth and Trachsel for a great pitching duel, we always complain that picthing is too diltued and then we gripe when the pitchers step it up because there's "no action". Shame on us! Nevertheless, the most excited we got was when the Phillies Phanatic took to the field in his T-shirt launching ATV. Since they didn't sell postcards, Lumpy bought a set of large "trading cards" of the Phillies team and the Phanatic has his own card; his home town is given as Galapogos Islands.

We thought we might feel out of place in Philly because we left our Duracell batteries at home, but this would not be a rowdy crowd up to the typical Philadelphia standards (or lack thereof). The fans were lame. Either the acoustics of this place were horrible or no one was cheering. They wouldn't even pipe up that much if
there were two strikes on an opposing player with two outs. We were sitting next to a bunch of jackasses who not only left early in a 0-0 game, but also left behind their cell phone. It was a little disappointing as we may have been deprived of some of the local "flair", not that we condone seeing J.D. Drew get pelted with batteries! Barry Bonds, maybe...

No, the ACTUAL game...

We were looking forward to this game because we had 2 Mets fans on board in Bill & Andre, and we'd get to see young gun Brandon Duckworth start for the Phills. We wouldn't be disapppoint as not only would Duckworth pitch a gem but Steve Trachsel would throw 6 shutout innings to Duckworth's 8. One thing about pitchers' duels: they're great to watch on TV but not great in person. On TV you can get a true feel for when a pitcher has "his stuff"; you can see the late break on the fastballs and sweeping curveballs break through the batter's box and across the black. When you're at the park, you want to see some scoring so the crowd really gets into it. From where we were, we had a better view of the sun's corona than we did of the plate (though it's still fun to boo umpire ball/strike calls!). There were plenty of baserunners in this game but they left a combined 16 stranded on the diamond. We did get to see a triple by Jimmy Rollins which is rarity in the Ballpark Roadtrip scorebook (though we have seen the elusive in-the-parker).

We'd go scoreless to the 9th and bring on Mesa vs. Benitez. If you followed our other trips you know we're a sucker for a blown save, especially when it's fireballers like Mesa and Benitez. Bill and Andre were certainly hoping for a Mets win but the rest of us were rooting for a quick blown save so we could get the hell out of the sun. With one out in the top 9th, Mesa would give up a hit and then bean Burnitz to bring Mark Johnson (who?) to the plate as a pinch hitter. He hit a deep ball to Abreu which looked catchable but ended up over his head (must have been the sun) for the go ahead run , which is all they would get. Benitez came on to get the save for the Mets.

Thrill Factor: (2/5)