Looking Back

In these trying times of a global pandemic, when the social calendar is much emptier than usual, I felt it was time to dust off an old friend.

As you all know, I’m a baseball nut, and my love of the game has only increased with age. Several years ago, I poured that love into a blog series about my dad and the Phillies, which I then turned into a book. Many thanks to all of you who bought it!

With the extra time on my hands this year and a shortened major league season that was understandably played with no fans allowed at the ballparks, I began to take a deeper look at the role baseball played in my life. How fitting that 2020 marked 30 years since the very first major league game I attended.

I went back through the years to try and track down every major league game I watched from the stands, using the always-reliable source of baseball-reference.com. This was obviously the most difficult in the early years, and I would not be surprised if there is a game or two that have completely escaped my memory. Two others, one from 1992 and another from 1993, were educated guesses that I was 80-percent sure about. 

I’m also not certain if I got every game that I went to in 2013 and 2014, the two years I didn’t write regularly in my journal that I’ve kept since I was 10. I had to rely on my own vanity for those years, as I tended to post a photo of the ballpark on social media the same day I attended a game. Facebook can still be awesome once in a while.

Ok, it’s numbers time! I’m sure only 2-3 other people will find these interesting, but as I said way back in my first post 10 years ago, this is my blog. I can do what I want! ;-)

Phillies record in games I attended: 25-25

Record at Veterans Stadium (1990-2003): 6-7

Record at Citizens Bank Park (2004-2019): 16-17

Record in other stadiums: 3-1

Orioles record in games I attended* (1997-2018): 7-7

*all at Camden Yards

It’s pretty funny that both the Phillies and Orioles records came out to exactly .500. Unless you’re a fan of perennial division leaders (i.e. - Yankees, Dodgers) or basement dwellers (i.e. - Marlins, Mariners), I would imagine your numbers would be very similar. Naturally, the Phillies got a lot of those wins in bunches during periods when they were playing well. They won all three games I went to in 1993, the year they shocked everyone and made it to the World Series. In the 10 Phillies games I attended in 2011-12, they won nine of them.

2011 was also the year that saw a surge in my attendance overall. I’m not sure if I could even call myself a die-hard fan before then. I’ve attended just 68 big league games in my life, but 41 of those have come in the past nine years. 

All but five of those 68 games featured either the Phillies are Orioles (in one, they played each other), so even after 30 years, there are five major league teams I’ve never seen in person: Cubs, Diamondbacks, White Sox, A’s and Angels. Of course, before COVID struck, I was planning a crazy baseball trip to Chicago that would have scratched the Cubs and Sox off my list. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for next year.

Exactly half of those 50 Phillies games I saw with dear, old Dad, and when you add in three Orioles games, I’ve attended more games with him (28) than anyone else by far. I’ve also gone to 11 Phillies games with my long-time friend, Bill G., a fellow dedicated fan who joined Dad and I at the Phillies’ World Series parade in 2008. Baseball games are fun no matter what, but they’re even more enjoyable when you go with go with other baseball fans. They cheer just as loudly and are just as familiar with the players on the field. It’s unique kind of camaraderie that keeps me coming back season after season.

I’ve compiled quite a lot of numbers and memories, only a fraction of which I’ve shared here, so stayed tuned for future posts. And who knows? Maybe by the end, some of you will be encouraged to put together your own crazy baseball lists!

April 10, 2000: Phillies vs. New York Mets

My support of the Phillies renewed, I eagerly counted down the days to the 2000 season.

I even bought a magazine that previewed the new season in the form of one-page breakdowns for all 30 major league teams, and I read it cover to cover. I was aware that despite my great knowledge of baseball, I still didn’t know it well enough to converse about it at length with my peers at school. My window on that potential boost to my popularity was nearly closed, with high school graduation just two months away, but my recent acceptance to Penn State University earned me a new and much bigger group to impress.

My dad still came first as far as attending games was concerned, and we crossed off another wish list item when we acquired tickets for the Phillies home opener, my first game at the Vet in nearly five years. We didn’t know quite what we were in for.

In my eyes, the Phillies’ biggest rivals were the Atlanta Braves, but that probably stemmed from my own hatred of the perennial division winners, and their fans’ insufferable and racially offensive Tomahawk Chop. I know now that the Mets are the main foe by simple proximity. Philadelphia, Boston and basically the entire state of New Jersey constantly deal with living in New York City’s shadow.

We entered a fog of tension that engulfed all of Veterans Stadium. Thousands of Met fans made the trip down the New Jersey Turnpike, and Philly fans expressed extreme displeasure of their presence in a variety of ways. My dad and I could hear the noisy taunts all around us, and more than once, we saw security guards leading the worst offenders out of sight.

The guards couldn’t respond fast enough to two different groups of Phillies and Mets idiots (they don’t deserve the label of fan) who leapt onto the field between the sixth and seventh innings to pummel each other into the Astroturf, an effective weapon against any enemy as I learned the previous December. It was impossible to believe in that moment that my dad and I shared anything in common with those mindless barbarians.

This was the first time I felt ashamed to be a Philadelphia fan, and given our general reputation, I knew it wouldn’t be the last. I admit that I get a little too critical and worked up at times, but I feel fortunate that on the whole, my dad raised me to be a respectful fan. If given the opportunity, we would have both personally apologized to the Phillies for the selfish acts of those brawlers, who not only behaved without regard to the people around them, but also disrupted the game.

The contest on the field was pretty wild as well, though it only got physical once when Phillies bench player Kevin Sefcik collided with the Mets’ Mike Piazza at home plate. A total of 16 runs crossed the plate in the game, all before the sixth inning.

New York scored four times off Paul Byrd in the first (the exact opposite of what occurred at the previous Phillies game I attended, also against the Mets), but Philly batted around in the bottom of the second, taking a 5-4 lead. The Phillies rebounded a second time in the fifth after the Mets retook the lead with three runs in the top half. Philly had already knotted the game at 7 when catcher Mike Lieberthal stepped to the plate with two outs and a man on. As he had done so many times the year before, Lieby launched a two-run shot to put his team in front to stay. It was his first bomb of the season, and the only one in the game.

I still wrestle with deciding between Bobby Abreu and Lieberthal as my favorite player from this era. Lieberthal was the new Darren Daulton, and he had proven as much in 1999 with an All-Star performance. He played a career-high 145 games behind the dish (earning his only Gold Glove award) and hit .300 with 31 home runs and 96 RBI. He would never achieve that kind of production again, but he remained a presence in the lineup and behind the plate for several more years, and contrary to Abreu, he was well liked by the fans.

The Phillies’ win jump-started a week full of excitement for me. I attended my senior prom, as well as a Boys and Girls Club scholarship award presentation. That organization, which my dad helped me join to avoid the dangerous streets of our neighborhood, played a pivotal role in my development as a youth, even on the baseball diamond with two years of T-ball.

The Phillies, meanwhile, beat the Mets again the following night to reach .500 (4-4) for the only time during the 2000 season. I eventually allowed my social life and preparations for college to occupy my time, as it was clear the Phillies were going down, not up. Their two newest recruits failed to deliver. In fact, Mike Jackson didn’t throw a single pitch in 2000 due to a bad shoulder. In the lineup and the starting rotation as a whole, only Abreu, Doug Glanville, Robert Person and Randy Wolf avoided serious injury or trade in 2000, and the Phillies languished in last place for all but 10 games.

Realizing their fate, the Phils traded away their last tie to the 1993 team, Curt Schilling*, at the end of July. He was finally rewarded for his great talent by winning the World Series, once with the Arizona Diamondbacks and twice with the Boston Red Sox. He joined ’93 teammates Mariano Duncan (’96 Yankees) and Daulton and Jim Eisenreich (both ’97 Florida Marlins) as the only players to get a ring after leaving the Phillies. Given how much joy and excitement they brought their fan base, they all deserved a taste of ultimate glory.

 

*Mickey Morandini also played for the Phillies in 2000, but he spent the previous two seasons with the Chicago Cubs. After being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in early August, Morandini retired at the end of the season. I saw the writing on the wall in this game. During the eighth inning, I ventured down to the 200 level of Veterans Stadium to get a closer look at the action. I arrived just in time to see Morandini get picked off first base. The look of panic on his face as the first baseman's glove swiped across his diving hand seemed to say, "Oh man. I think I'm getting too old for this."

December 10, 1999: Phillies Holiday Fair

In 1998, baseball and I took a little break.

Life was happening very quickly for my family. Thanks to my dad’s new job, he and my mom brought in enough money to move us to a house out in the suburbs away from my sports-obsessed friends and within walking distance of my high school. We then purchased our first computer, as well as access to the Internet – I hear the dial-up bells ringing – through America Online, the service provider that nearly everyone was using. We also took two extended vacations that year to Williamsburg and Rehoboth Beach, and by year’s end, I had my driver’s license.

With so much of my time spent going different places, browsing chat rooms and trying to meet girls - the latter two activities occasionally coinciding - baseball took a back seat. I could not be bothered by the Phillies or Orioles, both of whom fielded sub-.500 teams.

The only baseball event that held my attention throughout the entire season was the home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Their successful pursuit of breaking Roger Maris’ single-season home run record had us all scrambling for the box scores every morning to see if they hit another one. Future discoveries placed a big stain on this whole period of slugging prowess in the game, but ignorance is bliss. McGwire and Sosa were thrilling to watch, and they single-handedly brought back the millions of fans who had denounced the game following the strike.

When I finally allowed myself to take a deep breath from all of life’s recent changes, I decided to become a Phillies fan again. Given the team’s recent success, it’s easy to forget that the Phils fielded an exciting group of the players at the turn of the millennium. The ’99 squad featured young players like Scott Rolen, Bobby Abreu, Doug Glanville and Mike Lieberthal, who excelled in multiple aspects of the game. The big difference between these players from the ones in 1993 was I got to watch them play every day.

Though it had been around for two years, Comcast Sports Net was brand new to me. This wonderful channel broadcasted every game that wasn’t on WPHL 17, so virtually every night of the week during the spring and summer was Phillies night at our house. There was no sneaking off to my room anymore. Despite the fact that I was 16 years old, I still enjoyed my parents’ company.

Any Phillies fan brought up in the 1980s or 90s learned a lot about baby-stepping their expectations. I adopted my father’s mantra of “I’ll just be happy if the Phillies finish the season over .500.” The ’99 team had the potential for a winning record, but as was becoming the case, the Phils fell apart in the second half.

My dad and I didn’t make it to a game in 1999, but we did the next best thing. On a frigid, December morning, we traveled to Veterans Stadium, and not to see the directionless Philadelphia Eagles (on their way to a 5-11 season in Andy Reid’s first year at the helm). The Phillies held their annual holiday fair, giving fans a chance to meet players and get a behind-the-scenes look of the ballpark.

We went on a tour of the cavernous Vet’s underbelly, including the player’s clubhouse. Our guides also set us loose on the field, where we tested out the comfort of the dugouts. Luckily, it was the offseason, so the bottom of our shoes we spared the wrath of discarded chewing tobacco.

My head wasn’t so lucky.

As we walked on the unforgiving Astroturf, my dad suggested I get up close and personal by laying down on it. I really wanted to test out the turf’s resistance, and figured the best tool was the back of my noggin. The turf easily won that battle, and the resulting bruise filled me with equal doses of humility and a new respect for the players for gutting out 81 games on that surface.

We got to meet one of those players in the press room. My biggest reason for attending this fair was that my favorite Phillie, Bobby Abreu, would be there fielding questions. He played the game with such ease, and he almost always had a smile on his face. Many fans accused him of laziness, but few players in the game displayed his mix of speed and power, and every time you looked up, he was on base.

Phillies color commentator Chris “Wheels” Wheeler hosted the Q&A, and I probably failed miserably at hiding the shock on my face when he chose me to ask Abreu the first question. After I quickly collected my thoughts, all I could think to ask was how his shoulder was feeling, referring to a recent surgery. Abreu simply flashed his recognizable smile and said, “It’s good.” His short response immediately made me wish I had asked him something more profound, but I soon got a reprieve to show Abreu how much appreciated his talent. When another fan had the audacity to ask him what he felt he could improve on, I looked right at Abreu and said, “Nothing.” He glanced back to me briefly and let out an obligatory chuckle.

I wasn’t just blowing smoke. Abreu put up numbers in 1999 that he never topped, including hits, batting average, triples, on-base percentage and slugging.

Recently-signed free agents Andy Ashby (starting pitcher) and Mike Jackson (closer) also answered questions about the upcoming season. The Phillies were coming off their highest winning percentage in four years, and the addition of two proven veterans to an already formidable roster was expected to help them turn the corner in 2000.

I yammered away like a child on Christmas morning as my dad and I left the fair. Baseball has an uncanny ability to dig down into the deepest part of me and transport me back to that moment of passing through the turnstiles at Veterans Stadium for the first time. My dad facilitated most of those moments from childhood through my early 20s, and the holiday fair still ranks near the top of that list.

After a short break, my love for the Phillies was stronger than ever, and I was ready to show them in person again.

May 21, 1995: Phillies vs. New York Mets

I would be willing to wager my entire collection of autographed baseballs that there is nothing cooler a 12-year-old kid could wear to a major league game than a Little League uniform.

You look just a little more important than the other kids in their normal threads. Other parents think it’s utterly adorable. It also brings a smile to the faces of the players on the field to see a child following – albeit distantly and unlikely – in their footsteps.

That cool kid was me on this sunny day in May. I got up bright and early to don my Orioles uniform (wonderful foreshadowing, as I would soon become a fan of the American League team 75 miles to the south) for the purpose of team photos. I loved my Little League team. I got along extremely well with my teammates, which was a refreshing change from the daily torment I received at school. I was also proud to be the third baseman, a position I picked as an homage to the best Phillies player of all time, Mike Schmidt.

To the relief of my dad and I, the photo session went much quicker than expected. That meant we didn’t have to cancel our plans to go to that afternoon’s Phillies game with his co-worker, Greg, who had two extra tickets. That’s always the best way to go to a ballgame. It’s typically unexpected and it’s like finding treasure. I also chose the game over attending the birthday party of my best friend at the time, Brian, but being just as big of a Phillies fan, he understood.

Unfortunately, the actual experience failed to live up to the promise. As is the case with any big city, traffic was atrocious, and the photo session robbed us of the extra time we needed to factor into our trip. We had to settle for cheering to the car radio as the Phillies scored four first-inning runs against the Mets. I was doing most of the cheering, while Greg and my dad lamented about our predicament. It’s much easier to see the silver lining in most situations when you’re a kid.

Parking was another issue since we obviously arrived at Veterans Stadium after all the other fans. By the time we finally got to our seats, the game was in the sixth inning.

The Phillies made our ordeal worth it by letting the Mets back into the contest. The 4-0 whittled to 4-3, and the bullpens on both sides were left to duke it out.

Darren Daulton started some two-out magic in the eighth with a double. Charlie Hayes followed with a catchable line drive to right, but the ball bounced off the webbing of Chris Jones’ glove, allowing Daulton to score. The Phillies won by that 5-3 score, and it came as no surprise to us.

Though the pitching staff had changed dramatically in two years, the Phillies still retained most of their starting lineup from 1993, and they returned to form over the first two months of 1995, jumping out to a 35-18 start. But injuries and a general lack of team chemistry eventually took their toll, and the Phils took a nose dive out of contention in July.

Sadly, those four innings in 1995 would be my last live look at Dutch, The Dude, Dave Hollins and Jim Eisenreich in a Phillies uniform. All things in professional sports seem to go full circle, and the basement from which Philadelphia furiously emerged would become their residence once again in 1996 and 1997.

My bandwagon allegiance to the superstar Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League around this time proved that I had yet to learn the value of loyalty, and so it’s no wonder I turned my attention away from the Phillies. My dad and I curtailed our viewing of them on television, and we stopped going to their games. In a way, I was saying goodbye to my childhood. This incarnation of the Phillies was at its end, and the Little League costume hung in the closet, never to be worn again.

It was the end of an era for sure, but my baseball tutelage was just getting started.

July 10, 1993: Phillies vs. San Francisco Giants

My father lit the spark of my interest in baseball, but the 1993 Phillies fueled the flames.

We all like to pretend that we are not fair weather fans. We support our team no matter what, but the truth remains that when “our guys” are winning, we cheer louder, we pay more attention and we are much more willing to spend some of our hard-earned money to attend their games.

What made the ’93 Phillies such a great team to watch was that no one saw them coming. The squad didn’t include a single superstar; just a bunch of scruffy, mullet-wearing goofballs. Hell, their highest paid player was their closer, Mitch Williams, who was the wildest and bushiest of them all.

My dad and I watched in awe from the very beginning, as the Phillies swept their opening series and jumped out to a 9-3 start. They carried that .750 winning percentage into mid-May, and I remember thinking that this team was really something special following a win on Mother’s Day when Mariano Duncan slugged a game-winning grand slam against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Speaking of my dear old mother, not even she nor my sister could avoid the Philly fever gripping the region, so they joined my dad and I for our first game of the year against the San Francisco Giants.

I paid close attention to this four-game series because to this point in the season, the Giants were the best team in baseball. They also had the best player, moody superstar Barry Bonds, who would go on to swipe his third Most Valuable Player award in four years. In our eyes, this was the Phillies’ biggest test of the season and gave us a look at how they might stack up against a postseason opponent.

We went to the third game of the series, and the ugliness of the first two games didn’t fill us with confidence. San Francisco dropped a few touchdowns on the Phils, outscoring them 28-10 (the only bright spot being rookie Kevin Stocker’s first major league home run the day after getting called up to the bigs).

If the boys in red pinstripes were going to right the ship, they would have to battle both the Giants and the elements. The two lopsided losses had mercifully taken place at night, but this Saturday game took place in the afternoon on the hottest day of the year.

I will never forget how my mom brought a cooler full of ice into Veterans Stadium. She insisted we rub our arms and face with ice cubes throughout the game to stay cool. Thinking back, I’m sure sunscreen would have provided better protection for our skin, but when you’re 10 years old, mother always knows best.

The beginning of the game featured an exciting back-and-forth. The Giants scored a run in the first and two in the second, but the Phillies matched them each time. Philly left fielder Milt Thompson provided the early fireworks with a rare two-run shot. The celebration in the crowd was brief, however, when it was discovered that the ball hit a young girl in the head. She had to leave the stadium with her parents, but from what I remember, she wasn’t seriously injured and had a story to tell for the rest of her life, I’m sure.

The Phillies brought back the smiles with a run in the bottom of the sixth, taking their first lead of the entire series. The lead would stick thanks to an incredible moment that also remains a humorous one between my parents and I.

Wes Chamberlain had taught me two years earlier that even the little guy could be a hero. They didn’t come much smaller than Mickey Morandini.

The lanky, second baseman would emerge as one of Philly’s better hitters in the mid-1990s, but to this point, his only claim to fame was an unassisted triple play in 1992 (amazingly, one of his three victims was Bonds, who was in his last year as a Pittsburgh Pirate).

The left-handed hitting Morandini stepped to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth. The way he always choked up on the bat, he needed the fattest of pitches to drive the ball, but he must have gotten one. All of a sudden, I saw the small, white dot fly over the right-field fence just inside the foul pole for a game-changing grand slam.

Everyone in Veterans Stadium lost their minds, except for my poor father. A few minutes before Morandini’s blast, he had succumbed to the call of nature. When he returned to us, befuddled by the sudden change in score, we gleefully told him what happened, adding salt to his wound with a, “We can’t believe you missed that!”

When my mom and I bring this up with knowing smiles on our faces, my dad always beats us to punch. “Yeah, I know. I was in the bathroom.”

There was every reason to believe we were good luck charms for the Phillies that day. It was the only game in the four-game set that they won, and the only one in which the Giants didn’t score in double digits.

Bonds particularly faltered in our presence. He went 0-for-3, got thrown out at home plate and dropped a foul ball. We had a great view of that miscue from our seats along the left-field line. The seats weren’t anywhere near the field, but my dad and I pretended Bonds could hear our taunts.

Looking back, the best thing about this win was that it came from the unlikeliest of sources. Between the two of them, Thompson and Morandini amassed a grand total of seven homers during the 1993 season. By comparison, Pete “Inky” Incaviglia (a fellow platoon outfielder with Thompson) deposited eight noggin nailers into the stands in the month of August alone.

Despite all the magic we witnessed that day, it came as no surprise to me. Though there was plenty of season left, I had bought into this team. However it happened, they were going to win.

Even if it meant forcing Dad out of the room whenever the Phils loaded the bases.