Phillies Run The Bases Presented By Tim (5/1/10)

May 2, 2010

Back in March, I did an entry of satellite images of the ball parks we plan to visit in 2010.  The first four stadiums I listed in order and for the fourth game I mentioned, “Next, we’ll be sticking closer to home for a very special game at Citizens Bank Park.”

On May 1, 2010, Tim and I attended that very special game, and it turned out to be way more special that I imagined in the first place.

Let’s start with an explanation of why I said it would be special.  If you look at our 2010 season goals (or our blog in general), you’ll see that we love Kids Run The Bases days.  Coming into 2010, Tim had run the bases at Progressive Field (2008), Camden Yards (2009), Rogers Centre (2009), Citi Field (2009-10), Miller Park (2009), and Nationals Park (2009-10).

We’ve never been able to line up a trip to Seattle that coincided with a Kids Run The Bases day.  So it is understandable that Tim has not run the bases at Safeco Field.

On the other hand, our failure to run the bases at Citizens Bank Park made no sense.  It is, after all, the closest MLB stadium to our house.  But in 2009, each of the kids run the bases days was on a business persons special day games.  I couldn’t justify taking a day off of work to go to a day game in Philadelphia.  So Tim was precluded from running the Citzens Bank Park bases.

I was perplexed at why a kids run the bases promotion would be doubled up with a business persons promotion.  I have a colleague whose brother is the Phillies Senior V.P. of Marketing & Advertising Sales.  So, I asked him about this odd situation.  His brother had no answer…and life went on.

Fast forward to 2:28 p.m. on January 19, 2010, I’m diligently working away at my desk when I receive an email from my colleague that simply said, “Just for you.”  It was a forward, so I scrolled down and found the following message from the inner-sanctum of Phillies management:  “we added a run the bases on a weekend for your friend – may 1st.” 

YES!!!

On Friday, April 30, 2010, my colleague called to make sure we were going to the game.  His brother had called to remind him that they put this on the schedule for Tim so he hoped we’d be there.  Of course!  While the schedule said “sponsored by Modell’s Sporting Goods,” as we drove toward Citizens Bank Park we knew this Kids Run The Bases day was really brought to the kids of Philadelphia by Tim Cook.

Thank you, Phillies, for listening to the fans!

So lets get to the actual game.  We arrived early for our first ever BP at Citizens Bank Park.  A guy in a golf cart met us at our car and drove us to the LF gate.  He also gave Tim a little green Citizens Bank pig key chain…which Tim named “Snortle.”

Outside the LF gate, Tim got his picture with a statue of Steve Carlton…

…which by my count makes Carlton the second person with whom Tim has got his picture with the real person and his statute (the first being Michael Jack Schmidt).  He also got his picture with Joe Brown’s statue in the parking lot (that was actually after the game).

With Snortle in hand, we headed into the ball park.  We had three goals for BP, two of which we would achieve.

First, get our picture with my all-time favorite pitcher, Jamie Moyer.  Unfortunately, Moyer was in deep center field where the seats are maybe 15 feet above the field.  No way to get a picture with a player there.  So we just went out and stood near him.

Right after I took this picture, Tim yelled, “Hi, Jamie Moyer!”  Moyer made eye contact with us and gave Tim a nice wave with his glove.  Not just a little flip.  A legit “hi, how you doing” wave.  Very cool.

Soon thereafter, the Phils all started running toward the dugout, which is where we should have been.  We might have been able to get Moyer’s attention while at field level.  Anyway, I put Tim on my shoulders and we started to make our way toward the Phils’ dugout knowing that Moyer would be long gone by the time we got there.

That is when goal number 2 sealed the deal on not achieving goal number 1.  Our second goal was to get a baseball.  We’d only ever got one ball in all of our games at Citizens Bank Park.  We made no real effort during Phils BP.  We were just watching Moyer.

Then, as the Phils started running in and we started making our way toward the RF corner, I saw a Phils player on the field yelling up into the stands.  I’d later figure out it was J.C. Romero.  There were people lining the first and second rows and we were in row 4.  Romero was motioning “up and over” with his finger.  But it looked like he was motioning toward the very back of the section.  I had no clue what he was doing.  But he kept doing it.  Finally, I said, “US!?!?!?”  He said, “Yeah!”  And held up a ball.  Tim and I walked up to about row 7 and J.C. Romero lobbed…

…our second baseball ever at Citizens Bank Park directly into my glove.  I handed it up to Tim and the crowd was happy to see the Phils reliever find a worthy recipient for the baseball.  Our first ball at Citizens Bank Park was from Rockies first base coach (and former Mariner) Glenallen Hill.  And we got a ball from Jimmy Rollins in D.C. last season.  But this was our first baseball from a Phillie at a Phillies home game.

Thanks, J.C. Romero!

Goal No. 1 – failed.  Goal No. 2 – complete.

Third goal, get Frank Catalanotto’s autograph.  That might sound like an odd goal, but there is a back story (which we’ll get to).

The Mets were stretching in front of their dugout.  We ran over there.  I wrote out a quick and to the point sign…

…Tim grabbed the sign and popped up onto my shoulders.  Literally within 10 seconds, we were communicating with Frank Catalanotto and arranging to meet in the first row about 30 yards down the 3B line.  We got over there and we chatted with Frank, he signed our sign (shown above) as I dug through my backpack, and he posed for a picture with Tim…

But here is the real goal achieved….

That, my friends, is a picture of the first pitch of the first MLB game Tim ever attended back on September 12, 2006.  Frank Catalanotto, playing for the Blue Jays, was the batter and he took a called strike from the eventual winning pitcher, Gil Meche.

I told Catalanotto the whole story.  He thought it was awesome and he was SUPER COOL to us.  It was awesome.  For a non-game-related moment, this was one of the coolest and most memorable moments I’ve experienced at a ball park.

I have to give HUGE, HUGE gratitude to my dad for having the forethought to snap this picture while we were celebrating Tim’s first game.  I absolutely love that he captured this moment for Tim and I am estactic about the idea of Tim having a picture of his first MLB pitch signed by both the batter and pitcher.

Hmmm….the pitcher.  Gil Meche, be on the lookout for these two Mariners fans!  Hopefully we can work it out this season.

At this point, the Mets hadn’t even started hitting yet.  But it was blistering hot in the seating bowl and we already accomplished all of our BP goals except the Moyer picture, which wasn’t going to happen.  So we took refuge in the shade…more specifically, in the kids play area:

…in that upper left picture, see that teenager in the upper tube?  That guy works for the Phillies.  His job is to control the traffic going down the slide.  In the bottom right picture, Tim took “my order” about 2 dozen times and pretended to hand all sorts of food items out of those little holes to me

We went back to the play area several times throughout the day.

After our first play session, we headed toward the concourse behind home plate where I wanted to visit the ticket office.  On the way, we got this picture of Tim and a fake Phanatic:

The Mets were still taking BP when we made our way back down the concourse on the 3B side of the stadium.  Check out this pre-gram crowd:

We made our way down to the Phils dugout to see if Moyer was around.  He wasn’t.  But then Roy Halladay popped out of the dugout and made his way to the bullpen and then the OF grass just outside of the bullpens…

Halladay was another factor that made this game special.  He went head-to-head against the Mets Mike Pelfrey and dominated throwing a complete game shutout.

After watching Halladay stretch a little, we went to our seats in section 104:

In those pictures, Tim is standing in the seat directly in front of ours.  By the way, although he was a little sweatball, that is water from the water fountain on his shirt.  He was having some water fountain difficulties just before these pictures.

Here is the actual view from our seats — Citizens Bank Park section 104, row 14, seats 4-5:

They were really great seats.

But we started the game in one of the many standing room areas behind the 3B field level seats.  We were there to get our first close-up look at “Doc” Halladay.  And this is what it looked like:

First inning, fly out, fly out, strike out.

Then we grabbed an ice cream helmet for Tim and a couple drinks for both of us, and headed to our seats…

…later, we grabbed some nachos.  Good ballpark foods!

Jayson Werth stood almost right in front of us in RF.  Here is what our view of the three outfielders looked like from our seats:

I brought my wife’s big fancy camera that takes quick sequence shots so I could get the Halladay shots above.  I brought it out again for Raul Ibanez.  Although I didn’t get anything too special of Raul, the shots are funny when you look at a bunch of them together…

…do you see it?  Its Werth.  He looks the same — mid-hop — in every picture.  There were more than this and he always was mid-hop just like that.  It seemed like an odd little hop to me.

Although he gave up three hits in the early innings, Halladay was dealing all day:

Early on, Pelfey was matching him pitch-for-pitch.  But then came the fourth inning when the Phils offense did some damage.

Chase Utley started it out with a single:

Ryan Howard then drilled one to RF for a single moving Utley to second:

Jayson Werth then hit an RBI single that found a bit of Alex Cora’s glove.  Had Cora gloved the bloop single, it probably would have been a triple play because Utley was already around 3B and Howard was just a couple feet from 2B.

With two outs in the inning and a 3-0 score, things got real interesting.  Tim had done a great job sitting in the seats for 3.5 innings.  So I promised we would go back to the play area right after the third out.  I packed up our belongings, including my glove.

Shane Victorino then hit a a three run homerun that I came within inches of getting.  Here is another panorama from pre-game:

I was in seat number 4.  Seats 1-3 were empty giving me a clear path to the aisle.  The homerun landed in row 13 just across the aisle from us.  The crowd collectively botched catching the ball and it fell to the ground.  There was a girl in the first seat and I sort of dove over her in an effort to grab the loose ball.  But as my hand was reaching toward the ball, the guy in the green hat (to the far right in the picture above) reached down and grabbed the ball cleanly by his feet.  As I reached for it, I knew that guy would have to bobble it on the bare hand grab for me to have a chance.  It was pretty exciting, but I missed out.  Who knows what would have happened if I had my glove on my hand.

After the homerun, Tim asked me, “Did you smash your head when you jumped in there?”  It was pretty funny.  (FYI, as I type this, Chase Utley just hit a homerun off of Johan Santana that landed in Section 104 right around our seats).

After the inning, we headed back to the play area, which was over run by kids.  It was kid pandamonium.  And eventually Tim came out of the play set holding one shoe in his hand.  He claimed that he got in a kid traffic jam in the tubes that de-shoed him.  That was enough of the play area for Tim.  So we got those nachos pictured above and headed back to our seats.

While we were in the play area, Rauuuuuuuuul Ibanez hit a two run triple to bring the score to 8-0 Phillies.  Pelfrey was long gone.  In the eigth inning, Frank Catalanotto pinch hit for the second Mets pitcher (Raul Valdez)…

…but he grounded out.

The Phanatic was pumping up the crowd…

…and everyone was going crazy because the Phils were (by this point) winning 10-0 and their new ace, Roy Halladay, was set on cruise control:

And 10-0 was the final score.  Halladay’s line:  9 IP, 3 Hits, 0 ER, and 1-4 at the plate.

We watched the top of the 9th inning from the concourse behind the 3B dugout.  When the game ended, we made our way down to the first row and we were in a good position to get a ball from home plate umpire Ron Kulpa.  Well, as good as you can be without being in the diamond club.  But Kulpa gave one ball to a 20-something girl in the diamond club and his line-up card to a guy standing with the girl…and then he was gone.

No problems.  It had already been an extra-special day.

I took this panorama as the crowd started to clear out…

….at home plate you can see the Phillies workers setting up for Tim’s special run around the bases.  He stayed put as the bullpens cleared out and headed to their respective dugouts.

A couple Mets approached the far end of the 3B dugout and threw a couple balls into the crowd.  But we were all alone at the other end of the dug out (still at the spot from which I took that last panorama).

One of the ball tossers was Mets bullpen catcher Dave Racaniello.  For some reason, after throwing two balls into the crowd on the far end of the dugout, he walked down toward us and entered the dugout just below us.  At the time, he had nothing in his hands, but a catchers equipment bag over his shoulder.

We were just standing there minding our own business when Racaniello took his first step down into the dugout.  Right then, he looked up and saw Tim sitting on my shoulders.  He looked at us like, “Hey, I got something for you.”  He stopped and dug around in his bag and pulled out…

…a 2009 Citi Field inagural season baseball, which he tossed right up to us.

Thanks, Dave!

By the way, that is Tim’s green pig “Snortle” sitting on top of the Racaniello baseball.

It was time to run the bases.  We made our way to the RF gate.  On the way, I took this panorama from section 142…

…and this one from section 144:

And an usher in CF took our picture:

Kids were already circling the bases.  But we had to stop by the Phillies Wall of Fame, which is blocked off during games so fans don’t heckle the relievers in the bullpen (I guess that is the reason, at least).  Here are some famous Phillies from the field and booth:

Here is the view of the bullpens from the wall of fame area — visitors on top, Phillies down below closer to the field:

After waiting through a really long line and walking through a tunnel below the stands in RF foul territory.  Then we walked out onto the RF foul warning track for the first time…

Of course, I got some shots of the dugouts…

…and threw in some shots of the on deck cirles for good measure.

Then, Tim was off to the races:

On the drive home, Tim would regale me with the story of how he passed that kid in the red and white outfit.

The Phillies were great because they didn’t have a mob of workers kicking you out the second your kid crossed home plate (like some teams who will remain nameless).  So I had time to take this field level panorama…

…and this picture of Tim standing next to the brick wall directly behind home plate…

…and for good meaure, we got a couple more pictures as we made our way down the 1B line warning track toward the exit in shallowe LF:

As we left the seating area, the Phils had workers handing out this certificate:

I thought that was a great touch.  None of the sixth other teams whose bases Tim has run have given out these certificates.

Great job, Phillies!

All-in-all, it was a great day at the ballpark and Tim was fast asleep only a few miles into our drive home.

2010 Fan Stats:

4 Games

7 Teams (Orioles and Blue Jays; Phillies, Braves, Mets, Brewers and Nationals)

4 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles, Phillies, Mets, & Nationals)

13 Baseballs (3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 3 Umpires, 1 Phillies, 1 Mets)

4 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field)

3 Player Photos (Frank Catalanotto, Jeff Suppan and Scott Olsen)

3 Autographs (Frank Catalanotto (2), Jeff Suppan and Scott Olsen)

3 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field)

 

Written by Cook & Son Bats Posted in Dailies Tagged with Chase Utley, Citzens Bank Park, Frank Catalanotto, ice cream helmet, J.C. Romero, Jamie Moyer, Kids Run The Bases, mets, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, phillies, Raul Ibanez, Roy Halladay, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino