I was at the ballpark again this afternoon for the Phillies’ 7-3 win over the Brewers. Yes, the Phils actually won a game I attended! Novel, huh? The Phillies scored early and often, and I was never too worried about the outcome. I got to focus just on Being (capital-B intended; props to Martin Heidegger, I suppose) at the ballpark.
Today’s Ballpark Experience™ included quite a few calories, I have to say. For the first time this season, I started things off with The Schmitter. The Schmitter is a sort of revved-up cheesesteak, featuring three layers of cheese, tomato, steak (duh), some mysteriously delicious sauce, and fried salami. I felt like I’d swallowed an anchor—a really, really delicious anchor. That didn’t stop me, though, from having my Citizens Bank Park usuals: crab fries from Chickie’s & Pete’s, washed down with Victory Hop Devil.
I won’t be needing any dinner, thanks. Or breakfast tomorrow. Ugh.
This afternoon’s game was the next-to-last in the 15-game package I purchased. At this point, the seats around mine are filled with people who seem familiar. Yet I really only know the tiniest bit about these people I’ve seen so frequently over the past few months. The two women in front of me work together. They sit next to the man—I think of him as Red Ballcap Guy—who usually attends with his wife or a friend. On the other side of the two women are young lovebirds, totally into baseball and one another.
At today’s game, some of my section’s stalwarts were missing. The couple who usually sits right behind me was among them. But the father-in-law, who occasionally subs for the wife, was there—ready to tell me that the kids were vacationing abroad. We wondered aloud about another couple that we’d never before seen miss. And he mentioned how surprised the son-in-law was one night—during a recent Mets game, actually—when I left before the end of the ninth inning. (Feeble Excuse: I thought the Mets had it well in hand, and I had to get up early the next day.) “He always stays until the end,” the son-in-law said. Wow, I’ve made an impression, I guess, and, suprisingly, it didn’t involve only the series of handsome men I’ve been trying to faux-date at the ballpark (although I bet that has been noticed!).
In the Big City, it’s nice to find a sense of community, however shallow, here and there.