Living in New York City, I don’t make it to many games at Citizen’s Bank Park, but I was in attendance on Tuesday night, for what the Inquirer’s Matt Gelb called “arguably the strangest game in the park’s history.”\u00a0 My night was stranger than most.\u00a0 Thanks to an overturned tractor trailer on the Jersey Turnpike, my bus ride to Philly took over four hours.\u00a0 I didn’t get to the stadium until the 5th inning, and I was in line at Tony Luke’s when the Phils’ got on the board with a run in the 6th.<\/p>\n
Settling into my seat in left field for the start of the 7th, I\u00a0figured I would at least get to\u00a0catch three innings of a tight game, and enjoy a roast pork sandwich with broccoli rabe, in the process.\u00a0 Everything was going along as expected until Jimmy Rollins came to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the 9th, and no one on base.\u00a0 The way the Phils’ offense has been going, it was impossible to see what was coming next:\u00a0 a\u00a0game-tying home run deposited into the right field seats.\u00a0 It was the kind of moment that has you turning to high-five complete strangers after you high-five your friends.<\/p>\n
You probably know the debacle that ensued in the extra-innings.\u00a0 Ryan Howard was bogusly ejected in the 14th.\u00a0 After the commotion, we suddenly realized:\u00a0 we have no bench players left!\u00a0 A pitcher’s gonna play first?!\u00a0 Oswalt’s the best athlete, right?\u00a0 Sure enough, Oswalt did come into the game, but he came out to left field, right in front of our\u00a0seats.\u00a0 We were all cheering like crazy as he jogged out to start his warm-up throws.\u00a0 Of course, the first batter of the inning hit a flyball into left, and Oswalt smoothly made the play.\u00a0 The next batter sent a flyball down the left field line and we all held our breaths as Oswalt gave chase, stopping in front of the wall as the ball went foul.<\/p>\n
With the Phils down\u00a0two in the 16th, the Astros intentionally walked Utley to get to Oswalt.\u00a0\u00a0As Dan\u00a0Baker announced: “Now batting, LEFT-FIELDER, Roy Oswalt!”, the roughly 20,000 fans (impressively) still in the stadium started\u00a0to chant, “Let’s Go, Oswalt!!!”.\u00a0\u00a0Of course, Oswalt grounded out to end the game.\u00a0 It was\u00a0obviously a tough loss.\u00a0 Not only did the Phils burn through their pen, but they lost a game in the heat\u00a0of a late-August pennant race.<\/p>\n
But, if there’s a silver lining to take\u00a0away from it, I think it will\u00a0be the fans reaction to\u00a0Oswalt, both\u00a0when he came out to\u00a0left field, and when he batted\u00a0at the end of the game.\u00a0 It\u00a0was much publicized that Oswalt was hesitant to come and play in\u00a0Philly.\u00a0 He’s a rural Mississippi guy who was worried, for whatever reason, about coming to play in\u00a0a major East Coast city.\u00a0 I have to think he\u00a0was impressed by the\u00a0fan support\u00a0he got in that game, and it may have\u00a0been the\u00a0moment where he was both accepted by Phillie fans and where he came to realize that Philly is a pretty cool place to play.\u00a0 What impact that may have on his performance is impossible to say, but if it can help morale and help cement him as a part of the organization, that can’t be a bad thing.\u00a0 As for me, if I was going to see a loss in person, it would have been hard to pick a better one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Living in New York City, I don’t make it to many games at Citizen’s Bank Park, but I was in attendance on Tuesday night, for what the Inquirer’s Matt Gelb called “arguably the strangest game in the park’s history.”\u00a0 My … Continue reading