In the spring of 2005, I went to a Philadelphia Phillies game with a few friends. It was the second year that the Phillies were playing in their new ballpark, and although I was going to miss their old stadium, I was looking forward to making new memories in a new venue.
The Phillies’ and Eagles’ previous stadium, Veterans’ Stadium, was considered an abomination by every visiting team that stepped onto the field. To describe Veterans’ Stadium in one word, it would simply be, “shoddy.” The teams played on Astroturf; terrible Astroturf that was easily comparable to concrete. A quarterback for the New York Giants once said that before he took each snap on the field, he’d look behind him for lumps and tears in the turf so he wouldn’t trip during the play. Since its opening in 1971, the place hosted a number of injuries that would not have occurred had they simply played on grass; that’s how shoddy the field at the Vet was.
Ask any Philadelphia sports fan and they’ll tell you how proud they were of Veterans’ Stadium. It was large, hosting anywhere from 56,000 to 63,000 people. It was cold, it was gritty, tough, and most of all, ugly; all traits a Philadelphian possesses with an aura of blue-collar snobbery.
The best way I can sum up the mentality of the Philly Sports Fan is by recalling a story about a man in the 700 level during an Eagles game. The Eagles must have been losing something awful that day, because this one fan decided to show his frustration by firing a flare gun from one end of the stadium to the other. A flare gun! The way I remember it, after the flare gun incident, a court was installed inside the stadium for immediate sentencing for any rapscallions and hellions that got a bit too frisky. I feel sorry for the first judge assigned to work that court. He must have constantly been pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut in disbelief. I can see him reading the facts back to the defendant.
“You—you wiped your ass with your hand,” he’d say, getting the facts straight. “And then proceeded to wipe it on the face of a Dallas Cowboys fan? And then you spit on the man’s 8 year old son?”
“Well, he offended my honor, your honor.”
And before the judge could make a ruling, he’d look off to the right and see an endless line of drunken fans spilling into his courtroom, waiting for their sentencing.
I love the story of the Philly Flare Gun. A man was hanging out in the parking lot, drinking Bud Light, I presume, and had a premeditated notion to bring a fuckin’ flare gun into the stadium for the sole purpose of firing it when the Eagles started to lose. And every time my mind’s eye re-enacts the firing of the gun, the perpetrator gives a Howard Dean-ish “Hyaaaaagh!” It’s so laughable. Why else would you bring one? Are you lost? You need to be rescued?
How early before the game did he buy the flare gun? A day? A week? An hour? Was he late to the tailgate party before the game because he couldn’t find it? “Honey, the flare gun! Where is it?! I can’t go to the game until I have my flare gun!” What did he tell his friends when they saw him stuffing it into his pants before going through the gate? “Ordinarily, guys, I’d never do something as awesome as this, but we’re playing the Giants today, and…well…” That’s a Philly sports fan for you.
My friends and I never got that insane when we went to Veterans’ Stadium to see the Phillies play. We simply got drunk in the parking lot and hung out in the 700 level, where the tickets were cheap and the space was wide open. We would be free to smoke cigarettes up there without any repercussions, as well as stand up and empty our bladders all over the blue plastic seats. Ya know, harmless.
In one of the last games I ever went to at the Vet, the Phillies were playing the Chicago White Sox in inter-league play. The Sox had dominated the game, and most of the patrons left at about the 6th inning. With a good portion of the fans filing out, my inebriated friends and I decided to get some better seats. We moseyed on down to some abandoned box seats right behind the Phillies dugout. The security guard in charge of the section knew we were completely full of shit, but he didn’t hassle or question us when we said, “Good evening, sir,” and filed politely to the best seats in the place. As the Phillies were getting hammered by the Sox, I recalled that during the football season, the Eagles pummeled the Chicago Bears. Surely, there must’ve been some of that magic left lying around on the field. We began to do an “Eagles” chant, which consists of nothing more than spelling, “E! A! G! L! E! S! EAGLES!” The chant caught on from our box seats and carried through more than half of the stadium; scattered patches of fans yelling for an Eagle-esque comeback. By the time the chant reached the center-field seats, the Phillies began showing signs of life and started getting some hits. The poor pitcher for the Sox was getting verbally defiled by some drunken hooligans behind the Phillies’ dugout, and with so few fans in the stadium, we were obviously being heard. By the time the Phils pulled ahead in the bottom of the 8th, we had completely lost our voices and had nothing left to give when the Phillies won the game.
I got back to my house a little bit after 2:00 a.m. and I turned on the Phillies replay game just in time to catch the 8th inning. There must have been a microphone near first base because all you could hear on the television were these drunken idiots screaming at the tops of their lungs, “He’s pitching junk, man! He’s pitching fuckin’ junk! Guy can’t even throw a curve ball!! E! A! G! L! E! S! EAGLES! The pitcher sucks ass!! A! S! S! ASS!!”
In the sports section of the newspaper the next morning, the reporter said that the fans who stayed at the game last night were so disappointed with the Phillies that they began to chant for next year’s football season. He was clearly missing the point of our motivational techniques, but at least I knew we had a helping hand in the Phillies victory. No, we didn’t personally hit any bases-clearing doubles, but we gave credence to the theory of home-field advantage, and that to me is sports-fan empowerment.
Veterans’ Stadium was demolished in March of 2004, and the Eagles and Phillies each got their own individual stadiums; Lincoln Financial Field and Citizens Bank Park, respectively. For my first game at Citizens Bank Park, I was accompanied by a Phillies fan and two Mets fans.
Upon entering the stadium, I immediately began to contrast it with The Vet. For starters, it was warm and inviting. Ticket-takers all greeted you with a smile, bending down to pat the 6 year-old fan on his red cap and earnestly wishing for them to enjoy the game, whereas at The Vet, your ticket would be ripped with a grunt and a guttural growl by a hairy, unkempt man who smelled like he had given himself a hit of whiskey before work in order to keep warm.
The female ticket taker at the new stadium put her smile away when she saw us coming, and sized us up quite accurately with her scowl: ruffians, drunks. Young, arrogant men who would cause nothing but trouble and spoil the good time being had by all of the families around them. I never recalled seeing many families at The Vet, but here at Citizens Bank Park, we were vastly outnumbered by them. For years these families must have been hiding in their basements, fearful of the vagaries and raucous cat-calls emanating from the concrete behemoth known as Veterans’ Stadium, and as soon as it imploded, they finally stepped out of their suburban hideaways and rejoiced in the streets. A multi-million dollar public relations project is how I thought of it. It didn’t seem possible to change the inherently visceral nature of the Philly Sports Fan. To me, the new stadium was an attempt to potty train a litter of foam-mouthed wolverines.
Once we got through the gates, we were subjected to 21st century conditioning: designated smoking areas, escalators to the second tier, well-placed televisions and numerous eateries where one could order food and not miss a single pitch. Of course, if you know me, you know that I boo-hoo all things new. So smoking is unhealthy, but drinking alcohol is not as long as you pay $8.00 for a beer, then inhale a 1500 calorie cheesesteak for 10 bucks. And escalators? Are you kidding me? But that’s just how I am. Take 20 bucks from me, replace it with a hundred dollar bill, and I’ll complain that Ben Franklin was not even a president. I didn’t want to be so bitter about the experience right from the start, but
once I walked through those gates and saw all of the happy, smiling families, I knew that my behavior would not be welcomed, so why should I even bother to try to like it? I still wanted to get to my seat and maybe rouse the crowd a bit, bring some of that old fashioned Veterans’ Stadium attitude to the new park.
The security guards at the new stadium were of a different breed as well. First off, the word “security” had been euphemized to “Staff Assistant,” on their shirts. They were also predominantly women. Very modern. One of them asked for our tickets and walked us to our seats. Usually, at The Vet, if you found a security guard and asked him the location of your seat, he’d wave his hand in any general direction. “Over there, somewhere.”
When Pedro Martinez took the mound for the Mets, my friend and I booed and hollered.
“Pedro,” my friend yelled, “you suck donkey dick!”
I followed by politely calling Pedro “an indentured servant piece of shit.”
It was vital to exploit all characteristics of the opposing team’s pitcher: race, religion, marital status, age, etc. It’s all part of the game.
The lady who showed us our seats came over and patted us on the shoulder. “No foul language,” she hissed. “Watch your mouths.”
The Citizens Bank Park Staff Assistant had suddenly become a matronly figure. No foul language? The whole Dionysian aspect of the game was quickly lost, as it suddenly felt more like we were being babysat. Imagine getting drunk off your ass and watching a game in your living room while your mother stood behind you burning a hole in the back of your shirt with her eyes.
We thought about maybe harassing Pedro in his native tongue, but our Spanish vocabulary was limited. I don’t think it would have messed with his head if we asked him for a bathroom pass, or told him that we did not have the homework assignment, but maybe tomorrow we could have it, if that was okay.
A 5th inning error by the Mets second baseman earned him the label “stupid piece of shit” from our Mets fan companion. I looked back at our babysitter as she told one of her male constituents to talk to us. He came down to our seats and leaned on the aisle chair.
“Is there a problem here?” he asked us.
“Yeah, there is,” said the verbal perpetrator. “Guy can’t field for shit.”
“There’re families here,” the man informed us. “Watch your language. Got it?”
We nodded our heads, and for the rest of the game I yelled generic enthusiasms. A 4-6-3 double play? “Go team.”
A 10 pitch walk? “Good eye, batter.”
A searing double in the right field corner? “We are proud of your athletic ability.”
A hanging curve ball landing outside the plate but getting called a third strike by a half-blind umpire who wouldn’t know a good pitch if it was sitting on his face? “Boo.”
The game was tied in the bottom of the 9th, the Phillies at bat with a man on third and two outs. The batter hit a slow roller down the first base line. The pitcher fielded it and overthrew the first baseman. Game over, Phillies win!
“Fuck!” the Mets fan yelled in frustration. The madam security guard walked over as everyone was standing and giving an ovation to the drama and said to us, “Alright, that’s it. Out. Get out now!”
Since we were already on our way out, her kicking us out of the stadium was moot but still hurtful. It was clear that we did not belong there. I led the charge out of Citizens Bank Park in hopes of getting a decent spot in traffic. While atop the escalator, we looked down and saw a large circle of people around two entangled figures in the center; one in Phillies red, the other in Mets blue. Normally I would have hurried down the stairs and gotten a front row seat for a good old fashioned Philly brawl, but something about the whole scene was amiss. The crowd around the two fighting were not cheering or really even looking at them, but were cautiously distant and working their way around them. Off to the side I saw a boy, perhaps four or five in a red Phillies cap, holding onto his father’s hand as they walked to the exit. If a picture was taken up close, it would have looked like a beautiful Americana moment, but from my aerial viewpoint, the grander scene was more disturbing: the father trying desperately to get his son to safety in case the violence taking place a few feet away from them became contagious. Once I reached the bottom of the escalator, I did something I never thought I had the courage to do. I cut to the middle of the fight, past the frightened patrons, and put myself at center stage. The two opposing fans were tangled in a tight lock as I wedged myself between them and threw them apart with my arms while still walking out the gate.
The coolest part about it, I feel, is that I didn’t lose stride while tossing them to neutral corners, nor did I look back. I don’t know how the ruffians reacted to my imposition. Did they stare at me in disbelief? Did they go back to fighting, or did my intrusion give them a moment of clarity and reflection on their behavior? Either way, I envisioned myself as the complete opposite of who I actually was: strong and confident with a no-nonsense attitude. These men each outweighed me by at least 40 pounds, but I was able to fling them apart simultaneously, giving such an allusion of cool that I blush when thinking about it.
Before the Phillies/Mets incident, the bravest thing I had ever done was back in 1992 during a game of recess handball at Glenside Weldon Elementary School. The handball games were played in a small alcove at the joint of two perpendicular sections of the school, with the pitcher’s mark, home plate, and bases spray painted on the blacktop. My team was batting, and the opposing pitcher, Chris, was known to throw the ball against our backstop in frustration. We must have been beating Chris pretty bad that day, because he gave a large wind-up to throw. The large wind-up was the cue for all of us standing by the wall to get out of harm’s way. My teammates lined up on the opposite wall, but on this particular April morning in ’92, I stayed behind the plate and readied myself. Chris hesitated when he saw my stoicism, and warned me to get out of the way, but still I didn’t move. “I’m serious,” he said. “I’m throwing this as hard as I can; you better get out of the way.”
I only nodded.
I don’t remember the release of the tennis ball from Chris’s hand, but I do remembering opening my eyes and finding the fuzzy yellow ball in my left hand. There was a moment of silent disbelief on the playground as we all stared at the ball in my hand, and before anyone could say anything, the bell rang, ordering us back inside. Everyone erupted in celebration, patting me on the back and commending my bravery, wondering how in the world I was able to catch a speeding fast ball from seven feet away.
The incident at the stadium with the drunks surpassed what I had dubbed “The Catch” thirteen years earlier. It was a bittersweet moment though. Our wily Veterans’ Stadium behavior was most assuredly no longer welcomed at Citizens Bank Park. I didn’t believe it could happen until I saw the gross number of pacifist fans outnumbering those who would normally carry flare guns to the game. In the world of fandom, the Veterans with their Astroturf and losing habits would have to give way to the Citizens with their natural grass and N.L. East pennants, and in one moment I turned my back on the old ways of celebration. I recall the moment not in first person, but in third; an overhead view shot in slow motion. From the circle of spectators emerges a solitary figure, walking tall and coolly to the chaotic epicenter of the rivalry between two cities. Without missing a self-reliant step, he splits the center in two, the pieces flying away from his arms with such force that the two large men tumble to the ground in a heap of shame and weakness. And before he disappears into the opposite end of the crowd, never to be seen again, a stiff wind blows back his opened jacket, giving it a snap.
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