Mets vs. Phillies 7-1-17

We scored these tickets from one of Serena's awesome clients. She's the nicest. And the coolest. And she never throws her favors back in our faces because she is a class act. We decided to get to the game somewhat early because it was Asdrubal Cabrera bobblehead day and Lisa really wanted her first Mets' free giveaway of the season (that she earned herself as opposed to being given to her by one of Serena's co-workers). We arrived, opened a bottle of wine, and sat back for a few minutes, thinking we had plenty of time.

Then it happened. The sky opened up.

Assuming there would be a rain delay, we decided to finish the bottle of wine (for the record, the car was not running) instead of dashing to the gate for our bobbleheads. Once the weather cleared up, we headed toward the stadium, confident that the rain chased away all of the bandwagon fans.

Thanks to our fancy tickets, we were permitted to enter the ballpark through the Gil Hodges' gate, which is reserved for cool people and the media. We are not only cool, but we're pretty much the media as well. Lisa made sure to take photos of this momentous occasion because we behave like tourists in our own hometown.

 

 

It was when we reached the main concourse level that we realized that we had missed out on getting the bobbleheads. Fail.

Our disappointment did not prevent us from eating. We hit up the Blue Smoke stand in center field near the Shake Shack and ordered a shit ton of food. Each of us ordered brat sandwiches on a pretzel bun topped with cheese and carmelized onions. In addition to the brats, we also ordered a platter of mac and cheese topped with brisket. Soooooooo f*cking good.

While shoveling food into our faces, a large crowd approached. We didn't react at first because we were too busy inhaling our meals like pigs. Then the crowd parted and the greatest thing the Mets have ever given us began to emerge. Two giant white balls. We quickly polished off our food (god forbid we leave one crumb uneaten) and joined the line forming to get a photo taken. Second best moment of our TBB career. Guess what our first one was. We will give you a hint. It was NOT the failed photo of us with the Phillie Phanatic.

 

After our delightful photo shoot, Lisa wanted to check our the giant mitt that she always saw in right field near the Coca-cola sign (in what used to be the Pepsi Party Porch). Turns out that there's quite a little set up in the Coca-Cola Corner. We're a little disappointed that we didn't check it out sooner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No children were harmed in the taking of these photographs.

By this point, the game was underway, so we chose to head to our seats. Which had a KILLER view of the field.

 

You'd think that the downpour of rain earlier would cool things down, but no. It made things worse. It was horrible. There was breast sweat. Ass sweat. Back of the knee sweat. Head sweat. Hat hair. It was very close to being worse than our trip to Atlanta.

Terry Collins calling on Jacob DeGrom to pinch run for Wilmer Flores in the 7th inning was probably the highlight of the on field action.

What. The. F.

It gets better. Because immediately following this decision, Asdrubal Cabrera hit a home run, forcing DeGrom to actually round all of the bases. All of them. As a pitcher, how often do you think he's required to do that?

 

It started to rain heavily again in the 8th inning. The Mets had finally taken a 7-6 lead. They pulled the tarps to cover the field and we decided it was best to just check out. We chose to believe that the Mets would take the victory and we chose not to get soaking wet.

Citizens Bank Park (Take 2)

Citizens Bank Park
1 Citizens Bank Way
Philadelphia, PA 19148

September 17, 2016
On our return to Philadelphia, we wised up. We didn't follow the Mets or Yankees. We wore the colors of the natives. We created a Philly-themed roadtrip playlist that included songs from the Rocky soundtrack, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and songs that featured the words, "Philadelphia" or "Philly." It also may have included a few choice Disney songs. And perhaps Phil Collins and Tina Turner ("we don't need another hero. We don't need another way home. All we want is life beyond Thunderdome").

Parking was $18. Before heading into the stadium, we stopped at the same gate we stopped at on our first trip to Philly and retook the photo of us.

 

Once inside, we decided to walk around the stadium as if it we'd never been there. On our first visit, we were still new to stadium touring and didn't really have a defined system for touring other teams' stadiums yet. Also, we spent a lot of time stalking the Phillie Phanatic and being physically and verbally abused by Phillies' fans. It's hard to focus on your environment when your life is constantly being threatened by a different a-hole each minute. Our first stop was the Phillie Phanatic Phun Zone where we retook a photo of Serena being sad that she's too tall to play in the fun zone. What a difference nearly 10 years makes. Now Serena looks like she's built like a man. Fantastic.

Nearby is a bronze statue of Harry Kalas, the Phillies' broadcaster from 1971-2000.

Lisa also re-bought the Phillie Phanatic plush toy because she'd had limited purchasing options during our original visit. This little nothing toy cost her $16.

The first thing we noticed is that people are a lot nicer to you in Philadelphia when you're not wearing Mets' shit. Also, the Phillies were terrible this season, so maybe the fans just felt depressed and defeated. When we first started touring stadiums, we got it in our heads that we were going to compare Italian sausage sandwiches around the country. Easily one of our worst ideas ever. It turns out that only New York and DC know how to make a quality sausage sandwich. Our cities must have a lot of native Italians. Now, we try to find what the stadium is "known" for or we try to get recommendations from local fans. In Philadelphia, you always, always go with a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. We finally had the chance to perform a "do over" on the food front. We hit up the Tony Luke's stand in Asburn Alley in center field for our sandwiches. Our sandwiches were $11/each and we both opted for fried onions and provolone cheese. Beers were $9/each. We ate at high top tables nearby overlooking the field.

 

 

Asburn Alley seems to be where it's at in terms of activity at Citizens Bank Park. After we polished off our sandwiches, we checked our the mini Phillies' Hall of Fame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 From here, we carried our beers up to our seats.

 

 

Our pitching matchup was Jeremy Hellickson for Philly and Jose Urena for Miami. The game is really not that important. The Phillies scored a shit ton of runs in the early innings. It bordered on embarrassing. Do you notice the activity taking place behind us in the photo featured above? What you can't see is that it is a small child violently vomiting all over the floor behind us. We did not hear the noise of her vomiting over the stadium din, but we did hear her crying. We just assumed that she was crying because that's what kids do when they're cranky. However, when Lisa turned around, she saw the damage. Puke. Puke everywhere. It smelled terrible. We almost puked ourselves. Lisa shouted, "I'm gonna do it too!" Maintenance came by to clean up, but it didn't matter. The stench of child vomit permeated the air.

Because the game was such an ass kicking, it dragged. We wish we had more to report about it, but unfortunately, it just wasn't that interesting. On our way out, we stopped at a little pretzel stand for cinnamon pretzels. It couldn't be helped.

Opening Day Blues

March 1st is literally next week. This means that spring training is underway and Opening Day for the 2016 regular season and our 2016 stadium tour season are just on the horizon. We've some updates for you on that front and they're not necessarily pretty.

Opening Day news:
* Yankees' tickets have been procured
*The Mets are penises, but they're not nearly as large as the penises (peni? what is the proper English term for more than one penis?) trying to sell Opening Day tickets on Stub Hub for standing room only for nearly $100. For $100, someone better be standing there (preferably someone that looks like Ryan Reynolds or Tim Tebow) serving us food and beer and possibly massaging our upper backs and necks as we stand for all of the 9 innings. Therefore, we may be in attendance for Opening Night instead. We have an insider source with the Mets that is going to look into things behind the scenes for us on Tuesday. After that, we will have further information for you. If it doesn't go well, expect next week's blog to be a full on rant (after which, we hope that the Mets will take pity on us and reach out, offering us complimentary tickets to Opening Day).

Stadium Tour news:
*Last year's Philly trip was rained out, but we're allowed to exchange those tickets for a game this season and we've chosen the September 17th game against the Marlins. We will be contacting the box office tomorrow.
*On the subject of the Marlins, we're planning on visiting Mamadukes at the end of August. We're really looking forward to reuniting her with Don Mattingly. We'll take photos and ruin her life by posting them here on the world wide web for all to see. Since it'll be Florida in August, those pictures are sure to be considered masterpieces. Bring on the breast sweat. We will probably have an update regarding these tickets next week after pay day. Now who wants to pay for our airfare?

TBB's Worst Ballpark Moments

As promised last week, to compliment the post discussing our greatest ballpark moments, we are bringing you our worst moments. Truthfully, this post will probably be infinitely more entertaining. Great moments are boring. Terrible moments are hilarious.

• The worst hot dog ever put into our mouths, unwashed children, and the infamous Mandanna.
• Short story: The Phillies and their wonderfully charming fanbase. The long story: kids threw ice cubes at us, one man screamed in our face, and our one brief moment of happiness where we made contact with the Phanatic was destroyed by a-holes. A-holes that promised to take our photo and only successfully photgraphed his furry green ass and Lisa clapping her hands and giving the stink eye. Basically Citizen's Bank Park was one giant worst moment. 
• Drunk three's company coupled with being showered by a spitting sunflower seed monster sitting behind us. 
• Nearly getting killed when a relief pitcher overthrew his warm up partner, sending the ball in the direction of our precious cabezas. 
• The waiter at McFadden's f*cked up Lisa's birthday dinner and by extension, making us so late that she missed the opportunity to meet TOWSNBN.
• The Ball Tip Steak Sandwich.
• The Invasion of the Twins Fans and Baby Jesus.
• The Screaming O's Fan.

This list should be a lot longer, but really the worst moments of all of our stadium tours involve our travels to the ballpark and our hotels, which really don't count as a ballpark moment. So, here we are. Enjoy re-reading all of our past adventures since we were clearly too lazy to summarize them for you. 

Auntiedukes Takes Citi Field (Phillies @ Mets 8-26-13)

On Monday night, we took Auntiedukes to her very first Mets game. You might be wondering why we would even bother taking a Yankees fan to their first Mets game or what the significance of this is. Well, back in 2011, we posted a hoax contest for April Fools' Day. The prize was that you'd attend Mets Opening Day with Lisa. All you had to do was send us an essay telling us why we should choose you as Lisa's guest. Unfortunately, among a few other entries, Auntiedukes didn't realize that it was a fake contest. We felt terrible. Not only did we manipulate Serena's family member, but she actually wrote something very sweet and endearing. How could we not take her now? This is what she'd sent us:

"Dear Traveling Baseball Babes
I would like to win this contest ... for several reasons.
1) I have never been to Citi Field (drove past it today!), nor Shea Stadium, come to think of it.
2) I have never been to an Opening Day Game, nor a Met game, come to think of it.
3) I’d like to understand why Lisa loves the Mets (and not the Yankees)
4) I miss hanging with Lisa. Haven't seen her since Paris.
5) And last, but not least, Eats on me!

Auntiedukes <3>

Flash forward to Monday. We finally (only 2 years later) got tickets to a Mets game for Auntiedukes to attend thanks to Lisa's friend Alfredo. We gave Auntiedukes a tour of Citi Field, including the Hall of Fame and bullpen. This was the matchup Auntiedukes would be enjoying that evening:

After watching Wheeler and Lee take their warmups sessions, we escorted Auntiedukes to the hot dog stand near our seats. Lisa topped her doggie with red onions, relish, sauerkraut, jalapenos, and mustard. Serena topped her doggie with red onions, spicy mustard, Choulula, and jalapenos. And Auntiedukes ate her doggie before we could record its toppings...or take a picture. Needless to say, she LOVED her hot dog (we recommended the hot dog as it is our favorite dish from Shea Stadium/Citi Field).

Check out the view Alfredo scored for us. Not bad, eh? Auntiedukes will never be able to see another Mets game again without comparing her seats to these. : )

 

Being that we were in such close proximity to the field, we were surrounded by our fair share of celebrities. Like Rex Ryan.

Well, at least we think it was Rex Ryan. We kept saying, "Rex, sit down," but not once did he acknowledge us. We even tried "Mr. Ryan" to no avail. We also enjoyed the view of a couple fondling each other and staring into each other's eyes like Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. We have no problems with sexual activity, but don't stand up and block home plate while doing it. The rest of us would like to watch the game. And also, there was nothing appealing about this man, but she was genuinely smitten with him. She stared at him like he was the cat's meow. It was baffling. We've thought about it. Long and hard. We reminisced about ex-lovers, boyfriends, and even men that's we've met along the way and we cane to the conclusion that we've never gazed upon a man in that manner. It was the type of gaze that is reserved for when George Clooney looks at you and your knees buckle. We assure you that this man was no George Clooney. He wasn't even George Clooney's less attractive younger brother (ya know...like in the Baldwin family).

Matt Harvey and TOWSNBN did make brief appearances in the dugout. Lisa pissed her pants.

 

There are a lot of these photos in existence. All from the same angle. All of the same thing. Most are of the back of his head. This is basically when note taking of the game stopped.

This was our first time getting to see D'Frenchman in action!

Serena had an amazing design for a custom t-shirt for Lisa's birthday, but she couldn't find anyone to help her design/create it. Imagine: D'Arnaud's face with a French moustache and a long cigarette. He's wearing a beret. The back of the shirt looks like his jersey, only instead of his last name, it says, "D'Frenchman." We might slap the French flag somewhere on there, but we haven't made any concrete decisions on that subject yet.

While we enjoyed ourselves immensely, the Mets struggled a bit. They simply couldn't scratch more than 1 run across against Lee and the Phillies' bullpen. It also began to rain. Behind us, we heard the following conversation during a conference on the mound between D'Arnaud and Pedro Feliciano:
"Oh, this should be interesting. How do you think this conversation's gonna go? We've got a French-Canadian/American and a Dominican."
and:
"Can we hurry this along? It's raining and I've got to home for a Seinfeld rerun."

Also, we heard someone in front of us refer to D'Arnaud as "D'Frenchman." Either we're becoming more famous or as usual, someone is stealing our shit. Just in case, you heard of our t-shirt design here first.

Despite these setbacks, Auntiedukes enjoyed herself! She said that Citi Field reminded her of the Baseball Hall of Fame, "but if only the Mets' playing could match the stadium." She mentioned the low energy of the fans during the game. We agreed. For a Phillies/Mets matchup, there was no pizazz. Granted, both teams have struggled this year and it WAS a Monday night, but we were still surprised. We'd never been to such a flat Phillies/Mets matchup.

After Auntiedukes left us for the subway, we snapped a few last minute photos of us with the stadium at night. In retrospect, we should've snapped photos of the Citi Field rookie, but we're a-holes.

 

PS - AJ Burnett finally dropped off Winkie and now this is the bullshit we have to deal with while blogging. So now we're combating ADD and cats.