The Phillies

Tonight I went to my very first Major League Baseball game. In fact, this was the first professional sporting event I have ever been to. As you can see from the umbrellas in the photo to the right, it was raining at Citizens Bank Stadium this evening when we went to see the Philadelphia Phillies play the Florida Marlins. Had the tickets not been purchased last week, I am guessing that we would have decided to pass on going to the ball game. However, our twenty-dollar tickets to the game had already been purchased, so we decided that we might as well go.

We did have some problems getting to the stadium. Despite the fact that the stadium was relatively close to our hotel, we missed the first half of the game because it took a very long time for the cab to pick us up from the hotel! Once we got there, we all got some ballpark food for dinner. Three of the five of us, my manager and the employee of our subcontractor who was here excluded, went to our seats on the pavilion deck where we proceeded to be rained on while eating our food. We eventually decided to stand below the deck watching the game among the crowd who had apparently decided to stand in a dry region of the ballpark rather than becoming soaked from the rain.

It was a lot of fun watching the game. I would really like an opportunity to go to another major league sporting event in the future. Since we are in Philadelphia, and one of the coworkers I was with was originally from the Philly area, we were cheering for the Phillies. Unfortunately they lost to the Marlins tonight. It was then that my manager, who used to live in Florida, told us that he had just decided then to cheer for Florida.

We were able to get a cab ride back to the hotel relatively easily, although I think the driver overcharged us as the cost was about ten dollars more than it cost to get to the stadium. After hearing our destination, he just gave us the price for the ride; he didn't start the meter. At least the cost of the ride can be put on the expense report.