Phillies Game with my Cousin

Owen in front of the infamous Mike Schmidt statue

The new Jumbo-tron



Our seats to the left field wall

 



Our seats to home plate



So, there I was, sitting alone Friday evening catching up on my Uno Attack addiction on facebook, when I recieved a message from my cousing Rita.  She, her husband Randy, and two of her children (Owen and Tori) were in town for a First Communion.  I knew they were coming to the area and was anticipating making arrangements for us to take a trip down to Berlin to see them, but I did not expect what was in the message.  Apparently, there was some sort of cross-up where my Uncle Mike didn't check with anyone about the particulars of the First Communion and bought 2 Phillies baseball tickets for someone to take his grandson, Owen, to a Phillies game.

Ryan Howard taking his stance right before he knocked
one out into the seats in right-center

Placido Palanco set up at third base immediately before
fielding a ground ball while evading shards from a
shattered bat that literally missed him by mere inches.
This play ended the game.



Because of this confusion, there were no available adults to make this happen for the young man, so the message from Rita stated, followed by a request for me to take him to the Phillies game.  Now anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a Phillies fan at all, don't mind them, but I bleed Cubs blue through and through.  That combined with the fact that I hadn't seen Rita since high school and had never met her husband or any of her children made things slightly complicated.  The tickets were, of course, complimentary and they were good seats. 



After long and thoughtful consideration of all factors, Colleen gave me some light through her amazing insight (definitely a bane for me at times).  She suggested that I look at it from Owen's point of view and how excited that the game would be for him, reminding me of my childhood and how exited I would have been given similar circumstances.  That pretty much solidified my decision to go ahead and take the young man to the baseball game...and I am very glad that I did.  I made the hour-long drive to Berlin, NJ, socialized with my cousin, Rita, and her family...meeting her husband and two children...and reassociating with her grandmother and grandfather.

Philly Phanatic with the Hot Dog Cannon..shooting hot dogs
into the crowd.  That was truly an impressive display!

His excitement from the moment we got in the car was visibly apparent.  His smile was from one ear to the other, he couldn't stop talking if he wanted to, and he just kept asking about the stadium and about the city itself.  We made very good time from Berlin to the stadium and found a parking spot relatively quickly.  We watched the players during their pregame warm-ups and were entertained by Philly Phanatic throughout the game. (I do think he's the greatest mascot in baseball.) Owen was compltetely blown away by the whole majesty of it all...the new Jumbotron screen, the Liberty Bell out in right-center, and the food.

We both had a very good time.  The Phillies won, which was cool because it was his first professional sports game of any kind he'd ever been to (me, as a Cubs fan very rarely gets to see such a phenomenon). But his child-like excitement during the entire thing was very rejuvenating and rewarding to me in many ways.  Most of all, I love getting to meet "new" family and rekindle positive relations with "old" family that was either lost through bad karma or unfortunate circumstances, or that I'd never had before.  It makes me very happy to have those positive interactions with them as we all seem to grow...and, probably most importantly, have grown over the years

And, the best part of it all?  The Phillies won!