A few highlights of my experience yesterday, sitting in comped seats in Philadelphia Phillies exclusive "Hall Of Fame Club" seats.
1) The seats are only accessed by entering the Hall of Fame Club, which is guarded by lots of overly friendly ushers checking your tickets. You pass through them, and you're in a special inside area of the park.
2) This indoor area has lounge seats, TV monitors (which showed a Flyers game in progress), expanded souvenir shops, lots of memorabilia displays, and fully stocked bars (no idea what a shot of Absolut goes for, as I was nursing a hangover). In short, everything someone with no interest in the game itself could ever want. But at least there were no lines for food, and the food looked better than usual.
3) This indoor area was decorated just like a movie theater lobby... not good.
4) The seats themselves were mezzanine level, which disappointed me at first, cause I'm used to sitting field level left field bleachers. I grew up loving the Yankees left field bleachers, and part of me just finds the bleachers to be the perfect spot to watch a game. San Francisco's right-center bleachers are maybe the best spot I've ever found.
5) That said, the seats had the bonus feature of being cushioned, which is sweet, and the usher toweled off each seat for us, which you'll appreciate if you've ever been to a public event in Philadelphia.
6) The view of the game was dead perfect. Wowsers. A little further away, but a perfect view of everything. Awesomeawesomeawesome. The view of the city, however, is horrible- because there's a circa 1960 Holiday Inn that sits in center field. I've been told that in the videogame version of Philadelphia's Ballpark, they've edited it out. This prompted the suggestion by a fellow fan that they convince the hotel to hang a tarp over the place during day games. I'm in favor of the idea.
7) Ryan Madsen pitched 6 scoreless innings for the Phils, and looked great doing it. Found out later that he made the rotation. Bravo. Found out later still that Philly had traded away swingman Robinson Tejeda. Booooooooo. This team needs pitching, and I like the cut of Tejeda's jib.
8) One last note on the Hall of Fame Club- the bathrooms are INCREDIBLE. Immaculately clean, and relatively empty (3-4 other patrons each time (2) I was in there). But the real thing is this- the tile has a grass pattern in it. Sounds horrible, right? It's not. It really felt like you were just relaxin in the backyard, having stepped away from the grill a moment to recycle some high life. Fantastic. As one elderly fan commented, "They're pretty similar to the old bathrooms, only they've got hot water and no one's pissin' in the trash cans." This man should be doing color for Fox broadcasts.
9) From the behavior of Philly's female fans, Chase Utley is either faithfully married, gay, or soon to become a member of the Ron Mexico All-Stars.
10) Ryan Howard looked good all game, and was the only regular to go the full 9. I made the comment in the first inning that I thought this would be a growing pains year for Howard, who last year looked to be worse than Trot Nixon at hitting lefties, and worse than a uniformed garbage can in the field. Of course, not only did he make a couple decent plays with the glove, but in the 8th, faced a lefty whose name escapes me, and MURDERED the ball. A 450-foot bomb to dead center. By far the longest homer I've seen in Philly.
1) The seats are only accessed by entering the Hall of Fame Club, which is guarded by lots of overly friendly ushers checking your tickets. You pass through them, and you're in a special inside area of the park.
2) This indoor area has lounge seats, TV monitors (which showed a Flyers game in progress), expanded souvenir shops, lots of memorabilia displays, and fully stocked bars (no idea what a shot of Absolut goes for, as I was nursing a hangover). In short, everything someone with no interest in the game itself could ever want. But at least there were no lines for food, and the food looked better than usual.
3) This indoor area was decorated just like a movie theater lobby... not good.
4) The seats themselves were mezzanine level, which disappointed me at first, cause I'm used to sitting field level left field bleachers. I grew up loving the Yankees left field bleachers, and part of me just finds the bleachers to be the perfect spot to watch a game. San Francisco's right-center bleachers are maybe the best spot I've ever found.
5) That said, the seats had the bonus feature of being cushioned, which is sweet, and the usher toweled off each seat for us, which you'll appreciate if you've ever been to a public event in Philadelphia.
6) The view of the game was dead perfect. Wowsers. A little further away, but a perfect view of everything. Awesomeawesomeawesome. The view of the city, however, is horrible- because there's a circa 1960 Holiday Inn that sits in center field. I've been told that in the videogame version of Philadelphia's Ballpark, they've edited it out. This prompted the suggestion by a fellow fan that they convince the hotel to hang a tarp over the place during day games. I'm in favor of the idea.
7) Ryan Madsen pitched 6 scoreless innings for the Phils, and looked great doing it. Found out later that he made the rotation. Bravo. Found out later still that Philly had traded away swingman Robinson Tejeda. Booooooooo. This team needs pitching, and I like the cut of Tejeda's jib.
8) One last note on the Hall of Fame Club- the bathrooms are INCREDIBLE. Immaculately clean, and relatively empty (3-4 other patrons each time (2) I was in there). But the real thing is this- the tile has a grass pattern in it. Sounds horrible, right? It's not. It really felt like you were just relaxin in the backyard, having stepped away from the grill a moment to recycle some high life. Fantastic. As one elderly fan commented, "They're pretty similar to the old bathrooms, only they've got hot water and no one's pissin' in the trash cans." This man should be doing color for Fox broadcasts.
9) From the behavior of Philly's female fans, Chase Utley is either faithfully married, gay, or soon to become a member of the Ron Mexico All-Stars.
10) Ryan Howard looked good all game, and was the only regular to go the full 9. I made the comment in the first inning that I thought this would be a growing pains year for Howard, who last year looked to be worse than Trot Nixon at hitting lefties, and worse than a uniformed garbage can in the field. Of course, not only did he make a couple decent plays with the glove, but in the 8th, faced a lefty whose name escapes me, and MURDERED the ball. A 450-foot bomb to dead center. By far the longest homer I've seen in Philly.
posted by Alex at
2:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home