My First Game

When I was a little girl growing up in Philadelphia my father used to bring my mom, my sister and I to Phillies games from time to time. I remember walking up to the Vet the first time, holding his hand, and looking up, up and still up some more. I was bumping into all the people in the crowd and tripping over my own feet because I couldn't get over how big the stadium was. I thought it would swallow us whole.

We went inside and I don't know how much of the game I really watched. I was more interested in the people sitting around us. All those new faces, people yelling and cheering, eating and drinking, and generally just enjoying the game. Fascinating. Just the size of the crowd and all the noise was enough entertainment for me.

And then I saw him! No, not any baseball player, manager or famous person in the crowd. It was the Phillie Phanatic!! He was running around, riding his ATV, shaking his big, silly belly. Taunting the crowd and the away players and everybody was laughing. I could not get enough of him. To this day, he is my all time favorite sports mascot and I try to catch a game there every few years so I can see my beloved Phanatic.

When the game was over, I wanted to sit in the stands until the whole park was empty, a habit I hold till this day. There is something special about an empty ball park just after a game. It's over for the day, empty beer cups and peanut shells littered about. Maybe the boys won, maybe they lost. A look around at all the empty seats and I could imagine the generations of fans who have come to watch year after year, hoping for the ultimate prize, often never to be rewarded but still part of something bigger than themselves, the shared agony and joy of a common experience and the players who became part of your extended family.

This game is bittersweet, hopeful and melancholy, much like life itself. Each spring hope is reborn. No matter the outcome last year - we all know without a doubt - this will be THE year! Gradually spring warms to summer. The summer rolls on with its hazy days, each one much like the last until the first barely perceptible chill creeps into the air. All eyes are on the penant races plowing ahead full bore but no one is watching the summer slowly dying. When those all too few days of Indian summer warm the fans one last time, I always know another season and another summer of my life are drawing to an end. By those chilly and electric nights of October, the only traces of summer left are those Boys of Summer battling it out for the final prize.

When we left the Vet after the first game, my father turned to me and asked me how I liked baseball. I told him I loved it! Then he asked me if I knew who won. I had no idea. Honestly not a clue. But I already felt part of a tradition. I know now that this experience along with others I later had would someday be part of my own love of the game.

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