This is the story of the next two weeks of my life; two weeks that just happen to contain the World Series. Any one who looks at my page or my pictures knows that I am a rabid Phillies fan. It may seem a little strange, considering I don't play sports and never have. My love of baseball started when my dad took me and my brother to games when we were kids, and it continued throughout his lifetime and beyond. You might say it is my thread back to my father, but that story is another blog that I have yet to write. Maybe this winter when I'm missing baseball...
Here we are at Vet Stadium summer of 1990. (You can see why I squint when I smile LOL)
I do enjoy watching the game-it's always been my favorite sport. I think the thing I like the most is the fact that everyone plays both offense and defense-of course growing up in a National League city I never knew any other way!
So-forward to the present day. My friend Pat is my new partner in Phillies fandom-we've been going to the games together for several years now, she even joined Mark and I at spring training one year-what a blast!
We also had some fun on South Beach that year
Huh-what just happened-I think this morphed into a photoblog-sorry-that was not the intention.
Ok-so Pat now has a 16 game season ticket plan, and even though I can't go to all the games with her because as you know I'm on the road a lot, we make it to a good number of games during the season. One of the perks that come with season ticket ownership is the opportunity to purchase postseason tickets. Now of course anyone who follows baseball knows that before last year, our Phils had not been in the postseason since 1993 (when they went to the World Series and lost-but what a ride!), so the opportunity for postseason tickets didn't mean much.
This year, however, our Phils won 92 games in the regular season AND the division, giving them home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Pat and I attended two of the games in that series; as a season ticket holder she was entitled to one game. The other game was a gift-I entered in the Phillies ticket lottery and was lucky enough to get the opportunity to purchase tickets for an additional game.
Pat and I also attended game one of the NLCS against the Dodgers-we were holding tickets to the 6th game,
but that one turned out to be unnecessary, as the Phils clinched the pennant in five games.
OK-so fast forward to the World Series-next week to be exact. The American League has home field advantage, so the first two will be played in the American league city, then three at CPB, then the last two back in the AL city. As a season ticket holder Pat was entitled to buy two tickets to Monday's game 5, however, to my chagrin I knew in advance that I would not be going! I'm scheduled to teach and run a class out in Minneapolis for the entire two weeks, so there's no way I could be here for Monday's game-I might as well try to walk on the moon! Knowing this, I was resigned to finding a congenial sports bar and rooting my Phils on from a time zone away.
Well-at this point in the story my luck changed dramatically. On Wednesday morning at 8:50 AM I recieved an email from the Phillies informing me that my entry in the lottery was again a winner, and at 9 AM I could log in and buy three tickets to the WORLD SERIES!!!! Of course I bought the tickets; even though I thought there was no way I could attend, the tickets would be worth a bundle and would allow me to assuage my depression with a little cold hard cash.
The lottery opportunity was a take it or leave it proposition with no choice about the game or seat selection, so I had no idea what I would get. When I saw that my tickets were for Sunday's game, game 4 of the series, I immediately began scheming on how I might get back for the game. But when I found out that all the games were scheduled for prime time at 8 PM, my heart fell again-the way the planes shook out, there was no way I could get back in time to teach on Monday morning.
This is when Pat came to my rescue (not the first or last time that she made me feel proud and lucky to be her BFF-30 plus years of friendship and the girl still loves me-what can I say?). She is a whiz on Craigslist and decided to see if anyone with Saturday night tickets might be looking to trade for Sunday-thinking that many other people were also holding tickets for a game they couldn't attend. Luckily, she found someone willing to trade, so the upshot is that we will be attending Saturday night's game!
That lovely third ticket should pay for my airfare home-I'm not looking to make a bundle, just to break even on the deal. So I'm flying home Friday night, seeing the game Saturday night, and flying back on Sunday in time to catch Sunday night's game on TV back in Minnesota!!!!
So that's the story and I'm sticking to it LOL Thanks Pat for all your help; I couldn't have done this without you. oxoxoxoxo
I love an adventure, and this is another one for the books.
GO PHILLIES!!!!
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