Citizens Bank Park is on Pattison Ave, right near Lincoln Financial Field (nickname is The Link) where the Eagles play. In the lower right you can see the Delaware River – the one George Washington crossed while standing up in a rowboat (it happened south of here).
Construction begins 2002
Under construction in 2003
Opening Day, 2004. View from Suite 79
Nice ballpark, lots of Philly flavor, like cheesesteak vendors
Dead center field is only 401’
View from the right field foul pole.
Jim Thome at bat.
The Liberty Bell lights up in red, white, and blue when there’s a Phillies home run. Jim Thome complied so I could get a shot.
Thome rounding the bases. The Jumbotron shot is from 3rd base (you can see him jogging between 2nd and 3rd. The scoreboard is big…but not as huge as the ones in Cleveland or Houston.
They have an excellent out-of-town scoreboard in right field.
This was taken by a Villanova student at a Phillies-Cards game on May 4, 2004. I wore this jacket during the 2008 World Series against the Rays and again duiring the 2009 World Series against the Yankees.
We got nosebleed seats in 2013.
Kara, Caitlin and I took a road trip to a Red Sox-Phillies game in 2013.
Citizen’s Bank Park is nothing like the Vet was. The slogan for 2004 was “real grass, real fun” and it is. It’s a nice hitter’s park. Seats are comfortable, sight lines are very good. Access to the upper levels is not as convenient as in other big new parks like Camden Yards, Pac Bell, and the Ballpark at Arlington. Actually it’s not that bad, but you have to walk up a lot of stairs. Concourses are nice and wide, there are lots of special Philly-themed restaurants and concessions. Lots of parking next door and across the street, and there will be more when they finish clearing the rubble from the imploded Vet next door. The seats in deep center are only $10.
Inaugural game: April 12, 2004. In 2003 and 2004 I was doing double-duty programming Magic 106.7 in Boston and Mix 95.7 in Philadelphia. This involved flying to Philly for 2 or 3 days a week. Very inefficient. Whether I was in Boston or Philadelphia every phone call or fire to be put out was at the other location. But I had a great time doing it.
April 12th was a Philly day and I went to the Inaugural Opening Day with Rick Feinblatt, Don Braun and Greg Gross from the Greater Media Philadelphia group. Our AM station, WPEN, carried the Phils games so we had a suite and I got a genuine Phillies warmup jacket. It was a very rainy day and they probably shouldn’t have played, but it was the Inaugural Game and myriad festivities were planned. Our luxury suite seats were on the 3rd level on the 3rd base side. Suite 79. Cincinnati Reds v. Phillies. The first home run was hit by the Phils’ Bobby Abreu in the bottom of the first. A long fly into the right field bleachers. The new light-up Liberty Bell came alive. The Phillies lost, 4-1. 41,626 Philly phanatics were on hand.
Second game: May 4th, 2004. Cardinals v. Phillies. Got a $40 box seat from a guy outside the ticket window who had an extra. I didn’t have $40 in cash so he said “just give it to me when you get inside.” So I did. That would never happen in Boston. The $40 box seat was a couple of rows behind the Phillies’ dugout. Great view. Much better than the $79 suite on Opening Day.
In the 5th inning the Phillies hit back-to-back-to-back home runs (Bobby Abreu, Jim Thome, and Pat Burrill) – something I had never seen before. All three came off Chris Carpenter who was the winning pitcher anyway as the Phils lost to the Cards, 6-5. Noteworthy: two weeks later on May 18th the same three Phillies (the order was Burrill, Abreu and Thome this time) did it again against the Dodgers. Wilson Alvarez , who no-hit the Orioles in 1991, was the victim as the Phillies won, 8-7.
In all the games I’ve been to I’ve only seen back-to-back-to-back topped once – on April 22, 2007 when Yankees starter Chase Wright got chased off the bump after giving up back-to-back-to-back-to-back bombs (that’s 4 in a row if you lost count of backs) by Manny Ramirez, JD Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek.
Third game: Thursday, May 20, 2004: I went again a couple of weeks after that. I got out of work at Mix 95.7 late and it was the 3rd inning when I got there. A scalper on the sidewalk asked if I needed a ticket and I said sure, how much? He said, “Just face value – $40.” I told him I thought that was a little high for the 3rd inning and started to walk toward the ticket window. With each step I took he dropped the price by $5. He was down to $15 when I got to the window and the woman there said I could get a $10 ticket and sit anywhere I wanted. So I did that. I got a $10 seat in the 3rd deck right down the right field foul line. Dodgers v. Phillies. Future Red Sox player and manager Alex Cora played 2b for the Dodgers. Brett Myers threw a complete-game shutout. The seat was roomier and more comfortable than a $98 upper box seat at Fenway.
Fourth game: Thursday, May 30, 2013. Nine years later Kara, Caitlin and I took a road trip to see the Red Sox play away in Philadelphia. The PhiIlies had been to the World Series twice with one championship since my last visit and tickets were much tougher to get. We had their deck nosebleed seats but it was still a fun game in a great ballpark. 40,000 fans were on hand.
I wanted to give the girls a real feel for Philly so we got cheesesteaks and Yueng Lings. Jonny Gomes and Big Papi both homered. Jacoby Ellsbury stole five bases as Boston won, 9-2. The winning pitcher for the Red Sox was Franklin Morales, whom I remember from the 2007 World Series. He was a reliever for the Rockies and pitched in two games. In game 1 he gave up 7 runs in the 5th inning and in game 3 he gave up 6 runs in the 3rd. Truly a horrible performance…and when the Red Sox acquired him for cash from the Rockies four-and-a-half years later I was stupefied. But, despite me being stupefied by the Morales signing, he was the winning pitcher that night, going a full five innings and giving up only 2 runs on four hits.
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