Worst Opening Day Ever

By Steven Lienert
The Phanatic Magazine

In Philly, certain things aren't to be messed with.

Pretzels are supposed to be soft, cheesesteaks aren't supposed to be vegetarian and the Phillie Phanatic is supposed to be green.

Yet the Phillies managed to violate two of those three caveats on Monday.

The Phillies painted the Phanatic red for the second consecutive Opening Day, and it's bordering on sacrilege. Making matters worse, there is now such a thing as a vegetarian cheesesteak at Citizens Bank Park.

What the @#$% is going on?

The Phanatic is an icon -- like Tony Duke said to Apollo Creed before his first fight against the Italian Stallion, "The girls love ya; men, old people love ya."

That's how people feel about the Phanatic (the furry guy, not our magazine).

It was the last straw on what was really a bad day.

Why are they messing with something like that when they can work on fixing the freakin' gridlock that occurs anytime an event occurs in South Philly? After the game ended in typical Phillies fashion, it was IMPOSSIBLE to get anywhere.

That didn't take into account what happened before the game.

Penn-Dot shut down one of the two lanes on the inbound Schuylkill Expressway for road work Monday morning, causing a traffic jam from Belmont Avenue past the Turnpike. It took an hour to get from the 476 interchange to City Line Ave., normally a 10-minute jaunt at best.

But if Penn-Dot did that on Tuesday, a Phillies off day when 48,000 people weren't jamming the highways at mid-morning, why, they wouldn't be causing people problems, would they?

After that, it was wait, wait and more wait.

We got into the ballpark before noon, but only because I left my house at 10 a.m. I got in line for a cheesesteak at Rick's. Twenty-five minutes later, after coming to grips with the fact that there was indeed a vegetarian cheesesteak, I got my sandwich. Ugh.

Then I wanted to go see the new Pin Exchange at the ballpark -- a new place where patrons can buy and trade baseball pins.

Except none of the ushers knew what I was talking about. I got tossed around more than a new inmate in his first prison shower. And forget about buying an Opening Day pin -- the lines were so long in the store that ushers were being used to let only 10 people in at a time.

I got to my seat on the Scoreboard porch in time for all the festivities, but only because I decided against standing in another line. But that changed in the fourth inning, when I ran out of beer.

The line at Harry the K's beer vending stand was eight-deep across the bar, with three cashiers dispensing beer without stopping the taps. That was an inning-and-a-half of baseball I wasn't getting back (darn my alcoholism.)

Then Brett Myers gave up a homer to Edgar Renteria to tie the game -- extra innings. Ryan Madson entered in the 10th and promptly threw gasoline on the fire, giving up another homer to Renteria. Another long walk back to the car.

Little did I know that I would be stuck there for the next two hours. Outside the ballpark, it was complete gridlock in every direction you went. Packer Ave was gridlocked at the 95 on ramp. The on-ramps outside the Wachovia Center weren't moving in either direction.

Lights and lanes became insignificant -- chaos ruled. If you could fit your car in somewhere, it was suddenly a lane. Roads that were two way became one way without warning. There was nothing anyone could do but sit and wait.

Which gave me time to think -- why did the Phillies ever turn the Phanatic Red? That'd be like tuning in to listen to Harry Kalas only to get Chris Wheeler.

Some things just shouldn't be messed with....

Lienert vents his frustrations from time-to-time on Wednesdays. He can be reached at slienert@phanaticmag.com