So That’s What That’s Like (Part I)

By Steven Lienert

The Phanatic Magazine

Twenty hours, 23 minutes.

That’s how much sleep I had from when I woke up on Saturday, Oct. 25th until I went to sleep early in the morning on Saturday, Nov. 1st.

I didn’t move here at a young age or switch my allegiances from one franchise to another at some point in my life. I was conceived in Philadelphia and my chosen profession is evidence of my passion for my teams.

I was born at Nazareth Hospital off Roosevelt Blvd. in Northeast Philly and I grew up at ‘D’ and Tioga in Kensington before moving to Port Richmond in second grade.

I graduated from Central High and attended Temple for a while before transferring out of state. But I returned home because, well, this is home.

That’s why I chose to get so little sleep last week. Being sure I was there for every moment of the Phillies’ World Championship was more than worth the delirium that followed.

Over the course of the next few days, I’m going to take you on a wild sports adventure. It involves the biggest lie I’ve ever got caught telling, catching pneumonia, kissing complete strangers and a city uniting under one cause like I’ve never experienced before in my life.

This is a story about the last week of a 28-year odyssey.

Saturday, October 25th

I woke up around 9:30 a.m. excited for the day ahead. My brother Danny has Flyers season tickets and he an extra for me, so I was heading down to the Wachovia Center to watch the back end of a home-and-home series between the Flyers and Devils.

I hate the Devils. I hold them in almost the same esteem as I hold the Cowboys, which means I root for their plane to crash. People say hate is too strong a word. I say we need a word stronger than hate for I how I feel about certain teams. But I digress.

Since I was going to be down at the complex anyhow, I thought I would try to score a ticket to Game 3 of the World Series. I knew once I was down there and felt the excitement surrounding the Phillies, I’d have to be in the ballpark.

I hopped on craigslist and offered a two pairs of Eagles tickets to any of the remaining home games for one World Series ticket to either Game 3 or Game 5. As the time for me to leave for the Flyers game drew near, I grew more desperate. I couldn’t just go to the Flyers game and then leave just as Phils fans were arriving. That would just outright suck.

After a bunch of haggling, a guy named John Love (no lie) came to my rescue. He was near my house, had an extra ticket and, like the good soul that he is, he wanted to give the extra to a Phillies fan that deserved it.

In short, it was a match made in heaven. I drove to his house through the pouring rain and picked up the ticket on the promise that I would deliver the Eagles tickets at a later time. He trusted me. I completely plan on honoring that trust.

When it rains in Philly, people forget how to drive. Therefore, I was stuck in idiot traffic longer than I would have hoped. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. I was there for everything South Philly had to offer from that moment on.

I had just gotten in the Wachovia Center when weird stuff started happening. We were in the last row of the arena, sitting behind two twenty-something Flyers fans that had a little too much of the “creature” this early in the day.

They started a fight with an older gentlemen sitting in front of them because when they got a ‘Let’s Go Flyers’ chant going, he didn’t cheer loud enough. All three of the people involved were Flyers fans, but by the sheer number of F-bombs being tossed around, you’d think New Jersey had invaded Philadelphia.

The funny part was when another fan pointed out the number of little kids within earshot and the two younger Flyers fans apologized before offering to kick the older dude’s “f-in ass” in the concourse during intermission.

Something happened during intermission – none of those guys ever made it back to their seats.

Once the entertainment from that died down, a hockey game broke out. Multiple fights (on and off the ice), a fierce rivalry and a tie game made for some great drama. The game went to overtime when another strange happening took place. Somebody threw a stink bomb on the ice, and it landed right in front of the Devils’ bench.

The players tried waving towels in an attempt to get rid of the smell, but since the Flyers gave out white rally towels to all fans entering the building, it looked like the Devils had joined the fans in rooting for the Flyers.

This also made me wonder if they even have stink bombs in Finland. Flyers defenseman Ossi Vannanen, who’s Finnish, picked up the stink bomb and started skating over to the bench with it before realizing what it was. He then put the stink bomb on his stick and slid it the length of the ice to waiting Flyers personnel. It had a trail of smoke that invoked visions of the old FoxTrax glowing puck and the psychedelic trail that followed it around the ice.

By the way, Jeff Carter scored less than a minute later to give the Flyers a home-and-home sweep of the Devils. Sweet.

We stumbled out of the Wachovia Center to harder, steadier rain. My brother, cousin and I sat in my car asking passersby if they had an extra to the World Series for my cousin. After getting made fun of repeatedly for almost an hour, we decided that hitting up a scalper was the way to go.

We talked him out of a single for $250 – not bad considering they were going for $500 earlier in the day. We both got in, got some more beers and then…then we waited two-and-a-half hours for the game to start.

On a side note, does anybody realize how many beers a baseball fan can consume over a two-and-a-half hour rain delay? Just sayin’.

However, that did make me lose my inhibitions a bit and I ended up talking with a great group of Phillies fans to pass the time. I also got to heckle an idiot New York fan that wore his Mets hat to a Phillies World Series game.

Really buddy?

I mean, you know we hate Met fans, right? The only thing worse than being a Mets fan is being a Met.

(Quick joke: What’s the difference between a Phillies hot dog and a Mets hot dog? You can get a Phillies hot dog in October.)

The game eventually started, but this is where my memory gets hazy…lotsa Sierra Nevada went down the ol’ gullet before last call in the bottom of the fourth inning.. I watched a few innings with the venerable Mr. Love and his son Jordan, who I credit with getting the ‘Eva’ chant going in Evan Longoria’s first at-bat.

I left those guys around the third inning, found my cousin and did the standing room thing until the end of the game. We were standing very close to the left-field exit when Carlos Ruiz’s nubber up the third base line scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. It was 1:47 a.m. Thanks a lot, Major League Baseball.

We bolted for the parking lot, got in the car and began the long drive home. I didn’t walk through the door until 3:30 and didn’t get to sleep until 4:45-ish. I had to get up at 7:00 to be down the NovaCare Complex at 8:30. The Eagles had a big game against the Falcons coming up and I had a ticket to Game 4 of the World Series later that night.

(To be continued tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat channel).

Leave a comment for Lienert or email him directly at slienert39@gmail.com.