5/10/2011 PHILLIES VS FLORIDA MARLINS @ SUN LIFE STADIUM (MIAMI, FL)

L 1-2

with Colin Flory

Now and then, its healthy in life to do something totally insane. After the previous week, in which I finally sold my old house and I signed my divorce papers, I felt a little like I had nothing to lose. What's more dangerous than the man who can't be bought? And so, I did the logically insane thing: I bought plane tickets to Miami for the day to see the vaunted pitching match up of Roy Halladay of your Fightins' and Josh Johnson of the Marlins. My first task was to find someone as insane as me, willing to drop everything to fly to a faraway city to watch baseball. After running through a five or six people, my old friend Colin stepped up and took the other tickets. It was on!

I prepared by sleeping extra late on Monday, not sleeping during the night, and when we got to the airport, consuming some mimosas and making my coffee irish (the nice bartender looked the other way, as she said she wasn't allowed to mix dunkin donuts coffee with whiskey).After arriving in hot hot Miami, we ate some absolutly orgasmic cuban sandwiches, which I don't think I've ever tried before. Quickly, I noticed that seemingly just about everyone seemed to be tanned, attractive, in shape, and beach ready. Thus, I kept my shirt on while on South Beach rather than fully expose my flabby, pale body to the locals. Wow, they could totally tell I wasn't from there, the glowing yankee doodle that I am.

We drank whiskey on the rocks, beers, and chilled out with Colin's goth brother in law for a few hours, before heading over to the stadium. Showing up way early, we were greated by the what would turn out throughout the evening to be a half-assed operation by the Florida Marlins club. They only had one entrance to the ballpark, and let us sit for a half hour before letting us enter. Of the people who had shown up an hour and a half early, 3 of 4 were Phillies fans. The Marlins fans, which were probably a little more than half of the total crowd, mostly showed up right at game time, or a few innings in. Maybe because they are ho-hum about their team? We got a few free samples of lipton before taking a picture inside a booth. Woo!

Once allowed to enter, one of the first things we got were booze smoothies. (Okay, Florida has more liberal alcohol laws than Pennsylvania. I have a hard time thinking of a state that has more draconian laws than the Key State though for booze hounds.) From there, we wandered over to our seats at the "Fish Tank", in right field which, since a lot less people come, we sat wherever the fuck we wanted. The only place I saw ushers in the whole stadium was right behind home plate. (I do remember a time when the Phillies were like that, before they exploded in popularity in the last few years) I can think of only a few times I've sat that close, getting to see the Phillies' batting practice. 

And who was about 10 feet away from us? Joe Blanton, the winner of Monday's game! Colin shouted at him, "Hey Joe! Nice game last night!" And Joe Blanton yelled back, "Thanks, man!" Ryan "Mad-dog" Madsen threw Colin a ball, and rookie Michael Stutes and Scott Mathieson came over and chatted with some of the fans, particularly the kids. Unfortunately, I saw fucking cheerleaders on the Marlins! It turns out they are one of the few Major League Baseball clubs that have cheerleaders, the Marlin Mermaids. The Mermaids tossed me a t-shirt, which I gave to a kid since I didn't really see a time when I'd be sporting a Marlins t-shirt. Also, if you are seeking a ball from a baseball player, the best way to get it is by shouting positive things at 'em, not telling them how much they suck if they don't throw the ball to you immediately. God, kids are obnoxious.

We made friends with our neighbors, a bunch of Cuban-American Marlins fans. They switched between English and Spanish regularly ethusastically cheering for Leftfielder Emilio Bonifacio, "Emillio!" One of them complained, "Damn Phillies fans! Usually there's no lines, but this series I've actually had to wait in line for beer! There's too many of you!" Haha. I invited them to come to a Phillies game, since we hardly see Marlins or Nats fans, but plenty of Mets and Braves peoples. Ahead of us were two Phillies fans ladies, whom flirted with us during the game. Seemed that neither was from Philly, but were either dating a Philly native or who's parents were from the North, and therefore hated all Florida teams. Funny. I guess that signifies how much of a transplant state Florida is, having really been filled with immigrants from the North and from Latin America in the last 60 years.

By the lay-out of the stadium, it makes a little more sense why it always looks like there's no one there on TV. Because its really primarely a football stadium for the Dolphins, they block off the higher levels, making homeruns fly into empty seats. The lower levels have plenty of empty seats, just they are somewhat filled by the 3rd Inning. Still, while you heard plenty of pro-phillies chants, when the Marlins pulled ahead in the 9th, Marlins fans seemed to finally wake up and cheered on their ace.

So the game itself was a tight-rope duel between young ace Josh Johnson, and grisly veteran and part machine Roy Halladay. The Phillies could of won the game, but blew their chances, as they twice loaded the bases (one with no outs) and didn't score at all, getting their sole run off of a dinger by Ryan Howard in the 1st Inning. It continued that way throughout the game, until a dropped ball by Jimmy Rollins and a single by the Marlins put the fish ahead in the 8th Inning. The Phillies failed to score, despite a slightly better game by Halliday over Johnson. 

Something I learned though, is while Miami is most definately not a baseball town, they are very excited about their Heat and Lebron James, DeWayne Wade, and Chris Both, in a way that Phillies fans are psyched on their starting rotation. "Let's go Heat!" rang throughout the stadium periodically, and our Cubano friends told us that if the Heat had been on that night, the Phillies fans would of had the whole stadium to themselves. Pretty fascinating, as the Sixers are definitely number 4 in Philadelphians hearts (probably number 3 on my list.)

As cool as flying in for the day, the trip back kind of sucked from there on out. First, the Marlins seemed to have no idea how to handle traffic, and it took us nearly an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot (still only one way to leave for all few thousand of us.) Second, in a quest to find the airport bar at our exiting airport in Fort Lauderdale, we discovered that Ft. L's gotta be the suckiest place on Earth. No airport bar! No service after 9pm! Ahhh! Though we did amuse ourselves with this tale of a no-hitter on LSD...

I slept a fucking lot when we arrived back in our homeland of Philadelphia, breaking only for homebrew beer.

Well, I'm 1-6. Fuck man. That means the Phillies are going to lose at least 20 more games, since I've going to at least that many more. 

The magazine on the plane. "Don't worry, if we plummel into the ocean, at least these sunglasses will signify where your corpse is!"

Woh! Its warm out.

Colin eating awesome cuban sandwiches

*Burp!*

Fucking palm trees! Holy crap!

Walking around South Beach area. Fucking pretty people everywhere! Bah!

Though I initially had my suspicions, this was not, in fact, a strip club.

Trying to figure out how to operate the camera

No...

Okay, lets hand the camera to a complete stranger Marlins fan, who somehow turns the camera on black and white mode, which I don't notice till nearly when the game was over.

Cheese!

Most of the early birds were Fightins' fans.

That's fucking Joe Blanton and Ryan Madsen!

How many names must a stadium receive, before it can be one of its own?

Colin with the ball that Madsen tossed him.

Free shit on the internet

Our view most of the game. fucking close!

"Emillio!"

Damnit

Well, at least I was able to steal this cupholder from Dolphins Stadium

Game Stats:

PHI

Pitching:

Starter: RHP Roy Halladay (115 Pitches, 78 Strikes, 8 Innings, 5 Hits, 2 Runs, 1 ER, 2 Walks, 9 Strikeouts, 1 Wild Pitch, 2.05 ERA) L (5-2)

Lineup:

1. SS Jimmy Rollins (5 At-bats, 1 Hit, 4 Left on base, .286 AVG, 1 Error)

2. CF Shane Victorino (5 At-bats, 1 Hit, 2 Left on base, .289 AVG)

3. 3B Placido Polanco (4 At-bats, 1 Strikeout, 2 Left on base, .353 AVG)

4. 1B Ryan Howard (4 At-bats, 1 Run, 1 Hit, 1 RBI, 1 HR (8), 2 Strikeouts, 2 Left on base, .274 AVG)

5. LF Raul Ibanez (4 At-bats, 2 Hits, 1 Double (6), .231 AVG)

6. RF Ben Francisco (2 At-bats, 1 Hit, 1 Walk, .237 AVG)

7. 2B Pete Orr (2 At-bats, 1 Walk, 4 Left on base, .234 AVG)

--- PH --- 2B Wilson Valdez (1 At-bat, 1 Strikeout, .244 AVG)

8. C Dane Sardinha (2 At-bats, 1 Walk, 1 Strikeout, 3 Left on base, .182 AVG)

--- PH Ross Gload (1 At-bat, 1 Strikeout, .348 AVG)

9. SP Roy Halladay (3 At-bats, 3 Strikeouts, .053 AVG)

--- PH John Mayberry Jr. (1 Walk, .308 AVG)

FLA
Pitching:

Starter: RHP Josh Johnson (114 Pitches, 72 Strikes, 7 Innings, 6 Hits, 1 Run, 1 ER, 3 Walks, 7 Strikeouts, 1 HR, 1.63 ERA) 

Relief: LHP Michael Dunn (16 Pitches, 11 Strikes, 1 Inning, 1 Strikeout, 1.26 ERA) W (3-2)

Closer: RHP Leo Nunez (16 Pitches, 11 Strikes, 1 Inning, 1 Walk, 1 Strikeout, 2.55 ERA) S (12)

Lineup:

1. CF Chris Coghlan (4 At-bats, 2 Hits, 1 RBI, 1 Double (10), 1 Strikeout, .274 AVG)

2. LF Emilio Bonifacio (3 At-bats, 1 Hit, 1 RBI, 1 Left on base, .301 AVG, 1 Caught Stealing)

3. SS Hanley Ramirez (3 At-bats, 1 Hit, 1 Walk, 2 Strikeouts, 1 Left on base, .208 AVG, 1 Stolen Base)

4. 1B Gaby Sanchez (4 At-bats, 1 Strikeout, 4 Left on base, .331 AVG)

5. 3B Greg Dobbs (3 At-bats, 1 Hit, 1 Strikeout, .338 AVG)

6. RF Mike Stanton (3 At-bats, 2 Strikeouts, 1 Left on base, .229 AVG)

7. C John Buck (3 At-bats, 1 Strikeout, 1 Left on base, .230 AVG)

8. 2B Omar Infante (3 At-bats, 1 Run, .239 AVG)

9. SP Josh Johnson (1 At-bat, 1 Run, 1 Walk, 1 Strikeout, .167 AVG)
--- Relief Pitcher (Dunn)

--- PH Osvaldo Martinez (1 At-bat, 1 Left on base, .200 AVG)

--- Relief Pitcher (Nunez)

James's 2011 Stats

Starting Pitchers:

RHP Roy Halladay 1

RHP Roy Oswalt 1

LHP Cole Hamels 2

LHP Ryan Edell (AA) 1

RHP Joe Blanton 1

RHP Eddie Bonine (AAA) 1

Total Games: 7

Minor League: 0-2

Phillies: 1-4

Overall: 1-6