New day, new game with a good night sleep and only 2 hours of driving ahead of us. Took the I 95 south to UPenn in Philly. Highly recommend the Inn at the Penn managed by Hilton. Dave attempted a run to the laundromat, fruitless as it is now an arcade yahoo and google need to update I guess, as I posted recap from Toronto. We took the MFL to City Hall and BSL down to Sports Complex.
Game
Citizens Bank Park is one of the nicer parks we’ve been too on this trip but the location of sports parks and parking lots takes a lot away from the overall appeal of the park. Having not eaten anything all day, we paid an immediate visit to the Philly Cheesesteak stand. I can see myself making the trip to Philly for Pirates games in the future. Our seats for this game were on the 1st base foul line in the outfield. While watching cubs batting practice and nosh on garlic fries Dave called here’s one. I looked up to see a foul ball landing in the next section over after watching it settle in the same row as ours, I put down the food and made quick dash straight across darting past a guy trying to climb over the seats for it to snag our first ball of the trip. The game pitted cagey veteran Jamie Moyer vs. the younger ex-Pirate Gorzelanny. A pitchers duel most of the game Cubs were able to score a run in the third when Theriot, on second from a single and steal, scored on a ground ball by Castro that went behind Rollins. Theriot (pronounce “tear E O”, we decide he should instead go by “The Riot”) followed that by a great defensive play in the bottom to stop a hard ground ball from Utley. Missed what happen in the top of the sixth for a beer run, only in a baseball stadium can you Newcastle and other premium beers at the same price as Bud. Cubs scored again in the top of seventh when Soriano stretched a single to left center into a double and Baker’s ground ball went off the glove of Polanco. Grabow replaced Gorzelanny in the bottom when Ruiz hit one right back at him, hitting his glove hand. He still made the play to throw Ruiz out at first. Durbin came in for relief of Moyer in the eighth. The Phillies got one run back off a Howard dribbler, which had the resemblance of a squeeze play with Polanco, held on third in the previous play, coming home. Zambrano came in to end the inning. In the ninth Durbin walked two and hit another to load the bases, prompting a switch to Romero. Romero was able to strike out Colvin, but pinch hitter Xavier Nady drove in two with a hard hit ball past second. Marmol closed things out for the Cubs and striking out two in the effort.
On the subway ride back our quote of the day from a homeless guy to another… “Man so many people have walked past me with cologne on today that I smell good.”
