American Ballpark Tour: Citizens Bank Park

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Not Christmas, not the lazy days of summer, but baseball season. Ah yes, the boys have been in full swing for the past week and even though I haven't been able to glue myself to the couch and take in every pitch of every inning because you know I have children, and they have to do "stuff", I've caught what I can and watched the all the highlights on ESPN. Of which there are none for my hometown team, the loves of my heart, my Houston Astros. Who got swept this past weekend by the Phillies. Which reminded me that I never posted about our visit to Citizen's Bank Park. So brace yourself, it's another tour of another shrine of the great American pasttime.

When we went last summer, the Phillies were the reigning World Series champions. And the stadium was packed. Like St. Louis (who is currently beating up on my boys), we were just able to get standing room only tickets, but unlike St. Louis, we absolutely LOVED this ballpark! In fact, it was probably the most fun we have ever had at a park that wasn't home. And the fans, were lovely. Very unlike what one would expect based on things one hears about the wonderful people of Philly who threw cups at Santa Claus and booed the one-armed hero who threw out a first pitch.

We got to the park a little early due to the fact that we had now mastered the art of public transportation. So we were able to take in some batting practice. It was a little rainy but it eventually cleared out for a great night of baseball.

And we walked all around to see the field from every angle possible. Cuz that's what we do.

The scoreboard sure is pretty. And big.

As always, we took in the local grub which here was none other than a cheesesteak. Which in my opinion is the best thing to come out of that city other than the Fresh Prince.

We walked around the park and had to find the thing that the girls love most.

This playplace was so massive that they even had an attendent sitting up top to help keep an eye on the kiddos. Or he was just hanging out on his smoke break.

But it got even better at this park, and this is where we had the most fun, they had giant games. And you could win tickets for prizes and the girls were in heaven! Our favorite was the mega pinball batting game.

And Steven and Abby tried tossing a few fast balls.

And after all their hard work and very obvious skill, they turned in their tickets for trinkets of crap. It was like Chuck E. Cheese on steroids. Which is apparently a proper analogy for baseball nowadays.

The Liberty Bell is obviously a very important part of Philadelphia, so it was only natural that it would be incorporated into the park somehow.

It apparently swings from side to side when the home team hits a homer. But we didn't get to see that happen. Now if we had waited just one more night... we would have seen Ryan Howard hit a grand slam.

It was an awesome night of baseball and such a fun park. We all had a great time! And the best thing was that the Jonas Brothers were playing a concert just across the street and the girls didn't even care, they were much happier to be taking in a game! Even the little one, who at the time only had eyes for Daddy. But ask her today and she's all about Nick ;-)