Game #113- Philadelphia Phillies

Game 113- Philadelphia Phillies vs LA Dodgers

Citizens Bank Park

July 21, 2026

 

This is my first trip to the Acadia Princeton office, and the nearest airports are in Newark or Philly. PA had the direct flights from San Diego, and I also saw the Phillies were in town against my home town team LA Dodgers…so of course I had to take the opportunity to knock this stadium/team off of my list.  But the game was in question.  Except there is always a catch, par for the course on my past few trips, weather was an issue.  Monday, perfect day.  Wednesday, also looked great.  Even Tuesday most of the day looked fine in terms of rain, about 15% chance.  Then right about game time it was 100% rain.  To complicate matters, when I was driving back from Princeton to the PHI Marriott hotel, a torrential downpour started and my phone was going off with possible tornado warnings.  This could be a very interesting night.  I was able to check into my room around 5:30, took a quick shower, a nap until 6:30pm (game start was set for 6:40 but I knew it would be delayed), and I made it into my Uber by about 6:50.

 

Citizens Bank/Phillies are my 27th of 30 baseball teams/stadiums, and I knew the team had a lot of history so my expectations for the ball park were higher than a lot of the other teams the past few months and lucky for me, I wasn’t disappointed.  From the “play at second” statue by the parking lots, the HOF statues in and out of the park, Mike Schmidt, Announcer Harry Kalas, the wall of fame plaques, and the two gigantic world series pennants were just a few of the amazing sites to see around the park along with the multiple neon liberty bells, the 2026 all star game signs, and the Philly Fanatic statue are all must sees.  The Yard is a great place for the kids to play in a mini ball park, a climbing wall and a pitching area which is right next to a birds eye view of the pitchers bullpen.  Citizens Bank really knew what they were doing when they built the stadium. 

 

Because of the rain delay I was able to venture all of the stadium and took as many pics as possible from multiple angles and sections from high and low.  I got a cool shot of the liberty bell sign with downtown Philly in the background before finally making my way to my seat in section 111.  I was able to grab a single seat for only $80 and eight rows from the field, plus I was surrounded by a bunch of LA fans!  I wasn’t sure what to expect with the Phillies faithful, I have been to a Flyers, 76ers, and Union games and to say the fans were a bit unruly is an understatement. So I decided to only bring my Dodgers hat but realized quickly that I could have worn my jersey as well. Between the fact the Dodgers have the best player in the league with Ohtani, and 3 WS rings in the past 5 years along with back to back wins in 24 and 25, I would say there were about 25% LA fans in the stands.  Now I’ll say this, the people to my left and right were cool, but the ladies behind me although they were cheering for the Dodgers were a bit too much.  Besides being completely high as a kite, they kept dropping their phones under my seat and would not stop screaming.  I was annoyed enough that I eventually got up to explore some other parts of the park during the game and grabbed food, but decided to sit a few seats away for some peace and quiet.  

 

The game wasn’t terribly exciting most of the night.  I’m not sure if that was because it was hot and rainy most of the evening, or that the pitching wasn’t amazing (although there were not a lot of hits), and maybe it was because Ohtani had a bad hitting night even though everyone had their phones out when he was up to bat.  Alec Bohm had two hits for the Phillies and drove in a run early in the first, but all of the big names for PHI were lackluster including Schwarber and Bryce Harper.  That said, Ohtani was only 1/5 and made an error when he got a hit in the second essentially scoring a run but he tried to stretch a single into a double and was tagged at second.  Luckily Max Muncey saved the day (more than once) with a 2 run bomb in the 4th, moving him into a tie for second most HRs for the Dodgers with Ron Cey and only trailing Eric Karros.  And Wrobleski (11-2) struck out seven and allowed five hits in 6 1/3 innings. The 26-year-old lefty was pitching in Philadelphia for the second time in a week after striking out five in two innings during last Tuesday’s All-Star Game.  Back to Muncey, the reason I stated he saved the day twice was because in the ninth, PHI had runners on 2nd and 3rd with only one out when a ball was slapped down to the hot corner where Max threw home, catching Crawford in a pickle.  Crawford tried to go back to third where he was tagged out and then Realmuto made the mistake of not just staying on third and instead ran back to 2nd where he was thrown out as well to end the game.  LA won 2-1, and

went back to first in the MLB with a 64-38 record.  

 

I now have only three more MLB teams two go including the Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays.  I might be able to close this out next year if I can figure out two trips.