Before the review of the park, I have to say that despite my three past visits to Philadelphia where I didn't have such nice things to say about it, this time was different. The family and I had a great time. The weather was absolutely perfect and we enjoyed seeing the main Philly tourist attractions. The only bad mark on the town was the traffic. For a Saturday, it was plain awful. You couldn't drive anywhere on the street or on the expressways without getting into huge delays. The other negative was that the tours for the main part of Independence Hall had been sold out so we only got to go inside the less-interesting buildings in the Hall. Other than that, we had a great time.
We arrived at Independence Hall and got some pictures from the outside. We really wanted to show the kids the Hall. It's really cool. The inside of the building is set up just like it was when the Declaration of Independence was signed - including most of the original furniture, ink wells, etc. But you win some, you lose some.
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| Andie in front of Independence Hall - the Declaration of Independence was read outside right behind her |
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| George and the kids |
We did, however, manage to get in to see the Liberty Bell. The Bell is right across the street from the Hall which made it convenient. The kids thought that was pretty cool. The funny thing is that no one really has a firm explanation where the crack came from. Still, it was a pretty awesome sight.
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| No - Andie didn't make the crack bigger. |
After that, we managed to let the kids sample Philly's world famous Cheesesteaks. We didn't make it over to Pat's or Geno's - the two most famous spots. We got an inside tip from one of the park rangers at the Hall of a place he thought that was just as good and right around the corner from the Hall. He was right!
Finally, we drove over to the Philadelphia Art Museum to what every tourist wants to do when in Philly - retrace Rocky's run up the stairs. The kids and I did it and it was pretty cool. It must be funny for all the locals to watch the hundreds of silly tourists do this thing. When we were there, I think I must have counted about 30 people or so, who did the same thing. Then of course, we had to "get a polaroid" with Rocky himself.
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| The famous Rocky steps |
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| Yo Adrian - I like this Venable family |
Anyway, Michael and I dropped the girls off at the hotel and headed over to Citizens Bank Park for the baseball game. Michael REALLY liked the park, whereas I just thought it was pretty good. Of the newer parks, I thought the outside of the park was very boring and didn't have much character. All of the newer parks we have visited have a theme or a clever design to make the park stand out. Citizens Bank doesn't. And a really big negative is that there is absolutely nothing to do around the park. The park is isolated and has no bars or restaurants to speak of near the park.
On the inside though, it really is a great place to see a game. We had some really nice seats in the lower level down the third base line thanks to two really nice gentlemen I know in Philadelphia who I have done some work for. One thing you notice right away is that Phillies fans are hardcore. I think other than St. Louis, Michael and I hadn't seen so many people show up with Phillies gear on. Lots of Cliff Lee and Ryan Howard shirts were all over the place. Because it was such a great night weather wise, you couldn't help but like the atmosphere.
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| Citizens Bank Park is a see of red |
What the park does really well is give you a great seat and view of the field from anywhere in the ballpark. It's big, but it seems intimate. The park has a nice scoreboard, but it's too far in the left field corner. If you want to look at it from the field, you have to turn your head too far and if you're on the left side as we were, the foul poll is in the way of it. The out-of-town scoreboard is in the perfect place too - on the right field wall and it shows all the games. The food was good as were the fans. Philadelphia fans are known to be hardcore (they booed Santa Claus once at an Eagle's game). They weren't as loud as I expected, but they were enthusiastic. I also liked that at the beginning of the game, they have an announcer do all of the pre-game announcements and starting lineups from the field behind home plate. That's the way they used to do it before there were PA systems. Finally, the Philly Phanatic is the best mascot hands down!
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| Who doesn't love the Philly Phanatic? |
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| The view from left field |
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| Michael competing against little Philly fans |
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| Me and the main man |
What I thought it came up short on were the walkways behind the field - way too narrow for a new park. Also, the park doesn't really have any signature characteristics other than a big image of the Liberty Bell in center field. Being in Philly, there's so much you could do with the history themes. Also, they are light on history in the park. The franchise has been around forever, and they could have done some more there. Those are small details though. The park was nice and it was definitely a great place to watch a game. The A's beat the Phillies 4-1 in a great pitchers duel. That makes our record for home teams 7-9 on the trip. Overall, I give the park a 7.5/10. Here's Michael's take:
Hey everyone, it's me Michael again. I LOVED Citizens Bank Park. It's hard to say what I liked most about it. It was all really cool to me. I liked our seats and the field looked great! I thought the scoreboard a lot. I also think the Phillies have some cool uniforms. I felt like we were really close to the players since we were just behind the Oakland A's dugout. The food was really good too. Dad thought the Liberty Bell in center field was cheesy, but I liked it. Overall, I give the park an 9/10.
Well, there you have it. Citizens Bank is a great park and will probably make it our top 10. It was a great park to go to after a great day in Philly. Tomorrow (Sunday) we take off for the Baltimore/DC area. Michael and I will catch a 1:30 game at Camden Yards in Baltimore to see the Cincinnati Reds take on the Orioles. Everyone raves about Camden Yards so we will have to see if it lives up to the hype. Then, we will head down to DC to take in some sights tomorrow afternoon/evening. More later!
