A Perfect night for Bobble Heads

So I get a call last week - Wednesday morning to be exact - from my Aunt Terry- and she has a mission for me should I choose to accept it. You see there is a Phillies game that night and she wants me to go. No, not go with her, she wants to buy me a ticket so I can go and get her a prized National league MVP Ryan Howard bobble head doll.

Now this is a little bit of a strange request coming from anyone, but, well you have to know my Aunt. She is one of the most sensible people I know. A mother of two twenty-something young women, a great cook and a respected Chemistry professor at a highly regarded local College. She can tell you the atomic weight of Cesium off the top of her head for god sakes. She actually keeps her growing bobble head collection at work. I know she already has a Ryan Howard bobble head doll in her collection because I went to a game with her last year to get it. But, somehow she still needed another. I'm not sure where the idea for her collection started, but some of us think it's from her husband who has a world class collection of metal buildings and newspapers.

I agreed to go even though rain was threatening and there was no one around to go with me. This would be my mission alone. I couldn't say no to my Aunt, she rarely if ever asks me a favor. (It's for this same reason that I'm feeding my friends' cats this week- can you believe someone who reads this blog would ask me to take care of animals again?- More on this soon)
Of course the rain started to pick up as I made my way to the ball park. I was almost hoping they would cancel the game and I could go home. Ryan Howard himself wasn't even playing- he was on injured reserve. The game was going to start late everything was going to be wet and it was going to be cold- but hey, maybe the Phillies would win. The chance of that is about 50/50 this year.

There were still rumbles of thunder as I walked around the very crowded councourse at the park. It was still raining so hard that all of the 40,000 plus who had come out to get bobbleheads were all taking cover in the same spot. Of course the roving vendors saw this and decided to sell where the people were- they were walking around yelling above the din, selling their bad beer. I had to get a sandwich of course, this being a ballgame. Most of the lines were pretty long and out in the rain, so I went for something easy. It still should have been good, mind you- I got a "Schmitter" which is a chesse steak on a kaiser roll with salami and 1000 Island type dressing on it. I had eaten one here before and thought maybe I had been unlucky, but again, it was a pretty spare- wich with dry chewy meat and too much dressing. I'm sure its better at the bar where it originated.

The actual game started an hour and a half late. I made my way to my seat up in left field mostly just to take a rest- I had been walking among the sweaty crowd for an hour clutching Terry's precious bobblehead. Of course I had considered going home with the doll and forgetting about the game. But I wanted to see the young Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels pitch and being a superstitious sports fan I knew that if I left something incredible would happen and I would never forgive myself for missing it. The crowd was spotty, but still pretty big for such an cold dark night. However, they were very responsive when Hamels struck out the side in the first inning. Hamels throws mostly changeups and curveballs, he's got a slow fastball, only around 90 mph. The Phils scored five runs in the first two innings, but that wasn't so interesting. Young Hamels continued to dominate striking guys out, allowing no walks and not even allowing the ball out of the infield for the first three innings. The crowd started to notice what was happening and was coming alive and cheering every pitch. If you're a baseball fan you know the rules, not balls and strikes and infield flies but superstitions. Many fans believe that if a pitcher is dominating and tossing a no-hitter or a perfect game you can't mention it because you will jinx it. I believe that's called magical thinking. The players on the bench avoid him- won't say a word to him. The guys broadcasting the game don't mention it either. Everyone knew what we had going here was a perfect game, but no one was talking about it. There was growing excitement with every batter and high fives with each nice play in the field.

Three innings, four innings, batter after batter went down. I have never seen a perfect game or even a no hitter. The way this night started out nothing could be better than one of my most memorable sporting events ever. Well, it didn't happen. After six perfect innings (two-thirds of a game) Hamels gave up a walk and then a homerun to the next guy. There goes the perfect game, the no-hitter and even the shut out just like that. Oh well. I'm still glad I stayed and Terry got her bobble head doll. Just so you know when I tell this story in the future Cole will pitch a perfect game. After a while I'll forget what really happened - please don't remind me, it makes for a much better ending.