First of all, we were there. Exactly one week away from Kristen's due date and we were sitting in right field watching Roy Halladay pitch no hit ball for nine innings. We weren't sure if we'd get to this game despite having the tickets for weeks, but Kristen is feeling great and wanted to go since it was an early game.You could tell Halladay was dealing outside himself and from another place altogether by the third inning and my biggest concern was the rain. I didn't want a lengthy rain delay to kill his first postseason start.
We were undercover and couldn't see much of the dark sky above us through the early innings, but I did get a couple pictures before it got too dark.
Mike Schmidt said this morning that this post-season no hitter was the greatest moment in Philadelphia sports history. Personally, for me, nothing will compare to winning the series two years ago, but this is why you go the games. You go for all the obvious reasons, the entertainment and to see your team win, but you also go with the hope that you'll see something you've never seen before. A postseason no-hitter is something that nobody has seen since 1956. We could go to every regular and post-season game for the rest of our lives and it's unlikely we'll ever see it again.
A little disclosure here. Roy Halladay pitched a perfect game to a mostly empty stadium in Florida earlier this summer. Kristen and I watched it on the couch and were happy to have witnessed it on TV. (I've heard my dad talk about listening to the last Phillies perfect game on the radio in the backyard back in 1964.) Well, the Marlins and MLB decided to sell the unsold tickets for the Halladay Perfect game AFTER the game was over. They knew that baseball geeks in general and Phillies geeks in particular would buy them. I did buy one of those tickets. It was a cheap upper deck seat and frankly by the time the ticket arrived in the mail I felt a little silly for having bought it. I tucked into my book of ticket stubs and have not told anyone about it until right now.
The point is that I wanted to witness that moment live. Last night wasn't perfect, but you'd be hard pressed to convey that to anyone I was seated near. It was special and fortunately I took my camera. The shots are from 18 rows deep in Right Field, but you can see what's going on.
Yes, it'd still be pretty sweet to win this playoff series and maybe win another WS and we will no doubt be wrapped up in life's more important games and adventures in the days to follow, but this was fun man.
We talked about baby names a couple months back and settled on our short list in about 10 minutes. Last night we might have added Hallie Day Harris as another option. Whatcha think?
