Players, coaches, and fans stand during the National Anthem prior to the 2012 All-Star Classic home run derby at FirstEnergy Stadium. (Photo: Amanda Cain)

For the 2012 season, the Reading Fightin Phils had the honor of hosting the Eastern League All-Star Game and home run derby. Dubbed the Baseballtown All-Star Classic, preparations began well in advance of the event and based on the reactions from fans and teams around the league it was a huge success.

To be completely honest, I don’t recall much of what happened during the home run derby. I remember there was a trampoline in left field, a dunk tank in right field, an intern in a crane suspended about center field, and a man singing and playing his guitar on the pitcher’s mound.

The derby line-up included three special batters including former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher and current baseball broadcaster Ricky Bottalico.

There were also people everywhere.

My job during the home run derby and the All-Star game was the same as any other game day, only the number of incident reports I filed between the two nights was the highest I had over two seasons as an intern. Surprisingly enough, none of the home run or foul ball related injuries took place on the field, where visitors could participate in a VIP party all across the infield.

There is one incident report from the All-Star Classic home run derby that stands out in my mind to this day. I was making my rounds visiting all of the ushers when the call for the EMTs came over my radio. Someone had been hit by a home run ball out on the deck in left field. I checked in with the EMTs to make sure they had received the call and we headed out to left field.

It was slow going with the number of people who were walking around the stadium, but we eventually made it out onto the deck and found our guy. Let’s just say the fact that it took some time to get through the crowd did not make a difference to this gentleman. He was there with a group of friends and they had been enjoying themselves at the deck beer stand for quite some time.

I don’t think he even realized he had taken a baseball to the face.

When the EMTs walked up to him on the deck to talk to him, he gave them a huge smile, said hello, and even shook their hands. The only visible signs that he had been hit by a ball were the ball itself sitting on the table in front of him and a bruise that was starting to form on the side of his face. He continued to laugh and joke with his friends and the EMTs while they checked out his face. When it was time for me to ask him the questions necessary to fill out the incident report, his friends had to answer most of the questions because he didn’t know how it happened. All in all, it was probably the most pleasant incident report I filed over those two years.

I wonder if he remembers getting hit or even being at the home run derby.

All in all, I don’t remember which player won the home run derby and I don’t remember who won the game the following day. I do know there was an overall feeling of excitement around the ballpark for those two days and it was an event that is still talked about today.

Confessional: Have you or some you know ever caught a home run ball or foul ball at a baseball game? 

During the 2011 and 2012 seasons, I took a break from concessions and worked as a game day intern. My main responsibilities included working with the ushers and security during games and also filing incident reports when someone got injured while at the ballpark. Other than that, I would do whatever I could to help other people out whether that meant refilling paper towels in the restrooms, laying out programs around the park before a game, or retrieving a lost shoe from under the right field stands.

Yes, I said shoe. And yes, I actually had to get someone’s shoe back for them from under the bleachers. Let me start at the beginning.

On a typical game day, I would spend the majority of the night making my way around the ballpark and checking in with the ushers throughout the night, giving them breaks and talking and just making sure everything was going smoothly.

The night of The Great Shoe Rescue, the ushers had all left for the night and I was standing in the plaza talking to some of the other interns. I was then approached by a front office member who said they needed someone to crawl under the stands and retrieve a lost item. Since I was the smallest person there, they chose me.

We walked the short distance down the plaza to the storage closets under the right field stands – the same closets that years before had held the cash register I carried on my first night of work – and that is when I realized that I knew the person who lost the shoe. There was one of my good friends from college, standing in the plaza wearing only one flip-flop and a rather sheepish look his face. I started laughing and just shook my head.

After establishing where his seats were located in regards to where I would have to crawl under the stands, I began my adventure. I walked into the storage closet that was closest to his seats and, using the flashlight on my phone, began to scope out the easiest route. I started climbing over and under the metal beams of the stands, moving towards where my friend was standing above me at his seat, and prayed that I wouldn’t hit my head, fall, or rip my pants. I was also wary of what I might find under the stands other than a lost shoe.

Eventually I made it to the spot he was standing above, and lo and behold, there was a lonely flip-flop lying on the ground. With the way the right field bleachers are built, I was able to pass the sandal to him from under the seats, and made my way back out towards the storage closet where I had entered.

The Great Shoe Rescue was a success!

Believe it or not, this was not the first, nor the last, time that I would adventure under the stands to retrieve a lost item. This is one of the downfalls to being one of the smallest people working in a location where items get dropped much more often than you would think. Over those two years I retrieved shoes, cellphones, sunglasses, and even a sock. It was always an adventure.

Oh, and don’t worry, I didn’t let my friend forget the fact that he lost his shoe at a baseball game.

Confessional: What is one of the strangest things you have ever lost while out somewhere? Did you find it? Have you ever had to help retrieve any odd items at your job?

14. Opening Day 2005

Over the past 14 years I have had a number of wonderful experiences at America’s Classic Ballpark and I am sure season 15 will bring even more. Even with everything that has happened and that I have been able to do, I can still remember my first day at the stadium as though it was yesterday.

It was in April of 2005. I was in high school and my only previous job had been as a counselor at a summer arts camp for a month. I was excited to work at the ballpark because I loved being at games and my two older sisters made it sound like so much fun. I was also extremely nervous.

That night I was scheduled to work in the Grand Slam Grill, which at that time was one of two main stands located in the right field food court. After being led to the stand and introduced to the supervisor, I remember standing awkwardly in the corner not knowing what to do. Eventually someone took pity on me and gave me a job.

“You can come with us to get the registers.”

What?

I thought maybe I had misheard him, so I followed a few people out of the stand and across the food court to a storage closet located under the right field bleachers. I was at the back of the group and when I finally got to the door of the closet, I was told to pick up one of the large cash registers on the shelf and carry it back to the stand.

Sure, why not.

So there was little old me, on my first night at a new job lugging a cash register across an open food court, praying I didn’t drop the thing. I’m not sure how much those registers actually weighed, more than the flat screen tablets we use now I am sure, but somehow I made it back to the stand with no problems. Thankfully, the food court back then was not as large as the plaza is now.

Honestly, I don’t remember much about that night after carrying the register to the stand. I know that I was put on soda duty, which meant that all I had to do all night was stand next to a register and fill drink orders as they came in. I also know that I was set up at the soda fountain right next to the bell that was rung every time someone order a Grand Slammer, which was pretty often, so it was a very loud night. Other than that, I don’t remember who the Reading Phillies were playing or who won the game, and I honestly don’t remember what I was feeling at the end of the night. I must have had a good time, because I’ve been at the ballpark every summer since then.

I will say that I have only worked one other game in the Grand Slam Grill and, no offense to anyone who likes working in the grill, it was rather begrudgingly. I quickly discovered that the grill stand was not the place for me, and not long after that fateful first night I found my way up to the Longstrike Deck Stand where I would spend the next few years before a brief stint selling pizza, two years outside of concessions as an intern, and finally making it to the Upstairs Ice Cream (UIC) stand.

Confessional: What is one thing that you remember about your first day at a new job? Did you have fun? Learn something new?

Happy Opening Day 2019!

In honor of baseball season starting, I thought that I would once again attempt to post daily leading up to the Reading Fightin Phils home opener. I know it has been some time since my last post, so I am hoping this will get me back into the habit of writing regularly.

Since the Fightin Phils’ home opener is April 12 this year, that would make it 15 days away from today. This will also be my 15th season with the organization. Judging from the title of this post, I am sure you can see where this is going. I thought it would be fun to share 15 memories from my 15 seasons for the 15 days leading up to Opening Night. I will share a different story each day and they will be shared in no certain order. It will be hard enough to pick only 15, let alone putting them in order of importance. In the midst of enjoying the return of baseball season, please enjoy some of my favorite memories from my experiences in the sport!

I feel the need to preface this first memory by saying that when I worked in the left field deck stand, we got away with more than we should have in terms of things that went on inside the stand. We always did what we were supposed to, but we may have taken some things a bit too far.  Just keep this in mind for the following story and future posts that will appear on this page. Anyway, here is the story about how there came to be a ceiling fan in the Longstrike Deck Stand.

15. DIY Ceiling Fan

It was the middle of the summer and we had reached the point where it was still very hot and humid at night during games. As with any outdoor concession stand, the only means of “air conditioning” that the stand had were the open door and the two large windows where everything took place. We also had a large floor fan that we would stand just inside the door in the hopes that it would pull in some cooler air. In a stand that housed two standing fryers and a countertop fryer along with two rolling grills, this did not provide much relief on a hot night. Being the mature group of high school teenagers that we were, we decided one evening that this was not sufficient enough and we needed to find a way to cool off the stand more. This is where things got a little out of hand.

We decided to see if there was a way we could suspend the floor fan from the beams of the ceiling because in our minds that would make a big difference. Now, this fan had already been knocked over more times than we could count and it had definitely seen better days. I will say that before deciding to attach it to the ceiling, we did attempt to place it on top of a freezer and on a rolling cart, both of which did not work out so well. Why we thought hanging it from the ceiling was a better idea, I will never understand.

That being said, we began to look for a way to hang the fan from the ceiling. After an in-depth search around the stand for hanging material, we settled on a spare microphone cord that was stored in the corner of the stand. The cord was there in case the microphone used for the Highstrike game set up outside the stand stopped working and needed to be plugged in. Seeing as it had never been needed before, we decided we could use it to hang our fan from the rafters. While it was an innovative idea, we were not thinking about all the ways this could turn into a potential disaster.

After we settled on using the mic cord as our hanging material, things got interesting. We managed to hook the cord through the top of the fan and then threw the ends of the cord over the rafter of the ceiling, resulting in a floor fan that was indeed hanging from the ceiling. Here is where the plan went wrong.

The only place that we had an open outlet to plug in the fan was right inside the door. As a result, the fan ended up hanging right inside the door. Since the fan was built to sit on the floor and not to hang, it was a decent size and weighed a decent amount so we were not able to hang it very high off the floor. It hung about chest high on an average height person. We were very proud of  the fact that we had managed to pull off what we thought was a brilliant plan, and were congratulating ourselves when the assistant concessions director decided to walk through the door, nearly decapitating himself on the fan that he did not realize was there. As a result, he bumped the fan which caused the entire contraption to fall to the floor.

After that, we not only had no ceiling fan, we also no longer had a floor fan.

Surprisingly, not one person ended up getting in trouble. We were told to never attempt something like that again, but since no one was hurt and we didn’t break anything except the fan, the rest of the night continued as normal. In the end we left that night feeling proud of our short-lived victory. We did not expect that feeling of pride to carry into the following night. Imagine our surprise when we walked in the next night and found a brand new ceiling fan installed in the stand – no mic cords needed.

That ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how there came to be a ceiling fan in the Longstrike Deck Stand.

Confessional: What is one of the craziest things you or a coworker have done at work that you did not get in trouble for?