It’s crazy to think that April 12 will mark the beginning of my 15th season working for the Reading Fightin Phils.

15 summers of baseball.

There have definitely been great moments and a fair share of not so great moments. I have met a number of amazing people and had some very cool experiences. There was the night after a game when I watched the Philadelphia game with the Reading manager all while discussing base running tactics. And the trip to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs game with the other summer interns. Let’s not forget all of the crazy antics we got up to in the deck stand.

When I started working at the stadium in 2005, I never thought that I would be there for five years, let alone 10 or 15. At the time, it was a summer job that I thought would be fun since I already loved baseball.

It turned out to be so much more.

I’m not good at math so I can’t tell you how many hot dogs, pizza slices, or dishes of ice cream I have served in that time, but trust me when I tell you it is a very high number.

I don’t want this to turn into a super sappy post, that’s not my style, so I am going to end it here. The new season is right around the corner and I am so excited to see what sort of adventures or crazy antics I can get up to this summer.

Stay tuned for more crazy memories and new stories from Baseballtown!

Confessional: Have you ever been at a job for longer than you expected? What made you stay?

When a player on a Major League baseball team goes down with an injury, it can be disappointing for the player, the team and also the fans. Sometimes though, the injured player will be given a rehab assignment with one of the club’s minor league teams and this provides many fans with a chance to watch them play in a slightly more intimate setting.

The Reading Fightin Phils have had their fair share of rehab appearances from the Philadelphia Phillies in the time that I have been working there. I have seen Chase Utley, Shane Victorino, Brad Lidge, and Carlos Ruiz to name a few. It is always fun to watch these guys play in a much smaller setting because you can really get a closer look at how hard they play and also how much they enjoy the game. It is also fun to watch them interact with the younger members of the team and the fans.

I remember one of the times Utley visited and it was during the pregame warm-ups. He had taken the youngest son of the Fightins’ manager out into the outfield, and was playing catch with him. It was one of the cutest moments. I have also heard from fellow employees that when Utley was on rehab assignment, he would buy dinner for the team at least one of the nights he was there.

This was apparently something that every player who visited on rehab would do.

When Victorino came to Reading during his rehab, I was interning and actually had the chance to see first-hand how he interacted with the fans. I was manning the cattle herder, which is the name for the gate the players use to get on and off the field, when he came out to do his post game press conference. He was heading to the batting tunnel by way of the field and he stopped for a brief period to sign autographs for all the fans waiting at the gate. It was cool to see him taking the time to sign every ball that was shoved in his face and he made sure to at least say hi to every fan who was waiting.

He also almost smacked me in the face with a sharpie, but I would have been ok with that.

Carlos Ruiz played in Reading on his way to the majors and during his rehab stint, it was apparent that the fans were as in love with him at that point as they were when he was in the minors; maybe even more. More than once, cheers of “Chooooooooooooch!” rang throughout the stadium as the Reading fans loudly showed their support.

It’s moments like these that just add to the fun of working in a baseball stadium and continue to bolster my love for the game.

Confessional: Have you ever had the chance to interact with a favorite athlete or celebrity? Were they the kind of person you thought they would be?

I have talked in previous posts about performing the National Anthem with my sister at numerous Fightins game (Check out Star-Spangled Emotion or Reading Phillies 2012: Top 10 Moments/Memories for my thoughts on performing the anthem) and what a neat experience it is. It has gotten to the point where we are called upon to sing whenever they have a singer cancel or they are unable to get someone to sign up.

Getting the chance to perform the anthem is always exciting. Each time is special and we love getting the chance to sing. There is one performance, though, that stands out from the rest.

It started like any other night. We found out shortly before the game was about to begin that they needed us to sing the anthem that night. After quickly running through the song once, we headed down to the field to sing. I think we sang pretty well and once we finished we started walking off the field.

This is where it got interesting.

We were walking off with one of the front office members when we heard someone yelling from behind the backstop. Looking over, we saw a gentleman still standing at his seat, clapping and yelling, “That was a wonderful performance! Fantastic!” We smiled and waved, thinking nothing of it until the person we were walking with turned and said, “Do you know who that is?” Shaking our heads, we looked at him in confusion.

“That’s Dennis Dugan, Kelly Dugan’s dad.”

Ok, so?

“He’s a film director and producer.”

Oh, ok cool.

I’m not going to lie, I had no idea who Dennis Dugan was. I knew who Kelly Dugan was because he had been playing in our outfield for a good part of the season. It was cool to think that we had just sung in front of a well-known director, but it didn’t really mean that much to us.

Then we got back to our stand and decided to visit Google and see what movies he had worked on.

It turns out that he directed some major films such as The Benchwarmers, Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, and Just Go With It, to name a few. While I have never seen the first three movies, or many of the other movies he has worked on, my sister and I have seen Just Go With It numerous times. After learning that he had directed that movie along with many, many others, we got a bit more excited about the fact that he enjoyed our singing.

After that, the game got underway and we got busy with customers and didn’t really think about it much more. Then he came to order ice cream and once he realized we were the ones who had sung, he could not stop telling us how much he enjoyed our singing and that we did such a fantastic job. It was a very cool experience and I will say he was an incredibly nice guy.

I’m sure he doesn’t remember our singing and it’s not as though anything came out the chance meeting, but it was a really cool moment that my sister and I still talk about.

After all, how many people can say they unintentionally performed in front of a Hollywood director?

Confessional: Have you ever had the opportunity to meet someone famous? Was it a nice moment?

When I talk to people about working at the ballpark and what it was like working in a stand like the deck, the one thing that is hard to explain is the friendship that we all shared. We were more like a family. Not only because some of us were actually related, but because we spent so much time together and we all got along really well.

One thing we did as a result of being so close is we would celebrate different things throughout the summer. Birthdays, graduations, you name it, we found a way to celebrate it.

And of course, there was always cake.

Don’t worry, in true deck stand fashion these celebrations never went smoothly.

Typically, when you have a cake to celebrate something such as a birthday you also have candles. We always had candles, however, with candles you also need a tool to light the candles. Without fail, we never had a decent way to light the candles. You would think after the first two or three times we realized we had candles and no way to light them, someone would bring in a lighter and just leave it in the stand. Not the case. I don’t think we remembered a lighter any of the times we had candles. Instead, we ended up borrowing a lighter from someone who smoked and lighting the candles that way.

This was still not the most memorable part of celebrating in the deck stand. There is one moment that still stands out as the greatest celebration in the deck stand.

It was a birthday celebration and the cake that was brought in was a log shaped ice cream cake. My sister and I had picked up some cool football candles and, after finding a way to light the candles of course, it was time to cut the cake.

I’m not sure why, but after we took out the candles we decided to move the cake to a different spot on the counter to cut slices. That’s when things went downhill.

We picked up the cake to move it and next thing we knew it was lying on the ground.

Top down.

After staring at the cake on the ground for about a minute someone finally thought to pick it up. This is the part that I can’t believe actually happened. We decided that if we simply scraped off the top layer of the cake it would be perfectly fine to eat. I’m not necessarily proud of the decision we made, but it was really good cake.

In the end, most of our celebrations went off without a hitch. We became closer than most coworkers would be and celebrated many big moments over the three or four summers we all worked together.

Confessional: Have you ever celebrated the birthday of a coworker? Was there a cake?

If you’ve been following along with the countdown, you’ve read about the kinds of antics we got up to in the deck stand. If this is your first visit to the site, you might want to check out some other posts – I suggest DIY Ceiling Fan or Ice Bucket Challenge – to truly get a sense of what the Longstrike deck stand was like.

To reiterate before getting into this story, I am honestly surprised we didn’t get in trouble every night.

One of the things we did that never got us in trouble was throwing food. I have no idea when this first started, but it really wasn’t as bad as you might think. It started out as a quick way to pass water bottles back and forth from the fridge to the register where they were ordered.

It was completely harmless.

The person responsible for getting the water would take it out of the fridge and toss it to the person working at the register. After that, we started an assembly line from the fridge to the window tossing each bottle of water down the line from person to person.

Once we perfected the water assembly line, we started passing other foods through the stand. Water, italian ice, and ice cream sandwiches all started flying across the stand each time they were ordered.

We were always careful when we tossed food to each other and we only tossed the prepackaged items.

It became more of a game when we decided to see how many people we could toss each item to before we handed it out to the customer. The count started from when the order was placed until the customer finished paying. We got more daring over time and started to toss things quicker and while not looking at each other. This went well, until one fateful incident.

It was later in a game and we had already closed the window on one side of the stand. A customer came up to the register and ordered a few things including an Italian ice. This is where things got interesting. The person serving the ice cream and Italian ice reached into the freezer, grabbed an ice, and tossed it over his shoulder. Unfortunately he tossed it a bit too high.

Remember that ceiling fan that we got them to install? Well, it decided to get in on the action and tried to catch the Italian ice.

I remember standing in the corner of the stand watching in shock as the ice hit one blade of the fan, then another, and then ricocheted towards the closed window. It all happened pretty quickly, but don’t worry, no one got hit. We did all start laughing, hardly able to believe what had happened. Someone eventually grabbed the ice off the counter to actually give it to the customer and surprisingly it was still completely intact; the wrapper wasn’t even torn. It made its way safely to the customer and the only people who knew what had happened were standing behind a closed window, attempting to control the hysterical laughter.

After that, we decided that maybe throwing food across the stand wasn’t the best idea. It was fun while it lasted though.

Confessional: Have you ever been involved in a food fight? Have you ever thrown food or a drink at someone?

When you think of baseball you typically think of warm nights out at the ballpark enjoying a hot dog and soda while watching the game. This is generally the case at Fightins games in early June, sometimes mid-May.

Beautiful, warm evenings are not always a guarantee at the beginning of the season. Sometimes, you might even have snow on opening night.

That’s right, I said snow.

I can clearly remember one opening night game at the beginning of April when it was freezing cold. By the time the first pitch was thrown, it was snowing. I was wearing at least three shirts under my uniform shirt including a hooded sweatshirt and I had gloves on. Winter gloves, that is, not gloves for serving food. Most of my night was spent huddled by the fryers hoping they would give off enough heat to keep me warm. That may be the only night anyone actually wanted the job of making funnel cakes because that was the warmest spot in the stand.

I also don’t think I have ever consumed as much hot chocolate as I did that night.

Needless to say, we were not busy that night and did not stay open very long. I’m pretty sure that if we hadn’t been selling coffee and hot chocolate, we wouldn’t have had any business at all.

In the years that I have been working at the ballpark, that is the only night I can remember that had snow. Even the year they held a Christmas event it only snowed one evening during the month. Don’t get me wrong, we still have nights that are insanely cold and let me tell you, cold weather is always great for ice cream sales. On the super cold nights, employees and fans alike remind each other that they will be wishing for cooler weather come mid-July and August. That’s when we will be wishing we had cold weather just so the ice cream will stay frozen long enough to put it in the dishes.

With the 2019 home opener only six days away, I am crossing my fingers that we will have a nice evening. I’m not asking for sunny and 70 degrees, but it would be nice to not have to wear four layers of clothing. The weather forecast can change drastically in a week, so I guess we will just have to wait and see what Mother Nature has planned.

Confessional: Are you a fan of warm weather or cold weather? Would you enjoy watching a baseball game in the snow?

Available right now on Netflix is a recording of one of Taylor Swift’s concerts from her Reputation Stadium Tour. Being a fan of her music, I will say that I have watched the entire performance. This is the closest I have gotten to attending one of her concerts.

I have, however, heard her perform live.

There were no fancy costumes, no dancers, no pyrotechnics, and she wasn’t singing any of her own music. She was just starting to become a successful singer and people were beginning to learn her name, but her fame had not yet reached the level it is at today.

It was April 5, 2007 and shortly after the release of her debut album, she returned to her hometown to perform the National Anthem before a Reading Phillies game.

At the time, I was not all that familiar with her music and the little I knew about her came from friends and the local paper. I had only heard one or two of her songs up to that point so I think I was more intrigued to hear her sing than I was excited.

The organization put a lot of work into promoting her appearance in the months leading up to that night. It was a big deal around the ballpark and the community and it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement.

The night started like any other night at the deck. We got the stand ready to go, counted everything, and then hung out watching batting practice. Once gates opened, we were busy with customers and not much thought was given to what was going on in the pregame. It was busy that night, but whether that was because of Taylor Swift or because it was a nice night, I honestly don’t know.

We were busy enough with customers that we almost didn’t realize when the National Anthem had begun. It took someone hearing singing and us noticing everyone on the deck had gotten quiet to make us realize the game was about to begin. I remember my job that night was nachos and ice cream so I was not busy at the time the anthem was sung. I stepped outside the stand to get a better listen and because of where the deck is positioned, I could also see her up on the video board.

She did a nice job and I remember enjoying the fact that she didn’t try to do anything fancy; she just played her guitar and sang the song. There was a huge cheer for her after she finished, she thanked the crowd, walked off the field, and the game proceeded as normal.

While it was a cool experience and one that everyone still talks about, I think if at the time we had known how popular she was about to become it would have made it that much more exciting.

And even though it was a simple performance that she may or may not remember, I can still honestly say that I have heard Taylor Swift perform live.

Confessional: Have you had the opportunity to hear a musician you like perform live? What did you think?

A couple of years ago I shared a post about the education days held each summer at FirstEnergy Stadium. “Field of Learning” talked about both the ups and downs of working on education days. With the 2019 season only 8 days away, there is one aspect of education day that I am looking forward to experiencing again.

Each education day before the game, two or three Fightins players participate in a question and answer session with the students in attendance. The host of the session, Mr. H., asks a few basic questions and then they take questions from the students. Seeing as it is education day, one of the questions Mr. H. always asks is what was each player’s favorite subject in school and were they good students. This question received one of the greatest answers I have ever heard and it is one that I remember each summer when the question arises again.

It was a beautiful day and the question and answer session had just begun. My sister and I were listening in as we always do – we’re in the perfect location for it – and quietly giving our own thoughts on each question. That is, until we heard an answer that blew our minds.

Mr. H.: “Were you a good student?”

Player: “Well, I had a 4.0 in college so I guess you could say I liked school.”

I’m pretty sure this is the point when my jaw hit the counter. A 4.0?!

Obviously there are people who finish with 4.0s in college all the time and there are many, many intelligent athletes out there, but I think it was the fact that he was so nonchalant with his answer that threw us for a loop. He wasn’t bragging or trying to get any sort of praise for his answer, but said it as calmly as someone might ask for a glass of water. What made the moment even more amusing was the fact that his teammate followed it up with “I like numbers” and then said nothing more.

If he talked about being a great student and made a bigger deal about it, I don’t think it would have been as entertaining or as memorable.

Now, I know there are professional athletes who have gone to Ivy League schools and finished with fantastic grades and are incredibly intelligent people. Still, most of the answers we hear to this question are “I liked lunch” or “Gym class was my favorite” or “I didn’t do that well in school because I didn’t enjoy homework.” The last thing you expect to hear is a player calmly stating that he graduated with a 4.0.

I don’t know if many of the kids in attendance that day truly understood what having a 4.0 in college meant. The majority of them hadn’t even finished elementary school yet. They just wanted to know his favorite color. However, the teachers in attendance and those of us in the UIC were very impressed. To this day, we haven’t heard an answer as good as that one and I don’t know if we will.

Confessional: Were you a good student when you were in school? What was your favorite subject?

I’m guessing some of you clicked on the link for this post expecting to read about people dumping buckets of cold water on their heads and challenging friends and family to do the same.

I hate to disappoint you, but that is not the story you are about to read. Instead, this story focuses on an ice bucket on wheels and the trouble it caused for the Longstrike deck stand.

One of the pregame jobs working at the deck was to make sure there was ice in both soda machines and extra ice in the large ice bucket. This required rolling it to the ice machine in the buffet area next door, coming back and filling the soda fountains, and then filling the ice bucket once again and leaving it at the stand for later.

Everyone hated having to get ice.

For starters, the ice “bucket” looked more like a trash can that you might put out at the curb on trash day. Secondly, it was no easy task getting to the ice machine and back. It required crossing the deck, carefully maneuvering down the ramp to the main walkway, and then making it to the back of the buffet area to the ice machine. Then you had to make the return trip. It sounds easy, but there was once small obstacle in our way.

There was a roughly one inch lip at the bottom of the ramp. This wouldn’t have been an issue if it was because of the ramp being higher than the walkway.

This was not the case.

The end of the ramp was at least an inch lower than the main walkway and this caused problems for whoever was responsible for filling the ice that night. Going up the ramp was no problem. It was going down to get the ice that caused some near accidents and one truly memorable moment for us all.

I remember it was before a game in the middle of the season so everyone working in the stand had experience with getting ice and dealing with the end of the ramp. Except for one girl who only joined us halfway through the summer. On that fateful night, she volunteered to go for the second round before the game and no one stopped her.

She was doing well until she hit the bottom of the ramp.

Even when it was empty, that thing could pick up some pretty good speed going down the ramp if you weren’t careful. As she got to the bottom, she was moving pretty quickly and when the ice bucket hit the lip of the walkway it kept moving, but instead of continuing over the lip and onto the walkway, it fell forward. Not knowing what to do she tried to hang on and stop it and before we knew it, she was sitting on top of the fallen ice bucket and there was ice all over the ground around her. We all burst out laughing to the point where it was hard to breath – don’t worry, she was fine and she was laughing too – and then we realized something that made the moment even funnier and slightly more embarrassing for her.

Standing on the other side of the walkway in the midst of taking batting practice in the visitors’ batting cage was the entire visiting team, standing in shock and clearly trying not to laugh.

To their credit, they regained their composure quickly and got around to seeing if she needed help before we had managed to stop laughing. In the end, our supervisor scolded us for watching and laughing instead of helping – even though she was laughing too – and made one of the guys go down and help her up.

From that point on, it was usually one of the guys who was forced to make the ice runs both before and during the games. And to this day, this is one of my clearest and fondest memories from working in that stand.

Confessional: Have you ever had an embarrassing moment at work? What happened?

If you’ve read any of my previous posts on Confessions of a Concessions worker – especially DIY Ceiling Fan – you know that when I worked in the Longstrike deck stand, we always had a good time.

One summer, we took the idea of working as a team to a whole new level.

We decided that we would treat the stand as if it was a baseball field and each job was assigned a field position:

The Longstrike deck stand is located behind the left field foul pole at FirstEnergy Stadium. (Photo: Amanda Cain/2008)

Registers: Pitcher and Catcher

Hotdogs: First Base

French Fries: Second Base

Funnel Cakes: Third Base

Cheesesteaks: Shortstop

Nachos/Ice Cream: Center Field

Sodas: Left and Right Field

Whatever job you were assigned for the night, that was your position. Our stand supervisor was the team manager and she was in charge of calling strikes when someone messed up. You called the wrong order? Strike one. Not paying attention to your job? Strike two. Dropped food? Strike three.

Three Strikes? You’re out.

Of course, being the mature teenagers that we were, we did everything we could to make each other mess up – without causing problems for our customers. We would question the orders and try to tell each other the wrong number of hot dogs or french fries. The whole point was to try to get someone to three strikes. Striking out, we decided for some reason, was equivalent to being fired without actually getting fired.

The game became even more serious when we started keeping track of how many times each person “struck out” and the person with the most strikeouts had to do the worst job at the end of the night: either washing dishes or scrubbing the hot dog rollers.

I don’t remember how we came up with this idea, but it made working the long nights a bit more interesting. Everyone got into seeing who would end up scrubbing dishes at the end of the night and it was a way for us all to have fun together while still getting our jobs done. One of the guys got fired so many times each night that it became a running joke and everyone would add outs to his tally any time they walked past the score sheet. Even the assistant concessions supervisor got in on the game and would add outs to the score sheet.

Surprisingly, during the three or four years we all worked together, none of us actually “struck out” or got fired. By the end of that season, we got tired of playing the game, but it was still entertaining while it lasted.

Confessional: What is something you have done at work to make your job more entertaining? Did you make up a game with coworkers? Did it get anyone in trouble?