So I have mentioned in previous posts that when I worked at the Longstrike Deck we were not the most well-behaved employees and certainly caused our fair share of shenanigans (see You’re Out, Day 15, Throwing Food.) Today I thought I would share another fun story of one of the ways we caused mischief on the deck.

Let me preface the story by saying we were allowed to have free fountain sodas while at work so don’t worry, we were not doing anything wrong in terms of taking stuff we weren’t allowed to have. That being said, let me tell you about soda roulette.

The Longstrike Deck had two soda fountains and they both contained the same four sodas plus lemonade, iced tea, and fruit punch. Many times we would mix two flavors to create a new flavor. Sierra Mist with Fruit Punch or lemonade with iced tea were a few favorites.

There were also times when we took mixing drinks a bit too far. A favorite practice became mixing all the flavors in one cup and seeing how much you could drink before it became too gross to handle. Why we thought this was a good idea I will never know.

Being the mature young adults that we were, we of course took it to yet another level. This is how soda roulette was born.

Everyone knows the age old advice about not leaving an open drink unattended at a party or any type of large gathering. This advice also became a warning in the deck stand. If you left your drink sitting around or left the stand for any reason, you had to be a daredevil to risk taking a drink when you got back to your cup.

Did I mention we also had a hot chocolate machine in the stand? Have you ever tried Mountain Dew mixed with Pepsi and hot chocolate? Trust me, you don’t want to.

Confessional: What is one prank that you and your coworkers have ever played on each other? What was the end result?

I’ll never truly understand why we thought this was a good idea or what made us decide to start doing it in the first place. It became a habit that if you went out to go to the bathroom or even just to refill the condiments or napkins, when you got back to the stand it was in your best interest to toss out what was in your cup and get a new drink. We became very good at sneaking a cup back to the exact location it came from after messing with the drink. It was also very hard to tell if anything was wrong with your drink if you had a lid on it. Yes, we would take a lid off and add different sodas before replacing the lid. This went on and on all summer – for multiple summers.

There were some occasions when someone would come back to the stand and take a drink without thinking. Those were the best moments. The look of pure disgust on his or her face was the end goal. No one would ever rat out the perpetrator either; we all teamed up against the one person who dared to leave his or her drink unattended.

Now, we do deserve some credit. We only ever pulled this prank on each other and never on any of the adults in the stand. They all knew we did it though and never said a word. I’ll never truly understand how we got away with everything we did, but in the case of soda roulette it was simply a fun prank we all played on each other. It would be impossible to do in most of the stands at the ballpark now, as most of the stadium has switched to bottled sodas. We have a soda fountain in the UIC, but seeing as there are only two of us who work there it would not really be a fun game.

Despite some of the disgusting concoctions that were ingested during those few summers, soda roulette still remains one of my favorite memories from working at the Longstrike Deck.

Craig Stein began his tenure as president of the Reading Phillies, a 20 game ticket plan cost $75 per seat, and the Reading Phillies were joined in the Eastern League by teams such as the Albany Yankees, the Vermont Mariners, the Glen Falls Tigers, the Pittsfield Cubs, the Williamsport “Bills,” the New Britain Red Sox, and – more familiar to today’s fans – the Harrisburg Senators.

This is just a bit of the interesting information I found in a program from the 1988 Reading Phillies season.

Players on the team that year included Todd Crosby, Jeff Kaye, Rick Parker, Julio Machado, Chuck McElroy, and Brad Moore.

The team’s manager? Bill Dancy. Longtime Phillies fans should recognize that name. He was the third base coach for the Philadelphia Phillies during the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

Looking through this old game program has been both entertaining and also educational. Having worked for the club for the past 15 summers and seeing plenty of changes firsthand, it is interesting to see how things changed from what they were 32 years ago. There are still teams in New Britain and Harrisburg who visit FirstEnergy Stadium each summer, but the similarities end there. While Harrisburg remains the Senators, New Britain has gone from being the Rock Cats to the Rumble Ponies and that is just in the time I have spent at the stadium.

And we can’t forget, the Reading Phillies became the Reading Fightin Phils.

One of the most interesting changes I noticed almost immediately was the fact that the program has a price on the front. Now granted, it only cost $1 to purchase a program in 1988, but now during Reading Fightin Phils games you can pick up a program for free right as you walk in the front gate.  The free programs handed out at games have many of the same details inside them, but are much smaller and in full color. The front cover of the programs available at games today feature a photo of a different member of the team during each home stand. The 1988 program also features a picture of a player, but it is a drawing of a unidentified baseball player in a Phillies pinstripe uniform. I do find it interesting that something went from being a purchased item to being a free item while other priced items simply went up in price. I would imagine it costs more to print the programs today than it did back in 1988.

Something else that caught my eye? The variety of advertisements throughout the program. In flipping through the pages, I found that I recognized a majority of the businesses that have advertisements in the program. It was also interesting to look at all the ads and to take note of which businesses are still around in the area to this day. Local favorites such as Willow Hollow Golf Course, Maier’s Bakery, Heck Bros. Florists, Schell’s Miniatur Golf, and HersheyPark all paid for advertising space in the 1988 Reading Phillies program.

These are just a few of the interesting things I have noticed after flipping through the program quickly, but I am sure there are more fun facts to be learned about the early team in Baseballtown. As the Reading Phillies gear up to celebrate their 70th season at America’s Classic Ballpark this summer, I look forward to sharing more fun history with you!

Confessional: Have you ever received a piece of history from a program or group that you were interested in? What was it and what interested you the most?

Well, I know it’s been awhile since I have posted, but things have been busy. With the Fightin Phils finishing up the season and making the playoffs, work (job #1), plus vacations, it’s been difficult finding a decent amount of time to sit down and get some solid writing done. With that being said, time to wrap up season 15 in Baseballtown.

15 seasons. It’s still mind boggling to me that I have spent 15 summers working at a baseball stadium and I still look forward to it every year.

I would have to say the best part of this season was getting back to the ballpark and getting to see all of the regular customers and coworkers who have become more like family over the years. It’s always fun to catch up, find out what everyone has been doing during the off season, and then spending our summer nights together watching baseball. There is just something about knowing that these people, who we only know from serving them ice cream or working together and talking about baseball, are genuinely interested in us and our lives. For five months out of the year we all come together, sharing a common interest and, I know I have said it before and I will say it a million times after this post, working at the ballpark doesn’t feel like a job. It feels more like hanging out with friends and making some money on the side. Sure there are rough days, but all in all I think it’s one of the best summer jobs around.

Anyway, this post is getting a bit too sappy for me, so here are some brief highlights from this season.

Stand Hopping

This season, Ariane and I spent time working in three different concession stands over the course of the summer. Normally we spend the entire summer working solely in the UIC, which we love, but this year we were called on to fill in when they were short staffed. We worked in both of the other ice cream stands and even worked one game in the water ice stand. Don’t worry, our regulars still found us and came to visit each game! While our time in these other stands was short-lived, it certainly reiterated how much we love our little ice cream shed and we wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.

Anthem Singers

That’s right, once again we were lucky enough to have the chance to sing the National Anthem before one of the final games of the season. This is something that we love doing and even though we don’t get to do it often, each time is still pretty cool. One thing people always ask us is if we knew we were going to be singing and the answer is no. We typically find out about 20 minutes before the anthem is scheduled to take place and quickly take time to run through our harmonies once or twice while huddling in the corner of the stand. So if you ever come up to buy ice cream and we are standing close together and humming don’t be alarmed. That’s simply how we subtly get ready to sing.

Confessional: Have you ever been asked to perform or speak in front of a crowd at the last minute? What were you asked to do and how did you prepare?

Customer Appreciation

I know I already talked about seeing our regular customers and all that gushy stuff, but one thing that Ariane and I always talk about is how nice it is to hear how much people appreciate what we do. I’m not trying to boast or brag, but it is pretty nice to have people saying they missed you when you weren’t at a few games because of vacation, and how they don’t like to get their ice cream from any other stand because no one else is as pleasant to talk to. Who wouldn’t want to hear that type of compliment? The fact that fans will come find us even when we aren’t in our normal stand just so they can say hi always makes us feel good. I guess we’re doing something right!

Playoff Baseball

Every sports fan knows that cheering for your team is more exciting when they are doing well and winning. It’s a lot more fun to root for a team when they win games than when they lose. This year, the Fightin Phils did not let their fans down. They finished the first half of the season in second place in the division, but pulled it out in the second half, finishing in first and making it to the playoffs. While unfortunately our time in the playoffs did not last long, it was fun to watch the team finish out the season strong. When the team does well, the fans have more fun and the entire atmosphere around the ballpark is a lot more high energy.

Well, that pretty much sums up the highlights from this past season. Don’t worry, there are more stories to share, but if I tell them all in this post I won’t have anything to write about until next season. For now, just know that season 15 was another great summer spent watching baseball, selling ice cream, and just spending time hanging out with a great group of friends.

Oh, and Opening Day 2020 is April 9…let the countdown begin!

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?