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…on Saturday, April 19, SNY.tv’s Ted Berg and i, along with our video producer, Jason, hit the road for Philadelphia to check out the Mets and Phillies in Citizen’s Bank Park…
…video from our day in Philadelphia, complete with the Pat and Geno’s Cheesesteak Challenge, will hopefully be online towards the end of the week…
…the plan was for people to meet up in Lot N starting at 12 noon, and by the time we arrived, more than a few hundred Mets fans had already set up shop…it was pretty impressive…some people had buses, another crew had a camper, though most were small cars packed with food and drinks and Wiffle Ball, which i was happy to play…i did not make a fool of myself, as i feared, hitting and throwing a few pitches…however, i did tweak my hamstring a bit…seriously, i hurt my hammy, and my arm was sore the next day…which is a new and pathetic low for me…
…it’s always great to meet people who read this site…i know i have said it before, but when i am able to put the ‘page view statistic’ to a face, it’s always nice…it makes the whole experience of writing this blog more personal, and i like that…also, for the first time, i saw some 
one wearing a MetsBlog t-shirt in person, which was very exciting…thanks, Mike, for the support…
…speaking of t-shirts, a large group of Mets fans had t-shirts printed with a picture of Pedro Martinez on the front and the words, “Philly Sucks” printed below it…on the back, pedro’s quote about fighting the Phillies was in bold, with all of the fans names and nicknames in small print featured at the bottom…nice work…
…speaking of fans, Phillies fans are some seriously angry people…i get the sense they are looking for a fight…which is disappointing…i mean, you guys won the division last year, act like it…also interesting, unlike Shea Stadium, i didn’t see one family in the house – and it was a Saturday afternoon…instead, it was wall-to-wall college kids, which is fine by me…but, for a sport that is concerned about building a future fan base, it was a bit alarming…and frankly, given the language and violence and general hatred in the stands, if i was a father, i’m not sure i would bring my kid to that building either…something tells me Billy Wagner would agree, based on his recent comments in the Daily News…actually, Bob Klapisch put it best in a 
column for the Bergen Record, in which he said that Phillies fans reached a new low on Saturday when booing Jose Reyes for not being injured…savages…in all fairness, there were plenty of Phillies fans who were polite, but, as in most cases, the rowdy few spoil it for the many…
…on the other hand, they have some pretty attractive female fans…i mean, when i thought ‘Phillies fan,’ i imagined a drunk, angry guy looking to kick my ass, i didn’t think cute, brunette girl in white shorts…so, this was a pleasant surprise…in other words, good for Chase Ultley, who has one helluva fan club…
…i was also able to meet Mike Nichols and Brandon Eddy, both of whom contribute to MetsBlog…i’m glad they could make it to the stadium, and if i didn’t say it on Saturday, guys, thank you for all of your hard work on MetsBlog…it’s always appreciated…
…me, ted, jason, mike, Zoe Rice, Coop, the Brooklyn Met Fan, SNK, dykstraw and others spent the second-half of the game watching from behind home plate in general admission…it’s a nice view, and 
though it’s standing-room only, i like the experience and look forward to having this sort of set up in Citi Field…i pace, and like to move around, especially when i’m nervous, so, for a baseball game, this is the ideal location for me…
…all in all, it was a fun trip, and though i feared for my life during the entire day, i hope to do this again later in the summer – maybe over July 4…
To view MetsBlog’s photos from Saturday, click here.
To read Zoe Rice’s notes from the afternoon in Philadelphia, and to see her pictures, which include me playing Wiffle Ball, pre-injury, click here; and to read Coop’s take on the day, also with pictures, click here; and to read Crazy Met Girl’s notes, and see pics, click here.
Yeah, I was amazed by how angry the fans were too. I was wearing a Wright shirt and I knew I would get some grief from the fans, but I literally couldn’t walk 10 steps around the concourse without getting ravaged. I don’t take that stuff too seriously so I didn’t really mind, but I was surprised overall at how brutal and relentless the Phillies fans were. Also, about 75% of the comments I got were along the lines of “David Wright is gay,” though that would be the kindest and least offensive way that they phrased it. So yeah, definitely an interesting experience in Philadelphia. Class is not the word I would use to describe, though there was one (1) Phillies fan who actually came up to me after the game in the parking lot to say “good game.” So I guess there’s that.
wouldn’t you be angry too if you had to live in that dump of a city and have won one world series and no super bowls ever?? They are second-class in every sense of the word.
I was there a couple times last year PRIOR to when things
really got heated and in REAL good seats behind 1B.
Except for my girl,these philly fans are very angry people
and not just the 20-25 y/o crowd but even some of the grannys. Having said that however, some of the hits i.e.
“wrights gay” etc. sound alot like what you hear at Shea
nowadays as well as from most of those who post to this
site. lastly BOTH Geno’s AND Pat’s are overrated,tourist-
trap type hero shops. Tony Luke’s much more legit.
I agree. The shea crowd isn’t filled with all friendly people. Mets fans can be jerks too. Its the way of the world. I’ve seen a fight in the crowd of every game I have been to this year (4 games so far). It doesn’t matter who they are playing. It is just more frequent when they play the yankees or the phillies because there are more of the opponent’s fans in the building.
We certainly aren’t all saints at shea.
I am not making excuses for Philly fans but I think we need to not be blind about some mets fans. i was at the Mets - Phillies game at shea and I witnessed a crazed met fan picking on an innocent philly fan on the concession line. He was acrazed maniac and ended up punching the poor kid in the face for no apparent reason. Shea seemed like a warzone that night as everytime I turned around someone was either getting kicked out or getting their phillies hat thrown off the upper deck. I was pretty embarrassed after the concession line incident and thought that after this display we are in for hell when visiting citizens bank, as we should be
like i keep saying, i think the cbp crowd was much better behaved than the shea crowd last week . during the wednesday game i swore i saw a phillies fans on crutches get beat with his own crutches.
(yes, i can simultaneously think this is both hilarious and sad)
What I don’t understand is that everytime there is a fight in a stadium between opposing fans, the home team gets blamed. A met-philly fight at shea and a met-philly fight in philly aren’t caused by anything other than two people being jerks. the location of the scuffle shouldn’t be used as any evidence to condemn a city.
With that being said, philly fans are out of line.
its highly doubtful that one or two phillies fans sitting in a section filled with Mets fans would begin a fight. Dont be naive, the fights start when the home fans band together and begin to heckle and abuse the away fans
the Phillies fans were the ones causing trouble at Shea though. Ever notice how the fights escalate way more during games when Philly fans are in the building than say a Subway Series game?
I’ve been in sections where one or two people from the opponents’ fan base instigate a fight with nearly the entire section. Sure, alcohol is involved, but it happens pretty frequently.
It may also be naive to think that entire sections of fans beat up one or two people because they are wearing a certain shirt. That’s just insane even in Philly.
I have to disagree with the “small bands of away fans wouldn’t start a fight with home fans” line. I went to the Eagles-Giants game this year at Giants Stadium (when the Giants sacked McNabb 12 times), and by the end of the game this group of 4 Eagles fans a few rows below me were just looking to pick a fight with ANYONE. They were just trying to argue with anyone. I was wearing my Mets hat (having just come from the game that shall not be mentioned, #162), and they started giving me crap about the Phillies & Mets. Finally, as the game was letting out, one of them poured what was left of his beer on a girl as she was exiting, and her boyfriend went ballistic and went after the guy, who then threw the (plastic) bottle at him. It was ridiculous. And yea, they were clearly from Philly.
But to the important debate….Geno’s rules, not even close.
No more Willie poll? I thought this was being done at the end of each series.
wow those philly fans were annoying last night
ah…a taped up wiffel bat. Thanks for the pictures and my arm gets a little tender post wiffel game as well, so your not the only one. I think it has something to do with throwing a weightless ball as hard as possible….at least thats what i tell myself to get by.
i was actually expecting a lot worse out of the philly fans, and honestly, i think the atmosphere was a lot worse for the visiting fans during the shea series. i think most of the philly fans are used to having the mets fans around by now.
but i tend to have a good sense of humor about these things, and it helps to toss out a non-threatening, insightful, funny comeback. once you show most people that you’re not a belligerent a-hole and that you have some slight degree of deference as a guest in someone else’s house, they tend to talk to you a lot more and even stick up for you if some troublemaker gets in your face.
in general this may have been the best time i’ve ever had at a game, terrible compromising pictures of me notwithstanding. i would definitely be up to do this again whenever we have another weekend series down there. philly definitely has us beat in the tailgate party department.
—
therev makes a good point. like all groups of people, some are good and some are bad.
I really didn’t think the fans were that bad. I was at Shea on opening day against the Phillies. Though I was in the bleeders, there was a lot more animosity towards Philly fans at Shea than I saw on Saturday (again in the bleeders.) Of course we got the, “Mets suck” comments, but it was nothing compared to the number of fights in the bleachers I saw opening day. Every time a person in a Philly jersey walked up or down the stands empty beer bottles and half eaten burgers would be thrown at them. I didn’t see that at all on Saturday. In essence I thought Philly fans were a bunch of wussies compared to what Mets fans put them through on our turf.
Overall, Saturday was one hell of a day. I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day to tailgate with my family and friends for my birthday. I didn’t make it over to Lot N I was busy drinking and grilling which is sad because I was in Lot M. We actually started playing flip cup with a group of Philly fans across from us. It gave me the chance to go up to their girls after the game and say, “Hey ladies want to know how it feels to be with a winner.” I was a little inebriated. Great stadium can’t wait until we have ours. I just wish we had the ability to tailgate at our games, that would add to the experience.
My only real statement of discontent was the fact that two males started selling Nitrous Oxide balloons in our parking lot after the game. I didn’t think hippie crack would have been such a hot commodity at a baseball game, further backing up your point that it is not the most family-friendly atmosphere.
it took me all of 5 minutes in parking lot N to get into a fight with some incompetent member of phillies nation.
however, section 307 in promenade definitely ruined the day for the whole upper deck. for that, i am very happy.
good to see you in front of cbp matt
love the kowalski jersey btw
Phillies nation? I think it takes more than a handfull of drunks barely watching a game to be referred to as a nation. Otherwise, my family reunions might qualify as a UN Summit.
nice
i was trying to think of a funny synonym for nation but couldnt think of one
Section 307 was pretty bad(I was sitting a few rows behind you). It comes down to what the fans choose to say. Rather than make fun of the team or the players, they choose to make fun of the fans. Consider youself lucky, they wanted to start talking trash about Mets fans girlfriends. I must have heard “Mets fans are fat” about 20 times by the 6th, before I turned around and told them to grow up.
I had to bite my tongue at the David Wright is gay thing, because I had the urge to tell them that their mom told me different last night. I fought the urge, if only for the sake of self-preservation. :)
section 307 was a special place on saturday. We were completely louder than the phillies fans and the security guard had our backs.
There were grandfathers giving me the double handed middle finger “F YOU”
sooooo special!
After MVP J.Roll popped out to end the bases loaded phils rally most of the phils fans were clearing out. I started a LETS GO METS chant that i could swear resonated through the whole stadium.
love it. thank you philly for the memories
Holy shtt…… You? You are THE Kowalski? Number 69 black Mets jersey?
We were sitting a few rows back from you. The guys one row behind us were hounding on you all game.
“HATS WITH STICKERS”
clap clap clapclapclap
You are a brave soul my good man.
Section 307 was the section to beat. Tell Jimmy Rollins I Said That
stellar, I think I was sitting next to you. We complained about Willies bullpen style, sound familiar?
its possible.. i spoke to a few mets fans at that game.. you had to have been behind me though because the seats to the left and right of me were my people. There was a guy like two or three rows back who looked pretty animated.. perhaps that was you?
oh, sorry i thought you were talking to me just now… I thought you meant that our current dialouge was stellar
Nah, the animated guys behind you were the ones heckling you. A guy with a beard wearing, of all things, a JC Romero t-shirt. Took all I had not to heckle him for wearing that.
Went to CBP on Friday for the first time. What a game, Johan is money and Willie almost lost it for us by bringing in soon to be former Met Aaron “long ball” Heilman. Just a note Willie lost the game for us yesterday by not countering Charlie Manuel when he brought in Feliz who likes to hit lefties. Willie does not have the in-game intellect to lead any MLB team to the promiseland. The Philadelphia Utley’s didn’t deserve to win but Willie is a horrible in game manager and it proved costly. He takes his own team out of a winning streak and must go.
Yeah, because after being a winner for 30 years and around some of the great baseball minds of his time,
Willie knows nothing. Right?? Unbelievable! It never ends
with some of you. Omar gives Willie a team with holes all
over and when not plugged perfectly, It’s Willie’s fault. O.K.!
Heilman pitched pretty well on Saturday in a clutch spot. Also, with two lefties (Utley and Howard) due up after Feliz, pulling Feliciano would have forced the Mets to use three pitchers to get through the 7th inning (Feliciano, RHP to get Feliz, and then Schoeneweis to get Utley and Howard). Given that Wagner was likely unavailable last night after pitching in 4 straight games, your “strategy” would have left the Mets without a lefty for the 8th inning and 9th inning (and perhap extra innings if it went that far).
Is Willie a good strategist? No. But the constant whining over every one of his moves is ridiculous. You can’t manage every game of the season by the percentages or you will burn out your bullpen. In addition, doing so prevents your players from improving upon the weaknesses (i.e., pitching or hitting vs. a particular type of pitcher).
Feliciano could not be taken out. Once he is brought into the game in between innings he has to pitch to the first batter. Had a righty been left in Manual would have countered lefty batter.
The choice was Feliciano v. Feliz (hitting low .200s at the time and cold) or Sosa v. Dobbs. I personally have little to no faith in Feliciano, but that was probably the right move, it didn’t work. Certainly not Willie’s fault.
also, aside from center city, philadelphia is skid row. hands down. second rate city with nothing to offer. there is a sever inferiority complex that the denizens of philly deal with on a daily basis. i believe this adds to a lot of their incomprehensible classless attitude.
i stayed in south philly sat night. when i would ask for directions everyone that answered me said to not take the subway because that is murder capital usa… i thought out transit system was bad…
i have no reason to ever go back there. NATS STADIUM HERE I COME!
Dude, Center City, is s friggin’ nightmare as well!
It was a fun day on Saturday, for the most part. I realized that I don’t find being on the away end of a really heated, violent rivalry to be much fun. Go figure. But it was fun seeing some people from here (metsblog) and going out for a gorgeous day of baseball. Oh, and I liked the result of the game, too.
Having seen the women at Shea on telecasts, it’s saddening how they don’t match up to the girls of The Ted whatsoever…
All the female Mets fans I know are *adorable* and shame on anyone for questioning it in the first place. Or even bringing it up. And hey, where’s *our* eye candy while you’re at it.
Zoe comes through in the clutch!
you have a whole team of eye candy, reyes, wright, beltran, pagan, santana, i don’t see jeniffer aniston out on that field shaggin fly balls or cameron diaz behind the plate : )
WORD
lol! i totally forgot about the braves.
well frankly, I’m offended by your comment…
Lucky for us bloggers don’t go on the dl :-)
Yeah, the Friday night booing when Reyes got up was just terrible–and I think even at Shea fans would have clapped if a Philly player turned out to be uninjured.
But overall, based on my limited experience Saturday, being in enemy territory wasn’t so bad. We were whooping it up a bit after the win, and we didn’t even get lambasted for it.
I would agree for the most part, that is until I had onions thrown on me…yes onions. I think they had some aggression built up from losing 4 in a row to us…but onions…Come on!
Zoe, that’s because you werent around long enough after the game…we didn’t have any issues until we parted ways with you guys.
I think it is both an excellent and horrendous idea to have a McFaddens open and serving alcohol for hours after the game. We were warned by Phillies fans not to take the subway after around 7:30pm and it turns out they were right!
Oh and the onions in the hair bit, real classy!
Oh no! How did I not realize you were going to take the subway? Yeah, I would have recommended a change of t-shirt for that trip. Hope it wasn’t *too* bad!
come to think of it, my silly little brother didn’t change his shirt and i haven’t heard from him since…
LOL! well, these guys seemed more intent on harassing females, so he would have been fine!
Zoe, thank god for the extra sweater in Rebecca’s bag!
it’s a good deal better than the phils fans at shea who got their heads and necks vomited on.
“…on the other hand, they have some pretty attractive female fans…”
g-d bless america
Matt:
Can’t you enlarge that picture of the cute brunette in white shorts?
umm no one’s gonna comment on the phillies ladies?? watching the game on tv the camera seemed to find more than a few friendly looking faces. If they plan on trying a takeover of shea like had been mentioned before the start of the season, just make sure to send up the classy lassies. I will be the first to extend an olive branch to a brunette/blond sporting an utley jersey, i mean can’t we all just get along?
I dont know, the Philly ladies who were on the screen telling everyone the rules of the park were not attractive. I’m fairly certain one was a man.
as much as I despise Philly, the girls from there are pretty attractive. I went to school just outside the Philly area, and it seemed like every girl I was attracted to was an Eagles/Phillies fan. It was awful….It almost made me happy to find out that my girlfriend is a Yankees fan.
I’d imagine Mrs. Cerrone might comment on that paragraph and picture.
Off topic but can anyone shed some light on Ron darling doing TBS broadcasts. Yesterday I turned on the game to hopefully watch the Braves lose to the Dodgers and was surprised to hear Darlings voice. I knew he was doing post season work last year but had no idea it was regular season as well. I will admit it made the broadcast a little easier to listen to.
darling signed a contract with tbs to do sunday games and the playoffs. great for ronnie. not so great for mets fans though lots of sunday games are on espn, tbs, or fox anyway.
i just hope the wilpons are smart enough to keep him long-term.
Let’s hope he is great. I really enjoy listening to him. Thanks for the info.
I liked the tailgating aspect of the game, although I didn’t care for the traffic afterwards.
I was in section 306 of the Pavillion and there were a lot of Mets fans in the surrounding section. I went with my fiancee (a Yankees fan, blah), her cousin who lives in Philly (but is a Red Sox fan) and his girlfriend (a Phillies fan). They were at Friday’s game and said that Mets fans were getting escorted out, not for doing anything wrong but for their own safety. They told me that it would be best for me not to get up and cheer loudly if the Mets were doing well.
The first couple of innings were pretty quiet, I think since we scored in the first, it subdued the fans. By the 5th or 6th inning I think the drunk fans from both teams started to get into belligerent mode and a lot of shouting matches took place. One section over, two obscenely drunk Phils fans were escorted out, one even tried to grab his beer back from the security guard that confiscated it from him and was promptly put into a full headlock. Another Phils fan was ejected and on his way out he took off his shirt to reveal the Phillies “P” tattooed onto his right shoulderblade. That drew a rousing ovation from the section.
Overall it was a bit more subdued than I thought. Not a lot of physical altercations, more taunting than anything else until the fight broke out in the 9th. Normally, I’d say the field level seats are a lot tamer, but then again a fight at Shea broke out at the home opener on the 3rd base field level section.
The walk back to the parking lot was not a problem at all. However, later that night I was out at a bar in Manayunk, so I decided to keep my jacket closed over my Mets jersey and take off my Mets hat. I figured it was one thing to be at a stadium with plenty of security, but a crowded bar with like one or two bouncers manning the doors, would be a different story.
that one section over you were talking about was me.
i was sitting right behind you. I had the santana t-shirt on. our section, and those nearby had a ton of met fans.
i heard there was a huge brawl below us on field level. was anyone in on that??
I was in Section 306 as well. I was probably one of those belligerent Mets fans. It was my birthday and I started drinking heavily as soon as we parked. I saw the one guy get kicked out that took off his shirt. I wasn’t too sure what he did to get thrown out. All the razzing I received was in good fun and nothing got out of hand. It was all repetitive (”Mets suck” “Last year crap”) and in my drunken state I did not have a good come back.
I think I was in either the third to last or second to last row. It was a great day.
not to glorify the fight on the field, but
it was glorious.
mets fan had a phillies fan in a headlock giving him uppercuts to the forehead.
police officer got hit once too until the mets fan… lost the fight
you think cbp is bad for mets fans? i wonder how philadelphia central bookings is for mets fans.
it spilled over onto the field? wow, now that’s a brawl
I was in standing room in RF on the 1st level and that Mets fan was railling the phillies fan. Wasn’t he wearing Mets Dykstra T-Shirt Jersey too?
was the fight you mentioned Sat? On the broadcast, they mentioned something on the air later in teh game, when Burrell was coming up to bat; there was a delay and you could see all the fans looking toward right field and pointing
Yeah that was probably it. I was way up in the Bleeders so I couldn’t see it, but I saw all the fans and players look that way.
It’s sad to say, but when I eventually have kids, I don’t think a sporting event is a good place to bring them. The amount people drink and they way they talk, I would never sit with my kid in Upper Reserved at Shea, even for a Sunday afternoon game against the Giants. Something has changed among ALL fans over the years.
A good ribbing can be funny and in good spirit without dropping f-bombs and profanities all game. I’m 25 and I don’t want to hear it most of the time, let alone when I have kids and bring them.
My section was pretty well behaved. I was in 339 or 329 (I forget which, I didn’t keep the ticket, we were just to the first base side of home plate), and I lucked out being in a row with 5 other Mets fans. I went to Chickie’s and Pete’s before the game with my college roomate (a Phils fan) and for about an hour was the only Mets fan in the place. I got quite the heckling, but I took it in good fun, and as we were leaving the guys at the table next to us congratulated me on being a good sport, which was pretty nice of them. Once we got to the stadium the abundance of Mets fans (and the 2 beer towers we had killed) made me a bit more confident that I wasn’t gonna get beaten down. By the end of the game our section had a pretty loud Lets Go Mets chant going. It was pretty awesome.
Probably my favorite moment of the game occurred after Rollins pinch-hit AB, when all the Mets fans were getting a little rowdy one of the Phillies fans in my section started chanting something about the Phillies being division winners, so I turned around and unbuttoned my David Wright jersery to reveal my “Giants Super Bowl XLII Champions” t-shirt. I think it was the loudest booing I heard all game. If you want to cut a Philly fan deep, always go after the Eagles.
oh my god this entire thread is so fabulous. i wish i could have been there!!!
OK, one more reason Willie’s got to go: why not bat a red hot church in the 2 hole. castillo 2 and delgado 5 have not and will not work. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Reyes, Beltran, Wright,
Alou, Church, Delgado should lead the mets lineup. Heilman stinks and I’m tired of people giving him props. He stinks! Big homer after big homer. In fact, its pathetic (just ask Johan). Aaron would do real well in Kansas City but not NYC. I love the Mets and I like WR but he’s not a winner.
And the award for “most likely to be bitter after a big series win on the road” goes to ABSeabra
this whole comments section knows how i feel about willie but you’re way way way out of line diverting the topic here.
Way to go Matt. Pointing out how a Pedro shirt with Philly Sucks on it is “nice work”. Ok….and for good measure lets throw a quote on it from Pedro about fighting them this year. Then you have the nerve to say Philly fans are out of control? Get real.
matt cerrone, posterboy for angry, drunk, belligerent mets fans everywhere.
It was great to see that crowd in Lot N Saturday, the Mets fans basically took over the lot except for the bus of Phillies fans who for some reason decided to park there. It was great to meet you Matt, keep up the good work!
Put it this way, Philly fans are angry people and the scum of the earth. My three friends and I went to the Sunday game last year in Philly when the Mets were going for the four game sweep. Philly fans were throwing cups of beer on us as we were walking to the stadium and when we got back to his truck, it was egged and written all over. Not to mention when we were at the game, fans below us got into an argument with us and got the boot and we did soon after. Not fun being escorted by cops out of the game in the 6th inning. Advice to Mets fans in Philly: Bring earplugs and try to ignore the immature Philly Fans. Also going Sunday July 6 this year if people want to get a big tailgate going let me know.
You are correct in that we should not judge an entire city by the action of a few. But you have to admit Philly does not have the best rep, just ask Santa and why does the football stadium have a jail inside.