Ellen and I had tickets for the Phillies game last night, and were wondering how wet it would be. Tuesday’s game it rained throughout, but the Phillies are up against it now schedule-wise, and they played through the rain after a two-hour delay. The forecast for Wednesday was not much better, and all day, while I worked, I kept checking the weather map on TV. There was lots of rain, but it remained just west of Philadelphia, so things were dry thus far. After Ellen got home from work and fed the cats we drove to the stadium, about an hour and 20 minutes, arriving around 6 PM.

While we had our dinner outside in Ashburn Alley (veggie hoagie for her, roast pork for me), we saw two of the Phillies’ TV broadcasters doing a live spot on the level just below us. Wheels and Tom are two of the three guys we see all the time on most Phillies broadcasts, so it was fun to see them. After we finished eating we went down for a closer look, but the broadcast was over by then. Tom was very friendly with the fans, posing for many pictures with them.

We walked around until nearly 7 PM, then took our seats on the third level. The rain was holding off to the west, and the sky was blue over the stadium as the game began, and fortunately it did not rain at all during the game. Oswalt was pitching, and we’d seen him do poorly on our last visit here, but he did much better this time. Raul Ibanez hit a home run early in the game, so we finally got to see one (our first live), but the Atlanta Braves played well, with a great performance from their pitcher Beachy. Late in the game the Braves pulled ahead 2-1, but the Phillies tied it 2-2 in the 8th. The top of the 9th Madsen kept the Braves from scoring, and in the bottom of the 9th, with two outs, Ross Gload hit a double that drove in the winning run. What a great ending to a fun game! Ellen declared Gload her hero, because his success meant we’d be able to leave the game at 10 PM instead of having to sit through extra innings. As always it was a long wait in the parking lot to get out and a long drive home, we got back around midnight. And today is a work day, so we were up at 5 as usual. We’ll be sleep-deprived today, but it’s worth it to see our team in person in this, their best year ever. Now 10 and a half games ahead of Atlanta in our division, the playoff spot is not far off. We’ll probably face the Braves again then. Bring them on!