Empty

Horrible Atmosphere

Montreal Expos v Philadelphia Phillies, April 19, 1990


Veterans Stadium, Sec 214 Row 7

With the consecutive Phillies sellouts today in 2010, many forget, or were not young enough to remember, games at the Vet when 8,417 would be on hand to see a ballgame in South Philadelphia. By my calculations that means there were either 53,965 empty seats or 53,965 people dressed up as empty seats who sat silently throughout this game. 

Not to complain, but I was a guest of a lawyer whose firm we did business with.  I'm a pretty humble kid who grew up in the 700 level.  I don't expect much.  But I did not expect my host to bring his own brown bagged peanut and butter and jelly sandwich and eat it in front of me without offer to buy me anything. 

It was fitting given the teams on the field and the cavernous empty stadium.

The only thing that could make this baseball experience worse would be the Phillies starting pitcher giving up hits to the first two men he faces then balking in a run in the top of the 1st.  So in the top of the 1st after the Expos Delino DeShields and Maquis Grissom each singled, the Phils starter Bruce Ruffin balked in DeShields, who was now on 3rd base. 

What next? An entire game when the home teams fails to score?  So after nine innings the home team failed to cross the plate once.

What next?  An entire game with no home runs.  So, after 9 innings of play not one ball left the yard.

To put things into perspective; I presently own 2 Veterans Stadiums seats (stadium demolished in 2004) which now sit empty in my sports bar.  The odds are favorable that these same two seats were empty on April 19, 1990.

The Expos had 11 hits to the Phils 2. Dennis Martinez was credited with the win.