Phillies Champions On the Field; Not in the Stands

Philly fans are passionate, some of the most passionate fans in sports, maybe the most passionate. However, some men in blue shirts are trying to hold us down. That's right, the ushers at Citizens Bank Park are trying to silence your right to be a fan and voice your opinion.

I'll tell you where I sit and exactly what happened, the Phillies already have my name and info because one of their bozo employees took it down on his little pad yesterday afternoon. I sit in section 144 row 14, everyone that sits in that area on Sunday's knows me and who I go to games with. We have all been having a good time together for the past two seasons. We do chants, we cheer loud and and enthusiastically, we heckle the left fielder for the opposing team. We do it classy however, we don't use profanity unless you think the word "sucks," around a bunch of 20 somethings and older is a curse word.

Sunday of course was the last game of the regular season, "fan appreciation day," to be exact. And we were doing our usual heckling at Pete Orr of the Washington Nationals, again nothing over the line or vulgar. All of a sudden about five blue shirt wearing yes men come at us as if we'd been yelling profanity and kicking babies or something. "We've had some complaints, some phone calls about you guys," one dope said. Phone calls? Really? Is there a hot line or something to file complaints about fellow fans? Think they'd let us plead our case or explain what we had been doing and how wrong the allegations against us were? No way, anything we said was met by a rude "don't argue with us, just knock it off or we'll have to eject you." They leave and go back to their "spots" to maybe try and ruin another group of fans fun. After the altercation our fellow fans surrounding us , seeing how we were treated started yelling a little louder with us. One man was then slapped on the wrist by a cold looking skeleton of an usher. Thanks for the solidarity man. A couple minutes later one of the ushers walked past our group very slowly almost as if he was hoping we'd say something to him. So I acted scared, basically mocking him, he angrily asked if I had a problem with him, then for me to come with him. I'm standing in front of "Harry the K's" with this goon and about 5 other goons. All asking me for my ID, which I refused to give. None of those blue shirts have any authority to take my information down, and certainly not without a valid reason. I wasn't aware that "mocking" was a reason for your personal information to be recorded and for you to be ejected from a ball park.

I requested one of Philly's finest to come and ask for my I.D. Meanwhile, the 50 something moron who was using his "authority" to kick me out was recording down on his little pad "exactly" what happened. He said to another usher "he mocked me as I walked down the rows." The other usher angrily asked me if this was true, which I replied " yes, yes I did mock him." You could see the disgust in their eyes they thought I was scum. How dare I mock an overacting usher who is obviously compensating for something missing in his life, so he goes to the ball park and picks fights with fans because he has "authority."

After a lovely conversation with the police officer sent to get my I.D and escort me out of the stadium ( and I do mean that, he could not have been more nice or understanding,) I realized that I wish I would of said so many more things to that usher and the rest of his usher buddies. So I figured I'd write about it, is it earth shattering? No. Is it a problem that needs to be dealt with? Perhaps, in the future it could become one. Maybe the Phillies should try to hire people who actually understand Philly fans and how we act and stop hiring grumpy old people and former high school stars turned gym teachers.