Phillies vs. Reds June 28th

Sometimes things work out in a funny way. Routinely I tried to research the various ballparks which I was due to visit, scoping out the best route to get there, the unique features and if there were any particularly signature foods that I should look to try. Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park time and time again came out as the most kid friendly ballpark out of all the parks in the Major League. "How fortunate!" I thought to myself, "I'm a big kid who'll love all the fun kid's attractions."

It was true, too. The park had all the amenities of modern Ballpark, with great concourses, specialty eateries, and shiny neon lights. Off in the back, however, was the Chuck-E-Cheese of the baseball world. There was almost an entire theme park for everyone from ragamuffins to rapscallions to run amok in. Sure there was a baseball game going on, and I watched a good portion of it, but for this park, for this moment in time, we're going to review the things that really mattered.

There was the Run the Bases Attraction: A simple game designed by some ingenious engineer wanting to tire out his kids, Run the Bases consists of three kids on running pads quick-stepping as fast as possible to push their respective Philly Phanatic character towards home plate. Anyone who has ever been blessed with the family fortune, or friend with a family fortune, back in the heyday of their youth, however, learned from the Nintendo Power Pad that you could always get faster times by punching the pads with your hands instead of your feet. Kids these days with their Wii wands and Wireless Guitar Heroes don't know crap.

The other kid toy I found myself enamored with was the Gigantic Batter Up game. Taking another cue from the distant past of my childhood, this dead on ringer for the Play Ball! pinball arcade game evoked memories of my precious allowance being soundly invested into swinging a mechanical bat at a pinball all for the glorious prize of a 2 cent baseball card. Incredibly, I don't think that this one distributed baseball cards, and probably cost 5 bucks a pop.

As I sat staring at the memories of these arcade replacements of actual athleticism, I noticed that I was receiving stares by passer byes. As I told you earlier, things work out in a funny way. At first I thought that I was simply looking particularly good that particular evening, despite the Chinatown Bus ride and Colonial touring about that had occurred earlier. I thought it could be a recognition of the shared spirit of my own inner child with those children gleefully playing away in their youthful innocence. I thought that it could have been a number of things, but these thoughts all turned out to be wrong when I realized the true root of the people's stares. Congratulations to those of you who picked it up from the first photograph. For those of you who didn't, the answer to the stares lies here.