May 19th, 1998

Tuesday May 19th, 1998
St. Louis Cardinals 10 @ Philadelphia Phillies 8
Stadium: Veterans Stadium

Now: Citizens Bank Park
Gas: Philadelphia, PA $10.25
Lodging: Elicott City, MD

Today we left the girls behind and headed north to the City of Brotherly Love.  We headed down to the historic district of Philly and went to the National Park visitor's center, checked out Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and Ben Franklin's former house, which has since been turned into a museum.  Both being the history buffs that we are, we ate all of this up.  We didn't get a chance to climb the steps of the museum like Rocky, but we still had a great time seeing where the early beginnings of our history began.  While we were enjoying all of this, we were keeping a close watch on the sky, because the clouds were threatening.  Fortunately, no rain ever really materialized.

The highlight of the day though was the game.  It started with batting practice.   While we were walking around taking our pictures, we were in dead center when Mark McGwire came to bat.  Already that year he had hit 17 home runs and there was very early talk about his pace to possibly beat Roger Maris record of 61.  He absolutely crushed the ball in batting practice.  We were about 10 feet about getting a number of his batting practice hits all the way out in the upper deck in center field.  But he was not done.  He hit season home runs numbers 18, 19, and 20 that night in Philadelphia.  Philly fans, notoriously known for being some of the most outspoken fans in all the game, even stood up and gave him a standing ovation after his third home run of the night.  That night, as we listened to the game on the radio (yes, we each had a radio we listened to the game we were at) talk quickly turned to how McGwire was almost certainly going to eclipse Maris's mark, which he eventually did with 70 home runs..  It was a very exciting night to be a part of that magical season.

Hindsight being 20/20, some the original excitement has lost some of it's luster due to the steroid scandal that has ravaged baseball and McGwire's subsequent Congressional testimony in 2005 where he came away looking very guilty in using performance enhancing drugs.   But at the time, it was probably for me the most exciting feat I had seen at a baseball game and I will never forget that feeling of seeing him crush number 3 over the fence and everyone going crazy.

Following that rush, we then had to drive the 3 hours back to Elicott City.  We were both exhausted by the time we got back and after talking with the girls for a few minutes, we went straight to sleep.