Citizen's Bank Park

As promised, here are the pictures from my visit to Citizens Bank Park this past Sunday.

First off, the ruins of Veteran's stadium. Good riddance. This was actually the first thing that I was looking for as we approached the stadium since I'd already seen pictures of the new park on TV and online. I was not disappointed

Nor was I disappointed when we arrived at the park -- how's this entrance compare to the faceless maze of concrete ramps and escalators that encircled the Vet?

One thing that becomes obvious when looking at this image is how overcast it was that day. Not exactly a picture-perfect day for baseball, but it didn't rain and the temperature was nice, so I can't complain too much. A bright sun and blue sky would have been nice, though.

One of the new statues surrounding the park. Nice, but you think they'd capture Schmidt in his early years instead of having him look like an old man, as he does here. Ah well, at least it looks like Schmidt, as opposed to the Lefty statue.

Another site before entering the park -- Lincoln Financial Field, right across the street. What a luxury -- separate stadiums for baseball and football! Finally.

Here is the view from our seats in the 200-level "Arcade" section, about halfway between 3rd base and the left field foul pole. I wasn't really feeling up to doing much walking that day, so all of the rest of the pictures featured here were taken from my seat.

The bullpens and the much-hyped Ashburn Alley, which was packed throughout the game.

The light-up Liberty Bell, yet another of Citizen's Bank Park's obligatory pieces of flair. We got to see it go off a couple times, but in the daylight it was kind of hard to see the lights. The ring, however, was very cool.

The Phillies' luxurious dugout, another big upgrade from the Vet. This picture and the forthcoming action shots were taken with my 70-300mm zoom lens, which came in quite handy.

Bobby Abreu fouling off a pitch. Yeah, so the zoom lens is really nice.

(I don't remember what order I took these action pictures in, so I'm just going to go alphabetically through the lineup...)

Marlon Byrd

Doug Glanville swings and misses, something he's good at.

Eric Milton

Thomas Perez

Jimmy Rollins. Not my favorite player in the world, but definitely photogenic, as I've got 4 shots of him here...

Jimmy Rollins tagging out Luis Gonzalez.

Jimmy Rollins taking off against Brandon Webb.

Jimmy Rollins talking with first baseman Shea Hillenbrand.

Jim Thome

Jim Thome swinging and, unfortunately, missing.

Billy Wagner

Billy Wagner

and, of course, no Phillies game would be complete without the Phanatic...

Unfortunately, I ran out of space on my memory card before the end of the game, so I didn't get quite as many shots as I wanted. I've got a bigger card on order, though, and I'm sure this won't be my last visit to the park this year, so hopefully next time I'll be able to take more (and explore more of the park as well).

Posted by mark at May 8, 2004 10:06 PM