Never leave a ballgame early

This is why we never leave a ballgame early. My good friend Ted drove out from Illinois for a visit last weekend. Ted is one of the original Iron Undershorts Boys — guys who drive long distances without stopping much just to do things that most women would consider idiotic. In this instance, Ted was driving 881 over 14 hours and 8 minutes just to attend a Steve Forbert concert as part of the Bryn Mawr Concert Series presented by the Lower Merion Parks and Recreation department. Ted is a big fan of Steve Forbert, a singer songwriter once hailed by critics as the “new Bob Dylan.” Ted is also a big fan of Bob Dylan, owns every album of the guy has ever made and has seen him numerous times in concert, so it comes as no surprise that he would drive straight through halfway across the country to see a guy from the Dylan fold. So we had a perfect plan: That morning, Saturday, June 23, Ted and I worked the Montgomery Media table at the Souderton 125th anniversary parade and block party. I had tickets for the Phillies that afternoon and the ballclub accommodated us by having the start time at 4:05 p.m. The Forbert show in Bryn Mawr was scheduled for 7 p.m. that evening, but there was an opening act so we figured Forbert wouldn’t actually go on until closer to 8 p.m. We could do all three activities. There was no problem getting from Souderton to Philly for the first pitch. And with a relatively cleanly played game with good pitching, that should have given us enough time to get from the ballpark in South Philly to the gazebo in Bryn Mawr. The flaw in that plan was that this year’s Phillies don’t often play clean games that feature good pitching for nine innings. At least not as often as we fans are used to experiencing for the past four or five years. So when it got to be around 6:30 p.m. and the Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays were only in the sixth inning — with the good guys leading 5-3 — we had to violate one of my longtime rules about leaving a ballgame early if we were going to get to Bryn Mawr on time. After all, my friend is a Cardinals fan and he hadn’t driven 14 hours and 8 minutes in one day to see the Phillies blow another lead late in the game. He had trekked the 881 miles to see Steve Forbert sing. As it turned out, Phillies closer Jonathan Paplebon did indeed blow that two-run lead in the ninth inning just as we were sitting down in our lawn chairs for the concert in Bryn Mawr. It was now 5-5 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. Now I like these community concerts and I like Steve Forbert’s music. But what happened next made it difficult for me not to squirm in my lawn chair. I learned by checking my Twitter account that the first Phillies batter in the bottom of the ninth — the Hall of Fame bound Jim Thome — hit a walk-off home run to win the ballgame! And instead of me sitting in my regular seat at the ballpark watching that excitement, I was in a lawn chair in Bryn Mawr watching Steve Forbert tune his guitar. Argh. Not only that, but it was Thome’s 13th walk-off home run of his career, the most ever by any other player. With that home run, Thome passed the likes of Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musical, Jimmie Foxx and Frank Robinson — all Hall of Famers — in career walk-off home runs. No disrespect to Mr. Forbert, but given the choice of showing up late for his concert or staying in the ballpark for a walk-off home run by one of my favorite players, I’m going to choose the latter. But it was a great show and my friend got to see the artist he drove all those miles to see. It was a plan that nearly worked. In the end though, it was me singing a different tune. Having not seen the exciting and historic Thome home run, I was singing the blues.