The Presidential Pitch

Phillies Open­er, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by hhan­ni­gan.

This was just my sec­ond Open­ing Day game, and, boy, was it a doozy.

See that guy stand­ing alone on the mound? Yeah, that’s Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma! I snapped it from our seats along the third base line, cour­tesy of for­mer Nation­als right field­er Eli­jah Dukes!

I nev­er thought I’d attend anoth­er Open­ing Day game after my expe­ri­ence back in ’06. The game was ter­ri­ble. The weath­er was worse. Want to know how to fix that? Play against the Nation­als instead of the Cards!

Yes, the low­ly Nation­als were the per­fect match for the Phils, sur­rend­ing 11 runs, includ­ing a grand slam to our new mint­ed third base­man Placido Polan­co. Wel­come back! Hal­la­day did­n’t dis­ap­point either, turn­ing in a sol­id start after a shaky first inning. 

It was a real­ly spe­cial day for me and my fam­i­ly. I’m thrilled that we got the chance to see a bonafide Open­ing Day game.