Whirlwind

In three hours on Saturday I went from sweating my butt off finishing some yard work on a pleasant spring afternoon to holding onto my hat and hoping our Bull’s BBQ didn't get whisked away in gale force winds at Citizens Bank Park.

Yes, the winds were so bad that I was having the blasphemous thought of wondering how it compared with the first half of Game 5 of the 2008 World Series. It wasn't a good sign when we pulled into the parking lot that the first sight we saw was a woman wrapped in a blanket and the first thing we heard was some guy say it was like a tornado.

In other words, perfect weather for Christine and I to make our 2011 debut at the ballpark.

We didn't make our usual predictions this year, but we did predict we’d see Joe Blanton more than any other starter in the five games we go to this year. We stand corrected: Kyle Kendrick is the front runner.

Actually, he pitched a good game – two hits and a walk in five shutout innings. He probably could have gone more, but he hasn't been stretched out to be a starter.

Ryan Howard hit a homer for Trent (who stayed home with his grandmother), and the Phillies manufactured two other runs to spoil the major league debut of Braves prospect Julio Teheran. Phillies 3, Braves 0.

Shane Victorino made a couple of nice catches in center, but the defensive play of the game was Martin Prado, who ran across half a continent to rob the Flyin' Hawaiian of an extra-base hit to lead off the bottom of the 8th.

Observations from the stands: For the second year in a row, we saw the Kentucky Derby at a ballpark. Last year we were in Baltimore. We saw another race once in 2007. … It was Youth Baseball Night as 3,000 youngsters paraded around in their uniforms. One of the teams seated near us was sponsored by a roofing company that uses my last name. (No relation.) We happened to be there for last year’s event as well. It was very windy that night, too. And, we saw Lady Pha Pha. … An Asian tourist sat in front of us. He asked me to take a picture of him, then another without the flash, then another with the scoreboard, then another with the World Series trophy. OK, that last one was a joke, but I thought I broke his camera when the screen went blank and up popped some Japanese words. ... The 7th inning stretch seemed weird. I realized this morning that that’s because we’re rarely at Saturday games and are used to God Bless the America. … It was cold, so I got a coffee. … Christine loved watching a little boy in front of us enjoy himself with the fans. The whole section cheered when he was caught by the scoreboard camera.

Scoreboard: We can pretty much see the new scoreboard from our house. It’s nice to look at, but they could do a better job arranging things on the screen so it’s less busy. It seems as if they've also updated other scoreboards and televisions throughout the park, which makes those that haven’t been updated seem woefully inadequate.

Antiquated Phillies shirts: Bobby Abreu, Pat Burrell, Jim Thome and the debut of Jayson Werth. And a very unusual Geoff Jenkins that said G. Jenkins. We saw a bunch of random teams represented, such as the Reds and Giants, but the strangest was a guy in his 70s wearing a Tigers hat and jersey. A short while later, we spotted an even older gentleman wearing a Ryan Howard jersey. It made us smile.