The Loneliness of the Long Distance Phillies Fan

It was on my mind this morning as my mouse hovered over the "Buy Now" button on the MLB.TV Premium subscription page. About to drop a benjamin on a season-long subscription, I wondered why there isn't another way for me to watch the Phillies play from my home in New York City—a place to gather with fellow fans, a place with seats and without judgment or fake Yankee fans or creepy waiters accusing me of being straight edge for no reason. A place to fill the hole in my life that opened up when I moved here and stopped watching every single Phillies game of the season. But so far, it's been a struggle.

The answer should be easy. There's my first favorite bar in New York, the one that felt most instantly like home, primarily because the owner is a Phillies fan from Atlantic City. Sadly, profits are more crucial to him than loyalties and—come the 2009 World Series—he instantly jumped ship to the Yanks, telling me "the best thing that could happen to me would be for this to go seven games and the Phillies to win." That way, he could show his heart at the very last minute without alienating any customers (except me) before. Understandable? From a financial point of view, yes, almost. Acceptable? Definitely not.

I did have some good times there before the Phils faced the Yankees. Like when a creepy old man told me I was emasculating him with my baseball knowledge, then asked to buy me a beer to celebrate the Phils' win in the 2009 NLCS. "I should be buying you champagne," he said, as we watched Ryan Howard pop a bottle of it. "Well," I raised my bottle of Miller High Life to him and said, "it is the Champagne of Beers."

We also have what should be an easy option in the form of Wogies, the semi-official Phillies bar here in NYC. Unfortunately, my experiences with it have generally sucked. It says a lot that the best time I've ever had there was standing outside on the sidewalk, not being let into the bar. There was the time, soon after I moved to Brooklyn in 2009, when I went there alone to watch Game 3 of the World Series. I remember hopping off the F train, running around, getting lost in the West Village like I got lost all over my new city then, running some more, finding the bar and getting turned away by the doorman. The place was full. They sent me to a non-Phillies bar across the street where the Red Hot Chili Peppers were drowning out the sound of the game that no one else was watching anyway.

Then there was the time I went to see a taping of the Daily Show, itching in my seat for the show to be over so I could check the score of NLDS Game 1. Roy Halladay was pitching. I had a broken foot. Immediately after the show ended, I hopped outside and checked the headlines on my phone. "Phillies' Roy Halladay Takes No-Hitter Into 6th Inning of NLDS." How I felt in that moment was pretty much inexpressible, so let me just say: !!!!!!!!!

I jumped into a cab and was in the West Village quicker than should've been possible. But again, Wogies was full. Rather than pay for drinks somewhere else, we decided to watch the rest of game through the window, me standing on one foot. A crowd of broke misfits gathered on the street, including a girl I went to high school with and had barely seen since. Which just goes to show that, when you're born and raised in Philadelphia, the entire world is a surreal small town populated by rapid sports fans. In the end, it was a magical night on the street in New York City and a magical night for baseball, too. But I really would've liked to sit down.

Because I am seemingly incapable of learning my lesson when it comes to the place, I gave Wogies one last try at the opening of the 2010 NLCS. A pal and I got there early and snagged a booth. A waiter quickly swooped on us and said that we needed to find at least two more people to maintain occupancy of the booth and, furthermore, we couldn't sit there since we "weren't planning to drink." As he continued to ramble, it became clear he'd made the weird assumption that we were straight edge, or at the very least, that we inexplicably didn't drink beer. Haven't you ever, um, read this blog, dude? "Uh, no, we're into drinking," I told him. While that did convince him to let us sit there long enough to drink some Lager and eat some garbage bread, the judgment issued upon the two of us sitting alone in that large, comfy booth was thick in the air. And, eventually, K. told me he wasn't planning to hang out for the whole game anyway.

I don't know who my friends even are sometimes.

See, the thing I miss most about Philadelphia on the occasional days when I get deeply homesick for it is the lack of distinction between total weirdos and people who like sports. While in New York it seems people still suffer from an irrational fear that anyone who knows what ERA stands for will beat them up and break their glasses, in Philadelphia it's basically assumed that, if you have a pulse (and even if you don't), you're a raging baseball fan. That's why the Ramones may be from Queens, but my Ramones t-shirt says PHILLIES on it. METS would look lame, and not really make sense. Plus they don't have four names worth putting on it (zing!).

I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to watch baseball without being surrounded by investment banker bros eating cheesesteaks and fist-pumping to that Black Eyed Peas song that makes me want to kill myself. And maybe for a friend or two who would care to watch with me without being forced or going home before it's over (and it's not over until it's over). And, please baseball gods, maybe it could be walking distance from my building?

So here's a note to East Village bar owners: maybe you should invest in a TV and start showing some baseball. Really, you don't have to choose between playing sports and playing music that doesn't totally blow. I promise you a certain cadre of Philly ex-pats will love you for it. I mean: if you build it, we will come. Until then, I'll be sitting home with a six-pack, laptop, and my MLB.TV subscription, waving a rally towel, judgment-free.