As a habitual Philly sports Web site checker, I was happy to see that the promotion schedule for the Phillies has been recently posted. I could just taste those semi-gross and yet irresistible dollar dogs as I skimmed the list looking for the first of the college night series. I got to the bottom before I realized, they were missing.
At first I was angered. I ran down the hallways knocking on every Phillies fan’s door and spread the terrible news. The Phillies did away with their college nights.
No more really cheap 500-level tickets. No more nights out at the Phillies with friends from other colleges throughout the area. No more cool free t-shirts.
Of all of the things I have to look forward to for the spring, I’m going to have to say that college night at the ballpark was pretty high on the list.
I thought for a while about why they would discontinue such a thing. Every time I went it seemed as though they sold the upper levels out, which they don’t usually do otherwise. It was definitely a successful promotion.
Then, I remembered what a typical college night at the Phillies game is like.
The last of these that I was in attendance for, I ended up losing count of the number of drunken underage college kids who got kicked out of the game.
It was just a big 500-level drunken dollar dog fight. People threw hot dogs on the field and cursed at the not-so-intimidating ballpark security guards. None of the college crowd really looked like they were there to watch the game but rather to just get totally hammered.
It’s really a shame that it came to this. I sat there thinking to myself at the last college night that it’s a wonder they still have these things, as I counted the number of empty beer bottles dropping into the lower seating sections of the park.
It is a pretty big cliché to say that college kids don’t have a lot of money because of the rising tuition costs for school. We were not making a very good case for ourselves when were paying our 21-and-older friends to buy ball park beer for everyone.
That is, ball park beer at $5 a cup!
I on the other hand, don’t particularly enjoy shelling out $30 for a decent seat when just last year, $10 got me down on the first level with my college ID.
I suppose that in a sad way, we don’t deserve to have college nights. I mean, it’s your typical case of how college-age kids, let’s say 18-22, are a harm to society and we aren’t worthy of anything nice because we screw it up anyway.
But what about those who really wanted to go spend a night at Citizen’s Bank Park? My friends and I froze our butts off in early April supporting the Phils. Now, I’m not really sure whether or not I’ll go to a game this season. Not because I can’t afford to go, but simply because it just won’t be the same.
