Happy Birthday to Citizens Bank Park

The home of the Phillies turns 20 years old this year so it seemed like a good time to look back and say thanks.

As I said in last week's edition of Thirty Ballparks, I went to my first Phillies game during the magical 1993 season that would culminate with the team going to the World Series. It was in April and since it was very early in the year and there was no indication of what was coming, you could still gets tickets to most games pretty easily.

My friend and I loudly cheered our favorite player, the always entertaining John Kruk, every time he stepped to the plate. We drank beer, ate hot dogs and generally had a great time. The game went into extra innings so we were able to move down closer to the field once the ushers went home for the night, which I thought was really cool.

But what impressed me the most was Veterans Stadium, the monolithic monstrosity of steel and concrete where the Phillies played. The place seemed huge to me, just massive on a scale I didn't know existed. I mean, it could seat over 60,000 people for a baseball game. There was only a third of that there for the game I went to so I could really appreciate the sheer size of the place.

And almost as soon as we sat down in out seats, I could also tell that everything I had heard about The Vet was true. The place was indeed a dump.

The seats were uncomfortable. The food was boring. The concrete steps were all cracked and dirty. And from what I could tell the turf was a mess. My knees hurt just looking at it and I couldn't imagine what it was like to have to play baseball on the stuff. And of course later a court with an actual jail was installed to deal with rowdy Eagles fans during games.

Yes, Veterans Stadium was a dump. But that being said, it was our dump and we loved it.

Of course, some of this was not The Vet's fault, not really. Opened in 1967, Veterans Stadium was very much a product of the times. Multi-purpose stadiums where both a city's baseball and football teams could play were all the rage and it meant that out of necessity, the building had no real personality.

When the time came for Veterans Stadium to bid farewell, no one was really that upset to see it come crashing to the ground.

What would eventually replace Veterans Stadium became a hot topic of discussion in Philly as the ballpark's demise approached. The opening of Camden Yards in Baltimore literally changed everything about what a baseball stadium could be. It introduced the “retro ballpark” trend that would sweep through Major League Baseball, ballparks that evoked a feeling of watching the sport during an earlier time. Even 30 years later Camden Yards is still considered by many to be the benchmark that other parks are measured by.

The Phillies knew what they wanted to do, which was replicate Camden Yards, but the big issue became where to do it. The team wanted to put the new ballpark in downtown Philadelphia, near where Chinatown was located (sound familiar?) while most fans and city residents wanted it to be built at the Stadium Complex where The Vet used to stand. In the end common sense won out and what would become Citizens Bank Park began construction at Broad and Pattison in South Philly in 2001.

When it opened three years later for the 2004 baseball season everyone, from the players to the fans, was incredibly impressed. It was intimate yet sprawling. The sight lines are amazing, so much so that there literally isn't a bad seat in the house. The food options were and still are incredible, with cheesesteaks and crab fries and every other traditional baseball food you can think of available.

And because it's a retro style ballpark and the fans are so close to the action, when it's sold out the place can get loud. Really loud. Manager Rob Thomson said once that another National League manager told him that playing in Philly during the playoffs is like “four hours of hell.”

Which we take as a compliment.

The importance of Citizens Bank Park can not be stressed enough in regard to what it did for the Phillies, not just in terms of the attendance of games but to the club roster itself. Most fans and pundits agree that without The Bank (as it's come to be called) and the signing of Jim Thome, the team that dominated the 2000s would never have happened.

Signing Thome showed that the team's owners were willing to start spending money, real money, to win games and make the playoffs. Citizens Bank Park made being able to spend that money possible. Fans flocked to the new ballpark, and while the bar for improving the baseball watching experience was pretty low thanks to Veterans Stadium, they wouldn't have kept coming back again and again if it wasn't a special place.

Thanks to The Bank, the Phillies won a World Series and went to a second during that Golden Age of Phillies Baseball. We saw Roy Halladay throw a no-hitter in the playoffs. We saw Shane Victorino hit a grand slam in Game 1 of 2008 Division Series. We saw Chase Utley prove once again why he is “The Man” with his World Series victory speech after the parade.

And my personal favorite, when pitcher Joe Blanton (Joe Blanton!) hit a home run in Game 4 of the 2008 World Series.

And now another generation of Phillies fans get to make their own memories at The Bank. And that's a big part of what baseball is about and why where the sport is played is so important. These are more than just stadiums. They are our home away from home during the summer, where we go to forget about all the nonsense in our lives and just watch our team and root for a win.

Happy birthday Citizens Bank Park. Here's to twenty more years of joy and baseball.