As a boy, visits to Veterans Stadium were about hoping and wishing that my beleaguered Phillies would maybe win a game. I witnessed far too many 90-loss teams, the ones that drag you through the summer swelter like the odor of garbage bags on a city street.
Funny, that was a typical smell those days at the Vet, a haze of rot floating near the men’s bathrooms.
If Mom came home from Thriftway with a couple packs of Phillies Franks, I knew I was accompanying Dad for a special Tuesday sojourn to the Vet, a chance to swim in the August humidity and pray this wouldn’t be one of those 10-2 losses.