It feels like it’s been weeks since I last checked in with this site, but as it turns out, the reality is that time flies when baseball season gets cooking. The R-Phils are two games into the season already, which is hard to believe, seeing as how it seems like just yesterday that I was driving to the stadium with 50 or so days until Opening Night. But the practice is done, run-throughs finished, and preparation complete. The boys of summer are back and baseball is, pardon the pun, in full swing. Finally!

Before I get into the first two games themselves and the excitement that surrounded them, I want to try and describe what the final few days of getting ready meant for me. The biggest, or one of the biggest, challenges was learning Click Effects. This is the program that I’ve written about briefly in previous blog posts on here which runs the audio for the entire stadium during the game. The “charge!” organ riffs, the at-bat songs, and everything else. Simple enough, right? Well, consider the fact that I had almost no experience with this program coming into my internship, I’d say it was more of a challenge than some might imagine. But after moving songs around, getting comfortable with where they are and when to play the correct ones, and a whole lot of practice…I think I got it down. However, doing Click Effects in an empty stadium as a test is a little bit different than 7,500 people packed into FirstEnergy Stadium for Opening Night 2010.

There were plenty of other tasks I had to do before April 8th, and you’ll have to take my word that they were difficult and rewarding, but I really want to talk about these games. So, it’s April 8th, Opening Night in Baseballtown. The Portland Sea Dogs are in town for a four-game series and our team is more than ready to go. I had interviewed pitcher Jason Stephens two days prior, and he noted that the team is already forming a fantastic chemistry in the clubhouse and on the field. I ran down stat packs to the clubhouses, updated the dry erase leader board and lineups, copied down each teams lineup for the media, and prepared my music. It was showtime.

Now, let’s actually pause here for a second. It goes without saying that at-bat songs are pretty important. Think “Kashmir” for Chase Utley – when you hear that song at any time, you think Utley. Some players had come up to the press box with a CD or song in mind for their at-bat music. For those that didn’t, I tried to give them something upbeat and popular. For example, our catcher Tuffy Gosewisch got Dave Matthews Band’s “Shake Me Like a Monkey” (great song by the way). What did he do the first game? Tuffy went 2-4 with a double and an RBI. Safe to say he might keep that one for a little while. But for every minor success like that, there is a “Disturbia.” Yes, I chose Rihanna’s song for Melvin Dorta. Looking back, it wasn’t the best move I could have made. So during the day after game one, we got a call from the clubhouse attendant. Let’s just say that Dorta didn’t truly care for this song. Needless to say, I have the right one in there now.

The R-Phils actually ended up dropping the opener 10-5, but the crowd was unbelievable: 7,500+ people packed into FirstEnergy Stadium. It was a shame that they lost, but it’s a long season, and this team has far too much talent to worry about one little loss. Plus, I got a game under my belt, felt comfortable doing so, and had a great time overall. After the game, it was time for a minor celebration in the RBI room with much of the staff. This isn’t like another job at a corporate office building, where you count down until the time you leave and proceed to bolt out the door, exhaling deeply. Working for the R-Phils family, you want to stay. You want to be around the people here that you work with, to talk to, to hang out with, and to be around. It was a great time, that could happen about, oh, 70 more times this season.

Michael Spidale, who started in left last night, got three RBI in the R-Phils first win of the year, 7-5 over Portland. Aumont was our starting pitcher and there was even a reporter here from Quebec to cover the native son. The R-Phils won, I felt good about my tasks at hand, and hey…the big league club won 8-0 and are off to a 3-1 start. Not too shabby all around. Not too shabby at all.