Mini Project #2 - Erin Carney

The tale of my favorite fame-related memento takes place in the early 90s. I was seven or eight years old, I hated wearing dresses, hated acting “lady like,” and hated being picked last in our neighborhood sandlot baseball games that we used to play just because I was a girl. However, since I was one of about two girls in the neighborhood, I was willing to deal with it as long as the guys would just let me play. I loved baseball. I loved everything about baseball: playing it, watching it, talking about it, and especially the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies team.

Because my family is originally from the suburbs of Philly, I had been going to Vet Stadium for the games even before I was born. I was always one of those cute little kids that you see on fan-a-vision, all decked out in Phillies gear with an imitation John Kruk glove in hand (in case I was ever lucky enough to actually catch a fly ball). Each season, I usually attended about ten games…and, regardless of the outcomes, they were always the ten best nights of the summer.

Then it happened: Summer of ’93, each game I went to turned out to be better than the next. The Phils couldn’t lose. Talk about the World Series was coming out of everyone’s mouths. As the summer went on, I begged my parents to buy tickets to more and more games. I couldn’t miss any part of this hot streak. By the end of the season, the Phillies were headed for the National League Championship series, and I was at nearly every single home game.

It was the night before game six of the series. The Phillies had just moved ahead of the Braves (three games to two) and my mom had surprised me with a ticket to game six! Not only was I going to game six (which could be the game that takes the Phillies to the World Series), but my best friend was also going with her family and we were all going to sit together.

As we were all sitting in our seats waiting for the excitement of the game to unfold, the late John Vukovich (a coach for the Phillies) came up to my friend’s dad and started shaking his hand. My friend, her brother, and I stared at this conversation with our mouths practically on the floor. “…..the kids can come down now if they want,” we heard him say. Apparently my friend’s father had made a call to one of his old buddies – Mr. Vukovich (who knew?) – and had arranged for the three of us to come into the dugout to meet all of the players before the game started. Of course I had brought my autograph ball with me; in the event that I would run into any of the players…I would surely need some proof, but I didn’t actually think that it was going to happen. All of the players standing in the dugout gave each one of us a handshake or a pat on the head while they willingly signed our balls, bats, and gloves. We were on cloud nine.

As an eight year old, that night was the ultimate experience. I met a group of men that I considered to be my hero’s. I idolized these guys and for several years after that, I still aspired to be just like them. After that night, I could have died happy. Months, even years passed where I went around and told everyone my story. Every single teacher and classmate of mine has seen The Ball, at some point during Show and Tell. The Ball had its own little plastic case that it got to sit in during the day, and then it had a nice little spot on my pillow where it got to sleep at night.

Then I grew up. I stopped following baseball and I idolized a whole different group of people. The Ball was put up on a shelf in my younger brother’s room where he told my story to all of his friends. I don’t really go around anymore telling the story of The Ball because for one, I figure nobody would know who I was talking about anyway, and secondly it’s just not that significant of a story to me anymore. I’ve done a lot of things since that night that, in my opinion, are worth talking about a little bit more. Although my hero’s have changed since I was eight, it’s still kind of fun to think about meeting the 1993 Phillies team every once in a while. I haven’t looked at it in about ten years, but I bet I could still name every single person on The Ball.