Drive for the Cure Baseball Trip: Philadelphia Recap

After our great time in DC, we left our hotel in Oldtowne, Virginia (thanks Uncle Michael!!) and headed northeast to Philly. Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, was definitely a "neat" place to visit. Before we even got into the city, we had our minds set on one thing: Philly Cheesesteaks. Being from Texas, none of us had ever had an authentic Philly cheesesteak, and we were pumped to go try one. In preparation, we had nothing for breakfast and were hydrating on the way (what up V8 Fusion juice!). Personally, I (Collin) had some beef jerky for protein and energy.

On the ride in, Josh drove, Nate-Daddy navigated (as much as Josh would let him), and I had some time to kick back in the back seat (which Josh packed like a bed… good call bro). While I was back there, I started Googling the best Philly cheesesteak places in Philadelphia. Apparently, I’m not the first one who has ever done this. There were thousands of articles on the topic, including reviews, pictures, and even forums full of people’s opinions. The resounding answer I kept getting over and over again was that there are 2 places that claim to be the best: Geno’s and Pat’s King of Steaks. Ironically enough, these places are literally across the street from each other. Pat’s King of Steaks claims to be the originator, while the Geno family ownership claim they were the first to put cheese on the sandwich. We rolled up to the infamous corner, right next to what looked to be the actual basketball court that Will Smith was “on the playground for most of [his] days”. The adventure began with the parellel-parking job we had to maneuver. It then continued in a weird direction when we heard this dude yelling at the top of his lungs down the street. What we thought were yells of “STEVE!” (maybe this guy’s friend he hasn’t seen in a long time and is very excited to see?) actually turned out to be “THIEF!” and “Stop that guy! THIEF!”. As he got closer, we saw this guy chasing a person who was riding a road bike super fast. Said bike, we figured out, was apparently stolen from the guy chasing after it (not one of my better sentences… I realize you all could have figured that out on your own, but I like painting a clear picture). Unfortunately, we were too far away from this scene to do anything, but I really hope that guy got his bike back... that sucks. Back to the cheeseteaks. We all three decided that in order to really tell what place was better, we had to try both of them… not our brightest idea. First up was Geno’s. Also, I forgot to mention earlier: according to Google, there is a very particular way of ordering cheesesteaks, you have to be concise and go in a certain order or you won’t get what you want and they’ll get pissed. All three of us got the same thing: “One Whiz With”. This got us three Philly cheesesteaks with whiz cheese and with onions. We devoured round one and really loved them, but we were stuffed. After this, Nathan decided to drop out of the cheesesteak sampling contest due to being stuffed and Josh and I decided we’d go halfsies on the next place. We walked across the street to Pat’s King of Steaks and got “One Provolone With” to split. Dear Lord. Geno’s was great… but this place was unbeatable. I felt like we were on an episode of Man vs Food or Food Nation or something, it was so dang good. Needless to say we were ridiculously full after that and headed to our hotel downtown so we could check in and get to the game.

Turner hooked us up (once again) with a fancy hotel downtown, which was only a couple blocks from the subway. We got unpacked on the 17^th floor (tight) and headed to the game. We rode the subway (much easier to navigate than DCs) to the park. Before the game, Josh had planned an event with the Delaware County Aggie Club’s president at a bar called McFadden’s, which was connected to Citizen’s Bank Park. We got there and were warmly greeted by Sandra and her boyfriend, along with Sandra’s daughter. We had a great time talking with them and getting to know them. We talked about A&M, and pushed hard to try and convince Sandra’s daughter to go there once she graduates high school. We also talked to Sandra’s boyfriend (he played baseball at Arkansas) and had a friendly rivalry conversation. McFadden’s hooked us up with cheap beer, so we had a couple beers before heading to the game. We had an absolute blast with Sandra and family, and were so glad they could make it out to meet us and hang out!

After the event, we headed inside the stadium. The stadium is pretty cool: red brick and maroon on the outside and the seats were blue inside (a tribute to the Phillie’s old colors). We had nosebleed seats, but they actually weren’t that bad, as we could see the field from a bird’s eye view. The game itself was pretty uneventful, until the 8^th. It was a pitching duel and we had seen probably 4 hits before the 8^th inning. When the Phillies went to the bullpen in a managerial move, the Braves loaded the bases. Then the trouble began: the reliever walked in a run and then gave up a Grand Salami (grand slam home run for those of you non-baseball fans) to Brian McCann. It was a shot. After that, the stadium all but cleared out and we snuck down to the really good seats behind the first base dugout. We watched the last inning and a half from there and then proceeded to the subway and back to our hotel. We had a blast in Philly, and decided to stay in and rest up for our trip to New York the next day.