Memories of 1984 Phillies Photo Day

1984 Fleer #39

Braves 10, Phillies 3 (Game 1)
Game 80 - Saturday Afternoon, June 28th in Philadelphia
Record - 36-44

One Sentence Summary:  Shoddy defense, a rough bullpen outing and a lack of offense doomed the Phillies in a 10-3 loss to the Braves.

What It Means:  This game really wasn't fun to watch.

What Happened:  Ryan Howard committed two costly errors in the fourth, leading to two unearned runs.  Antonio Bastardo had his worse bullpen outing of the year, allowing five runs on three hits and two walks in just a third of an inning of work.

Featured Card:  In honor of today's pre-game Photo Day, I thought I'd dig into The Official Phillies Room archives.  The Phillies have been hosting a Photo Day since at least the early 1980s, allowing fans down onto the field to take pictures of the players, coaches and broadcasters as they slowly walked down a cordoned off path.  My Dad and I attended Photo Day thirty years ago at Veterans Stadium, and my clearest memory of that day was this:  My Dad hated Photo Day.

This is on the flip side of the Lefebvre picture

Don't get me wrong, my Dad was a great guy and I've documented his awesomeness throughout various posts on this blog over the past five-plus years.  But he hated crowds and he didn't really care for anything that seemed confusing and disorganized.  Photo Day is traditionally both confusing and disorganized while being crowded.  There are a lot of people milling about on the field, jockeying for prime position in order to take a quick candid photo of the players sauntering by and occasionally waving.  Some players go out of there way to be fan friendly (see here) while others just want to walk through the gauntlet as quickly as possible.

Dad snapped three photos with his camera on that afternoon in 1984 - Joe Lefebvre, Garry Maddox and Charles Hudson (with a lurking Glenn Wilson) - and then decided he had had enough of the crowds.  We left the field and I wouldn't return to a Photo Day until the mid-2000s with my wife, Jenna.  We debated going yesterday, but decided to wait until our youngest son Ben was a little older so that he could appreciate it more.  After all, it's fairly disorganized and confusing and crowded.

Charles Hudson

Garry Maddox

Joe Lefebvre

Transaction: The Phillies added reliever Luis Garcia to the roster before the game, as both team's were permitted to expand their rosters by one due to the double header.