Philadelphia sports fans are notorious for booing -- Scott Rolen and former Card J.D. Drew can certainly attest to that. Drew even had a battery launched his way during an ugly evening at the Vet. But Santa Claus? Yes, even Kris Kringle felt the wrath of Philly sports fans during halftime of an Eagles game in 1968. With the Phillies in last place coming into their series with the Cards, I fully expected to hear plenty of that at Citizens Bank Park last week. And, sure enough...

...well, when your team makes five errors, you have an excuse to boo a little bit. Of course, the Phillies did win that game on Tuesday night, thanks to a) a very costly error by David Eckstein, the only Cardinal error of the night, and b) the Cardinal bats not taking advantage of those free baserunners as well as they should have. The Cards played a terrible series overall, actually, losing two games pretty handily and turning the one they did win on Wednesday from an 8-0 rout into a nailbiter with the tying run at the plate in the 9th inning. Thursday afternoon's game... well, here's the K/BB ratios for each team: Cards 3/10, Phillies 12/0. Yeah.

The most amazing part of this series, though, is that the Phillies won it sans Cardinal-killer Jim Thome. Thome's numbers against the Cards are ridiculous: a 1.530 OPS since '02, with 8 HR in 42 at bats -- easily the highest rate of any team he's had that many at bats against. Fortunately for the Cards, he was on the DL with a bad back during the series (and returned with a 1-for-4 night in Baltimore on Saturday). Perhaps with Thome playing, the Cards would've been swept.

I'll admit I was a little disappointed in Citizens Bank Park -- which was probably based entirely on my expectations for it being so high. Yeah, it was nice and new, but it certainly had its flaws. I didn't like the fact that it was built in the middle of apparently what used to be a parking lot for Veterans Stadium, the Spectrum, and newer facilities in the giant sports complex in south Philadelphia. You can see downtown Philly off in the distance from the upper deck, but the fact that all you can see immediately beyond Ashburn Alley in center field is a whole bunch of parking certainly detracts from the aesthetics of the ballpark. I discussed the ballpark's location with an usher on Wednesday night, and wondered aloud why the ballpark wasn't built downtown. His response was that nobody goes there, so why build it? (Umm... ever heard of revitalization efforts for inner-city areas spearheaded by new ballparks, i.e. Baltimore, Seattle, Cleveland?) My guess is that the land was there on the south side of town, and every other pro sports facility in the area was there, so why not build it there? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Ashburn Alley itself is a shopping/fan congregation area beyond the quirky brick facade in center field; I've heard it compared to Eutaw Street in Baltimore. Having seen each of those many times this season, however, I've gotta disagree -- Eutaw, the area directly in front of the big old warehouse at Camden Yards, is actually part of an old city street -- you can see up it north of the ballpark if you're looking. Ashburn Alley is obviously artificial, because of where the ballpark is, so it loses a bit of its luster.

Now to the good part: The Philly Phanatic. The Phanatic, along with the San Diego Chicken and Fredbird, are probably the most recognizeable mascots in all of baseball, if not all of sports. The stuff the Phanatic does is classic -- not just for kids, but for everybody. Take a look:

I've not seen many other baseball mascots who are so visible all throughout the game, especially around the other team. Other Cards outside of the picture to the left were getting a pretty good chuckle out of this, in addition to the fans.

Those fans themselves were also rather unique -- a large section in the right field upper deck did Eagles chants the whole game Tuesday. I figured that was just a group of drunks, but I heard people doing it again on Wednesday and Thursday, and even on Saturday in Baltimore! I'm hoping those people at least realize they were at a baseball game. As for the booing, Mike Lieberthal and David Bell were the two biggest targets, although Bell did have a few fans Thursday afternoon:

Those guys got kicked out in about the sixth inning (a bit unfairly, I might add, since they weren't exactly doing anything wrong by cheering on Bell). I bet they missed the days of the Vet, as did I, even though I never actually saw it -- I think its blue-collar aura represented Philadelphia fans better than this shiny new ballpark in an odd setting.