Phillies fans find a way to see game

Santa Claus skipped work yesterday.

He sat in Section 233 of Citizens Bank Park, waving a rally towel above his plush red Santa cap and sipping a beer through a genuine bushy white beard.

"I have to take a break every once in a while," he explained.

This Santa is a lifelong Phillies fan known outside the stadium as Ed Caufield. The 65-year-old Hatfield man works for a construction company, but that couldn't keep him away from the first game of the Phillies-Rockies National League division series.

"My boss is over there," Caufield said, motioning a few sections down the third-base line. "If he didn't let me come, I'd ruin his Christmas."

Citizens Bank Park was a sea of red. But business suits were in evidence, too - sure signs of work-skippers determined to make a day game.

In their dress shirts and pressed slacks, Bob Musial, Scott Miller, and Jose Gonzalez couldn't hide. They had managed to snag tickets and take a half-day off from their jobs at Gulf Agency Co., a shipping firm near the airport. Yes, they said, their supervisors knew.

"I owe him big-time," Musial, 27, of Philadelphia, said of his boss. "He's a big Phillies fan, and he's still at work."

In his excitement to pick up his son at school and get to the game early, financial adviser Karl Fisher of Medford forgot a teleconference scheduled for yesterday morning. His client lives in New Hampshire but - lucky for Fisher - is a Philadelphia native with a sense of humor.

"He called me and said, 'Did you forget our meeting? Maybe you're at the Phillies game,' " said Fisher, 45. They postponed the meeting to next week - on a nongame day.

Father and son Tony and Connor Copestick of Atco both left school for the game. Tony, a gym teacher at Camden County Vocational-Technical School, taught in the morning, then took a half-day. Connor, a second grader at Thomas Richards Elementary, left at lunch.

It was no problem, said 7-year-old Connor: "My teacher is nice. She likes the Phillies."

(Students in Philadelphia public schools had it even easier; yesterday was a previously scheduled half-day.)

Baseball-loving friends Nicholas Black and Chuck Rementer, both of Glenside, didn't have to fabricate excuses to get out of work.

Black, 54, said he's "the boss" - executive director of the nonprofit Harvest USA. Rementer, 53, cuts hair at Ralph's Barber Shop in Glenside, and the owner and another barber were also headed to the game.

"I'm not sure who's even at the shop," Rementer said, laughing.

Many who couldn't get away from work still managed to follow the Phils. At the Flying Fish Brewing Co. in Cherry Hill, the game played over company loudspeakers - as Phillies games typically do.

There have been conversions. "I'm an ex-Red Sox fan," said brewer Lawrence George of Boston. "What can I say? I go for the home team."

Flying Fish owner and founder Gene Muller is liberal with work schedules during the playoffs. One salesman scheduled his sales calls with bars and restaurants for this week so he was never far from a television.

"Last year, we had a company holiday so everyone could go to the parade," Muller said. "This extra-pale ale we're brewing right now, if everything works out, we'll be shipping it over to the stadium for the World Series."

Carole Silverman, a receptionist at the Upper Merion Township Building, was too busy fielding phone calls to catch the game on her computer. Instead, she relied on coworkers relaying score updates.

After studying the stats, Silverman predicted the Rockies would win the best-of-five-game series in four, giving one to the Phillies at home.

"I'm a great Phils fan, but I don't have a good feeling," she said. "I just hope I'm wrong."

At the Comcast Center in Center City, the game lit up what is billed as the largest LED screen of its kind in the world. At mid-game, about 25 people were gathered in the lobby.

Patrick McGranaghan, manager of business continuity at Comcast, couldn't stay away.

McGranaghan is a "lifelong Phillies fan, born and raised," he said. "I just got out of a meeting, and wanted to check the score."

He was pleased with the result, as the Phillies took a lead they would never surrender.

At City Hall, scarce televisions and balky Internet connections kept many workers in the dark. Margaret Tartaglione, chairwoman of the city commissioners, said she would watch the Phillies at home after her workday.

Bill Rubin, supervisor of elections, expressed frustration that the day game kept many working men and women away from their team.

"As the World Series champions and king of the hill from last year," Rubin said, "we should have respect - and respect to have an evening game, when everyone is watching."

Yes, a night game would have been nice, said Brian Collins, a fan from Havertown watching at the stadium with his daughter, Mairead. He had to take a half-day at work as a printer. Mairead, 10, left school with an "orthodontist's appointment," she said, laughing.

But the 5-1 win was a sign, said Collins, 40. A very good sign.

"We're going to the Series," he predicted. "We're playing the Yankees in the Series - and we're beating the Yankees in the Series."