Phillies in the Newsroom

I have not blogged in over a month. Didn't realize it had been that long but makes sense since all my time is basically spent working or sleeping. But the Phillies had their first playoff game today and it was so exciting that I'll stay up an extra 20 minutes to write a blog.

So obviously everyone knows already that Halladay had a no hitter tonight...only the second in playoff history. What you don't know is what I went through to watch the last few minutes of that game.

It started at 5:07, well that is 3:07 here in Montana. There was a ground breaking for a new FedEx Freight Facility just south of Butte scheduled for 3 p.m. here today. So I already knew I'd be missing the beginning of the game but I hoped to get back and be able to turn it on in the newsroom. Well the plane the developers were arriving on was delayed. So groundbreaking did not start until closer to 3:50. I got my video and the interviews that I could while waiting. Then it was time to check the phone for score updates. One of the newspaper reporters at the scene is a Reds fan so once the Phillies were ahead it was much more fun to ask him for score updates. After the shovels hit the dirt for the ground breaking is when the Phillies were suddenly up by 4 instead of just 1. It was great.

When I got back to the station it was a little after 4:30 and I still had to put a story together for the 5:30 news so there was no way I was able to turn on that tv it was crunch time. I worked on the story as my boyfriend texted me updates. This is when I learned about the no hitter through the 7th. I had one more step to go in the story. It was done then the tv went on, without sound of course so our anchor could read through her scripts. As soon as she was on set the volume went up. Now I have a job in the control room during the show and at 5:30 (when the show starts) it was the bottom of the 8th and the Phillies were 3 outs away from winning. I then spent the next 15 minutes sprinting between the newsroom, where the game was on, and the control room to push my necessary button but still catch the end of an AMAZING game. At one point I lost a shoe mid sprint. I left it and picked it up later then took the other one off to continue my sprints barefoot. I luckily did get to see the last 3 outs before a mad dash back to the control room. I was ecstatic but held it in to do my job, then during commercial break I let everyone know what my Phillies had just done. And during this whole process my news director is in an edit bay just off the newsroom and my general manager is in the lobby watching the show. I sprinted back and forth past him many times. I'm sure he thought it was for the good of the show. Really I was just trying to watch my baseball team and feel close to Philadelphia for a few minutes but sshhhh. I'm just hoping sometime in the near future I get to watch a full game. GO PHILLIES!