Fireworks! Free food! Five funny mascots! Fellow library friends!  Family fun! 

Good baseball, good company! The Reading Phils invite library staffers, library board members, Friends of libraries, and our families & loved ones to enjoy the final Sunday home game of the regular season at a phenomenal discount.

Twelve bucks gets you a 2½-hour buffet, a place at one of our library tables on the picnic deck, live music & discount beers in the ballpark café, a free half hour for your kids in the Phunland playground, postgame fireworks, and more, plus at least 8½ innings of excellent baseball with the AA affiliate of the reigning World Series champs.

How to join the fun?
Call Brian Babik of the R-Phils at 610-375-8469, Ext. 222, and tell him you want to be in the library section. You can have your tickets mailed or pick them up at Will Call the day of the game.

Tables have been reserved for us—look for signs showing a legendary Hall of Fame hurler renowned for setting 'em down in order, Mel Dewey.

The gates open at 5pm; first pitch is at 6:05; the buffet continues till 7:30. You're welcome to come and go when you please.

Vegans & other vegetari-brarians—any eats for us? Hey, 2009 Home Run Derby champ Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers is a veg, too. So don't be shy about telling Brian of your food needs when you call for tickets; he will tip off the buffet caterer. 

Are kids welcome?  Are you kidding?  Between the five zany mascots (Screwball among them), the T-Shirt Cannon, the 22-member Dance Team, and the Crazy Hot Dog Vendor galloping astride Rodrigo the Ostrich, an R-Phils game is a freaking fun-filled circus, with professional baseball thrown in as a bonus.  Kids four years and under don't even need a ticket.  How welcome is that?

May I see this Picnic Deck, please? Click the picture below for a video tour hosted by Brian Babik himself. Call Brian at 610-375-8469, Ext. 222 to get your Library Day tickets and to inquire about the facilities or anything else pertaining to the R-Phils.
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Who'll be in the other dugout? The Phils that night will host the Bowie (MD) Baysox of the Baltimore Orioles organization.

What to read while I eagerly await this event?  Good of you to ask. Consult an outstanding bibliography from the American Library Association that lists baseball books and films galore for all ages (even though, at this writing, it overlooks Kadir Nelson's glorious We Are the Ship). 

Berks Countians mustn't miss Charles' Adams III's Baseball In Reading, packed with vintage lithographs and photos like the one of the mighty Bethel Midgets of 1947, and the 1905 shot of the Shillington nine with its manager William "Hippy" Conrad, surely a man ahead of his time

That borough's best-known sportswriter, who also did pretty well in a number of other genres, went to Fenway in 1960 to see Ted Williams at the end of his career.  This gorgeous essay penned by the sublime Shillington wordslinger stands as the literary analog of a third-deck home run. Not unusual for that Updike kid, whose pen always moved with the eloquent grace of Steve Carlton's slider...Ichiro's bat... Brooks Robinson's glove...

Library Day: A chance to catch up with library friends, meet new ones, and team up for fun & stronger libraries