East Coast Quake Doesn’t Disturb Phillies
CITIZENS BANK PARK — Hunter Pence and Brian Schneider were just hanging out in front of Schneider’s locker when, all of a sudden, the ground rumbled. The lockers shook.
“I felt like I was on the deck of a cruise ship,” said Pence.
They were experiencing a rare earthquake tremor that rocked the Delaware Valley and much of the East Coast on Tuesday afternoon.
“I thought Pence was shaking my chair,” Schneider said.
The cause of the tremor was a 5.9 magnitude quake whose epicenter was located 34 miles west of Richmond, Virginia. That’s near Charlie Manuel country.
“I haven’t talked to anyone back home,” said Manuel. “I’ve been pretty busy today.”
Manuel was on his way to the clubhouse dining room to grab some lunch when it hit.
“Right when I got to the door, I felt it,” Manuel said. “I don’t advise having earthquakes to keep me from eating.”
Manuel, who played for many years in Japan, has been through earthquakes before.
“Once, when I was in Japan, we were on the field before a game when one hit,” he said. “Stuff started falling in the stands, and there was a lot of damage to the stadium. The game was cancelled of course.”
The tremor that rippled through Philadelphia didn’t last very long, but the Phillies who were new to the earthquake experience will probably never forget it.
“It was an interesting experience,” said Pence, an earthquake virgin. “I can mark it off my bucket list. But I didn’t think Philadelphia would be where that would happen.”
Schneider, a quake veteran who has been through two in his life, one when he played in Montreal, and another while playing in the Arizona Fall League, said the tremor lasted 20 to 30 seconds.
“I thought it was kind of cool,” he said.
General manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. was in the basement of the ballpark, conducting a baseball 101 seminar for female fans when the building began to shake.
“Some of the people were shook-up by it,” he said.
Amaro, who attended college at Stanford, is another earthquake veteran.
“I was surprised at how long it was,” he said. “It seemed pretty long.”
As a precaution, the Phillies evacuated people from the ballpark. The club later released a statement saying that an inspection revealed no evidence of any damage to Citizens Bank Park, and that the Phillies/Mets game would go on as scheduled.
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