Saving a seat for Skip: The seat beside this Phillies mega-fan is empty — in honor of his late dad
“When I was a kid, we would go to Phillies games, we would go to Sixers games. He was the guy who would yell at the referees and the umpires,” said Geoff Crawley.
For years, mega-fan Geoff Crawley experienced every important moment in Philadelphia sports with his dad.
“When I was a kid, we would go to Phillies games, we would go to Sixers games. He was the guy who would yell at the referees and the umpires,” said Crawley.
When the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018, George “Skip” Crawley was on a cruise in Australia, but called his son and the two didn’t talk for a long time; they just cried happy tears.
Skip Crawley died of cancer over the summer, but he was at Citizens Bank Park Saturday for Game 4 of the National League Championship Series in the form of a seat in Section 208 where only a black hoodie bearing his picture sat in the seat next to his son — courtesy of Phillies shortstop Bryson Stott.
“Dad would have loved this,” said Geoff Crawley, 49.
Growing up in West Philadelphia — 42nd and Girard — Geoff lived and died with the Phillies, Eagles, Sixers, and Flyers. That didn’t change when he and his dad relocated to Northern Virginia, after Geoff graduated from Central High School in 1990. Skip Crawley was just 20 when Geoff was born, but he was a great dad — “He always had the right thing to say. When I needed something, he was there. When I got in trouble, he was there, not to bail me out, but to make sure I got the lesson.”
Crawley got married on Oct. 9, 1993, and his wife, Dawn, learned pretty quickly what she was in for when the Phillies lost the World Series in crushing fashion soon after.
“When Joe Carter hit that home run, I screamed and threw my hat at the TV and laid down and cried,” Crawley said. “She said, ‘Who is this person I’m married to?’ I said, ‘You’re married to a Philly sports fan.’”
(It follows that only a handful of people are dead to Crawley — Mitch Williams, the Phillies pitcher who gave up the home run to Carter; Carter himself; Bryce Paup, the Green Bay Packers player responsible for Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham’s torn anterior cruciate ligament in 1991; Scott Stevens, the New Jersey Devils player whose hit ended Eric Lindros’ Flyers career in 2000; “and of course anybody who has ever been associated with the Dallas Cowboys organization.”)
After, a fast, brutal battle with bile duct cancer, Skip Crawley died at age 70 in July. The family held not a funeral, but a celebration of life, with Eagles decorations. And when the Phillies squeaked into the playoffs this year, Geoff Crawley knew he needed to be there. Crawley doesn’t attend many games, but when he does, he wants good seats, behind home plate.
He looked up prices for the Phillies home games for the League Championship Series and his jaw dropped: $2,500. Tickets for the games at Petco Park in San Diego were a bargain, comparatively — $600. Crawley, who owns a cleaning company, used hotel and airline points and packed some of the 20 Phillies jerseys he owned.
There, he attracted the attention of NBC 10 reporter John Clark, who tweeted a picture of Crawley and his dad’s sweatshirt. The tweet went viral, and suddenly, Stott was tweeting back — get in touch with him, he said. He wanted to give Crawley two tickets each for Saturday’s and Sunday’s games.
Stott, who lost a childhood friend to cancer, couldn’t have been nicer, Crawley said. And it felt fitting.
“My dad loved Bryson — he and I were watching a game earlier this year. He said, ‘That kid can hit, he’s going to be a star,’” Crawley said.
The Phillies joined in, too, gifting Crawley a Phillies jersey with his dad’s name on the back. Crawley, in a Bake McBride jersey, couldn’t stop smiling.
Crawley had a great time in San Diego, where the fans were kind and friendly. When Juan Soto struck out, Crawley, employing the time-honored Skip Crawley hectoring technique, “gave the Philly yell — ‘Soto party of one, your table is now available, take a seat!’” A Padres fan sitting near him laughed and said she appreciated Crawley’s sense of humor.
“I said, ‘Where am I? Am I in upside-down world? If I do that in New York, I’m getting rolled down the steps,” said Crawley, who’s active on social media himself, and now tweets with the hashtag #WinItForSkip.
But his heart is in Philadelphia, where a vociferous Crawley fed off the Saturday night crowd’s energy.
But he’s thinking of his dad, always.
Neither his wife nor any of his four children are baseball fans, but Crawley didn’t feel alone during the Phillies’ playoff run. When J.T. Realmuto hit a chill-inducing inside-the-park home run, when Kyle Schwarber slammed a leadoff home run, when Rhys Hoskins hit a homer and then slammed his bat down emphatically, Crawley had the cheering crowd around him.
And he had his dad.
“Every time, all of these magical moments, I’m so happy, because of my dad,” said Crawley. “And I’m crying, because of my dad.”