Trying a Burnt Ends Cheesesteak at the Ballpark

A very pleasant surprise awaited me when I checked my texts upon returning home from lunch at The Borscht Belt and a visit with my father Tuesday. My friend, Butch, had an extra ticket to that evening’s Phillies game and invited me to join him. I don’t go to nearly as many sporting events as I used to for a variety of reasons, some of which are spelled out in this post from early 2022. In fact, this would be the first game of any kind I’ve attended since before Covid hit.

The out-of-the-blue nature of the invitation combined with my long absence from live sports had me filled with excitement as we made our way toward and finally into Citizens Bank Park. I spent a lot of time there from around 2006-2012 and wanted to check out the stadium’s current food scene in addition to hopefully seeing a good game. 

We missed the top of the first due to heavy traffic, but arrived at our ideally situated seats just in time to see Kyle Schwarber lead off the bottom half of the inning with a home run. The Phillie batters were crushing the ball during the first few innings, but a combination of good defense by their opponents – the Detroit Tigers – and a moderate wind blowing in from left field stifled their offense after Schwarber’s homer. 

After the third frame, the time had come for me to strike out for food. There was an impressive array of newer stands at the ballpark in addition to some of the older ones still being around. And it was one of those older stands I had in mind for the evening’s dinner. 

Bull’s BBQ – named for former Phillies slugger, Greg Luzinski, whose nickname was The Bull – has been sitting beyond the left field corner stands since the team moved over from Veterans Stadium in 2004. Yet I had never tried any of their food before Tuesday. 

What finally spurred me to do so was the fact that one of their newer menu items – a beef burnt ends cheesesteak – has come up a few times on Facebook and always in positive terms. It had been on my mind to try one if I return to the stadium and I decided to go for it. 

The line moved at a decent clip and I was back at our seats before too long with burnt end cheesesteaks for Butch and me. 

I was initially skeptical that the burnt ends were made from brisket, as that wasn’t specified on the menu and it seems like an expensive cut of meat to use in such large quantity at the ballpark. But a concessions manager from Aramark confirmed for me that they do, in fact, use brisket at Bull’s BBQ.

While the burnt ends on my cheesesteak lacked much in the way of bark or texture for the most part, they were tender and had a genuinely smoky flavor in addition to being well seasoned. There were also a whole lot of them stuffed onto that seedless Liscio’s roll. 

It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing sandwich, but we both thought it was good as far as ball-park barbecue goes. While the smoked Gouda sauce doesn’t look appetizing in the photos, it went well with the burnt ends flavor-wise. I’m sure the fact that the sandwich had been pre-made and was sitting in foil for who-knows-how-long didn’t help its appearance. But standards are lowered when getting this kind of food from a ballpark stand, and we were pleased.

My attention returned to the game after eating. We had great views of all the batters, including future hall-of-famers, Miguel Cabrera and Bryce Harper.

It was also the first chance I had to see the stadium’s new and massive scoreboard. It gets the job done.

As always, the Phillie Phanatic was on hand. He got involved with some of the evening’s entertainment on Greek Heritage Night at the ballpark. 

One of the newer food options at the stadium is Shake Shack, which has long been a favorite of mine. And as luck would have it, their stand was situated right behind where we sat. With that kind of temptation, there was no way I could resist a frozen custard run later in the game. The only option was a milkshake, which was available in several flavors. I chose black and white and it really hit the spot. They went fairly heavy on the chocolate syrup, which was fine with me.

The Phils won the game by a final score of 1-0. Kyle Schwarber’s first inning homer surprisingly was all the offense the team needed. But what stood out most about the game was how quickly it was over. It ran about two hours and ten minutes. 

A baseball game being over that quickly wasn’t unusual when I was a kid, but it’s been virtually unheard of in more recent years. That brings me back to the old post I linked to above. The first topic I addressed in it was the impact of analytics on sports. And no sport has suffered more in that regard from an entertainment-value standpoint than baseball. 

The former national pastime had become a shadow of its former self, with game-times growing ever longer while league-wide batting averages declined and strikeouts rose annually. I don’t doubt that a focus on analytics helps a team win. But for a sport to survive, it needs to entertain as many fans as possible. Something needed to be done to force the game at least partially back in the direction of what it used to be like. And rule changes were the most obvious answer.

Tuesday’s affair was only one game. But reports of MLB-wide progress earlier this season were promising. 

The pitch clock, elimination of the shift, and the requirement that relief pitches face a minimum of three batters unless the inning ends first have all had a positive impact on the game from what I’ve seen so far. Hopefully that trend will continue. The sport sorely needs it with its declining fan-base of recent years.