Here’s a cool Phillies story.

We spoke with a fan named Eddie McReynolds, who says he was with a group of people who went to a recent game. They bumped into owner John Middleton:

“We got a big crowd and we’re going to the game. There were about a hundred of us going to the game. We all were going to meet at the left field gate, so we got there around six. I’m standing there and I turn around and go, ‘hey there’s John Middleton.’ People were looking at him, some of the girls who were with us were looking at him and saying ‘who’s that?’ They didn’t know who he was. So I walk up to him and say ‘hi Mr. Middleton’ and he says ‘Hi, I’m John.’ I said ‘I know who you are,’ and we just started talking, asked if we could take a picture, took the picture, and when we’re talking we tell him that the group of us, we’re all in recovery and it’s a “NA” thing, it’s an event where we sell tickets to raise money for Narcotics Anonymous. We’ve got a hundred recovering addicts who came to the game, and some families, too. So he goes ‘oh, that’s great, I’ve had alcoholics in my family, so I understand, good for you guys.’ Then he just pulls tickets out of his pocket and says ‘I’ve got 20 tickets for my suite, do you guys want them?’ He ushered us up to his suite, brought us in there, then he started getting the workers to bring in food and drinks for us, then he started putting the drinks on ice – like he was doing the work. Then he sat up there for 20 minutes talking to us about baseball and life and then he said ‘enjoy’ and left.”

That’s awesome.

Eddie went on to say that he’s heard of Middleton doing this frequently, which is cool. That makes him even more likeable, because what’s the stereotype you always hear about owners? They sit in their box and never come down, never mingle with the fans because they feel superior or something like that. It’s reassuring to know that Middleton is a normal dude, looks out for Phillies fans, and does nice things like this. One of us! One of us!

Here are some more photos from Eddie: