Philly unprepared for baseball fans
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Scott Jagow: The Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays are supposed to resume game 5 tonight. It was postponed because of rain Monday night and snow yesterday. Businesses in Philadelphia are overjoyed to be hosting the World Series — just maybe not this much. Peter Crimmins reports.
Peter Crimmins: It’s been 15 years since the Philadelphia Phillies have been in the World Series, and local businesses seem a little rusty. Many retailers are racing to keep Phillies merchandise on the shelves, and bars have been running out of beer.
Chris Fetfatzes is operations manager at Bella Vista, a beer distributor:
Chris Fetfatzes: This scope of business has never been seen like this, ever. A lot of nonresidents coming into the city to celebrate.
Now with Game 5 stretching an extra two days, those nonresidents need more than just beer, they need to find a place to stay. Hotels are at 100 percent capacity, and an estimated 7,500 were forced to leave their rooms downtown. The Tampa Bay Rays even had to move to a hotel out-of-state.
Cara Schneider is with the Greater Philadelphia Marketing and Tourism Corporation. She says many visitors have had to follow the team’s lead.
Cara Schneider: It wasn’t in the play book — you know, what do you do if you have to stay in a city for an extra two days during a world series?
The upshot of all this — three days of the World Series was expected to bring $12 million into Philadelphia. Now give days of the World Series means even more.
In Philadelphia, I’m Peter Crimmins for Marketplace.
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