Classifieds

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For sale or trade:

For all your combat needs, one slightly-used Ultimate Fighter. Current owner prepared to throw in possible psycho tag-team partner if offer good enough.

Price: Two pitchers. Any size, any shape, any condition - as long as they can throw strikes.

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Seriously - 5 walks? 54 pitches to get through the ninth inning? Wakefield only walked one over the first eight innings (and only needed 108 pitches to get there). And even then, the Sox only held on to their 5-4 lead because Joey Gathright tried to score from second on a hit to left.

One to be filed away in the "It's better to be lucky than good" archives. Hopefully that's our quota of complete ineptitude for the week - with the Blue Jays, Tigers and Yankees coming up, we're going to need to be at least good, if not great.

Need to know

Don and Jerry were just discussing Aubrey Huff prior to the end of the inning, and as they broke for commercials my MLB.TV NESN feed cut to MLB.TV's 'commercials' (I still haven't figured out what days I get NESN commercials and what days I don't). However, the NESN sound didn't quite go away immediately and I heard Don say "apparently he's one of the most miserable human beings on the face of the ea..."

Was he talking about Huff* or was it somebody else altogether? I demand to know. Answers on a postcard to the usual address, please.

* Maybe this is why we say "he went off in a huff" ;-)

Milestone

A win - even against the Devil Rays - is always a good thing, but it has a sweeter taste to it when there's a personal milestone involved. I went six innings last night - one less than Schilling - before my body finally gave up its struggle against early-morning fatigue, but I'm glad to see that the score stayed exactly as I left it, and Schilling got his 200th career win.

Almost as enjoyable to read as the account of Schilling's win was his reaction to it. From what I've seen and heard he was genuinely moved not only to have reached this milestone but also by Sox' fans reaction to it:

Once the game was over, the sold-out Fenway Park crowd kept chanting Schilling's name until he emerged from the clubhouse to receive another standing ovation.

"I just know that walking out on that field after the game is an experience I'll never forget," Schilling said. "I'll never forget what those fans just did for me. Those are the things that when you're done playing, I think, they last forever, the memories that these fans can create for you."

Reading that, I was reminded of Bill Simmons' Now I Can Die In Peace, in which he writes about Nomar after Game 4 in '98:

He didn't have to come out of the dugout and applaud the Fenway fans after Game Four. But he did. And he left everyone in Fenway and everyone watching on TV with the same feeling: There's a guy who cares about us.

Here's my theory: Fans are like dogs. Feed us, walk us, fill our bowls with water every few hours, give us those little rawhide treats... just remember to rub our heads and bellies every once in a while. That's what Nomar did on Saturday night. You can have A-Rod, Jeter, Griffey and Sosa; I'll take Nomar, and not just because he's the most talented Red Sox player I've ever seen (what other right-handed hitter homers into the freaking bullpen at Fenway?), or because he competes as hard as anyone who ever wore a Boston uniform. The guy says and does all the right things. [Baseball Desert note: oh, how times changed...] Sadly, that counts as an asset in today's sports world.

You can say what you want about Schilling, but he just flat out gets it. He understands what this team means to its fans, and the fans know what Schilling means to the team. Last night's applause was not just about win #200 - it was about what Schilling has brought to Boston over the past three seasons. This is a guy who literally put his career on the line to bring a World Series trophy to Boston. And that, as Mastercard will tell you, is priceless.

Late-night thought

Does anyone else out there look at Seth McClung:

and think 'duelling banjos'?

W & L

A good win last night, but at a cost.

Having seen Wells get hit 'just' on the knee, I'm thankful that I didn't see Clement get hit in the head last year. Wells pretty much dropped like a sack of potatoes - I can only imagine what it was llke for Clement.

In that inimtable Red Sox fashion, this injury came about whilst Wells was pitching a pretty good game. He'd given up a home run to Crawford, but outside of that it was shaping up to be a good return for the big guy. RemDawg didn't help a slightly worried Red Sox Nation by immediately saying that this was possibly the last time we would see David Wells pitch. I'm not saying that the thought hadn't crossed my mind as he lay there in front of the mound - I just didn't want to hear it said out loud.

There doesn't seem to be any new information on the situation as yet - I guess we just have to hope that Wells is OK and that he can come back and be the pitcher that he showed us last night over the first four innings.

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Note to Joe Maddon: the shift ain't workin'. I guess the only option left is to play everybody in the outfield, right up against the wall, because everything else you've tried, Papi seems to find a way around, through or over it.

Failing that, you could always intentionally walk him to get to Manny...*evil Vincent Price laugh*

In-Clement

I know he's one of our guys, and unlike a Wells - or even a Foulke, if you want to use the "Johnny from Burger King" thing aganst him - he's neither done nor said anythng potentially upsetting, but Matt Clement is starting to get on my nerves. The main reason would be eight runs on nine hits over 4 1/3 innings, but beyond that, it's his hang-dog expression when he's on the mound. When things begin to go wrong, he looks like a nine-year-old kid out there, and I just want to call his Mom and ask her to come and get him. But after a little while my patience starts to wear thin and I begin t get pissed off. Can he not see that the team - led last night by Manny - is trying to help him out here? It wouldn't take much for me to let the odd bad day slide. If he lost his rag with the umpire or the opposing hitters, à la Randy Johnson / Julian Tavarez, I wouldn't mind so much, but you can almost see him thinking: "Oh - eight runs? Bummer... Gee, I hope there's macaroni and cheese for dinner."

I'm not saying that Clement was the only guilty party last night: Big Papi was 0-for-5 with 4 Ks, striking out with the bases loaded in the eighth, but he's been great so far this season, and at least he gets pissed when things go wrong. I would have liked the win last night, but it wasn't to be. That's OK - it's baseball, and you're not going to win them all, even when you really want to beat the Spankees in your home ballpark. All I'm asking, when I get up in the middle of the night to watch this stuff, is that we show some emotion.

Losing two of three to the Yankees was not an ideal scenario. Focusing and venting our our frustration on the Devil Rays would be a good way to get over that, and Josh Beckett is just the guy to do that.

Massarott-en

I hate it when this kind of crap gets printed in the mainstream media. Massarotti clearly feels threatened by the alternatives to the mainstream media that are out there. I can understand that - the Globe and the Herald are somewhere down in the bottom third of the websites I read every day - and I can even forgive him for using his column to take a swipe at us poor, dim-witted bloggers. However, he should at least have the intelligence to be consistent. You can't say:

Managing any team is a near-impossible task, especially in a place with both a baseball addiction and enough nitwit know-it-alls to fill that vast expanse known as cyberspace,

and then proceed to write a whole piece second-guessing Tito.

Unless, of course, we are to assume that Mr Esteemed Mainstream Sportswriter is modestly positioning himself in with the nitwit know-it-alls out there in cyberspace.

Actions not agreeing with words? You said it, Tony...

The Pilgrimage - Day 4

Read "The Pilgrimage - Day 3"

As enjoyable as the first three days in Boston had been - and they had been fantastic - Saturday had an extra little edge to it, because the OUSCPICFIT™ had managed to gather together a bunch of people for drinks at Crossroads prior to the game (well prior, in fact - the meeting was set for 2pm; the game was scheduled for 7:05pm). Before you nod off wondering just how interesting beers in an Irish bar in Boston could possibly be, I should explain. This was not any old group of people getting together - this was me finally getting to meet a bunch of folk who got me through the 2004 postseason in one piece: members of the Surviving Grady message board.

There's always a certain apprehension when you meet a bunch of people for the first time, and although I felt that going into the bar, I also knew that most of the people there would not be total strangers. Thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, I knew most of the folks who were going to be there - or, at least, knew them as much as it is possible to 'know' someone through reading their random thoughts on the Internet. What was reassuring for the big, shy English guy was that, should conversation falter, there would always be the common ground of the Red Sox to fall back on.

The man on the street would have a hard time believing that the Brit from France - a Red Sox fan for all of three seasons - would feel a part of this community, but Red Sox Nation, as represented on this particular Saturday afternoon in Crossroads, once again welcomed me with open arms. I'd said before coming to Boston that my somewhat sporadic contributions to the message board made me feel like an imposter on this occasion, but the answer I was given was: "Anyone who kept the faith with us in October '04 into the wee hours six time zones over, when the rest of your country was probably all "pourquoi?" gets a thread." That phrase stuck with me on the days leading up to the trip, during those moments when I wondered how I would be received. I hadn't put in the years of suffering that many Red Sox fans had, but in the short time that I'd been a fan I'd stuck it out through tough games and sleepless nights, and that - along with my Dave Roberts jersey - was enough to gain entry into RSN.

For most of those present that afternoon (and Beth (with a litte help from Sam) has the full list and rogues gallery) drinking beer and talking baseball on a Saturday afternoon was probably not an earth-shattering experience, but for me it was like entering a parallel universe. Over here the MLB experience goes something like this: switch on the computer, grab a Heineken from the fridge, watch the game on my own and make random remarks / yell random insults at the screen, go to bed. In Boston, there was actually baseball on TV all afternoon (Mets / Braves), the beer was Sam Adams - on tap - the random remarks found a real, live audience and the game was something I actually got to see in person. It was yet another example of one man's ordinary scene being another man's Field of Dreams.

Having said that, we were honoured with the presence of Red and Denton, the authors of the best Red Sox blog out there, who arrived just as I was about to write them off as figments of my imagination (or was that write me off as a figment of their imagination?). Beth's account of their presence that afternoon is very accurate - they are funny, charming guys whose relationship to each other is the best thing to watch. And as much as it makes me sound like Rain Man, I really did spend a lot of time that afternoon trying to imitate Red's wicked Boston accent on "Taggin' cahhs." I've not quite got it down yet, but I'll be ready for when I go back next time.

As much fun as it was to shoot the breeze over a few beers, Beth and I had to leave the group in the very capable hands of Red and Denton, as we were heading off, one final time, to Fenway. I know that Beth had a specific moment of realisation just prior to the game that the trip was coming to a close, but for me that realisation came earlier, as we made our way to the ballpark in the late-afternoon sunshine. I live a long way from Fenway, but it's not like I live in Australia, so seeing the Sox again is certainly a feasible proposition, but right then a potential return to Boston seemed a very long way off, and my brain automatically switched into that "last time I..." mode that creeps up on us at the end of any great vacation. I tried to push the feeling away, but it was there all night, from the moment we headed for Kenmore Square to the moment it was time to say our goodbyes on the platform at Park Street 'T' station.

Despite that nagging feeling, I knew there was still a lot of good stuff between now and leaving Boston, and that good stuff began with our 'seats' for the game, which were actually standing room tickets for the State Street Pavilion. I have to admit that when I bought the seats online I had no idea what to expect from these tickets. I think I had visions of being stuck somewhere in the back of the grandstand, with the tiniest of views of the field, but what we got instead was this:

If you're OK about standing for the best part of three hours, it's a great place to see a ballgame. Not only do you have this great view of what's going on inside the ballpark, but you also have plenty of opportunity to take a look at what's happening outside:

Because you're up in the gods, there are dedicated concession stands up there too. If you want some chowder or an Italian sausage, you're out of luck, but if it's standard ballpark fare you're after - hot dogs, pretzels, peanuts, beer - then I reckon the pavilions have the shortest concession lines in the whole place.

The only other reservation that I would have about going up there again would be that it would have to be on a warm and sunny day. The pictures above don't quite tell the whole meteorological story - although he evening started out balmy, a wind appeared out of nowhere somewhere in the middle innings and had people dashing for cover and heading for the souvenir stands to purchase sweatshirts. I hung in there bravely in my short-sleeved Red Sox jersey, trying not to let the gods of baseball send me away frozen and discouraged, but by the eighth inning I was reduced to trying to heat from the inside, with a steady diet of hot-dogs and pretzels.

The game itself was a good one. The Sox scored 5 runs in the second inning and never looked in danger of losing, and I got to see a Red Sox home run hit by someone other than Kevin Youkilis - a shot over the Green Monster by Manny, a thing of beauty that left the bat quickly and just kept on going - but before I knew it the scoreboard was flashing the three words I usually love to see but in this instance had been dreading all night:


and it was time to hit the road.

The only problem was that neither Beth nor I really wanted to go. It wasn't said out loud, but this was the end of this particular road and neither of us wanted to get off the bus. We hung around the ballpark as long as we could, taking pictures and, in my case, enjoying a sort of 'Fenway last orders', drinking in enough of the scenes to tide me over until next time:

But even those moments were't enough, and so in a last desperate attempt to cling to Fenway for a little while longer, we actually went to hang out by the players' entrance to watch assorted Red Sox leave in the kind of cars which make you realise that you're obviously in the wrong job:


Once the players had gone, the only thing left for us to do - short of actually knocking on the grounds crew's door and asking if they needed anyone to tidy up the basepaths - was to head for the 'T'. I left Fenway with a 3-1 lifetime record, which was pretty good going, but as I walked away, that was scant consolation for the fact that the trip was effectively over. I wasn't leaving until the following afternoon, but the trip had always been only about the Sox, and it was time to bid them farewell.

Worse still, it was time to bid Beth farewell as well, and there was no easy way to do that. She'd been a wonderful guide over the past four days, but, more than that, we'd connected in a way that I hadn't even dared to wish for prior to the trip. We stood on the platform at Park Street and hugged, and when Beth said "I don't want you to go - what if they start losing without you?" I was putting on my bravest face. The trip had always been about the Sox, but what I was taking away from Boston was in fact the memory of the Sox fans I'd been around, who were willing to look beyond my funny accent and my inability to pronounce "Faneuil" the right way and just say: "Iain - welcome to Red Sox Nation." I walked back to the hotel along a little bit of the Freedom Trail, with a tear in my eye and as I did so I thought back to the moment when I'd discovered my own (Yellow) Brick Road and found that it led to Fenway:

That was what defined my season - not just caring about the game (which is as fundamental to me as breathing), but watching a team from Spring Training through to the playoffs and really caring about that team. Historically, both for Red Sox Nation and the baseball world in general, the World Series victory means everything, but within the framework of my own private season, it's simply the icing on the cake - 2004 will always be "The Season I Found My Team". I know that the timing of my conversion might well put me squarely in the category of bandwagon jumpers, but in a previous life I used to follow my local soccer team all over the UK even though they didn't have a cat in hell's chance of ever making it out of the basement of the second division, so I can deal with that. However, should the Red Sox not win the World Series or make the playoffs next year, should they finish dead last (and here's a rash Baseball Desert prediction for you: they won't...) I'll still be there, wearing my cap with pride, but it will no longer be simply a fine fashion accessory - it will be something more, something that says I finally belong.

Since I will never be able to do this writing thing as well as Beth, I thought it only right that I leave the last word on the trip to her:

Iain and I both were trying to prolong the experience. Our steps were slow; every possible excuse to stay first inside and then near Fenway was embraced. But then we were on the T and then we were at Park Street and then we were hugging goodbye on the platform and then I was waiting for my train to Alewife and just like that, he was gone and it was over.

A dressed-up couple saw my Sox jersey, and then the woman noticed my dejected expression.

"Did they lose?" she asked me gently.

"Oh, no," I said back, snapping out of it, as the Alewife train roared in on a diesel wind. "They won. 9-3. They won going away."

Yes they did, and so did I. And I left with the certainty that I'll be going back to that place where, if you've got that red "B" on your cap, everybody knows your name.

Team effort

A good win for the Sox last night, despite Keith Foulke's ninth-inning attempts to make it interesting.

Schilling was masterful - outside of a shaky third inning - the defense was tight, and the bats came up big when they needed to. Alex Cora had a great game at the plate and began a sweet double play in the top of the fifth to cut down a potential Yankee rally. He looked like he got rid of the ball almost before it was in his glove - one of those baseball plays that just makes you go "Wow!"

As far as Foulke's outing is concerned, is it too simplistic of me to think that he just doesn't seem to have the focus when he's given a big lead? It could be that he's just one of those guys who needs to have some pressure on him to perform properly. I know that I work much better with a deadline looming than I do when I have weeks to do the job, so I'm going to give Foulke the benefit of the doubt. In any case, the bigger picture tells me that the Sox won with runs to spare against the Yankees, so at the end of the day it's fine, as long as Foulke doesn't plan to make a habit of it.

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After two weeks of other teams' broadcasts it was great to be back with NESN. The highlight of the night was seeing Schilling in deep conversation with Papi over his pitching chart. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that conversation - Schilling's game preparation is legendary, and I'm sure it would have been fascinating to hear one of the game's premier pitchers talk pitching with one of the game's best hitters.

My bad...

NESN it is :-)

To the baseball gods - thank you.
To Don & Jerry - welcome back, guys. You have no idea how much you've been missed.
To the Sox - let's kick these sorry Yankees' collective ass.
To Curt - those pumped-up 1-2-3 innings? Keep 'em coming.

Update: To the woman in the Mercury Milan commercial - I think I'm in love...

Quick hits

As Joy of Sox points out:

"When Rudy Seanez was your most effective pitcher, you know it wasn't a good day."

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In the spirit of those signs people hold up at Fenway in order to get noticed by the cameras, here's mine:

Never
Ever
See
NESN

I am seriously beginning to wonder if some evil baseball god has not struck NESN off the MLB.TV schedule. I have not seen a game on NESN since I sat in a bar at Logan Airport over two weeks ago. I'm lucky, in the sense that the games I have seen have been on networks that don't make me want to stick sharp things in my eye, but I could still really do with a shot of Don and Jerry. Anyone want to bet that I get stuck with YES tonight?

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The Mets, having suffered a Billy Wagner meltdown of epic proportions on Saturday, came back to take the series against the Yankees. Now it's up to the Sox to do the same.

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On a totally unrelated note, I'm launching a Baseball Desert mini-survey: has anybody in the history of the universe ever managed to go to Ikea just to look at stuff and not buy a single thing? We went yesterday morning with the express aim of checking out the new sofa we want to buy - and nothing else - but when we got to the checkout €60 of stuff had magically materialised out of nowhere. How the hell do they do that? Do they transmit some special Nordic brainwashing radiation as you walk around the store? You walk around thinking "I will not buy more crap I don't need", but they somehow override these good thoughts and fill your brain up with images of funky table lamps.

Damn clever, those Swedes. Maybe for their next trick they can get Johnny Damon to persuade Red Sox fans to love him again. Then again, maybe not.

The guy that drives the bus

The Red Sox improved their Friday record to 4-3 with a good win over the Phillies last night. If you want to engage in a bit of simplistic math, then the two-run difference was accounted for by a huge blast into the second deck at CBP by David Ortiz, whom Mike Lowell called "the guy that drives the bus."

I have to say that I like that image of Big Papi as this driving force. I can see him as a kind and gentle soul taking care of those riding on the bus, but at the same time ready to kick the everloving crap out of anyone who disses his passangers. Get this man a blue blazer and a cap right now!

Lowell himself remains shit-hot - last night he went 3-for-3 with a home run, and added in a walk for good measure - and the bullpen was once again stellar - 2 1/3 innings, 1 hit, no runs, 3 strikeouts. If you can put together timely hitting, a solid outing and good relief you won't go far wrong - hopefully the Sox will continue in this vein.

Oh, and if the cake wasn't good enough for you, here's a little icing: a walk-off win by the Mets against "No" Mo Rivera. Sweet.

Just another winless Wednesday

There's not much to say that isn't already in the game recap. The Sox were shut down by good pitching from Erik Bedard, and by the time they started to get it together it was too little, too late.

You can talk all night about Willie Harris missing the sign - and believe me, at 3:30am I was as pissed as anyone that the game ended with him caught stealing - but the simple fact is that over the first eight innings the Red Sox managed just two hits (known as "The Wakefield Offense"), and you're not going to win many ballgames that way.

Day off today (thank God - I'm running on fumes here), and then into Philadelphia for the first round of interleague play this year. I have no idea how we shape up against the Phillies, so I guess I'll be making do with the usual - crossing my fingers and yelling at the PC. It's not very scientific, but it works for me.

Update: I just had to check this Wednesday thing out. This season the Sox have a worse record on Wednesdays than on any other day of the week. The breakdown looks like this:

• Saturday 3-2
• Sunday 4-1
• Monday 4-0
• Tuesday 5-1
• Wednesday 2-5
• Thursday 2-3
• Friday 3-3

So what does it prove? Well, outside of confirming that they're not The Boomtown Rats, not very much, but it did fill up five minutes on a very dull Thursday afternoon, which is something not to be sniffed at.

How are the mighty fallen

Not so long ago, fans were booing pitchers for walking Barry Bonds instead of pitching to him. Now, pitchers are getting standing ovations for hitting him with a pitch.

A glance at any sports website would lead you to believe that the whole nation is holding its breath as Bonds chases Ruth and Aaron, but I think that the reaction in Houston is much closer to Joe Q. Baseball Fan's feelings about this whole charade. And it's interesting to note that Bonds' beaning - after a clear warning had been issued - did not lead to a benches-clearing brawl on the field. He's cut himself off so far that evcen his own team doesn't want to stick up for him. Poor old Barry.

The Pilgrimage - Day 3

Read "The Pilgrimage - Day 2"

I'd been in Boston all of two days, and I was already in the process of establishing a routine: up at some ungodly hour of the morning (ungodly for the East Coast, fairly godly for someone on CET) a bit of ESPN to catch up on what had been happening in the rest of the baseball world, and then a large Dunkin' Donuts coffee to get the day off to a good start.

The ESPN thing is also another example of how the little things helped make the trip great. To be able to switch on the TV and see not only highlights of games, but highlights of games I'd actually been at, was a blast. Almost nothing on the trip was taken for granted, and the "baseball desert" metaphor works perfectly - I was like a man who had been wandering in the desert for months, only to come across an oasis ("a rainforest" was how Beth described it). It was almost too much to take in - the key was to go slowly and not waste any of the sustenance provided.

In contrast to the 'easy' sights of Day 2, Day 3 was planned as a "serious tourism" day, given over largely to the Freedom Trail. But as every serious tourist knows, you can't do the Freedom Trail (or even the part of it we planned to do) on an empty stomach. And Beth scored some serious tour guide points by pointing us in the direction of Bennigans, one of those places where a glance at the menu had me wishing I was staying for 5 weeks rather than 5 days. I was about to go for a plain old Grilled BBQ Chicken Sandwich when Beth mentioned that every time guys opened up the menu here, they somehow felt challenged by the Monte Cristo:

A delicious combination of ham and turkey, plus Swiss and American cheeses on wheat bread. Lightly battered and fried until golden. Dusted with powdered sugar and served with red raspberry preserves for dipping.

I have to be honest - I hadn't felt especially challenged until Beth brought it to my attention, but a fried sandwich? I had to see this for myself. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, may I introduce to you the Monte Cristo, in its all its battered glory:


You can't tell from the photo, but the sandwich was taunting me as it sat there: "C'mon, ya English wuss - I betcha can't finish me!" Now, visitor to the city of Boston or not, there was no way I was going to let a sandwich talk to me like that. Although I admit that I had a helping hand from my good friend Sam - it was declared a "two-beer sandwich" by the end of lunch - I am pleased to say that I did get the better of the Monte Cristo. Chalk up a moral vistory for the Brit...

After such an epic battle a brief rest was in order before attacking the Freedom Trail, so we sat down for a little while and watched the world go by on the Common. Again, it gave me an opportunity to revel in the little things that others take for granted, in this case a couple of guys throwing a baseball around on their lunch break. An ordinary occurrence in parks across America, but, for me, a pastoral moment to take home and remember with pleasure:

Once the guys had tired us out, it was time to hit the Trail. Beth took her tour guide duties to the extreme on this particular afternoon, reading passage after passage of Boston history from the Freedom Trail guidebook. I'm not sure I took all of it in - chalk up a minor moral victory for the Monte Cristo - but I was able to appreciate a side to Boston that for once didn't involve baseball. Despite the less-than-rosy picture painted of the British, it was an enlightening afternoon of American history and a fascinating insight into how Boston evolved as a city:


Beyond the purely historical aspect of the tour, one of the things I enjoyed was the juxtaposition of the old and the new, the way the city seemed to have grown up around its historical monuments without erasing them completely. It's as if modern-day Boston decided to put a protective arm around the shoulder of its historical ancestor:


Beth really did a fine job of educating me not only in the history of the city of Boston, but also in the language of the natives. As the afternoon wore on we set up a tentative language exchange programme whereby I helped Beth with the odd word in French (Faneuil should not be 'Fan-yool' but something along the lines of 'Fan-oy') and she instructed me in the finer points of Bostonian greetings, beginning with "Howaya?" By four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, however, my body was starting to yell at my brain, and the main message seemed to be "Smoothie!!", which I was finally able to enjoy sat out in the sunshine opposite City Hall.

From there it was on to Fenway for my third game in as many days. When I got the tickets to the games, I wanted to get seats in different sections each night, but working on a budget meant that the night I had right-field box seats was the night I could only really get one ticket. It goes without saying that the baseball gods took good note of this and decided - on the only night I didn't go to the game with Beth - that it would be one of her personal favourites on the mound. I was delighted to be seeing Schilling pitch, but I did feel a pang of guilt as I left Beth in front of the Government Center 'T' station. All I could do was promise to take care of her boys in her absence. And it was reassuring to know that I wouldn't be the only one there keeping my eye on Schilling:


Once inside the ballpark, I was able to discover my right-field box seats. They were great seats, pretty close to the field, but here's what you see when looking out from them:

You see that little patch of brown dirt waaaaaay over on the left? That is where the game is going on. Clearly this part of the ballpark was designed by a team of French architects, who decided that the aesthetics of the Green Monster were much more interesting than the game itself. So basically, the choice facing the fan in these seats is: a) forget about the game and enjoy the views of the Green Monster; b) watch the game and endure a sore neck for the best part of three hours. b) won out in my case, but it wasn't always easy to do.

Before the game got under way, I was able to rub shoulders with a couple of Red Sox stars. First up was my man Coco:


but as exciting as seeing Coco was, it was nothing compared to what was probably the biggest thrill of the trip, provided by the biggest Red Sock of them all:


Without wishing to rub salt in Beth's wounds, the game itself was a thriller. I got goosebumps seeing the Fenway crowd rise to its feet to give Kevin Millar a standing ovation on his return to Boston, and the only thing I could think of at that moment was that I hoped a certain Yankee center fielder was watching and wondering where he went wrong:

Millar's ovation was a thing of beauty - a collective thank you from the Fenway crowd for what he brought to the Red Sox in general and the 2004 World Champions in particular. The ovation, which continued into Millar's at-bat, ended when Millar got a single, at which point the crowd gave him a round of gentle boos, much to the amusement of everyone present.

One of the other little kicks I got from the game was seeing Baltimore's first-base coach stood in his box, for the simple reason that his genuine major league jersey has my surname on the back of it (if you're having trouble reading the name, the person in question is former Pittsburgh Pirate Dave Cash):


Once I'd resigned myself to the fact that I was going to spend most of the game twisted round at a 45° angle, the seats actually seemed like a good deal - close to the field, with a good view of the game. What I'd apparently failed to notice, however, was the fine print somewhere on the ticket indicating that I was in the special "Musical Chairs" section of the ballpark. The seat I had was in the middle of a row, and I swear to God that the seats at the end of the row (the boxed-in end, not the end near the stairs) were occupied by about a dozen different people over the course of the evening. They were originally occupied by four guys, who went for beer in between the fourth and fifth innings and mysteriously came back as four girls. They in turn mutated into two girls and two guys, only to be transformed back into the original bunch of occupants later in the game, at which point I stopped really taking notice and tried to devise a system whereby they could get past me without me actually getting up from my chair. (In case you're interested, I didn't find one, mainly due to me being 6'2" and the Fenway seats having been built for leprechauns fresh off the boat from Ireland). The only silver lining I could see was that my chances of getting deep vein thrombosis from being wedged in the seat too long were virtually nil.

Back on the field things got pretty interesting in the sixth, but the report of the game's highlight comes with a word of caution: if you're going to partake of a beer or two at the ballpark, go easy early on, as you could be in for a long night. The guy sat two seats away from me hadn't been disturbed much by the comings and goings in our row, since he'd spent most of the first four innings going back and forth to the concesions for beer. However, when he finally sat down to watch the game, there wasn't much of him left that was still functioning. As a result, with the game on the line in the sixth inning - two outs, three men on, Papi at the plate wth two strikes against him and 35,000 Red Sox fans going completely batshit - this is what my neighbour was doing:
(Note the slightly-tilted-but-not-overturned beer glass - the man may be an ass, but respect is nonetheless due for keeping his beer upright).

Two seconds after I took the picture Papi whacked a three-run double, which, as it turns out, was the ballgame, and this guy slept right through it. Sir - Red Sox Nation salutes you!

Outside of Papi's superhuman exploits, honourable mention should be made of Mike Lowell, who was in the process of proving that he's an extra-base machine. This is what the scoreboard said when he came up to bat for the last time:

He may have scary facial hair, but you can't fault the man's consistency. What the photo fails to show is that Lowell also had a double the next time up - unfortunately it was a double-play (as in "grounded into inning-ending..."). Oh well - nobody's perfect.

The rest of the game went pretty much to plan: Timlin in the eighth, Papelbon in the ninth, Red Sox win, "theeeeeeee Red Sox win!" I also scored a personal victory when the guy sitting on the other side of me noticed my jersey: "Hey - Dave Roberts! Nice jersey, man!" That one comment made all the time and effort it took to get the jersey worthwhile. It also meant that there was at least one member of Red Sox Nation going home to tell his friends and family that he'd met a crazy English guy wearing a Dave Roberts jersey who'd travelled all the way from Paris to see the Red Sox play. It might only have been a small part of the bigger picture, but it was nice to think, as I left Fenway that night, that I'd managed to stand out from the masses for a second or two, a unique member of Red Sox Nation.

Read "The Pilgrimage - Day 4"

Getting a hit

I finally got my fix of baseball last night - I had to get up in the middle of the night to get it, but it was worth it - I got some good stuff.

Beckett was lights-out. He came out throwing pretty much only fastballs - only one of which the Orioles caught up with, for a 1-0 lead in the first - but around about the third inning he started to mix in a slider and his off-speed stuff, and that was the end of the story: 7 innings, 1 run, 2 hits, 6 Ks.

Of course, on a day when 2 runs would have been enough, the offense chipped in with 11 runs on 13 hits, and didn't for a moment look like they hadn't played since Friday night. Wily Mo hit a huge opposite-field home run to kick-start the proceedings, Varitek had a home run and 3 walks and 'Doubles' - just to mix things up a bit - had a triple and a home run.

Lowell now has 15 hits in the last 10 games, 11 of which have been extra-base hits, and his BA of .331 leads the team. Wily Mo is right behind him, with a .321 average. It's great to see solid contributions from lower-order guys who - for different reasons - were very much unknown quantities at the start of the season. If - or rather, when - the top and heart of the order starts to get hot, this team could really be going places.

I totally agree with Red - with the Yankees facing injury and pitching worries, now is the time to stockpile some wins and put some daylight between us and the rest of the division.

So what are we waiting for? Let's do it...

The Pilgrimage - Day 2

Read "The Pilgrimage - Day 1"

Thursday May 4th

Over the past six months I've done a lot of travelling for work, and from time to time I've been in that situation where you wake up in a hotel room somewhere and it takes you a second to remember which city you're actually in. For some strange reason, I didn't have that problem on this trip. I woke up in the hotel and my first thought was: "I'm in Boston, and tonight I'm going back to Fenway!" (Actually, that's not strictly true - my first though on waking up was "Please tell me it's not only 4:45am!", but the Fenway thought arrived about half a second later).

The day began with a timely reminder that we weren't in Kansas any more. As I was waiting for the elevator to go back up to my room with my cup of coffee and two chocolate frosted donuts (has anybody noticed the theme starting to develop here?) the guy next to me took one look at my Red Sox jersey and started to ask me about the game. For those of you who live in the U.S. this might not strike you as odd, but this is the first time this has happened to me. Ever. I've worn Red Sox jerseys, T-shirts and caps on hundreds of occasions, but never once have they elicited any kind of spontaneous comments or reactions from complete strangers. I realised right at that moment that in crossing the Atlantic I had turned my world upside-down. In France I stand out, even if nobody strikes up conversations in the subway with me; in Boston, I'm just another Red Sox fan, anonymous but nonetheless accepted by virtue of what I'm wearing and what it represents. The cap or the T-shirt with the 'B' on it means that you can be a stranger in a strange land and still be welcomed with open arms.

I'd been in this kind of situation before, but I'd forgotten that feeling of belonging, of wearing a jersey to show that you belong to a community, and it felt great to experience that again. We talked a little bit about the game - he was an Indians fan in town on vacation, but had been down to Fenway just to have a look at the ballpark - and about Dunkin' Donuts (he was disappointed to have had to buy his coffee elsewhere, so I used the wealth of in-depth knowledge that I'd gained in the 12 hours I'd been in Boston to point him in the direction of the nearest one (here, if you're ever in the neighbourhood)). It was a two-minute conversation, but it put me in a great mood for the rest of the day and helped me realise that wardrobe selection for the rest of the trip would be a piece of cake.

OUSCPICFIT™ Beth had inquired of me the previous day what I wanted to do whilst I was in town and, good Red Sox fan that I am, the only thing I really had in mind was the Fenway Park tour. Desperate not to come across as too sad or obsessed, I threw in the Prudential Center for good measure, and so in about three seconds flat our plan for the day was drawn up.

On a gorgeous spring day the top of the Pru was a great place to be, with the city laid out at our feet:

Since my tour guide is a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we decided not to use the audioguides provided and rely on her extensive knowledge of the city to guide us around the top of the building and make pertinent remarks on what we were looking at. This turned out to be a mistake. I'm sure Beth could drive around the city blindfolded (well, maybe not literally...), as she knew where all the main arteries were, but she was a little less hot on the major landmarks. Now before anybody - including Beth - starts giving me a hard time, I'd like to point out that she herself recognised this:

Then we went up to the SkyWalk at the top of the Pru for some sightseeing. We were handed some little "audio tour" transponders when we first walked into the observatory, but I scoffed at them, sure I could just tell Iain what everything was. Turns out I was really good at telling him what the roads and highways were and a few landmarks, but half the questions he asked I couldn't answer. "You are the worst tour guide ever," he finally said incredulously. I have to admit it's true.

And in her defense, I am exactly the same when I show people around Paris - once I get beyond the really major landmarks, I'm a little bit lost.

In keeping with the baseball theme of the whole trip the one thing I did recognise was Fenway Park, and the view from the Pru brought home the fact that it really is a neighbourhood ballpark:
No wonder fans can never find a parking space on game days!

Our timing of the Pru visit was perfect, not just because we segued seamlessly into the Fenway tour, but also because, as we were leaving, we ran into a party of about fifty schoolkids, who looked like they were ready to ruin the peaceful afternoon of pretty much anyone in their path. We couldn't get back to ground level quick enough:
Next stop - just for a change - was Fenway, for the official tour. Because it was a game day, we 'only' got to visit the grandstands and the seats on top of the Monster, but that alone was worth the price of admission. As we walked into the ballpark I finally got my "thrill of the grass" moment. The mid-afternoon light was perfect, and the red and white uniforms stood out as vividly as I imagined they would against the green of the field:


It was strange to be in an empty ballpark and to see players going about their drills and warmups in the most laid-back of atmospheres. Thinking back to the emotion and noise of Wednesday's night's game it seemed hard to believe that we were actually in the same place. I think Beth and I both pretty much tuned out the tour guide and just sat there taking in this special place at a unique time. The photos I took inside Fenway were all standard shots of the field, but Beth's eye was better attuned to the nuances of the place, and she was able to come up with gems like this, which shows almost nothing but is yet one of my favourite pictures from the whole trip.

That particular photo is a good indication of the different frames of mind that Beth and I were in during the trip. Since it was my first visit to Fenway - to any major league ballpark, in fact - I wanted to capture the essentials, the shots to show the folks back home and to use as desktop wallpaper on my PC. Not knowing when I'll be back at Fenway meant that I wasn't afforded the luxury of looking around for the unusual shots and the quirky angles. In that regard, it was wonderful to be accompanied by someone who was able to look for that kind of picture. If you haven't already done so, I recommend that you go and take a look at Beth's Flickr galleries. Some of the shots are almost identical to the ones I took, but there are other less 'obvious' ones which are outstanding.

At that moment, and despite what I'd seen from Josh Beckett the previous day, it seemed as if baseball was almost within reach of the ordinary fan in the stands, just a regular game played by regular guys, an upscale version of another day at the office. The players were as relaxed as you’ll ever see them. Manny was chatting away to friends by the dugout:

and you would have been hard pressed to see any kind of reflection of the previous night’s game or any precursor of the game to come. It wasn’t quite “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems”, but it wasn’t far off.

The second and final stop of the tour was up on top of the Monster. All we saw was a little bit of BP, but that was enough to convince me that it would be a great place to see a ballgame:

It’s not just the physical location of the seats – right on top of the action in left field, breathing down Manny’s neck – but also the symbolic location. If you asked any baseball fan to name the defining feature of Fenway Park, most of them would cite the Green Monster. It has stood there for years, unchanged, and to sit up there watchng a game and eating a hot dog or two:


is to get about as close to the memory of Ted and Yaz and Pudge and Nomar as you ever can.

Beth and I wanted to stay in the ballpark to watch the rest of BP, but the Fenway staff said that we had to leave and come back in with our tickets, so I had to have my arm twisted to go have a beer and a cheeseburger (which Beth qualified as sumptuous) over at Game On. As Beth says in that post, that was the moment when my senses really were working overtime. I had finally stopped movng myself and was just sat on the sidewalk watching Red Sox Nation go by, and it was a fantastic sight. There were Red Sox fans in all shapes and sizes - small, medium and large, black and white, Goth and grunge, metal and punk, suits and surfers - and it reminded me that the old cliché is true: sports do bring together people from all walks of life, and it felt good to be included in that. On my passport it says citizen of the United Kingdom, but it could just as well say "member of Red Sox Nation."

I could have sat there all evening, but it would have been a shame to waste the two bleacher tickets we had for the game. After total immersion in Red Sox Nation, there could not have been a better place to watch the game. What was interesting was that it was the same ballpark as the previous night, with the same two teams, but an entirely different experience.

Before we went up to our seats, Beth and I hung out behind the bullpen for a while, watchng the teams warm up on the field. As we did so, the sun started to go down behind the ballpark, and we were suddenly in Field Of Dreams territory, where you start to think "It doesn't get any better than this." There is not a single place on earth I would rather been at that particular moment:

"Is this heaven? No, it's Fenway Park."

Sitting in the bleachers gives you a totally different impression of the game. You are much further away from the action, and this creates a natural tendency to interact a little more with those sitting around you (especially if you realise on two separate occasions that you are sitting in the wrong seats...). It also gives fans a chance to interact with the players. If you've ever paid any attention to a baseball game - and Sox games in particular - you will have noticed that the only players interacting with fans are the outfielders. This is partly due to proximity, but the main reason is simple boredom - there's nothing much to do out there in the wide open spaces except wait for fly balls to come your way, so you have time and energy to devote to the fans.

In the center field bleachers at Fenway, fans' attention was focused on Wily Mo Pena, and it took me all of about three innings to start to love this guy. He would give the fans the Manny double-point sign when he came out, he'd throw balls into the bleachers after warming up between innings, only to then get a hard time from the Monster seats for leaving them out of the action. As Beth said, Wily Mo is too naive right now to know that he doesn't have to do this all the tme, but that was what was charming about it. With all due respect to the fans of the Cincinnati Reds, I thought of what Beth's Dad had said the night before about Wily Mo, who had 35,000 people yelling and rooting for him every single time he came to bat: "This kid thinks he's died and gone to heaven." Boston can be a tough town to play in, but if you play hard and respect the game and the fans, they wil love you like one of the family. Wily Mo is still the new kid on the block, and when Coco gets back he's going to be the backup outfielder, but recently he has been improving at the plate and performing decently in the field, and if he continues to do so he has the potential to be a huge star in Boston.

The game itself was pretty much over by the end of the 5-run first inning, after which the Sox never really looked back. The two things which stood out for me were my first Fenway home run, courtesy of Kevin Youkilis, and the electrifying entrance of Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth inning. The Sox had been coasting along with a six-run lead, but the tag team of Seanez and Tavarez managed to give up 3 runs in an inning-and-a-third. After the third run crossed the plate the crowd was on its feet, calling for Papelbon (and, as Beth pointed out to me later, not only calling for him, but giving the traditional manager's sign for a righty). In the face of such a reaction I had a hard time realising that this kid has only been in the big leagues for a matter of months. It wasn't quite Mariano Rivera coming out of the bullpen in Yankee Stadium, but I'm pretty sure it's as close to it as a 25-year-old rookie can get. 17 pitches and 14 strikes later, he had save no. 11 under his belt, sending 35,000 Sox fans home happy.

On a trip such as this one, it's sometimes hard to appreciate things as they happen, but I think I was able to do that as I left the ballpark. A picture can speak a thousand words, but this one only needs to say three:

Another perfect day.

Read "The Pilgrimage - Day 3"

"Dear Sox..."

Dear Curt & friends,

I'm trying my best here, but with all these 1am CET games I can't possibly be there to keep an eye on you all the time. Last night I stuck with you until the third inning, when I figured that a Papi two-run homer and yet another extra-base hit from Mike 'Doubles' Lowell (this time for four bases) would be enough to see us through, but it would appear I was wrong.

Now I'm looking at the schedule - we lost last Wednesday, and we lost yesterday, so if this is all part of a new "only lose on Wednesdays" strategy, then I'm OK with it. If, on the other hand, it's part of a "we suck with the bases loaded" campaign, then you might want to reconsider.

Thanks a lot. Now go get 'em tonight.
Iain

The Pilgrimage - Day 1

Wednesday May 3rd

Having spent the previous three days eagerly watching the weather forecast for the Boston area and seeing nothing but showers for Wednesday evening, the sunny blue skies and 70° weather Paris was basking in as I left almost seemed like a cruel joke being played on me by the baseball gods, but I left in good spirits, hoping that somehow things would change for the better.

Hopes remained high as I flew across the Atlantic, but then so they should have - I was travelling at 500mph, way above any kind of bad weather, and life always looks good from up there. However, I came down to earth - literally and figuratively - at Logan Airport, where all I could see from the window of the plane were huge puddles of water. I tried hard to do some positive visualisation, telling myself that the Fenway grass had much better drainage than the Logan concrete, but I wasn't all that convinced. I figured I'd flown 4,000 miles to get rained out in Game 1.

Since I was already a little on edge about the game, U.S. Customs and Immigration thought it would be a good idea to add to that anxiety by putting a sum total of five officers on the desks to deal with three simultaneous international arrivals. By the time it was my turn to be barcoded into the Homeland Security database, I was looking at my watch every two minutes. I'm actually surprised I didn't get stopped and questioned on that basis alone, but in the end I just got the standard "Business or vacation?" line, to which I proudly replied that I was on my way to Fenway. "Hmmm...not sure if they're gonna be able to play the game in this weather," was the encouraging reply from my friendly immigration official. Yeah, thanks for nothing, buddy.

Remembering Paul's sound advice, and after a brief but peaceful struggle with the automatic ticket machine, I jumped on the T and headed for the hotel, where I had just about enough time to put on the Papi T-shirt and the Dave Roberts jersey before heading on back out to Fenway.

One of the first things I had to deal with on the way to the ballpark was an overload of what I call my 'Red Sox radar'. I live in a country where 95% pf the baseball caps you see have that ugly interlocking 'N' and 'Y' on them, and 99% of those caps are more a fashion statement than a badge of allegiance - the people wearing them would be hard pressed to tell you the name of the team, let alone name the starting rotation. A Red Sox cap is therefore something of a rarity, but when I got on the 'T', they were suddenly everywhere. My brain kept going "Oooh - Sox cap", "Oooh - Sox jersey", until it finally sunk in that I was in a place where the red 'B' was the rule, not the exception.

Coming from a place where baseball is an unknown quantity meant that much of the initial pleasure was to be gained from the ordinary little things that most baseball fans take for granted: the caps, the jerseys, the snippets of baseball conversation on the 'T' and the general sense of belonging to something much bigger than the individual. I was still getting my bearings, so I played no active part in all of this - I was content to just soak up the atmosphere and sit there with an occasional silly grin on my face.

I was brought back to reality by the driver announcing "Kenmore - this stop for the ballpark", and then all of a sudden I was being carried along on a river of red, white and blue. I had no idea which way Fenway was, but I didn't really need to - all I had to do was follow the thousands of fans streaming out of the station.

Up until that point I had just been enjoying the ride, but as I was coming out of the 'T' station, I felt my first real jolt of excitement as I saw a simple little sign on the stairs that said "Fenway Park", alongside the Red Sox logo. I realised that all the rest was just filler, and that this was what it was all about, the culmination of an 20-year baseball journey and a slow-burning love affair with the Boston Red Sox.

From that point on it was pretty hard to keep the inane grin under control. I could see the Citgo sign and knew that the ballpark couldn't be far away. I followed the crowds onto Brookline Avenue and then suddenly, as we approached the Mass. Turnpike, there it was: Fenway Park.

It really is a ballpark from the good old days - it doesn't stand out in the middle of a gigantic parking lot like some stranded mother ship from an alien galaxy, but is rather an inherent part of the neighbourhood in which it was built, to such an extent that its very dimensions are governed by the streets surrounding it, rather than vice versa. What this means for the first-time visitor is that the ballpark almost sneaks up on you - one moment it's not there and the next, it is, like a faded green gift-wrapped birthday present just waiting to be discovered.

The grin was now accompanied by a quickened step. It was as if I needed to get there as quickly as possible now, just to make sure that I wasn't dreaming all this. It had taken me almost twenty years to get to this first ballpark, but suddenly those last few steps seemed almost too much, and I all but ran the remaining few yards to the corner of Lansdowne.

Despite the 4,000 mile flight and the concerted efforts of U.S. Immigration to make me late, I was right on time for my 6pm appointment with Beth, until now an inhabitant of the virtual universe they call the Interweb, but about to become Official US Contact Person In Charge for Iain's trip (OUSCPICFIT)™. Thankfully, Beth was running a little late, and I was able to dash up and down Lansdowne in a sort of "Pinch me!" frenzy and duck into the souvenir shop for a grey Red Sox hoodie. If there was an "I made it, Ma!" moment on this trip, it was right then.

After Beth had arrived and the formal introductions were out of the way, it was on to the serious business of getting inside. I was the stranger in a strange land here, so I just let her lead the way, as we weaved in and out of the heaving masses around Fenway.

I had spent a long time anticipating and imagining the moment when I would walk up the runway and finally see the field laid out before me. In my mind's eye the scene was always bathed in a warm, late-afternoon glow; in reality, it was bathed in nothing more romantic than a steady drizzle, but it still looked fantastic. My thoughts echoed those of Stephen King in Fenway:

Doesn't everybody remember their first time at Fenway? I was twelve years old. We went down from Maine with my cousin, who had his driver's license. It was a gray day. The Red Sox were playing the Tigers. It was either 1959 or '60. Ted Williams was still playing, and Al Kaline was playing for the Tigers. The game was an official game, but it was called after six innings because of rain. Detroit won, and I think Norm Cash hit a home run. What I remember was coming up the runway and out into the park and just being flattened by the beauty of it, by the green. And the day was gray, but the grass was the greenest green I'd ever seen - and I was a country boy.

The other thing that immediately struck me - and Beth had said this to me on several occasions - was how small Fenway looked. Somehow TV seems to enlarge the park's dimensions, maybe because you never get the sense that there's anything behind you, but once you get inside and there are walls all around, it does feel very intimate, or at least as intimate as a 35,000-seater stadium can be. Beth was as disappointed as I was - if not more so - that the weather wasn't as good as it might have been, but her rationalisation of the situation did raise one interesting point, which was that the bad weather allowed me to ease gently into the Fenway experience. Had the sun been shining and everything been picture-perfect, it probably would have been too much. This way, I got to appreciate the simple fact that I was there, without suffering immediate sensory overload.

To be honest, the ballpark looked just great to me, even in the rain. If I were to draw an analogy, it would be that of waking up next to someone you are truly and deeply in love with - at 6am, nobody looks their best, but what you see is coloured by your deepest feelings, and so you can say "You are beautiful" and really mean it. That is what I wanted to say to Fenway at that moment - despite the rain and the tarps, it looked beautiful:

The one downside to the tarps was that as long as they stayed on, there wasn't going to be any baseball played. In the light of that, Beth proposed that we just wander around the park and take in the sights, and I didn't need to be asked twice.

It was strange to be able to wander around a sports stadium at will. My experiences have been mainly limited to English soccer grounds, and they are very clearly divided up into sections - once you have entered your section, you can't go anywhere else. At Fenway we were pretty much free to wander where we wanted (a point made in a guest post last year by Baseball Desert contributor DBF), including down behind the dugouts. And it was down there that I got my second jolt of the evening. As we stood there wondering whether the tarps were ever going to come off or whether in fact I was headed for the world's worst-timed rainout, Beth nudged me with barely-suppressed excitement and said: "Tito!" And indeed, not ten yards away from us was Terry Francona:
I managed to not jump up and down with the excitement of it all, but it wasn't easy, because no sooner had Tito gone past than it was Theo's turn:

The reason for the two of them appearing in quick succession soon became clear, as against all expectations, the grounds crew started to remove the tarp from the field. At one point Beth wondered out loud whether they were just clearing the water off it in order to put it back on, but no - they were taking it off and rolling it up. We were going to see a ballgame! (I have to say that I think we benefitted from the rainout of the Yankees game the previous evening. I'm pretty sure that Sox management didn't want rained-out games on consecutive nights, so they did everything in their power to get the game played).

It has to be said that I wasn't the only one getting excited at that point, since it suddenly became clear to Beth that she was about to see a pitcher other than Matt Clement or David Wells. It would appear to be written somewhere in Beth's destiny that she shall not see any other pitcher at Fenway but those two. However, the rainout meant that the scheduled starting pitcher - Matt Clement, naturellement - would pitch on May 4th and that we would in fact now get to see Mr Josh Beckett in action:
By this time I was starting to freak out - in a very calm, British way, but freaking out nonetheless - in the way that you do when you suddenly come virtually face to face with people you've only ever seen on television. This rational, responsible 36-year-old father of two was suddenly transformed into an incoherent idiot: "Hey, that's...we're...I'm...yay!" This seemed like a good time to go find our seats (after a brief visit with Sam), before things went from bad to worse.

The seats we had for the game were in the CVS family section, up on the first base side, close to the Monster:
There was a pole obstructing our view of the field, but after all the waiting I'd done, I was determined not to let that bother me and to just put it down to part of the Fenway experience. Beth said that she was pretty sure the ballpark would not be full and that we should move around and find some better seats, and we were in the process of doing that, and standing for the national anthems, when the baseball gods decided to smile on us once more. Beth's cellphone rang - it was her Dad, calling to inform her that he had seats behind the visitors' dugout, about half-way back, and that there was an empty row just in front of him. So, having already wiped two sets of seats dry with our now slightly-damp rear ends, we headed off to carry out our 'auto-upgrade' and park ourselves in some very nice seats much closer to the action.

If there was a quick lesson to be learned from sitting in those seats, it was this one: a ball thrown at 96mph is travelling damn fast - the ball goes from the mound to the plate in what seems like the blink of an eye. (There was also a second lesson: always bring a cloth with you if you don't want to be sat in damp jeans all night). I'd seen big league pitchers on TV, and I've even played a little baseball myself, but nothing had prepared me for the crap-your-pants speed at which Beckett was throwing the ball. Intellectually I know that hitting a baseball is at the limit of what the human brain can do (especially if the brain is not too big to begin with), but it was only when watching Beckett side-on:

that I finally understood that. I sat in awe as he unleashed pitch after pitch that I could barely follow, let alone imagine trying to hit. There just didn't seem to be enough time between him letting go of the ball and it landing with an audible "Pop!" in Varitek's mitt for hitters to do anything other than shut their eyes and pray, and I suddenly understood - complete with a little lightbulb coming on over my head - why the best hitters in the game still fail 65% pf the time.

Once the game was under way, I was constantly torn between wanting to enjoy every minute of it and also wanting to have a visual, digital record of it to take back home. I think I found the right compromise - around 4/5 game and 1/5 taking pictures - but I was undoubtedly helped by the fact that I knew I would be coming back for more games later in the week.

Although the actual context - baseball at Fenway - was unfamiliar to me, it didn't take me long to start reliving sensations I hadn't felt in a very long time. One of the real pleasures of the evening was simply being at a game with 35,000 other fans, all rooting for the same team. I hadn't been to a live sporting event where I had so much invested in the outcome for years, and I got a real rush from the crowd around me. There have been times when I - and others - have likened our passion for baseball and the Red Sox to a religion ("Keep The Faith", anyone?). And like a religion, it is possible to be a believer on your own, sat in your apartment building in Paris, but it is a far more powerful experience to share that passion and those beliefs with a huge group of like-minded people. When the Sox take a lead on MLB.TV, I sort of gently (and quietly, as it's often the middle of the night) punch the air with my fist; at Fenway, I was on my feet for every hit, high-fiving Beth and her Dad after every run scored and yelling "Yoooooooooouk!" with the best of them. I don't know at what precise moment I lost my voice, but I'm guessing around the 7th inning.

Outside of the group effect, I also got a real kick from the conversations going on around me, the observations, the knowledge and the opinions being aired, even the heckling (my favourite being the completely random "Butterfield - you suck!"), all of it coated with a fine Boston accent.

And what about the game itself? For the record, the Sox rallied three times but still lost 7-6. Papelbon gave up his first earned run of the season and Foulke - much to Beth's dismay - gave up a 2-run home run, and with it the ballgame. But if you've read this far, you'll probably have understood that the game was of secondary importance. I'd spent months thinking about the trip and days worrying about the weather, but in the end, I got to see Beckett match up against Roy Hallyday, I sat in some fine grandstand seats eating hot dogs and drinking beer, I sang "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and "Sweet Caroline" and had a pretty damn good time. As Vin Scully said of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series: "Not a bad opening act."

After a cup of coffee and a donut at Dunkin' Donuts in Kenmore Square, I headed back to the hotel damp of trouser, hoarse of voice but still grinning from ear to ear. Regardless of the loss, it had been a great evening - the gods had smiled on us for pretty much everything bar the final score, so I couldn't really complain. I was on cloud nine all the way back to my hotel in the Financial District, but the real impact of the trip hit me as I was getting ready to hit the sack (at 6:00am, Iain time). Here in Paris I'm lucky if I get to see two games a week on the Internet, and here I was, having seen my first game at Fenway and knowing that I would be back there the next night, and the next, and the next. There was only one worrying thought that crossed my mind: "I could get used to this in a hurry..."

Read "The Pilgrimage - Day 2"

How sweet it is

Severe jet-lag and general fatigue seems to have launched me into some parallel baseball universe, where Alex Gonzalez is hitting 3-run homers, Wily Mo Pena is making spectacular catches in left field and Mark Loretta (3-for-41 lifetime against Randy Johnson) is bashing 3-0 2-run singles against the, shall we say, somewhat flaccid Big Unit.

Over on the other side, the Yankees couldn't catch / stop the ball to save their lives and couldn't make any kind of headway against Beckett after the first inning, all of which added up to a sweet 14-3 win at Yankee Stadium.

A couple of remarks on the game:

• Mike Lowell - the guy is off the charts so far this season - he has 39 hits so far (for a .339 average), 21 of which have gone for extra bases. I was watching the game on YES last night, but Beth told me that Jerry Remy said something to the effect of "This guy can't hit singles."
  

• Wily Mo - with the Yankees playing terrible defense all night, it was even sweeter to see the YES Network pick Wily Mo's stellar catch in left field (not his normal position, I would like to remind you, unlike Matsui, who completely misplayed Lowell's fly ball) as their Play Of The Game.

Schilling vs. Mussina tonight. I won't be there to see it, because if I don't get a good night's sleep I might not make it to Friday in one piece, but it should be another good one.

Inane grin update

For those who are interested, this:

is in fact what the inane grin looked like.

I'm now back in the baseball desert (after a long weekend in the rainforest) and fighting jet-lag, but there will be posts in the coming days on what was a fantastic trip, I promise. Please bear with me whilst my brain catches up with the rest of me.

Come fly with me

Today's playlist might possibly include:
The Bee Gees - Massachusetts
Kenny Chesney - Please Come To Boston
The Standells - Dirty Water
Dropkick Murphys - Tessie

And if you see this guy sometime over the next few days:
wandering around Boston in a Dave Roberts jersey with an inane grin on his face, stop him and say hi, 'cos it'll be me :-)

Rain, rain, go away

There were a lot of things that had to go right for this trip to finally happen, and they all have. Barring a life-threatening injury between now and tomorrow lunchtime, I will be at Fenway tomorrow to see the Sox play the Toronto Blow Jobs...sorry, Blue Jays - I'm in the Family Section and must curb my colourful language - but there is one thing over which I have no control: the weather.

The end of the week looks fairly promising, but tomorrow could be a real nightmare - 60-80% chance of precipitation, 50° (feels like 40-something). I hadn't really thought about the weather as a factor until today, when Beth mentioned the possibility of a r***-**t (I'm not even going to say it - I need all the positive mojo I can get). Whatever the opposite of a rain-dance is (a sundance?), I need to be doing it for the next 24 hours or so. I will have come a long way, both literally and figuratively, to see that ballgame, and I'd really like it to take place tomorrow evening.

Still, I do feel good about having Beth in my corner on this one. These were her words earlier today when we talked about possible outcomes:

"I personally plan to beat up God - I will KICK HIS ASS - if you get r***** **t."

So, Big Guy, if you're reading this - you have been warned...

D4m0n

For those of you scoring at home, that would be 4 at-bats, 0 hits, and that, to me, was more satisfying than the boos that rang out around Fenway and the money that was thrown onto the field.

I don't know how much NESN pushed the "When Johnny Comes CrawlingMarching Home" angle, but on YES it was the main event. Every Damon at-bat had the broadcast team in silence - a brief respite from Michael Kay for which we should be thankful - listening to the crowd and trying to work out if it was quieter or louder than the last time. Even after the game, with the Yankees having been sucker-puched by Big Papi - who apparently hadn't been informed that Myers was signed by the Yankees as a lefty-killer - it was all about Johnny.

Now, with that out of the way and a nice comeback win under our belts, we can finally get on with the rest of the season.