Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

Silver Linings

Since I'm afraid I really must insist on sleeping at least occasionally, I elected to skip tonight's game in order to edit and post photos from Tuesday night's debacle, which I witnessed in person.

I clearly chose...unwisely.

But while it would've been nice to see them dishing out the beating rather than taking it, It's not like it really makes much difference, at this juncture, whether the Sox win or lose. 

I wouldn't say I've "given up" on the Red Sox -- I've been taking advantage of the wider availability of tickets to show up at Fenway when I can, blowouts or no blowouts, so I don't think that would be quite fair. "Let go" would be more accurate. I've put the division and pennant out of my mind. At this point, given the odds, I'll be waiting a few more days before I even think about letting this topsy-turvy series with Tampa get my hopes up.

I'm struggling to explain my coping mechanisms as a fan at the moment without sounding corny, or, if I try to keep things light, as if I just don't care. It's not like I don't want the Red Sox to win, or that I don't wish they were doing better, still in the hunt, and we were starting to get agita along with Yankees and Rays fans as the race comes down to the wire. But I've also seen, over the last few days, the ways the team's collapse has changed the atmosphere around Fenway, and while it's not what I'd prefer, it's also not a completely bad thing.

Earlier this season, a columnist wrote about how Fenway is 'no longer a place to be seen'. This was written as a lament, but some have spoken since about a 'lightening of the bandwagon' as a much-needed purge. The bandwagon fan is almost invariably envisioned as a young female in a pink hat, but the first to go, I've found with the Patriots and now the Red Sox, are the wine-and-cheese crowd, who aren't really defined by age, gender or fashion choices.

Still, you know who I'm talking about. The people we often saw on TV yakking on cell phones in box seats behind the plate during crucial games. The people who set the market price for Sox-Yankees series in the quadruple digits during the last decade. The crowd that would've been sitting in the field box seats we wound up in Tuesday night; instead, we were surrounded by others who seemed more grandstand than luxury box.

As a 'dynasty' period declines for a sports franchise, the first people to go aren't the gum-twhirling neophytes but the status fans, the people who simply want the hottest ticket in town, whatever it is, and will pay top dollar for it.

This is probably one of the reasons Larry Lucchino looked a bit green about the gills when he took to NESN's dais on Yawkey Way before the game tonight, essentially to implore fans to stick around for a new and improved product next year. And he is right to look sick -- he, and the rest of the ownership, have real problems on their hands, problems that can be measured in real dollars.

In a way, it's good that the park has been emptier of late -- at the prices this team is charging for tickets, it's understandable and probably even necessary that the consequences for a losing product are swift and severe. Provided, of course, this situation is temporary.

But as a fan, I don't have to worry about any of that just yet. And as I saw when a similar lull in the action happened about four years ago with the Patriots, suddenly, the ballpark has taken on a different aura.

In the case of the Patriots, the crowd that players had called out for its complacent silence in key moments as the 'dynasty' grew was cheering again on third downs.

Last night at Fenway, there was something sweetly nostalgic about the mood there for me, as I sat in these prime seats surrounded by my Dad and several of my friends. I can distantly remember Fenway being more like this when I came as a kid -- a more casual place. And in some ways a more comfortable one.

As the game wore on, the audience in the stands distilled itself still further, until there were at most just a few thousand left in the ring of seats closest to the infield. But as it dwindled in numbers, the crowd seemed to concentrate and intensify rather than fade away -- what fans were left packed in as close to the field as they could. And they made the noise of twice their number when Darnell McDonald hit an ultimately meaningless home run in the bottom of the eighth inning.

We've seen this before with the Red Sox, too, the time the park fell eerily silent during an ALCS game against the Rays in 2008, drawing the presumptive inferences of national broadcasters about the fan base in general, only to come roaring back to life the next night, ushering in one of the biggest single-game comebacks in playoff history. 'Status' fans fled, and in their wake an unmistakably more raucous, more earnest crowd poured in.

That part of following a less-than-dominant team is really not so bad.

Hanging In

If the lost series against the Rays the weekend before had been the funeral, the sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox last weekend was the bulldozer pushing fresh sod onto the grave. And I was there for the second of two losses in the same day, a day in which the Red Sox scored just two runs in 18 innings of baseball.

Saturday's game was the meat in a crappy loss sandwich, and at first it was tough to think of a less appealing night at the ballpark, in terms of both the game and my seats in the bleachers.

But we've been here before; about this time of year in 2006, to be exact. "Keeping the faith," to me, doesn't mean always believing that the Red Sox will win, or make the playoffs. It's ultimately about loyalty regardless of outcome. Eventually, during a game like Saturday's, in a season like this one, I just find what else there is to watch.

The atmosphere was comfortable -- the weather showed few traces of Hurricane Earl, which, though much-hyped, had briefly flirted with the Massachusetts coastline and then blown out to sea.

The ballpark still seemed full and the crowd reasonably loud, on a weekend evening with just a two-run deficit and runners on base for most of the game.

Notable characters made their appearance on the field: Manny Ramirez, to boos and camera flashes...

Ozzie Guillen, during a brief tempest over a hit batsman in the bottom of the fourth...

...and the always-electric Daniel Bard.

Young guns and newcomers like Bard, Daniel Nava and Ryan Kalish have become, for me, the main attraction of a Red Sox game at this point.

Joined by further reinforcements from the farm like Lars Anderson and Yamaico Navarro, the Sox celebrated Labor Day in their series opener with the Rays tonight by thrashing Tampa Bay 12-5, while the Yankees lost to the Orioles.

That's all a few days late, of course, and another dozen runs couldn't bring back the must-win games they've dropped in the last two weeks. But the Red Sox won, the Rays and Yankees lost, and I didn't have to go to work. So for today, I'd say I'm satisfied. Even if, in the grand scheme of things, I am very much not.

The longest afternoon of baseball ever.

Can't really call it the longest game ever. But at more than six and a half hours if you arrived on time for the original 1:35 pm start and stayed until the bitter end, this double rain-delayed game was longer than the longest 9-inning game on record (August 18, 2006, Sox vs. Yankees, 4:45), and only an hour and change shy of the longest extra-inning game on record (May 8, 1984, White Sox vs. Brewers, 8:06 over two days). It was so long my ridiculously sunburn-prone self managed to get slightly sunburned, and it was overcast the whole time (not making this up.)

And, okay, it wasn't the longest rain delay ever, either. Fans in other cities have been treated to worse -- The Chicago White Sox also delayed a game 7.5 hours before calling it off on August 12, 1990. The longest delay in a game that resumed was 3:39, Giants vs. Mets, July 23, 1994.

But it was a personal record. I'm pretty sure that was the most time I've spent at Fenway in one sitting, especially for a single 9-inning game.

When we first showed, I was convinced we'd be let in long enough to buy our required beer and beverage each, and then sent back to a lazy rainy Sunday afternoon at home. No such luck. Instead, we waited until 3:15 for the game to begin. Two innings were played, and then in a driving downpour the tarp was pulled back onto the field again. And about five minutes later (not an exaggeration), the skies closed up again. Not a drop was falling by 4:30. Play finally resumed, as the temperature began to drop and gusting winds rubbed in the chill, at 5:05.

I thought I had it tough, but I really can't imagine what it must've been like to be Clay Buchholz today. He was just beginning to feel his way through the game (cutter and changeup his most effective pitches, particularly the changeup. He was locating his fastball well. The curveball, still not so much) when the rain came. When he re-emerged and had to wait in the right-field corner for the grounds crew to get the tarp out of his way before he could begin warming up again, he pounded the baseball he was holding into his glove in visible aggravation.

While his counterpart, Shaun Marcum, fell apart two innings after the game resumed, Buchholz weathered all of that (no pun intended), and turned in nothing but goose eggs for his side of the scoreboard. He got a mound visit after two hits opened the top of the sixth, shortly after Marcum left the field tagged with three, and I thought, okay, here we go...the two had gone toe-to-toe to that point, and it wouldn't have been too surprising to see them tire together as well.

Buchholz retreated behind the mound, kicking the shoe brush with a bit too much vigor. V-Mart followed him, and when Buchholz didn't immediately turn, pretended to see something interesting on the rubber until the pitcher finally gave him his attention. John Farrell trotted out to meet them both, and they talked through their gloves for a while.

Then Buchholz turned and hummed in a first-pitch strike to Adam Lind. Lind did not go quietly, and neither did the next two hitters, but one by one, Buchholz worked his way through them. Strikeout, lineout, groundout. Six innings pitched, seven strikeouts, five hits (!!), zero runs.

The five hits are proof of what my gut also told me watching this effort from Buchholz -- this, like some of his other recent starts, was not his best game. He didn't have his best stuff. Either he's doing something different with his curveball, or he's having trouble locating it for some reason; maybe there's been so much effort expended on weaning him off what was once his only "plus" pitch that he's lost his feel for it temporarily. But the talented bundle of neuroses that first donned a Red Sox uniform three years ago has turned into a professional pitcher. There's at least as much mind as arm and instinct to Clay Buchholz now, and he's beaten nearly all comers with that combination this season.

Buchholz's effort might've been for naught had the offense not found a way to solve Marcum. The rally began when David Ortiz hustled his way to third as the ball rolled around in the triangle, leading off the bottom of the fifth. Adrian Beltre followed with a double that scored the game's first run.

They kept working at Marcum, advancing Beltre to third with a groundout by Lowrie to bring up Bill Hall.

"Hit the balll, Bill Hallll, hit the balll..." some women behind me began chanting, punctuated with a clap-clap.

And hit it he did, so high and so far that at first I thought it was a pop-up, and then had lost it in the net between our seats and the plate and the cloudy sky, as had most people in my section. We squinted at the people in the Monster seats, waiting for their reaction. When we saw fists go up in triumph there, we followed suit. 3-0 Red Sox.

At the last moment, in the bottom of the 8th, they tacked on two more, the first at the injured hands of Victor Martinez, who back in the second inning had just elected to suck it up and continue playing, after Jose Bautista's backswing hit him on the previously-broken thumb of his glove hand, when the second rain delay began. An hour's wait in the rain and six innings later, he was not only still catching, but getting key hits, to boot.

If we're going to tear players apart when they don't play hurt, it's time to start acknowledging it more when they do. Let's not underestimate the amount of pain V-Mart must've been feeling today, and what he contributed in spite of it.

Overall, the last week for the Sox has not been a disaster, but it has also been far from the miraculous run they really should've started by now if they wanted to up their chances significantly of making the playoffs. The math is not final yet, with six games left against both the Rays and Yankees and a six-run deficit in the division, but it remains a distinct long shot. The division rivals have yet to cooperate and collapse, and the Sox may have put two of the final nails in the coffin when the Jays beat them Thursday and Friday night like Joe Pesci at the end of Casino.

But they're still fighting, and I keep watching. At this point, I don't think any of us knows what else there is to do.

Dispatches from Manny's Return

Being at the ballpark for something like this is great for saying you were there, but not as great for taking an objective assessment of what happened -- especially not when you're way out in the upper rows of grandstand 3, approximately as far from the plate as any seat in the ballpark.

And I have noticed that the ballpark generally is a different world (most of the time) from the rest of the talk that surrounds the Red Sox off the field. In some cases the emotions run even higher, and in others, the bitterest arguments on the sports pages melt away so quickly it's laughable to even think of the sturm and drang you left behind at the gate. 

I will also confess that I went pretty much straight from North Carolina to this game, and so missed most of the public conversation that had been going on this week.

That said, here is what I can report from being there last night: The first time Manny showed his face on deck in a Dodgers uniform at Fenway Park, around me, the boos unquestionably reigned. But as he strode to the plate and his name was announced, behind me in Grandstand 1 a whole row of guys stood and clapped, even starting a "Manny" chant.

The boos were muddied with a cheer that from my seat seemed to begin with those guys behind me, and spread in a wave over the ballpark. To this, the boo-ers responded by growing louder, and the cycle continued until the best you could say, really, about the overall sentiment of Fenway as Manny returned, was that there certainly was a whole lot of noise. Whichever side of the "to boo or not to boo" debate you fall on, it was obvious from the mixture of love and hate, rebuke and welcome, that someone important was there.

***

This morning, Sox superfan and photographer extraordinaire Kelly O'Connor posted a Facebook note that said, in a nutshell:

I understand the impulse to cheer him for his accomplishments. I understand the impulse to boo him for his sins. I don't understand anyone who thinks it's a clear-cut decision and that those who choose one or the other are [insert inflammatory and insulting adjective here] [actually, go for it, use a whole string of 'em].

She and I went on to hash over the whole debate in the comments on Facebook (you have to be Kelly's friend to see it, so I'll give you the Cliff's Notes).

"No, I don't think he had quit on the team in 2008--I'm well aware of the stats showing he didn't," she wrote, to which I countered -- "There are stats on 2008, and then there's this: http://confessionalpoet.typepad.com/cursed_to_first/2008/07/fugly.html".

And yet if you follow me on Twitter, you would've seen I was glaring daggers at two guys behind me who booed Manny as he came to the plate last night.

As I told Kelly, if I thought the boo-birds were the product of as much reflection and intelligent thought as she displayed in her post, perhaps I might not have turned and glared at the ones behind me last night. But I think many if not most of the boo-birds are the same sanctimonious, self-righteous, talk-radio Kool-Aid drinkers who booed Manny when he was still the reigning World Series MVP. Maybe if they hadn't done that, I'd have given their point of view more weight. (Also, the specific boo-birds behind me later took to chucking peanut shells at the heads of fans ahead of us they perceived as being TOO excited to see Manny. So they weren't exactly making a great case for the "booing" faction.)

Whatever Manny's sins, I think it does Sox fans no favors to perpetuate this drama. Johnny Damon in pinstripes is one thing. But for the rest of the 25 who won in 04, why not give the guy a hand and move on with our lives? Acknowledging his positive contributions around here does not mean we condone the reported transgressions.

While we know much of Manny's behavior, especially in 2008, was completely inexcusable, we also know the way team management / press have been accused of colluding to trash guys on their way out of town. It even happened with Theo / Lucchino / Shaughnessy during that whole contract dispute in 2005, where Theo was suddenly cast as an ungrateful upstart during his brief hiatus from the team. I realize there's still a difference between Theo's situation and pushing traveling secretary Jack McCormick to the ground, but I also think there's an element here with fans who boo of following along with a narrative created to serve an ulterior purpose they may not have even thought about.

During that 2005 booing episode (which I still think was completely pathetic--this is more open for debate), Dan Shaughnessy wrote a line I'll never forget (quoting from memory here, apologize for errors): "Manny will still probably be greeted like Charles Lindbergh at Fenway this weekend, which is proof there is really no way to insult Red Sox fans." The F U I felt in response to that was NOT toward Manny -- it was toward the elements that made a cottage industry out of roasting him every summer and managed to manipulate fans into booing their first World Series MVP in 86 years just months after they won. Over what? Not running out ground balls?

The very real issues of 2008 aside, I come to this with Manny-outrage fatigue; this vilification and debate have been ongoing since at least 2003. Of course I can't know what was in the mind and heart of every fan who booed yesterday. But I also see how a good portion of this animosity got stirred up in the first place, and I don't trust the motives of the people who stirred it up any more than I believe Manny's a saint.

To which Kelly responded, quite eloquently:

I don't disagree that media manipulation goes on--but part of the purpose of my own comments is to leave that stuff OUT. I frankly don't care what Shaughnessy writes. You had observations in your own post ["Fugly", linked above] about YOUR observations of his teammates. That's not manipulation. The fact that he pushed down McCormick is not in dispute. I almost think the opposite--that people give him a pass on the big stuff because they look at the small things and think, hey, that's not so bad!

I was never worried about whether he ran out a grounder. I'll take that as the price of the rest of his ability. But I think the extent to which he let his unhappiness affect his participation on a TEAM is pathetic. To me it undercuts the love for a guy like Mike Lowell--who I think could get traded to or DFA'd and picked up by the Yankees and still get cheered at Fenway--to sweep what Manny did under the rug.

But I am not criticizing folks who cheered Manny. That's their right. I AM criticizing those who can't see why people could have the opposite reaction and still be thoughtful, sensible, loyal, smart fans.

And so I return to the "whole lot of noise" conclusion I reached at the time, and ultimately, I think Kelly and I agree more than we disagree. We both seem to be on the same wavelength, at least, when it comes to the idea of deep ambiguity as the overwhelming feeling of the moment, rather than total celebration or condemnation.

***

One guy I could get behind booing was Roger Clemens, who randomly showed up last night in the front row of the Monster. The only reason I knew about it was because of Gordon Edes' Twitter. Fans were mobbing Roger on the Monster between innings, and he was shown on the scoreboard screen a few times, but his appearance was a surprise to the Sox, and no announcement was made. There wasn't much reaction when he was flashed on the screen without being identified, since I'm sure most fans didn't realize it was him from that random camera shot amid the others of fans in the stands. But I would've loved a good "ROOGGG-ERRRR" chant for old times' sake.

***

Much more enjoyable last night than any of the Manny hoopla was the good-natured banter I witnessed between Sox fans around me and a large block of Dodgers fans who'd shown up in the lower grandstand nearby, and emboldened by their numbers, started "Let's Go Dodgers" and even "Let's Go Lakers" chants.
Boston fans responded with a booming "Let's Go Red Sox" that drowned out the first, and an even louder "BEAT LA" chant that was the refrain of the 5th inning as the Sox put up seven runs against a beleaguered Dodgers pen.

"IT GOT REALLY QUIET OVER THERE!!" hollered a guy behind me toward the Dodgers fans after the big inning had finally ended. But the LA fans bounced back again in the later innings, and the back and forth continued.

This was a less intense, dare I say more mature, form of trash talk than I'd seen at, say, Sox-Yankees games. Personally, I admired that crowd of Dodgers fans for showing up and being loud and proud, and even more for their ability to get that many seats together at Fenway for this game. After all, this is what Red Sox fans do at virtually every road ballpark the team visits. But I also appreciated the Red Sox fans for being pointed, but not vulgar, in their response (other than the peanut-shell throwers, that is). There were no brawls, no verbal altercations, no ad hominem attacks. Just the continuation of a cross-country rivalry that began in a series of epic basketball games this week and then bled through into an exciting baseball contest last night.

***

As caught up as we all were in old news, whether the NBA finals just past or a reprise of the Manny circus that left town two years ago, last night there was novelty to celebrate as well, in the form of minor league callup Felix Doubront, the third-youngest lefty to start for the Red Sox in the last 29 years (this per the Fenway scoreboard trivia -- the other two were Jon Lester and Abe Alvarez). He went 5 innings and gave up 5 runs, but it was enough when backed by Boston's offensive onslaught. If we're keeping track of Fenway fans' reactions to things and whether or not we approve, let's submit for the record that Doubront received a standing ovation that dwarfed any reaction to Manny's at bats.

I also got a taste of what it might've been like for opposing fans when Manny wore a Sox uniform, as he came up against Daniel Bard in the top of the ninth with the Sox up four and two men on base. He wasn't going to be able to hit the tying or go-ahead run in that situation, but the potential of making it a one-run ballgame didn't sit well with me, either. What I felt as I watched Bard work, alternating between the ant-like live action far away on the infield and the monitors showing the NESN feed over our heads, was very real fear, the flip side of the braggadocio that used to fill the place when Manny stepped up in situations like this with a "B" under the pine tar on his helmet.

But this was not six or even three years ago. Manny in his prime might've been Bard's undoing, but in this case the youngster finally dropped the aging slugger with a curveball for a called strike three so pretty I could even see it bend from where I was sitting. "Dirty Water" sounded. "Beat LA" echoed. And it was a moment not for the past, but for the youth of our team, and its future.

Splitsville

On Friday, I wound up with unexpected tickets to the second  of this weekend's four-game series against the Kansas City Royals. The Sox dropped this one in sloppily dramatic fashion, beginning with a Tim Wakefield meltdown.

In the plus column, we had good seats that a friend of mine had lucked into earlier that afternoon, in a field box on the first base side. The night was mild and clear, and I got to spend several hours taking a veritable flip book of Dustin Pedroia's every move.

Some of my preferred shots from that game set: 

Okay, REALLY sure the human body isn't supposed to bend like that.

The Celtics were winning the Eastern Conference Finals vs. the Orlando Magic that night.

"Look at him doing pitcher things!" -- Sam's reaction to super-utility man Bill Hall pitching a perfect ninth. Pretty much the best thing that happened in that whole game.

Yes, the "Bride" here has a "Youuuuuuk!" sticker slapped across her ass.

***

The Sox had lost the night before this, too, and it wouldn't be until the next night that they'd flash some leather behind a dominant Clay Buchholz to win 1-0, and another day before they'd finally get the bats in gear in support of an equally authoritative Jon Lester.

A split series. Mezza-mezz. Half empty or half full?

It's otherwise been a gloriously lazy, sun-drenched Memorial Day weekend, spent catching up with friends and on my sleep in equal portions, interspersed with baseball at Fenway Park. I think I'll go with half full.

______________________

P.S. We were told we were on TV in certain NESN camera shots with runners on first base, so we watched a bit of the replay when we got home. We didn't see ourselves, but we did come across this keeper:

As Promised: Red Sox Photo Mega-Post

i·ro·ny [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-nee] –noun,plural-nies. an outcome of events in which you take so many photos at baseball games you miss several subsequent games processing them all.

Without further ado, then, some highlights from two photo sets I just posted from games I went to back in April, just before my move:

April 21 vs. the Texas Rangers

After 12 long innings, I finally got to see my first Sox win of the season -- and a walkoff, no less. (Game Post)

Still my favorite non-Red Sox

Josh Hamilton swings in the outfield during pre-game warmups.

Excuse me while I toot my own horn a bit, here: I'm enamored of this capture if I do say so myself. Shows the alignment of his glove hand and push-off leg during his follow through (which can sometimes be v. acrobatic and exaggerated  with Beckett depending on how much he's 'reaching back'), and the expression of his fingers just makes it.

For illustrative purposes only: Screw you, vendor blocking the lower right corner of this shot. Still, you at least see where the controversy began with this play -- note Tek chasing after the ball. Tek's foot is on the plate. The umpire would say that Borbon didn't touch it. Varitek was able to recover the ball and tag him and the umpire ruled him out.

Aftermath of a call: (L-R) Josh Beckett does not give a fuuuuhhh...; Julio Borbon begs; umpire points; Josh Hamilton threatens; Jason Varitek heads back to celebrating dugout for his props; fan wants to high five him; batboy business as usual. View Large On Black (for better detail)

Racing the ball to second

Peeking out after a foul ball

This guy was popular that night, because he would also update the Bruins score.

Telling Pedroia where to put it

Jon Lester pretending to hit Clay Buchholz with the baseball; Buchholz pretending to be decapitated.

I already posted this picture once, but what the hell. It's my best shot, after all.

(Full Set)

April 24 vs. Baltimore

I had field box seats for the Baltimore game, the first time I've ever sat so close to the field, and if I were to die and wake up there again, camera in hand, I would find it an acceptable form of heaven.

First, some shots of my famous Dad --

On Van Ness St.

On Yawkey Way.

Scooter stretch

"Hey Murph, check out these guns, man."

Aww, Mikey Lowell.

Fenway at Dusk

Majestic Tek

Baldies on the Ballfield: Lou Montanez and Ty Wigginton compare heads.

Sox turn two.

From the fans to Dave Magadan and Kevin Youkilis, I love the tough-guy expressions on everybody's faces here.

Youk-lips.

Darnell digs in.

Surprise pinch hitter!

Brooding Pedroia.

Attention Red Sox Nation: do NOT be this guy. (Fan interference on a catchable foul pop-up, which is why Youk is giving him what-for here.)

John Farrell and Tek out to counsel a struggling Papelbon. The Sox would hang on to win, 7-6, but things got very "interesting" at the end.

(Full Set)

Hall of Fame, Epilogue

Slaving away ultra-late at my office and so I don't notice at first when a text message came in from my Dad. Then, he called.

"Hang on, hang on!" he said immediately after I picked up, before I could even ask what was going on.

"Hello, Beth?" came another voice then. "This is Billy Lee."

What in the...how in the...

"Hi!!" I said as enthusiastically as I could, just going with it despite not having been aware of where my Dad exactly was at that moment, or how he'd met Bill Lee in the first place.

Lee gave me a little running commentary as I sat there, dumbfounded, listening to him describe how "Billy Hall is up at the plate now...3-1 count...he's a pretty good shortstop. You know he wears a little pad on his leg because he always hits foul balls off of himself..."

By this point I was sputtering, trying to form a question (asking if he referred to every 'Bill' as 'Billy' actually crossed my mind, but I thankfully thought better of it), and it came out as something like, "where...how...?"

It turns out my Dad is sitting behind Lee at the game at Fenway tonight. Being my Dad, he spotted Lee and immediately bought him a beer. Thus indebted, Lee agreed to talk to me, at his request.

And so last week, it was Carlton Fisk. This week, it's this. Never a dull moment, when it comes to my Dad and baseball.

Red Sox / Rangers Walkoff, Part Deux

Good times, originally uploaded by ConfessionalPoet.

Last night, after 12 long innings, I finally got to see my first Sox win of the season -- and a walkoff, no less.

For a good portion of the game it had been shaping up to be a 7-4 Sox win, until an erratic Josh Beckett stayed in a batter too long in the 7th inning. The three-run home run Josh Hamilton hit to tie up the score and change the complexion of the night for good was a towering shot to the bleachers above the triangle, and reminded me of the blast JD Drew hit on the night the Sox hit four homers in a row off the Yankees.

It was interesting that it should be Josh Hamilton ruining Beckett's chance at the win. The two Joshes have crossed paths (in a way) before:

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays ... held the first pick in the 1999 draft and faced a tough decision between [Beckett] and another high schooler with the same first name, Josh Hamilton, a power-hitting outfielder also projected as a can’t-miss kid. Their choice was made for them after Josh [Beckett] visited the home of Tampa Bay owner Vince Naimoli before the draft. Lounging around like the place was his, he called Naimoli “Vince.” At that moment, many of the Devil Rays execs in attendance decided that Hamilton was the better fit for the organization.

Speaking of JD and home runs, meanwhile, Drew snapped out of his own slump at the plate last night with a grand slam to the right field corner that erased a 4-1 Texas lead.

It was also a night of redemption for the so-far error-prone Marco Scutaro, whose heads-up tag-up in the bottom of the 12th made it possible to score on Kevin Youkilis's wall-ball single to center field for the winning run.

But what stood out to me most in terms of turnarounds last night was the solidity of the Red Sox bullpen. Bard and Papelbon each stepped up for multiple scoreless innings that lit up the crowd. Bard in particular was impressive, hitting 98 on the gun and fanning three. Papelbon followed up his stellar performance Friday with his own solid two innings, followed by Hideki Okajima, who got the win with a perfect, two-strikeout top of the 12th.

For now I have decided not to dwell on the fact that these walkoff wins the past two nights have come against a struggling Rangers team, which recorded its sixth straight loss last night. In fact, the Rangers have a pretty similar record to the Sox so far this season, per ESPN: 5-9, 2-6 away to the Sox 6-9, 3-6 home. This is not a team that we should ultimately want to match up so evenly against. But after the last week, wins are a much-needed antidote to angst.

As a certain 90's band once sang, "It has to start somewhere, it had to start somehow, what better place than here, what better time than now?"

P.S. Posting will be spotty-to-nonexistent over the next week or so as I'm in the midst of moving into a new apartment.

Red Sox / Yankees Game 3: My own home opener

The heat was surprising at quittin' time yesterday, the late afternoon still muggy and hazy on a day that could have easily passed for mid-July. I was in a crowd of Red Sox fans from the moment I approached the Riverside T station. On the train, I watched, bemused, as three college-age guys in Beckett jerseys openly swigged out of telltale red Solo cups while the D car rumbled and squealed its way into town.

I had to wait for a while to meet my husband by the Cask, in the uneasy intimacy of a crowded sidewalk full of others doing a similar thing. From that vantage point it was clear when a fresh train had just arrived at Kenmore Square station; the regular periodic surges in the crowd being corralled across Lansdowne Street were visible.

From that vantage point it was also clear how many Yankees fans were in attendance last night. Every tenth person, or just about, seemed to be wearing a pinstriped or deep blue jersey. Bright white NYs were everywhere. As were alternate forms of Yankees garb, including that old staple, the obnoxious T-shirt.

Though it's not like we don't have our own answers to that.

***

Walking up that ramp into the ballpark for the first time each year may never get old. The sky was a mix of iron-grey clouds and fading honey-gold twilight, as the facade, and then the grandstand, and then the right field boxes, and finally the bleachers and the bullpens came into view. It felt, as always, like some kind of portal had closed behind me. From the lower level of the park, only the tallest buildings around are visible; the sensation is of departure from the outside world, encapsulation in a self-contained atmosphere.

As the buzz of the crowd, the shouts of vendors, and somewhere beyond, the pop of the glove in the bullpen began to sink in, I couldn't have suppressed my grin if my life had depended on it. It spread across my face, an uncontrollable reflex, as I climbed stair after stair, all the way back to row 17 of grandstand section 1.

There was a pole that partially blocked the pitcher's mound if I didn't lean the right way. One of my knees was pressed up against the back of the peeling, fading grandstand seats immediately, and would stay that way for almost every moment of the next 10 innings. My butt would ache by the bottom of the first.

I let out a happy sigh.

***

At other Red Sox - Yankees games I've been to, it's usually clear when there are fisticuffs being exchanged somewhere in the park -- a physical fight seems to suck in the crowd around it like a black hole, and you can see it suddenly gather in from across the field, usually accompanied by a telltale roar that has nothing to do with the action on the field. This time, the only fights I saw were of the verbal variety.

Ahead of us and to our left sat a Yankees fan in a white hat and light blue Yanks t-shirt, who took it upon himself to cheer on his team from practically across Lansdowne Street, as if the people who could hear him weren't just the increasingly irritated Red Sox fans nearby. As the game wore on, he engaged in a lengthy and shrill verbal altercation with an equally loudmouthed Red Sox fan.

Out on the street before the game, as a group of lads clad in pinstripes passed some Sox loyalists, one of the Boston fans let out an exaggerated cough, into which he embedded the words "YANKEESSUCK", which got him a laugh from his Joba-jersey-wearing counterpart (and from me).

Inside the park, when Yankees fans in attendance stood up to walk down the stairs, Red Sox fans would holler out whatever name was on the back of their shirts, followed by a hearty bellow of "...SUCKS!!"

And when a woman in a Jeter jersey came and sat momentarily in our grandstand section, a kid from standing room squatting in an unclaimed seat in our row repeatedly reminded her that "Jeter Sucks." Her responses would've made Josh Beckett proud.

I thought for a second I was going to see a cross-gender fight (you laugh, but I saw it happen once at Gillette). But then, inexplicably, the woman and her friends (all of whom were wearing Red Sox gear) left the section and never returned.

***

It wasn't Opening Night, but it was still a noteworthy game: John Lackey's first start in a Red Sox uniform.

Lackey delivered starting with a crisp first inning, in which he surrendered a walk but no hits. Big John held up his end throughout his six-inning start, and left clinging to a 1-0 lead, having surrendered only 3 hits. 

Lackey assuredly won't be earning quite the fangirl following Beckett, Papelbon and Ellsbury have. Even while doing what he does best, pitching, his body language seems jerky and awkward. Though a power pitcher, he doesn't "drop and drive" -- instead, he turns on a vertical axis, while his right leg kicks up next to him during his follow-through like he's doing the Charleston. As he finishes his throw, he holds one hand out in front of him like a velociraptor's claw before coming to rest. And his posture as he looks in for the sign with men on base is even stranger.

As long as he keeps throwing up goose eggs, though, he'll be fascinating to watch.

***

When David Ortiz came up in the first inning with Ellsbury and Youkilis on first and third, two outs, I held my breath watching him spit and clap and dig and set in the box through my telephoto lens, begging to any higher power that happened to be listening for him to just please get a hit. 

It's not even because he's my team's DH anymore. It's because I feel for him personally in a way I haven't with any other player. I was dying for him to get a hit, not just to beat the Yankees, but to beat the people who want to give him shit about his failures. Papi's in a category by himself, given the memories he's attached to and the personality that's been nothing but a cheerful delight around here until his latest struggles. It will just never be all business with Big Papi, at least not if you're a fan.

He finally connected, and as the ball spun toward my lens I reacted instinctively, mistakenly, probably wishfully, "THERE'S a hit!" The older gentleman next to us glanced at me, and I realized: the shift. The goddamn shift. Ortiz was out at first. Inning over. And a queasy feeling settled into my gut.

His next time up, also with a runner on, in the bottom of the third, I overheard a guy in the standing room section behind us talking to his buddy about the way Ortiz has been vilified lately. "They can't just strip him of his pride like that," he said. "It just ain't right."

That's when, from off in the right field grandstand, the "Pa-PI! Pa-PI! Pa-PI!" chant started. The guy in standing room and his buddy joined in immediately. I did too.

And then, at long last, Ortiz eked out a base hit, scoring Pedroia.

It hurts to type that sentence. It hurts to think about it. I know the truth. But as far as I and the rest of the fans in the grandstand last night were concerned, we're going down with the friggin' ship. 

***

***

Watch that be the only run of the whole game, I thought to myself as the cheers died down following Papi's hit, and we settled back into our seats.

I was partially right -- it would turn out to be the only Boston run of the game. Scott Schoeneweis relieved Lackey to start the 7th; he was pulled with two outs and Jorge Posada on second base, where it seems he is a fixture -- an irritating, parasitic fixture, like a barnicle -- in every game. Daniel Bard replaced Schoeneweis and promptly gave up a hit to Nick Swisher, scoring Posada and tying the ball game.

Immediately, my heart sank. I have yet to experience chest-bursting confidence in this lineup, despite the way it's scrapped and clawed against the Yanks the last two days. It just seemed, right then, like it was over but the shouting.

Which was true, but the shouting would go on for another three innings, into extras, where Curtis Granderson eventually pounded the final nail into the coffin with a home run off Jonathan Papelbon that landed almost directly in front of us. Around us the Yankees crowd, still going strong as Sox fans began to stream toward the exits, stood up and cheered.

I know that I don't really have a leg to stand on with this, given how my fellow Sox fans have represented us at visiting ballparks all over the country, even unto the point of a reputation for unsightly colonialism on the road. But honestly, I was seething. A tiny thundercloud may have appeared above my head. I'm sure I was making my very own version of the Peyton Manning Face. 

Not only was I disappointed that my first game of the year was going to be a loss, that one of my favorite players (Papelbon, who is worrying me on a scale to rival Papi) was the reason, that because of a key strikeout with runners on in the bottom of the fifth the screaming meemies would be after Ortiz again, but I also deeply, deeply resented the presence of these celebrating interlopers who were there to rub it in. I was desperate for something, anything, that would wipe the smug looks of satisfaction off the faces of the high-fiving kids in Joba jerseys four rows down.

Let me also just take this moment to mention that I can't vouch for the behavior of any and everyone wearing a Sox shirt in ballparks across America, and that I personally have never seen the Red Sox play anywhere other than Fenway Park. If anything, fans of Elsewhere, I'm feeling your pain.

And yes, my Zen after the inaugural loss of the season had lasted all of a day. I knew it would pass, too, but in that moment...even despite my better judgment and knowledge otherwise...and even given its irrelevance to the events that had just transpired...I, too, wanted to loudly inform somebody that Jeter Sucks.

Red Sox vs. Cleveland Photos Pt. 2

Photoset