Scenes from Fenway/September 28, 2009:

*  While waiting to get into the park, I notice a couple walking down Landsdowne Street holding hands and looking very much in love.  “Oh my God, do you see that?” a shrill voice behind me gasps to her husband.  “Well, honey, we are in Boston”, is his reply.  The couple, you see, happened to both be women.  I turn around and note that two people remarking on this are wearing Blue Jays gear.  The Blue Jays are from Toronto where gay marriage is pretty damn common.   Or more notably, as this website states, Toronto is “One of the world’s most gay-friendly cities”.   Fortunately, that was the only time, last night, that I wanted to punch a Blue Jays fan.

*  Still waiting to get into the park.  Another couple approaches.  The woman is wearing a Red Sox hat and the man is wearing what I think is a Yankee-hater hat.  As they get closer, I see that they are bickering and I realize the hat he’s wearing is a Yankees cap and I hear his girlfriend/wife bark “You just HAD to wear that cap, didn’t you??”.  Given that my reaction to his cap was “What a dink”  I was, again, pleased with my decision to not wear Sox gear to the Yanks/Rays game.  Normally, I think you should represent your team no matter where you are but walking into your rival’s house when your team isn’t there and wearing their gear screams “I’m an asshole who wants you to start a fight with me!”.

* Hey, I’m in the park – let’s have a beer!  I’m at the game with Kelly O and she and I have, well let’s just say we have different tastes in beer.  To be blunt, she likes “good” beer and I like the “crappy” beer.  So she gets her good beer and I head to the Bud Light.  When I pay, I discover that the price has gone up but I don’t say anything to the vendor, just to Kelly.  We both shrug it off and keep moving on.  The we decide we’re getting ice cream for dinner (don’t judge us!) and the kid running the cash register is having trouble with it since it’s his first day.  The woman training him apologizes and says “It’s because of the price increase” to which I respond, “They increased prices?”.  “Starting today,” she tells me, “it’s the second time they’ve done it this year!”.  Remember when the Red Sox made sure every media outlet knew that they weren’t raising prices at Fenway this year?  Yeah, funny how that only lasted a short while.

* We’re in our seats.  Six rows behind the Sox dugout.  We sat in these seats the night Nick Green pitched and we were hoping we didn’t get to see Josh Reddick on the mound before the night was over (Reddick’s dad was there last night, talking to Josh at the dugout before the game began.  At one point they switched caps.  Cutest.  Thing.  Ever.)  There are two couples, together, behind us.  One couple seemingly couldn’t care less about the game.  The other seemed hell-bent on proving how much they knew about the Red Sox and the game.  Let me make a list of some of the things they said during this game:

Apparently, Terry Francona is an idiot for allowing Josh Beckett to take a “day off”.

Johnny Pesky is “some old guy” who “never played really well” but the Red Sox let him “hang around” anyway.

Michael Bowden?  “Won’t be in the starting rotation in the playoffs if he keeps pitching like this”.   (Ditto for Hunter Jones.  I tried to explain that they were both rookies out of the bullpen who wouldn’t be in the starting rotation in the playoffs unless Beckett, Lester, Buchholz and the rest of the bullpen came down with the H1N1 virus – to no avail.)

It seems they think that Dustin Richardson must be a family friend of Tito’s for him to let him have his Major League debut in “such an important game”.

Manny Delcarmen is the best pitcher coming out of the bullpen.  (Hand to God, the guy actually said this.)

Victor Martinez is the reason the Red Sox pitchers (not just the guys last night) are struggling.

The only thing to look forward to in the game is Jacoby Ellsbury possibly stealing (he said this before the game began).

David Ortiz’ home run last night was “meaningless” and the fans were cheering “too hard” for it.

I know I’m missing so many more.  But this gives you a good idea of what we were dealing with.  The tickets were a gift to Kelly and we both knew we had to be on our best behavior – but it was tough.  The only time I yelled all night was when folks in our section started booing Michael Bowden.  I believe I yelled, “Don’t boo the rookie, asswipes!”.  Oddly enough, after that, even when other sections started booing, no one in our section did.  Score one for the good guys.

*  Once it began raining and we were soaked and holding up in the grandstand under cover, the fans became much more bearable.  The ones who stick around under the worst conditions always are.  At one point, we’re all running up to get under cover and I hear these two guys behind me trying to decide what to do.   One says, “We should leave now” and the other says, “Why? If they start up again, we’re only 6 runs behind!” to which his friend replies, “I hate Red Sox fans. Everyone else says, ‘Ugh! We’re six runs behind!’ You guys say, ‘We’re ONLY six runs behind!'”.  🙂

*  The Red Sox thought fans would like to watch the Yankees and Royals play while we “waited for the showers to pass”.  I promise you, no one wanted to watch the Yankees.   But, eventually, it became late enough that we got to watch part of the Angels/Rangers game.  Given that the Angels scored early and often – it was a wise choice.

*  Theory of the night goes to KellyO and Jere who both hoped the Sox game would resume and the Sox would win – around 12:30am or so and the team would let the fans stay to watch the Rangers lose in Anaheim.  Sadly, this didn’t happen.  Booby prize goes to me and my friend Dori – every game we’re at on the same night they seem to win.  Not this time!  (Check out Jere’s blog entry about the game for some great rain delay dancing footage and photos!)

Thanks to a tweet from Daigo Fujiwara (and the fact that I was checking texts and Twitter every ten seconds or so to find out what was going on!) we knew about three minutes  – give or take – before they announced at the park that the game was called.   This gave us enough time to beat the crowd that was left to Kenmore, jump a train and (in my case, anyway) be home before midnight.

Oddly enough, I got home in a very good mood.  The company at the game was great!  Seeing folks I hadn’t seen in a while was fun and I always enjoy seeing the rookies play (even when the appearance isn’t that enjoyable!).  So regardless of the outcome, it was a good night at the park!

Now if the Sox could please win a damn game tonight, well that would be great too.