Our view last night. Complete with little kid whose parents let him run up front alone while warning him to look out for foul balls.
I was fortunate enough to have been invited to last night’s game and was surprised with seats on the aisle two rows away from the field. Without argument, they are the best seats I’ve ever been lucky enough to sit in. Upon further reflection, I realize that just about every time I’m in the best seats I’ve ever been in, the Red Sox end up losing. Should make a note of that for next time!
Because I was with great company and the weather wasn’t too insufferable, the night was a lot of fun in spite of the final score. Getting to see Justin Masterson was cool (the fans gave him nice ovations both when his name was announced and when he left the field and the Red Sox music folks played “Son of a Preacher Man” when he left the game, which I thought was a nice touch) and hearing the cheers for Jacoby Ellsbury’s return reassured me that not all of the fan base has gone mad with “He’s soft! He only broke a couple of ribs! He’s a clubhouse cancer!” disease. See Jon Lester angrily thow his hands up at Tito when he initially came out to, seemingly, take him out of the game and then proceed to give up a home run…not so nice. But last night’s game was not to be and I’m okay with that. I’ll take my pleasure where I can get it and I hate that people so quickly can forget what happened on Tuesday night just because the team loses a game. Perspective, people, perspective.
In regard to the photo above, as a person with no children of her own maybe I’m just super over-protective (my niece tells me I’m “too child-protective!” which is her way of saying I worry too much) but in what world would you think it was safe to let your small child stand that close to the field when a foul ball or flying bat could absolutely come over and hit him? His parents were four or five rows behind him, not nearly close enough to stop a foul ball or deflect a bat, and they did nothing but encourage him to run up front in the hopes of getting a foul ball.  Heck, when Marco Scutaro thew his bat down and it bounced around, I was expecting it to come our way. I get that it’s a baseball game but there are also certain spots in the park where it DANGEROUS. Where we were sitting is one of those places. Sure it’s cool to a kid to get that close to the field but it would be nice if the ADULTS would act as such and take care of their kids. (While I’m ranting, an adult took a late-inning, Big Papi at-bat as an indication he and his son should come to that spot and stand directly in front of me. When I politely tugged on his shirt to get his attention he barked at me that he would get out of my way so I could see. How silly of me to expect to see the ball game. What was I thinking?)
It seems that less fans show up early for these games lately. The park looked filled once we were sitting but while we were walking around pre-game there were many less people than I’m used to being there. The flip side of that was by the 8th inning, when I expected people to start leaving in droves, most actually stayed. There were patches of empty seats (mostly in the expensive sections) but for the most part the majority of the fans stuck it out. Don’t know if that’s just an indication of folks deciding to enjoy the experience for what it’s worth or those people weren’t going to waste the money they spent for possibly the only game they’ll get to this year by leaving early but in any event it was encouraging. Regardless of how we knew it would probably end, folks hung in there.
As I’m writing this, WBZ’s Dan Roche tweets that Josh Beckett, Mike Cameron, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis have been fined (along with Cleveland’s Jensen Lewis) for the non-fight on Tuesday night. All but Beckett and Lewis were fined because they were on the disabled list and not supposed to take the field.  Does this prove Ellsbury is one of the guys now? (Cleveland’s third base coach, Steve Smith, the one Tito was going at, was suspended for 2 games. Tito didn’t get suspended or fined. That’s pretty darn telling, I think.) No more fights, fellas, let’s try to just get a split in this series tonight, okay?