Sunday, April 18, 2004

Frizzendly Fizzenway

Spent Saturday at Fenway Park. I'll try to give you some of what the cameras may not have captured.

Before the game, Pedro was running around during yanks' batting practice with a red "Ramirez 24" warm-up jersey on. It made him look like a little kid.

Got some pictures of Schill warming up from the fence behind the bullpen. He loosened up for a while, and then he was ready to air it out. But first, he stood there, staring intently up above my head. I turned around, didn't see anything going on. Then I noticed the clock on the scoreboard read 12:59. I realized he was waiting for 1:00 to start throwing. It seemed like more than a minute passed before it finally changed. I'm sure a lot of people knew he did this already, but I didn't. I knew about the Wade Boggs 7:17 thing, but not this. I was once at a game where "Mr. Non-Clutch" MISSED his moment and came out of the dugout at 7:18.

Was sitting to the far right of the bleachers. It was weird to look up and see fans up on that right field roof. You get a hundred bucks worth of free food up there, which meant we got several hundred bucks worth of free food wrappers falling on our heads. Maybe not that much, but a lot. One woman, on the far left of the grandstand, got one of those french fries cups right on the noggin.

But that was nothing compared to what this one drunk dude got about 10 rows in front of us. Two right hooks from the girlfriend of the guy he was (initially) fighting with. He got a bloody lip--and an ejection from the park. This was Red on Red crime, but of course, several yankee fans were also tossed.

Speaking of female fans, Rich Wolfe wrote in the preface of "For Red Sox Fans Only" that "(Red Sox) female fans are as insightful and well-informed with the same emotional, intense feeling as their male counterparts." And then went on to say that in his opinion, female fans of only the St. Louis Cardinals and University of Kentucky basketball team can compare to those of the Sox. At yesterday's game, the drunk dude next to me asked in my direction, How many pitches did he throw?, referring to Schilling. I had been following the pitch count up until a few pitches before Schill was taken out, so I started to say, "One hundred and sixteen or something," but was immediately overpowered by the woman in front of me who said, "A hundred and twenty-one." I definitely agree that a higher percentage of Sox fans than that of any other team's really know the game and pay attention. Female, male, whatever. I laugh when I hear people say that yankee fans are the most knowlegeable in sports. I feel they're the least knowlegeable, if you're talking "as a whole." Just because there are way more "casual" fans of the yanks than of any other team in sports.

And the key to the day, of course, was: The Red Sox beat the yankees.

Comments:

Post a Comment

If you're "anonymous," please leave a name, even if it's a fake one, for differentiation purposes.

If you're having trouble commenting, try signing in to whatever account you're using first, then come back here once you're signed in.



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

My Photo
Name:
Location: Rhode Island, United States