one big holiday

made it to fenway wednesday night for the first time this year and even though the flu-ridden sox lost to the o.c. angels there were several times when a notepad and a pen would have come in very handy - luckily i had both... and given the fact that wasn't a typical april night at the ballpark, e.g. 40-something degrees and dropping with people everywhere crushing hot chocolates as opposed to watery beer, the experience was much more enjoyable - i'll bet all seven of you would be ok in an infield grandstand seat when its still 75 after the sun has set, no? good times were had by all, even the couple in front of us who were asked to move at least three times because they were occupying someone else's seats yet still managed to not have to leave the row... so let's get on with it then, yeah?

6:34 - relatively quiet on the T for rush hour on a game night, though getting on the red line in cambridge at this time vs. jumping a green line train bound for kenmore square at park street isn't exactly a fair comparison... very much looking forward to being knocked down by some goon in a papelbon jersey while simultaneously suffering a claustrophobia-induced panic attack in a few minutes... good times!

6:53 - arriving at kenmore 10 minutes before the first pitch is a nice sneak preview of going to grab a beer or hit the head at fenway: a crapload of people (one wearing a trot nixon jersey!!!) all fighting tooth and nail to get to the same place everyone else is going only without resorting to violence... not that i condone this sort of thing, but what would happen if say, the trot lover kicked the guy trying to squeeze past him on the staircase then laid a forearm shiver into the back of the dude in front of him who's not actually moving? would everyone just keep shuffling along? would there be a full-scale, every man for himself riot in which pink hat wearing fans started wildly swinging their studded purses and nine-year olds broke free from their parents and began biting? does anyone think of this stuff but me?
(by the way, we're getting there at the time when the scalpers are starting to get that "uh-oh" look in their eyes... at least they have a celtics playoff game to work in an hour before heading off to "scalpers night" at the glass slipper...)

7:08 - through the turnstiles, into the beer line, six pitches into the game and the angels lead 1-0... i understand that jon lester took a hit by voluntarily pitching on short rest because dice-k came down with the fenway flu, that the angels are very good and that it's just one run... but no matter how hard i try to convince myself, the guy just doesn't inspire a lot of confidence... i grant him the benefit of the doubt in that he's still very young and had his development hindered due to his illness last season and i want very much to like him not just because of his comeback from the cancer ordeal but because he has loads of potential and is going to be counted on to be a big part of this team for years, but he always seems to pitch just well enough to lose... don't think i buy the assertion that he could be another andy pettitte, a) because pettitte was much better already at a similar stage of his career, b) because even when he was young, pettitte was a prototypical crafty lefty whereas lester seems stuck between being a power guy and a finesse guy and c) because lester isn't friends with roger clemens and doesn't do steroids...

7:33 - no place where you can get wicked, bordering on inappropriately close to complete strangers (and benjah) than the grandstands at fenway...

7:37 - i may have hallucinated this, but it appears there are now beer vendors at fenway... people coming to your seats with beer at the ballpark instead of fans having to miss 2-3 inning stretches of games due to having to get up and wait in line has been such a foreign concept for me for so long that i haven't quite known what to do when one strolls past my seat in places like wrigley field and shea stadium... thankfully, i won't have to face such circumstances as they seem to be patrolling only the high-roller sections near the field - ah progress...

7:52 - in two innings, julio lugo has made two great defensive plays and driven in the first sox run with a ringing base hit up the middle... he's smack in the middle of an impressive hitting streak at this point, averaging something in the .450 range over a 10 or 11-game stretch... now before anyone thinks julio might be growing on me, i might as well mention that in the top of the third, he drops a routine popup... even when the guy is going well he still manages to suck... the red sox have had some limp shortstops in my time, but i can't think of any who made complete sucktitude look as easy and routine as julio... with julio, booting ground balls right at him, grounding into key double plays and generally looking like he has no clue looks like an art form - i sometimes imagine ted williams' hitting prowess being akin to julio's sucking prowess... oh and did i mention that the sox still owe him two years and $18 million after this season?

7:54 - at least six of the people sitting near me think julio's not that bad... i probably wouldn't either if this was little league and everyone else on the team also couldn't hit or catch or throw...

8:01 - lester celebrates the sox cutting a run off of the angels' lead by giving it right back on a base hit to someone named eric aybar, who appears to be even smaller than dustin pedroia... in the fifth, not quite half an hour later and approximately 54 seconds after the sox cut the l.a. lead again, he serves up a mammoth homer to gary matthews, jr., matthews' second of the evening... lester isn't pitching that badly... he's also not pitching that well... this is a recording...

*on a totally unrelated note, there is a fan at this game wearing a t-shirt that says "balls models" which of course is the name of the modeling agency in "zoolander" run by maury ballstein... if the sox had hit seven consecutive home runs at some point during the game, this t-shirt still would have been the coolest thing i saw all night...

8:43 - scoreboard says the celtics are lighting up the hawks down the street at the fleetcenter in game 2... everyone raise a $7.25 cup of bud light to the celts...

8:51 - big papi turns on a jon garland meatball and crushes a homer into the 10th row of the bleachers next to the visitors' bullpen in right... it's not terribly timely to say this in the aftermath of his 0-for-6 on friday night against tampa and subsequent two-game respite, but i think the guy is coming around... look, it's obvious he's not fully healthy, that his knee has not completely recovered from the surgery he had in the winter... i think that as long as this post-surgery pain lasts, he will not be the big papi we're used to at all... but even if that lasts all season, he is such a great hitter that he will learn how to make the proper adjustments and still be able to be all-star level productive... it's already happening - the dismal 3-for-43 start was symbolic of his learning how to deal with the discomfort and react at the plate accordingly... now that he's started to get it, he's hitting homers and driving in runs at a much more papi-esque pace (he hit another absolute bomb the next afternoon)... here's hoping that this break he's on doesn't last much longer...

9:12 - the return of craig hansen, who looks much more like the tough, intimidating guy he was purported to be when drafted than the scared, absolutely no confidence looking kid he's been since two summers ago... he gives up a solo homer to casey kotchman in the sixth (more unfortunately, just minutes after papi's homer tied the game) but he's looked mean and nasty, working quickly, challenging guys and snapping off sliders the way he's always been expected to... i'm fairly certain theo and his peeps share this sentiment but given how (sigh) mediocre the sox pen has looked thus far, it sure would be nice if hansen is able to cultivate this new persona and help out by summertime...

9:26 - j.d. drew ends the seventh by grounding into a 4-6-3 double play... i'm not going to rag on drew because of how money he was last fall when it really mattered and because he got off to a reasonable start this year relative to last... but i will say that it felt as predictable as the sun coming up...

9:45 - mike timlin comes in and gives up an insurance run... feels lousy to be down on timlin after what he's done the last five years but let's face it - he's 75 years old! sooner or later, someone might want to inform him and the sox of this...

9:55 - jed lowrie - who looks like a player - bounces into a double play to end it... as mostly negative as the tone of this little diary is, it's only because of the outcome of this particular game and not because i feel particularly down on the team... the current losing streak isn't quite at the alarming stage with the pitching being as good as it has (clay buchholz has silly good stuff) and half the team being hurt or sick, not to mention the fact that the (devil) rays are actually decent this year... naturally, there are things that they need, but it's so early, they have ample time to get them...

and the negativity also has nothing to do with the night at the ballpark which, as usual, despite the crowds and the prices and some of the accommodations being more suited to 1912 than 2008, was absolutely awesome... there may be more bandwagon jumpers than ever these days, but it still felt like the crowd was on every pitch, reacting to each morsel of the game... the weather was so awesome it felt like midsummer in april... the atmosphere was perfect and even though the game ended in a loss pretty much everyone around us seemed to share the proper perspective on the state of things (except for the fellow who called sportsradio the next day and ripped francona for using lester even though he volunteered and the sox only other option was julian tavarez for the fourth time in five games)... maybe if was 40-something degrees and dropping with people everywhere crushing hot chocolates as opposed to watery beer, it would have been a bummer - but i doubt it...