I Guess I've Officially Taken Sides

My wife and I are in Boston right now, visiting friends. It's my first time in New England in years, and last night, my first-ever trip to Fenway Park. And I think I can sum up the experience in one word, "wow."

First of all, we show up around 5 o'clock- two hours before first pitch. And yet, the whole area outside the ballpark is absolutely packed. Yawkey Way, the shops, the sports bars...all jam-packed...and it's a random Wednesday in late-June.

We ate at "Game On!" and there was an hour wait to be seated, which was no problem because there was plenty of space in their standing-room-only section (although it made eating nachos interesting). Another thing that struck me inside the bar was the number of people in Red Sox jerseys or some type of Red Sox attire in general. With only a handful of exceptions, literally every person in there (again, we're talking I-sure-hope-there-isn't-a-fire-in-the-kitchen-because-someone's-getting-trampled-if-we-all-have-to-evacuate crowded) had on some sort of Sox stuff. Having grown up near Baltimore going to Camden Yards, this was a completely new phenomenon to me.

We finished our meal right around first pitch and made our way over to the park right at 7:05 to see Randy Johnson vs. Tim Wakefield, or as our friend Dave (aka Ezekiel) put it, AARP night. We had very good seats on the third base side of home plate a few sections up and I'll say this about the two hurlers. Johnson can still bring it and Wakefield's stuff breaks about 3 feet. The Big Unit was at 91-92 the whole night but hit 94 a few times later in the game and looks like he's 8 feet tall on the mound. Meanwhile, T-Dub threw one curveball that was 59 miles an hour and made, among others, Connor Jackson look like he was hitting a high-arc softball pitch for the first time ever. Oh, by the way, his knuckler is good too.

Next, to the player introductions, because a few of them were funny. Manny Ramirez (who I'm told came up to Afroman's "Because I Got High" a few seasons ago), chose "Zombie" by the Cranberries. Seriously. Every time #24 and his halfway-down-his jersey-dreads sauntered to the plate, some lady was singing "in your heaaaa-d, in your he-ah-ah-ed...zombie! zombie!" Weird. My favorite had to be Dustin Pedroia's plate music, "Dre. Day" by Dr. Dre. First of all, great song. Second of all, really funny for a balding, white, 5-foot-tall middle infielder.

As for the game, the Sox got some contributions from some unlikely places- Coco Crisp, Brandon Moss, and Kevin Cash, whose 3-run blast in the 8th all-but put it out of reach. Craig Hansen started the 9th and was wild, so with two outs and the bases loaded in a 5-0 game, Terry Francona came out to the mound to summon Jonathan Papelbon, whose face is in every Dunkin Donuts shop in New England. As soon as he started to walk in from the bullpen, they played "Wild Thing" by Steppinwolf and I have to admit, I kind of wished he had summoned me to come in and pitch. I was so pumped up, I think I probably could have touched 90 on the gun. Anyway, Papelbon got loose to "Shipping Up To Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys, the song he made famous during last season's playoffs. Then he struck out poor Chad Tracy on a series of 97 mile an hour fastballs. Poor guy didn't have a chance. Then, shocker, Fenway Park and it's nearly 40-thousand fans who all stayed until the last out, went nuts.

We visited the team shop after the game just for fun and it, too, was packed! Our friend Monica ended up buying a pink Red Sox thong for a friend's upcoming bachelorette party (sure it was for a friend, Mon) which was also funny. Then we left.

So getting back to the title of this post. I've never been to Yankee Stadium. But I don't think I can imagine a better environment to watch a baseball game than Fenway. Maybe it's the same in the Bronx as it was here last night, but I find it hard to imagine. And although I'm still officially an Oakland A's fan, I must consider myself leaning Massachusetts in the whole Yanks/Sox rivalry, largely thanks to my experiences last night.