Last night we went to the RedSox / Yankees Circus at Fenway Park. The game started late because of rain and because of a celebration to honor the 40th anniversary of the Impossible Dream team that brought the Sox out of many years of doldrums (they did lose the world series in game 7) and brought them back to being popular. What is odd to me is that I lived in Cambridge at the time (1967) and had no idea that this was happening - I completely ignored baseball and as I recall didn't read the newspaper or see TV news - maybe we didn't even have a TV set then. During the rain delay they played Sergeant Pepper over the sound system - what a great album; that I do remember when it came out.
What is usually a 3 hour game took just under 4 hours, 4 batters were hit by pitches, there were 3 pitches by Wakefield, the Red Sox Knuckleball pitcher (that means the ball is thrown in such a way that it doesn't spin which makes it difficult to hit and difficult to aim) that couldn't be caught by the catcher several of which resulted in Yankee runs scoring, he walked 6 batters and the Sox lost 9-5. The Yankees manager was ejected for arguing with an Umpire, and a Yankees pitcher was ejected for throwing at a batter. And two Red Sox left the game with mild injuries.
There were lots of security people around; more beer was being consumed than usual at least by the people sitting in our row and the row in front of us since we had to get up an awful lot of times to let them pass. Some fans were wearing blond wigs because A-Rod, the Yankee third baseman that everybody in Boston loves to hate, had been seen with a blond who was not his wife at several places when the Yankees were in Toronto earlier this week (a picture of this appeared on the front page of the New York Post and Daily News).
One disturbing thing is that we have gone to 4 games and seen the Sox lose 3 of them even though they have won 36 and lost 17 games (the best record in baseball at the moment). We have 8 more to go to; I hope this trend doesn't continue.
This afternoon we will watch the game on TV and then probably go to Gloucester Stage Company to see Hillary and Monica (a not very good play according to the one review I read in the Globe).
I had a photo of Yaz over my freaking *bed*, and I had all the baseball cards, and I lovedlovedloved Petrocelli, and the Conigliaro drama was, uh, dramatic. There were *fights* at my school recess because Cheryl Whatever said she was for the Cardinals.
My mother made a huge cake when the Sox won the pennant.