We do not need to buy seats from Fenway to keep in this house

So, a few weeks ago we decided we wanted tickets to this game, and we ended up with these lovely seats.* As it turned out, the Red Sox had a magic number of one that night, but they were going to have to get through the man whose name has been engraved on the Cy Young since April to clinch their postseason berth. And, while Wakefield's been money for us** all season, we were understandably less than confident about the offense. The Red Sox have had their problems scoring runs against good pitching all season, and visions of a heartbreaking 1-0 loss danced in our heads.

Tense game. Terribly tense game. Wonderfully tense game. The Sox got two runs while we were waiting in line for food, then Wake--with the help of some uncharacteristically sloppy defense--surrendered four runs in one inning, the fourth crossing the plate just as we returned to our seats. We ate, drank, explained the scoreboard to the guy from New Zealand behind us. The bullpen band played. We knocked on our chairs, danced to Coco's at-bat music, and watched as they managed to score three more runs, way more than we expected off Lee. They took that one run lead, and they clung to it. Cleveland kept putting runners on; the Red Sox kept squeaking out of it. The crowd spent more time on its feet than in their seats.

Top of the eight, bases loaded, two outs. Cue Wild Thing. Cue I'm Shipping up to Boston. Cue a first pitch ground-out, another Houdini moment. The game continued; the thin lead held into the ninth. Papelbon got the final batter to pop the ball up, and started jumping up and down while it was still in the air.

Then there was a big shouting, hugging dogpile on the field, which never gets even one bit old.

We rushed to get down close to the field while the team was partying in the dugout, and ended up right behind the home plate net. Bullpen pitchers emerged carrying tiny babies and champagne to spray. There was Kevin Youkilis with his cherubic blond child*** jogging around the bases. There were players being interviewed, all drunk and happy and grabbing each other. There was Papelbon hugging himself and gesturing to the crowd, strutting about in a belly shirt, and actually digging the bases up and giving them away to random fans.

And then Jason Varitek decided to greet every fan left in the park. Personally. He is the Captain, after all.

He made his way around starting at the dugout by first base, down to the area back of home plate, where he gave us the world's most gentle high fives. His eyes were crinkly. His hands were big and warm and surprisingly soft. He went all the way down to the left field corner before he rejoined his teammates for more back-slapping and lite-beer drinking in the middle of the diamond. We didn't manage to take pictures in our glee. He looks amazing in person. In real life.

We went to ten Sox games this year, and we sat through rain delays and heat waves, come-from-behind wins and inexplicable losses to the Orioles, Julio Lugo forgetting how to catch a batted ball as if the knowledge was surgically excised from his brain****, and Jed Lowrie learning to hit at Fenway. We sat through the lows and the highs of a very long season. And we know that as long as it was for us, it was longer, more arduous and stressful and punishing, for the guys on the field. There's been a lot of baseball.

So it's astounding, and wonderful, that the greatest moment***** we shared with them in person was the moment that confirmed we will see more baseball. The season won't end in September. We have another chance at the brass ring. And this isn't cause for exhaustion, it's cause for a champagne celebration. Big strong men cheered and hugged their teammates and danced with their children and, at Fenway Park on a suddenly warm autumn night, they reached out to us to share the joy.

Red Sox Win, the scoreboard said.

And we sang and danced all the way home.


*Sometimes, you buy tickets from the official site and end up standing on your head behind a pole somewhere in Medford. Sometimes, you end up with pretty awesome seats.

**By which we do, in fact, mean us, personally. If Wake only pitched while we were in attendance, he'd be 800-3 or something crazy like that.

***Is it weird or wrong to think they're extra cute because it's his fiancee's kid and not, biologically, his?

****Sigh. But it's mean to pick on a dude who's down with a nasty calf injury, so this is a mercy footnote.

*****We missed being at Jon Lester's no-hitter by one day! But we were at the crazy game with the 19-17 score. Definitely got several Broadway shows' worth of drama.

We do not have words that are not "woo" and "hoo" in this house

We were at Fenway tonight STOP Jason Varitek high-fived us STOP More when we smell less like champagne FULL STOP.

We do not seduce and destroy in this house

Apparently, the Red Sox are not in the business of distracting the New England masses from their "Matt Cassel is our quarterback" woes.* Unless, of course--and bear with us while we spin the crazy here--their cunning plan involves making September baseball so stressful and panic-inducing that we're all left far too cotton-brained and bleary to remember that there's a football team 'round these parts. In which case: mission accomplished, guys, thanks for playing the LOB and Relief Corps Failure Parade game (safe for all ages, available at K-Mart, comes with a special John Madden voiceover track)!

We'll be at Fenway on Friday, and we're hoping to relocate the mojo that allowed the home team to win in our presence on Monday night.** Jennifer's switching out her pretty Fenway desktop wallpaper as we speak; she took the picture herself, so it really pains her to admit that it is obviously a jinxy jinxer that jinxes, but facts must be faced. She put up the wallpaper Tuesday morning, and the Red Sox haven't won since.

And it's not just that they haven't won. It's that Papelbon blew a save; yes, yes, dude's human, blah de blah, nobody's perfect, but every time he blows a save it feels like the kitten you were playing with turned into a pissy mountain lion, slashed right through your arm, and destroyed your whole house while you called 911. It's that Beckett pitched a good game, the bullpen held it together for an insane number of innings, and the offense managed to do jack shit.

Of course, you could also look at it like this: Lester was awesome, Beckett was pretty fucking good for a guy in his second start after seeing the dreaded Dr. James Andrews, and most of the bullpen was lights out. We all expect Pap to bounce back, and, well, can anyone honestly say they didn't call Wednesday night's game once Timlin took the mound? We love the Admiral, don't get us wrong, but we do sometimes wish he was only around in some sort of coaching and/or hawk hunting capacity.

So, no, we're not freaking out (too much), because even in this demoralizing series, there are still positive signs indicating the potential for October kickassery. The postseason is the goal, and we all know that everything changes once you get there. Hell, the Sox had their problems with The The Angels Angels of Anaheim last season, but you wouldn't know it from the ALDS. So: get there. And anything's possible.

Plus, maybe you haven't heard, but Tampa Bay? Actually good at baseball these days.
Although we really wish Tom Seaver would show up and kick their asses for referring to themselves as amazin'.


*Full disclaimer: we aren't really Patriots fans, but we've reached a point in our sports fan development where we will say, without any irony, "hey, let's watch a football game today." This is a huge step for us. Y'all should be proud.

**Now, here's a question: should we wear the same jerseys we wore on Monday, even though they're completely not relevant to Friday's game (Lester and Varitek, neither of whom will be starting), or is that just crossing the line from serious sleep deprivation into full-on crazytown?***

***We tarried too long in writing up that experience. Here are the important highlights: Caroline got to shake hands with Johnny Pesky (!), our nearest neighbors were plotting to steal Coco Crisp from his wife, and a uniformed member of Boston's finest threatened to kick us out and relieve our benefactor of her season tickets if we refused to participate in the wave.

We do not make 11-year-old pop culture references in this house

Photo: David Butler/US Presswire

Dustin Pedroia is a shark with a frickin' laser beam attached to his head.

Okay, maybe he's more like an ill-tempered sea bass, or a red snapper. But the laser beam? It is definitely for real.

We do not give up the big inning in this house

A coworker called it, "a game you can tell your grandkids about." We're more apt to describe it as something we survived, barely, something we're still recovering from all these days later. A day so crazy we're still half-convinced Mikey Lowell successfully executed a double steal. We've tried a couple of times to piece together a narrative, to tell you all about Wally (not that one) and his stories and the 2004 World Series cup he brings with him to every game. We're pretty sure the sucker punch feeling of losing a 10-0 lead was the same whether you were at Fenway or sitting on your couch or at a bar, and we're just as sure that the sharp joy of Youk being Manny was just as universal. But Wally is one of a kind.

Tomorrow we're heading up to Portland to see Lars and Josh and all the little Sea Dogs. We're mostly hoping for a nice day: a good game and a chance to see all the Baby Sox before they're rookies of the year and pitching no-hitters up at Fenway, maybe even a win. We'll settle for no storms.*

*We may like pina coladas, but we're not quite as fond of getting caught in the rain.

We do not know how to catch a fly with a chopstick in this house

"This is everything I have ever dreamed of. It has come true now and I'm going to the major leagues. It's ridiculous. I'm at a loss for words. I really don't know what to say about it. I'll be smiling forever now. This is just awesome. Awesome."

Wow, our button-making campaign, while still in its infancy,* was a complete and utter success. Charlie Zink toes the rubber on Tuesday, and we are just thrilled to death for him.


*Often referred to as the "my term paper's due in about fifteen minutes and all I've got is my name, the course number, and a haiku about cheese" stage.

We do not go back to the future in this house

No photo credit, Jennifer took this one all by herself.

While the big team struggles to sort out its business in Chicago*, and our current president is interrupting perfectly entertaining Olympic gymnastics to talk about--well, we're not sure what he's talking about, but the wildly incoherent closed captioning suggests it's a message he's sending to the Cheese People**--we bring you some notes from a day in the Future.

Futures at Fenway, naturally.

All the Lowell Spinners looked so tiny in their vest-y uniforms, none tinier than the pitcher Stolmy Pimentel. Stolmy Pimentel, besides having a name that's really fun to say, is a small Dominican pitcher who wears #45 and who pitched 5 effective innings while we revelled in the requisite Pedro Martinez flashbacks.

That picture at the top of this entry is Stolmy with his catcher, the baby-est of the baby catchers we saw on Saturday, one Tim "FedEx" Federowicz, late of UNC. We got to know FedEx thanks to a UNC fan friend of ours, during the College World Series, and what we hear is that he doesn't like to talk to pitchers, or be touched. What we saw with our own eyes was a couple of excellent throws to second to cut down basestealers, which may have kept the Spinners in the game.

Because it was a long game. We're talking 12 innings in total, with the Hudson Valley Renegades vacuuming up everything that flew into the outfield, capped with a walkoff single (while Fedex was on base, no less!). It was a long enough game that cries of "Come on, Deshaun" and "Get 'er done, Mitch!" rang out in our section, because we'd had time to learn everyone's name. It was a long enough game that the Spinners pitchers were seen out in the pirate pen, forming a baby bullpen band. Manny Delcarmen, watch your back: these kids have got soul.

In addition to the baby band's performance, we were happy to enjoy the minor-league entertainments between innings, like guys in sumo costumes, frisbee dogs, the giant toothbrush that ran the bases for undisclosed reasons***. A little girl seated in the row behind us summed it up perfectly, after a small child raced the Spinners mascot: "So when that kid raced the alligator, that was a commercial? No commercial's better than that."

As for the PawSox, it seems like the cream of that particular crop has either been called up to the big club or traded to the Pirates. And it cannot possibly surprise anyone who's been reading this blog at all that we're a little catcher-centric. So we were especially thrilled that while Dusty Brown was starting, George Kottaras was first-base coaching. Two wee catchers for the price of one! Actually, not so wee. We've always thought George was skinny, because we've always seen him standing near Brown or Varitek or Mirabelli. Turns out, he's a pretty good-sized guy, just not built like a brick house or a Mack truck. Or a brick house riding in a Mack truck.

Brown had a hard day behind the plate; he overthrew second base twice, but his game plan was definitely effective. David Pauley went a sassy seven innings--four hits, two runs, two walks, four strikeouts--and he had the Charlotte Knights guessing. Think the big club's putting the coffee on for him, in light of recent tragic events****? Because he was fun to watch, but we were sad not to see knuckleball fraternity member Charlie Zink on the mound. Is it time for us to start a campaign to get Zink called up? Should we get buttons made?

It was a really nice way to spend the day (and, okay, way too much of your money) at Fenway, not least because nobody at all stayed in their assigned seat and we ended up with a bettter view than we paid for. We also got to see our prospects gaze in awe at the Green Monster, and cut loose in the dugout to do the Chicken Dance. But the best part? Both home teams won. Our farm system, in fact, is undefeated in Futures play.

Now if only the young guns could teach their big brother team a thing or two. If they can't make the Red Sox win, maybe they can get them to do the Electric Slide.


*Is now an appropriate time for us to say that we're worried about our man Claybelline "Why Can'tcha Be True" Buchholz? Because, um, whatever he was doing last year, when he was the shiniest of the shiny, this ain't it. Maybe we need to run him through the dishwasher with some Electrasol.

**Actually, now that the words "Balco" and "Barry" and "Baball" have appeared, we're pretty sure they're discussing steroids. Which might be an interesting interview if, you know, it involved someone other than the President, who really ought to be more concerned about anything in the world more important than baball.

***It seems like some kind of clean base=clean teeth analogy was at play, but really, who are we to try and understand the mind of the Great Toothbrush?

****Okay, maybe Wakefield's sore shoulder does not quite rise to the Aristotelian standard for tragedy, but we're definitely crying in our official terrible lite beer of Major League Baseball. Come back soon, Wake, and come back strong.

We do not know why you say goodbye, we say hello in this house

And that happened. *

We're still processing. We still can't believe we'll never see Manny in the Monster, never see him in his oversized Red Sox home whites, never see him play the wall like he was born to it again. We're sad that it came to this, upset that the Manny who wanted to retire a Red Sox and bought Pedroia suits morphed into the Manny who tells anyone who'll listen about how the team doesn't deserve him. The Manny who shoved a man whose entire job is to make his life easier. The Manny who doesn't run out grounders and sits out games against the younger flamethrowers. Who, more than that, thinks that all of those things are perfectly okay. Manny being Manny always was a double-edged sword.

Still. We'd rather remember him as the guy who high-fived a fan in the middle of turning a double play. The man whose moon shot off K-Rod in last year's ALDS still hasn't landed. The man who beat up on Yankees pitching and always seemed to love playing baseball, who never seemed to forget that he was getting paid to play a game. Weird to think that he won't be patrolling left field the next time we go to Fenway.

We're just as sure this was the right move as we are that it was the wrong move, and that's all we have to say about that until we see it shake out.


GBMU (the last): Traded to Pittsburgh, where he'll hopefully get regular playing time with the big club and show the world why we love him so much.


*Here's the part where we wish Manny, Mossy, and Hansen all the best with their new teams. Good luck, guys, we'll miss you. **

**And here's the part where we say, "Welcome to Boston, Jason Bay," and brush up on our Canadian anthem skills.

We do not call it a comeback in this house

So. We promised we were going to blog, but tonight's game doesn't really inspire conversation. Still, isn't it nice to see our Papi back where he belongs? And isn't there--well, not much else nice to say?

We've used our boundless cunning* and vast network of insider connections** to infiltrate the Sox clubhouse and document some conversations that took place once the big man rejoined the band.

I. Overheard from the Bash Brothers
Papi: I cannot believe this. I leave you alone for a couple weeks and what do you do?
Manny: Hit a home run?
Papi: And what else?
Manny: Hit another home run real hard?
Papi: Manny...
Manny: It's not my fault Boston hates me! All I ever do is play baseball!
Papi: Sometimes what you do is, you don't play baseball.
Manny: ...Is this like when a tree falls in the woods?
Papi: No, it's like when we play a game and you sit in the clubhouse playing Star Wars on the WII.
Manny: But I hurt my knee and I'm a Sith Lord!
Papi: You been talkin' to Scott Boras too much.
Manny: Look, it's okay with me if Boston doesn't like Manny. My feelings ain't hurt. Sticks and stones don't break my bones.
Papi: ...
Manny: Manny can play baseball anywhere. Boston...Japan...Iraq...
Papi: Think abot this, Manny. They don't have baseball in Iraq 'cause they are too busy shooting each other with guns.
Manny: The moon, then.
Papi: They don't have baseball on the moon, either, 'cause they don't have air.
Manny: I'm gonna wear a spacesuit. I'm not dumb.
Papi: You got me there, man. Have fun on the moon, or...wherever. Just one thing, though.
Manny: I can get you a spacesuit too, don't worry.
Papi: No, no, listen. Fenway...Fenway keeps the Monster.
[They think about this for a minute. Manny looks up at the sky.]
Manny: Goodbye, moon! I got to stay in Boston!
Papi: It's one in the afternoon, Manny. That's the sun.
Manny: I know. That was a symbolic gesture to the heavens, much like the actions of the Biblical figure Job. You should read more.
Papi: ...
Manny: Did you say one o'clock? Time for juice and cookies!

II. Overheard, Talking About Practice, Practice, Man, We Talking About Practice
Papi: So what'd I miss?
Tek: Well, um, Manny wants a trade.
Papi: I know.
Tek: And Pap and his wife are expecting a baby.
Papi: I know that too, I was there.
Tek: ...What the dang--
Papi: When he told us, man, when he told us. You catchers got dirty minds.
Tek: We do not! I just didn't understand you there, man, 'cause I've been a little preoccupied, what with me bein' in the worst offensive slump in the history of mankind.
Papi: Yeah, what's that about?
Tek: I think my bat's allergic to leather.
Papi: Come here, come here. Watch me and copy what I do.
Tek: Copy what? The way you heal sick children with hugs? 'Cause that's pretty cool.
Papi: Man, just pay attention.
[Papi crushes a batting practice fastball into the bullpen.]
Papi: Now you.
Tek: Gotcha.
[Tek flies out to shallow center.]
Papi: No, no, no, no. I said copy me!
[Papi hits a ball directly into the red seat.]
Tek: Okay.
[Tek grounds it foul down the first base line.]
Papi: Why you playin'?
Tek: I don't know, Papi, why am I playin'? Please make me stop.
Papi: I show you one more time.
[Papi hits a ball over the monster, over I-95, over New Hampshire, and into Portland, Maine, where it lands in the outstretched glove of a grateful Sea Dog.]
Papi: You got it now?
Tek: Um, maybe if you show me that one again.
Papi: Hit a damn baseball!
[Tek hits a double high off the Monster.]
Papi: My work here is done! I gotta go, it's time for rounds at Children's Hospital.
[He dusts his hands off and walks away. Tek takes another cut and bounces a ground-rule double around Pesky's pole.]
Tek: There goes my hero.

Interlude: Another County Heard From
A-Rod: Hey, Papi! Remember that time we had dinner during the All-Star Break?
Papi: You mean last week?
A-Rod: That was awesome.***
Papi: It was okay.
A-Rod: We should do it again! We should bring our families! Actually, we should go on vacation together!
Papi: ...I'll let you sit next to me at PF Chang's if you be quiet.
A-Rod: You're my best friend!
Papi: You're buying.

III. Overheard via the Parents Television Council
Beckett: I'm fuckin' glad you're back, dude.
Papi: Thanks. Pass me a bottle of water?
Beckett: Hey, waiter! Bottle of water for the fuckin' man here!
[Justin Masterson looks confused.]
Papi: Never mind, I'm good.
Beckett: You sure? 'Cause I don't mind, I can make the rookies do whatever you need. I got 'em good and scared of me.
Papi: Umm...so how you been?
Beckett: Me? Great.
Papi: Yeah?
Beckett: Yeah. Executin' pitches.
Papi: Yeah?
Beckett: Yeah.
[Long pause.]
Beckett: I mean, I don't expect fifteen fuckin' runs every fuckin' time I pitch...
[Beckett sniffles. Papi nods.]
Beckett: I know it's my fuckin' job to throw fuckin' strikes, I know, but--
Papi: Hey.
Beckett: Two fuckin' runs, man, that's all I need is two--
[Beckett lets out a sob and is instantly folded into a hug of record-breaking size.]
Papi: It's okay. Papi still loves you.

In conclusion, overheard in all of Boston: BEAT L.A.!


*This is a lie. We don't really have that.

**Or those.

***The resemblance to a Chris Farley sketch here is purely coincidental. Rodriguez has never really gotten into Saturday Night Live. He does have a tape of that one time Jeter was on, though.

We do not blog about losers in this house

This blog is currently on strike until the Red Sox win a fucking game on the road.*

*We're actually just really stupidly busy in the real life sense, but the point remains. We'll be back next week, and we're looking forward to seeing Papi's smile (and swing) on our televisions when we return.