When Sam Horn broke into the bigs, everyone was pretty excited. The guy could hit the ball a mile. Unfortunately, he ended up only hitting the ball two times out of every ten tries. Regardless, Pat & I were pretty psyched as kids back in the eighties when we had a chance to see a possible Sam Horn moosshot in person.

My dad drove us up to Fenway. That's a key point in the story, because my dad will drive you to a baseball game, but he'll be damned if he's gonna sit in traffic afterward.

So when the seventh or eight inning rolled around that day, it was time to head out, back to Connecticut. Reluctantly, we followed my dad out of our seats (which cost seventy bucks today), and onto Yawkey Way.

Then we heard the crowd inside make a sound that could mean only one thing: Somebody homered. Crap. What did we just miss?

Moments later, a man exited the park, and my dad asked him, "Home run?"

"Grand Slam," replied the man.

"Henderson?", my dad suggested. (C'mon dad, Henderson was up when we left, and the bases weren't even loaded.)

The man countered with one word: "Horn!"

Damn.

Needless to say, as an adult, I never leave the park until the final out.

So last night, adult Pat and adult me went up to Fenway Park. While we were standing on Yawkey Way, (in roughly the same spot we were in when we learned of the Sam Horn Grand Salami) waiting for the gates to open, who did we see, but the one and only Sam Horn. He works for NESN, of course.

Interesting how nobody yelled to him, despite his current internet fame.

The magic numbers are going down with last night's win, and today's doubleheader sweep, but just one at a time, as the Birds and bastards are winning along with us. Magic number to beat the yanks thru 4/29: 137. Magic # to win the division: 140.