Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Jacobs Field, June 20th, 2005

I'm in Ohio.

Jacob's Field is nothing like what it appears to be on TV. It's taller and skinnier, yet from the upper deck it seems expansive.

I got there very early, and parked across the street. I had a hundred dollar bill (what else would a World Champion Boston Red Sox fan carry?), and asked the kid at the lot if he could break it. After considering the consequences, he agreed to take it. His boss came over and got pissed, saying "Jesus Christ!" right in front of me, the customer. Terrible business method. But I got my spot, and the car didn't blow up when I started it after the game, so it all worked out.

I looked around for Bullshit Memorial and the Broseph, outside, amongst the thousands of Sox fans. Of the mass of people that entered the park when gates opened, zero to two were Indians fans. So I went up to a red-haired dude and said, "Are you Tim?" "No," he said. "Sorry, I'm looking for someone I've never seen." He gave a sixteenth-hearted chuckle while kind of rolling his eyes. I almost thought it really was BSM playing a joke on me. But, no.

I went in, took some pics during BP, then started walking around the park. I saw another red-head, this time with a beard. BSM had recently mentioned how he sometimes "rocks a beard," to the dismay of Erin. I combined that fact with the fact that the guy he was talking to looked just like the picture of Broseph he posted the other day, and went up to the pair. Fortunately, it was them. They were very cool. There's a familiarity about them that, in a weird way, didn't come from the fact that I've read so much stuff about them. But I guess that has to be where it came from. Either way, it was fun hanging out with them. I sat with them in their lower-level seats (I had a 6 dollar upper deck seat) until the point of imminent kick-out, then started walking the park again. (Grease is on TV right now. A Broseph afficionado should appreciate that.)

I had an image of myself catching a Manny homer in the standing room area behind the left field fence. I was there for his first at bat, but terribly, not for the at bat where he homered to the exact spot I'd been standing. At the very least I would've gotten on TV. When I was there, I noticed plenty of anti-Red Sox activity. I think all these people just get pissed when they see so many visiting fans in their park.

They have the whole "Make Some Noise!" thing going on on the scoreboard, which makes this Red Sox fan cringe. They don't reaaly need it, as the Cleveland fans seem excited anyway. They also have a new scoreboard on the left field fence, which looks pretty out of place, but did give out-of-town scores, such as "Rays 5, yanks 4"! Ha ha!

I eventually went to the top corner of the upper deck. Took some more pics, and watched the behavior of the peanut and insult throwing upper deck types. One woman was teaching her five year old to say "Boston sucks." Up there was the only place where it was chilly, because of the wind. But everywhere else, it was totally comfortable. A great night for baseball. I probably won't even bring my jacket tomorrow.

They played "Dare To Be Stupid" by Weird Al while showing bloopers. Very impressive.

The pizza is thicker than at Fenway, but a little worse. I had a good wafer cone with vanilla ice cream, since they only had that or black cherry left. BSM and I were both upset that the Jake is a Pepsi establishment.

Three dongs by the Sox were key. But, of course, we had to bring in the Cheese, Steak-ed with a four run lead, which he nearly blew. And Foulke now officially scares me. I was the last holdout, but now I'm in.

The key is that we got the win and we're two back. I had a lot of fun, felt very at home with lots of nice Red Sox fans around, doing lots of Red Sox chants, including the rare "John-ny!" chant. (Hey, what's with that Indian named Jhonny? Are his parents serious?

Driving back to the hotel along the waterfront, I looked at the city with the full moon behind it, and realized how beautiful it actually is. I'm a succer for skylines. If you want to take advantage of me, drop some skyline in my Coke, seriously. That doesn't even make sense. I'm just saying, that could be a night's activity for me. Looking at a city skylline. Seattle from Alki Beach. Boston from Cambridge. Any part of New York from anywhere. I even found the beauty in New Haven the other night. Yes, New Haven. I drove by it for the millionth time, and for the first time, the sun was hitting it right, and I thought, Oh, I get it now. I'm guessing that was a once in a lifetime one, though.

While appreciating Cleveland's beauty, I rolled down the window. Soon I discovered the smell of Cleveland. That kind of ruined the moment.

I'm gonna try to post some pics. In the meantime, check out all the new awesome stuff at Rebecca's site. She's been doing a lot of work.

Comments:
Lol, re: "I'm looking for someone I've never seen" oh how many times I've rocked that line while trying to meet up with fellow Royal Rooters from redsoxnation.net. I'm jealous you got to meet BSM, that boy has been saying he'd come to a watch a game with us for a while and yet somehow, never shows up!

Glad you're having a good time in Cleveland!
 
Finy- I would not put it past BSM to show up and pretend his name is not Tim and he doesn't know what a blog is.

Jere- thanks for the plug, although you know I wish I was in Cleveland instead of making up new and useless pitching statistics.

If anyone ever drops anything in jere's coke, please let me know, so I can observe him in an altered state. He's one of those people who seems altered all the time, yet never has been in his life.
 
p.s. that link to my site is not working,jere.
 

Post a Comment

If you're "anonymous," please leave a name, even if it's a fake one, for differentiation purposes.

If you're having trouble commenting, try signing in to whatever account you're using first, then come back here once you're signed in.



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

My Photo
Name:
Location: Rhode Island, United States