Wednesday, October 15, 2008

ALCS Game 4

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Parking lot price: $50. Price we paid by simply parking at a metered spot: $1.50. Scalper website ticket price: Hundreds of dollars. Price we paid by simply calling ticket office: Face value. Above, Craig Sager says hello while eating a quick dinner outside Fenway Park.

Finally got a shot of Pesky's retired number outside the park. A 6 in the Red Sox font is not an upside-down 9. The way you can tell they did it correctly is to look at these three numbers. The top (smaller) hole of the 8 matches the hole in the nine. The bottom (bigger) hole of the 8 matches the hole in the 6. If you flipped the 6, you'd have a hole that's too big, and if you flipped the nine, you'd have a hole that's too small.

Over on Lansdowne, the new building is coming along. This used to be Avalon and Axis, but I think will be a House of Blues. ("Lowe's Presents the House of Blues"?)

Great sky over Fenway when we got there. My mom went off to get food and I tried to get balls in batting practice. Lots of close calls, but nothing. At one point some Ray went to give the crowd a ball but wouldn't give it to a non-Rays fan. He made people say "go Rays" to get it. One lady actually did it. She joins the "dead to me" list even though I have no idea who she is and will probably never see her white trash ass again.



Two more sky shots as the orange turned to pink.

Mom and I had two separate but equally awesome and unobstructed seats in section 24. Here was my view. It wasn't long before we were able to sit together....

The ALCS logo on the field.

Reflection of the field in the windows that face Yawkey Way.

Looking out onto Yawkey Way before the game. 1975, the year I was born.

Looking down at the concourse that runs underneath the third base grandstand.

Papi pointing skyward.

The TBS booth--finally a use for that space up there, above the space between bleachers and grandstand.

Trot Nixon threw out the first pitch. It's funny, a year ago in ALCS Game 7, I watched Millar throw out the first ball--and supposedly Trot was pissed since he was on the other team at the time. Good to see him welcomed back and willing to come back for this.

Dustin Pedroia hitting a near-dong that was caught.

After sitting among people who refused to clap or cheer, and spent more time texting than anything else, I finally went and joined my mom, since people left the blowout game, and we moved up even closer, eventually ending up in the second row. So the pics now become low-angle closeups. Here's Lowrie on deck.

Timlin on the mound.

Erick Aybar's brother and Carl Crawford's self.

JD Drew missing a ball.

Youk pissed at third.

JD Drew up.

Dustin Pedroia in the box.

Papi giving the crowd a ball as Youk does what people in pictures love to do--"looks on."

Joe Maddon.

The tray! So the game's almost over, we're down by double-digits, and the dudes around us are totally drunk but in the good, funny, "let's cheer really hard for a miraculous comeback" kind of way. They obviously, like us, moved down from crappier seats. However, this blazer-wearin' guy had this tray--a tray in the stands! That's a deadly weapon!--with strawberries and cookies. The drunken guys noticed this and were going nuts about the tray. I pointed my camera at it, leading them to high five me for documenting this ridiculousness. They then started chanting for the one guy to eat the one strawberry remaining on the tray--which I'll post video of later. So we did get some enjoyment out of this game....

Kevin Youkilis up.

Ben Zobrist on deck.

That dude that scored the winning run when Drew rolled the ball home the other night.

It was uni-rific being that close.

A Ray, up very close.

You know you're close to the action when you're looking up at the players.

Sean Casey gets in the game. Look at the Mike Lowell sign. What's with the sky? He's still alive, right?

Coco Crisp.

Coco on first, with Carlos Pena.

The view from row 2.

Jed Lowrie, with the umpire working on his novel.

Looking down into the temporary camera-well at a Japanese camera man's laptop.

And the Red Sox lose, a lot to a little. This Bay fan really went all out.

Blimp over Fenway on our way back to the car.

Comments:
Great pics! I'm kinda curious, any idea what the Sox record is for the last 10 games you've attended? I'm thinkin' they're on the low side of .500. Did you see this?:http://www.wmur.com/news/17721841/detail.html
 
I have seen some losses lately...

So the Citgo sign caught fire. I like how ESPN says it "can't be a good omen." I wonder what kind of "omen" Yankee Stadium itself being destroyed is!
 
That thing with the lady who wanted a ball from the Rays player makes me think about the limit you have to push someone to in order to get them to renounce their beliefs. For some people, it's physical torture, or desperation, or disillusionment. For her, it's *really* wanting a baseball from some jerk who plays for the team trying to beat her team. You could make a scale with political prisoners and colonists burned as witches at the top...and her at the veeeeeeeeery bottom. Which is just a long winded way of saying terrible job by her.
 
Yeah. The worst part was she tried it once and it was almost like he didn't believe her, so he finally threw it to a guy in a Rays jersey who walked by. Then later she did it again, and that got her the ball. She tried saying "I didn't mean it to the few people around her"--to which the guy next to her pointed to his kid and said "don't worry, he'd say Go Yanks for a ball..." I was just hoping she would turn around and make eye contact with me just so she could see the look on my face but she never turned all the way around.
 
Jere, great pictures man. And I'm jealous you were there, even in a loss. I actually got to go to Game 3 vs the Angels last Sunday in a whirlwind weekend.

Down 3-1. I guess we're right where we want to be.
 
Great pics. They are the reason I popped by yesterday morning actually, I always like to check out the gallery after you go to a game. Should have known you couldn't have them up by early the morning after, though.
Thanks for the shout-out about Cat's car fund. I feel a little awkward about that whole thing, but facts are facts, and it will be least a couple more months before I get caught up enough to be able to get her one on my own, if that soon. For those who wonder why that is, I recently wrote on my blog about losing almost a whole month's work while she was in the hospital. Not to mention this whole construction-business-in-a-slump thing. Although, my work has picked up a lot just recently, so if I can get those jobs done and paid for, that will catch up the regular expenses. But in the meantime, she is stuck relying on friends getting her to all the appointments and treatments, or I have to pull off the jobs, which doesn't help. And it would still be a while before there would be car money without the help of a lot of truly wonderful, giving folks, and we are eternally grateful.
See you at JoS for game 7, 'cause there will be one :)
 

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