2:00: My Sunday afternoon is radically altered, as I get the "come to the Fenway Yard Sale NOW" e-mail. It was going until 7 PM and now everyone who entered was invited.

3:15: I park my car on Yawkey Way (always a surreal and awesome thing to do since it's closed to cars on game days), getting up there pretty damn fast considering I was in a rainstorm.

I worried that maybe I was supposed to have printed my e-mail, but just telling them I got it was proof enough for the guards to let me in.

This time you paid at the end, so I headed right for these boxes of jerseys labeled 2 for $75. Figuring they were not game-used at that price, I asked a worker and he said they WERE the real deal, but that "honestly," he'd never heard of any of the players who wore them. I guess that dude never heard of Bill Haselman! It was a goldmine of also-rans. I saw Coleman, Neal, Bausher, Shiell, Haselman, Haselman, Haselman.....I kept looking for a notable or favorite-type guy. Dopson road jersey circa the early 90s, nice, but not good enough. Petagine 13...interesting... and then I couldn't believe what I saw. How could no one have taken this jersey yet? Dinardo 55! Woohoo! My first definite. After more digging, I saw Easler 45! Sweet! Granted, it's his uni from when he was the hitting coach, but that's good enough for me. The letters in Easler's name are like 3 inches apart! Big man.

So then I went and selected a brick Instead of 2 for $30 like last year, it was 1 for $20 (plus all the print materials, shirts, balls, etc you can fit into a basket). I found one with a nice black& white side. From a certain angle, the brick is neapolitan. Then I got some media guides, got rung up by women who were just finding out they'd be working till 7 (and were pissed about it), and headed for the "high-end" room.

Again they had bats, seats, signs, and autographed jerseys of stars, but despite the markdowns late in day 2 of this sale, most of it was too dick for my plasma. But there were some cheaper signs made for events, and I got some of of those. Then I saw $65 game-used (you could tell) '99 All-Star Game balls at the counter. An "impulse buy"--but I'd already spent enough.

On my way out, a nice man started asking me what I got as we walked down Yawkey Way. Then he told me the jerseys he got. He was reeling off names like Lowe and Foulke, and then said he also scored some banners--1903 Champs, 1986 AL Champs, etc. These were going for hundreds of dollars inside. Then we reached my car, I told him I had to go, and he said he did too, going to his car...which we'd already passed. I thought maybe he was trying to rob me, because why would he have passed his own car? How long would he have walked with me? After I got home, though, I realized who this guy was: a memorabilia scalper! He wasn't just telling me he had a shitload of junk for his health. And now that I think about it, I wish I had figured it out so I could have asked him how much he wanted for his hot merch. Maybe I could have gotten a sweet deal! The dude probably brought that stuff out of there under his clothes... [update: I noticed a lot of jerseys from today are already up on ebay. It kills me that some people were in there just grabbing stuff away from real fans so they can make a profit. Including the guy that talked to me. Because like I said, if he is selling at a discount, it means he stole the stuff anyway]

So then I headed to SOWA to see Kim. I wish I had known ahead of time I'd be allowed to go to this Yard Sale today so I could have planned my weekend better. Instead I went to SOWA to help Kim sell soap on Saturday, and then had to do the drive again on Sunday. Oh well, at least the stuff I got made it worthwhile.

Then I passed an NFL Films truck on my way home. It must have been coming from Foxboro. I love NFL Films. They're like the Sitting Still of football. An entity that works independently from the people who show the games, but which does better work than they do. I've been enjoying their work since I was little. "Dial M For Moron"!