An hour and fourteen minutes in, I'm through on the 877 REDSOX9 line! On hold now--I'll let you know if I end up with anything good....

Update: After 15 minutes, a guy answered. I was about to get what I wanted, but I kept having the guy check other sections just in case. Then I heard a click. My phone is just blank now. I don't wanna hang up in case I'm still in the system. But I think the guy may have just disconnected me for asking too many questions! I knew the exact 4 seats I was gonna get, too. This stinks.

I love waking up and tuning into the Red Sox in Fort Myers. But today I'm also watching the coverage of the Chile quake. It looks terrible. I think the Richter Scale needs to go the way of the Space Shuttle fleet. Update it so that people (who aren't seismologists) can understand how big an earthquake is without doing math. The average schmoe is gonna think a 7.0 is 7/8ths of an 8.0, if they can even figure that out. But no, then they tell you it's exponential, and an 8 is really 32 times bigger than a 7. Just turn it into a 1 to 100 scale. How about it, math?

Heard the classic complaints about Fenway tickets on the radio this morning. I was told that I have to be a millionaire or have tickets willed to me to get in the park, and that it would cost four people over $500 to go to a game including the minimum $35 parking. So how is it that I go to 20 games a year and never paid more than face value once? And park for mere quarters every time? And have plenty of room in my seat that supposedly a child can't even fit into? And avoid right field seats that face Cambridge every time?

People who don't pay attention are the ones who "can't get tickets." The rest of us get exactly what we want and have to hold back from buying too many.

Tomorrow, buy opening day tix on the phone if you want, even. (You may have to "not skim" to find the correct section on that page.) Or just keep assuming there's no way to get inside Fenway Park.

Hold on to your sombreros, everybody, I'm about to say something nice about those double-thieves,* tick3tmast3r. They now offer you the chance to select your exact seat. I've seen this for venues (usually theater-types) who sell tix independently or using a smaller ticketing service, but now, if I want, I can buy tickets to a Denver Nuggets game or whatever by looking at a seating chart showing me every single available seat. That's like, the dream. Like being on the other side of the glass at the ticket booth and being able to look at the whole chart and know exactly which seats are taken and which aren't.

Fenway Park sells through tickets.com on the Internet, and they don't have this service. Yet. That would be awesome. As it is now, if I choose "bleachers," I could be by the camera well in center, up by the scoreboard, near the Dunkin Dugout, or front row in front of the visiting bullpen catcher. How sweet would it be to choose your seats at Fenway?


*A thief just hikes up prices on their item and invents exorbitant fees to tack on. A double-thief does this, sells the item to people who are only in it to re-sell, then sets up another store specifically for those buyers to turn around and sell the same item, allowing them to collect more fees for the same item.

It's cool that the Red Sox are getting a new spring training facility. But another freaking "replica Green Monster"? The reason Fenway is so great is that it's an original. They built the place to fit the surrounding streets. A big wall was necessary. They didn't look at another park and say "let's make it look like that." It's one thing if you're building a Wiffle Ball park in your backyard, of course, everybody wants to play in "Fenway." But it's another thing to see something awesome, and instead of being influenced by it, simply ripping it off. D-U-M-B! It's the same thing with every single new stadium--they copy the last one and make it 5% different. The reason stuff ends up being shitty is because everybody does the same thing. It doesn't matter if that thing was cool in the first place--if everybody does it, it loses the effect.

[Note: when I do a "retro gallery," it refers to photos I never got around to posting at the time (or photos from before I started the blog in 2004). In other words, this isn't a rerun!]
August 8th was a beautiful day. And sweet seats as you can see. Above, the Portland SeaDogs take the field in game one.

Lars Anderson.

That SeaDog cartwheeling past.

A Bowie dude. The crowd is riveted!

Khoury.

Khoury dives back to first.

Kalish.

Lars Anderson.

Anderson again.

Anderson again again.

And check out the outdated logo!

I forgot who this guy is but doesn't it look like he's wearing little kitty cat ears?

This dude.

It was a great moment when the Paw Sox players walked in for game two and they all started hugging their Portland pals they left behind. Here's short-armer Michael Bowden.

Hugging action.

Jeff Natale.

This dude and Anderson.

Kids going nuts, illegally crawling all over the dugout roof to get Bowden's 'graph.

Natale gets ready for game two.

Now my mom and I have started walking around upstairs. Check it out--the BOS on the out-of-town AL scoreboard, not a spot it's familiar with, since it's always on the main board.

Blue skies over Fenway. And a helicopter over the Citgo sign.

Charlie Zink pitched for Pawtucket.

Joey Gathright, who the Red Sox would get later in the season. (He filled the "who's this, now?" role in September.)

Another chopper/Citgo shot.

Zink throws a knuckler.

We were psyched to see Gary Allenson.

The Norfolk pitcher.

Ol' pal David Pauley.

Okay, so I almost caught a foul ball that day. I was prepared, in foul ball territory, to make a jumping catch. I brought my glove, and I kept envisioning a ball just over my head, and leaping for it. Then, it happened. The ball looked huge, and I thought, Oh my god, I really have a shot at this. It was over my head, but I took a shot. I jumped, and it tipped off my glove. Next thing I know, my friend Ilene who had joined us in our row that inning, is looking back and whispering in my ear how some girl behind us is crying. I don't know what happened. I refused to turn around. Not only was I embarrassed that I juuuust missed the ball, I knew I altered its path and therefore the universe, and the ball hit that girl. It wasn't a major injury, it was a blooper, not a line drive, it probably just scared her. But still, I couldn't turn around. You know, maybe she was just crying because her friend go the ball--but no matter what happened, it was my fault! Maybe. I should have had that ball, though. I looked down and realized the problem was that the seat in front of me was right there at my shins. You can't bend your knees to jump in that situation. Had there been more room in front of me, I easily make the leaping catch. But it wasn't to be. And the girl was totally fine. She cried for like two seconds. If she was actually hurt I would have apologized, even though I really didn't do anything wrong. In fact, without me tipping the thing, it might have whacked her harder. So, let's just say I saved her life.

Did not win the Yanks/Dodgers ticket lottery. That's okay, I've already got 'em, including opening day. I'm really rooting for myself in the Monster drawing, though. Anybody get a win today?

When I was talking about the sports references on The Cleveland Show, I terribly left out the funniest one. They actually brought up Tony Pena's "one leg out" catching style! Which I had mentioned only a few days earlier in one of my Fave Sox by Number posts! So....

I'd also like to congratulate my pal Evan Brunell, who just got a job at NESN. I've been linking to his blog (Firebrand of the AL) and the bigger site he ran until its recent demise (MVN.com) for over five years now. I also have never forgotten that it was Evan who was responsible for getting me a ticket to the ring ceremony in 2005. I also got to meet him that day, and he's a "class act." So, nice job on making the big leagues, Evan.

"it’s [sic] just a little different when every game means something and you have the fans behind you and 40 to 50,000 fans cheering for you every day."

From today's ProJo.

I was listening to 98.5 this morning, and Dan Roche told a story about how Papi was once promoting a new product or something, and with the people from his charity and his agent right there, Papi points to Rochey and says, "See that guy, that's my bitch! Ask his wife." Papi was attempting to make a joke, but left everyone kind of stunned. He later acknowledged it may have been the wrong moment.

Today my boss said that a certain project has a "drop dead date" of March 1st. Then at lunch I heard some sports radio host say that some team gave some player a "drop dead date" to sign a contract. This can't be a coincidence. This term is obviously making the rounds, and I missed it until today. Right? I don't live in NYC anymore so I'm running 2-3 months behind. Then again, if I just "read the Internet" I can hear more current terms or whatever. And I could also do a search on it. But who cares, the point is, are you people aware of this "drop dead" term? And don't tell me you were saying it in the 70s or something....

Back in '94 when I was in college, I read something in Flipside about this band Bikini Kill, and how "Rebel Girl" was the song of the year or something. I bought their cd and I was hooked. I was totally down with their feminist viewpoint and ovaries-to-the-wall rock 'n' roll. (Still am!) That same year they came to a small club near our campus in Lincoln, Nebraska, and I was fortunate enough to be able to see them play. The group has been broken up for over a decade, but recently they started putting together an archive, asking fans to share memories of the band. I e-mailed my story of the awkward moment I had after that show with the singer, Kathleen Hanna, and she just posted it on their site! Read my Bikini Kill story here.

I've been telling this story for years. And thanks to mod. tech., I am able to share it with the world, but shit, who cares about that, I'm just psyched I got to tell Kathleen! She didn't mention whether she remembered the "incident," but I know she's met thousands of fans so I doubt it. A couple of years ago, I found a bootleg video of that show. I've said this before, but I love when you can watch a moment of your life that had only existed to you in memory form up to that point.

Have you noticed that everybody who almost dies these days floats over the operating room and sees the scene from above? It's becoming the modern version of the alien abduction description, complete with large eyes and anal probe.

I like The Cleveland Show because much like Family Guy throws in pop culture references from my era, it will use sports references from my era--from Scottie Pippen guest appearances, to a business called Webster's Slughterhouse.* And, of course, the main character is named Cleveland Brown. Another show I need to be watching religiously instead of sometimesously.

For some reason, I missed Planes, Trains, and Automobiles in the 80s--it's been on TV a lot lately, and I can't get enough. I miss John Candy a lot.

Do you watch Metal Mania? It's a block of hair metal vids on VH1 Classic. Kim and I try to watch it every Saturday night. It's so funny how you can guarantee a Maiden, a Dio, a Scorpions, every single time. Always the same vids, too: Run to the Hills/The Trooper, Holy Diver/Rainbow in the Dark, Big City Nights/Rock You Like a Hurricane/No One Like You. But we'll tune in for them every time. It's like we're minions in some kind of Logan's Run-esque Metal World, and at the end of each week we have to check in with Ronnie James Dio or we'll be executed by that guy who smelts the sword in the Holy Diver video.

Does anybody plead guilty anymore? I feel like even if that guy who crashed his plane into the IRS building had lived, even he would've gone the "no contest" route. The woman in NYC who killed her son and tried to commit suicide, leaving a note saying why she killed the kid, pleaded not guilty! Maybe that guy who hates when I talk "law" instead of "Red Sox" can explain this to me.

Did you know Clay Buchholz is number 11 now? The middle area of his road uni is gonna be very symmetrical now.

It was Kurt Cobain's birthday on Saturday (I used the date as my e-mail address when I first got e-mail 15 years ago, and I'm still using that address!), and it got me thinking back to the "newsgroups" days. I was a regular at alt.music.nirvana, tradin' bootlegs and Bush-bashin'. That's Bush the band in this case. I went back and found all those posts--Google Groups has archived it all. The mid-90s: underrated!

I've known for years that Three's Company came from a UK show called Man About the House. But I never thought to look into the original. Until now. Look at the character names! Tripp, Crissy, Larry...the Ropers! It's like looking up your ancestry...

I promised yo a Smiths of Baseball three weeks ago. Maybe this week...we'll see.


*Webster Slaughter was a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns back in the 80s.

On NESN just now, Gammons asked Youk if he could go between 1st and 3rd if need be. Youk proceeded to tell him about all the positions he'd be able to play including pitcher. He actually said he's hoping that before his career ends, Tito will put him on the mound. Nice.