Beckett almost killed, but goes right on pitching! Eck talking about that graze was priceless. Varitek is slugging 2.000 after a double dong day. Youk, Dustin, and the Hermes Engraver also went proverbially deep. Good job against Cy tonight.

Crooked Sox Alert: So remember how Beckett, Bay, and Hale had the left-leaning sleeve socks on the road uni? Well Beckett's the only one left, and his socks are still crooked. And I noticed that Pedroia's personal stitcher may have fallen for the opposite problems the others did. Instead of thinking the bottom of the left sock should be horizontal, knocking the socks of their axis counterclockwise, Dustin's person positioned the top of the right sock horizontal, moving them clockwise a few degrees. I think I need to be hired as assistant team historian/photographer/reporter who doesn't acknowledge people who say the offense "isn't good"/uniform QA guy. I'll do it all....for 35 grand a year plus health benefits.

Everybody hates the games where you know the whole time you should be winning by a lot more then you are, you leave the door open, and the other team slides in at the end and you lose. I thought if we hung on tonight we could set some kind of tone for '10 by not letting those games slip away. But no. We lose in bottom 8 after having led the whole time.

Stuff:

A lot of weird stuff at the plate. The bunt where the guy was out of the box (supposedly), the strike out where the ball hit the dude, and the Papi ejection. Whenever a home plate ump makes the swing call on something so borderline instead of going to the other ump, it looks fishy. And now that Joe West has come right out and admitted he has an agenda against certain teams, we can never trust those asses again. I've been saying it for years, get robots. Every call can be determined by a camera--we didn't have replay in 1868, that's why we got dicks to make calls based on their opinions. Time to just erase them...from existence!

The game started with a ceremony for last year's Cy Young winner. If it were Boston, the media would tell us that Fenway never used to have such spectacles, and that it's become a circus, and they're stealing your money, and they don't do anything without thinking of how to make a dime off of it, and there's pulling old players out of the woodwork to somehow steal your money, and you stupid fans will fall for anything, etc., etc.

Great job getting that ball in on the play at the plate. I thought they had no chance.

Wake=awesome. Other starters, learn to go seven like that.

Jacoby: Pop-ups to shallow left are yours, guy, I hope you're not gonna let the shortstop call you off if there's a guy on third.

If a ball is about to hit the Jordan's ball-sign at Fenway, and a fan jumps up and catches it, is my couch free? Also note in that commercial how they surgically moved the yellow line to the left, in their erasing of another ad.

We were walked thrice in an inning, and didn't score. Which had something to do with Drew attempting to steal as if it were some kind of practice game. He did hit a two-run dong though.

Victor's throws sometimes don't go anywhere near where they're supposed to.

I wouldn't pay for the new MLB At Bat thing, but I guess I get it as part of my RSN membership. I used to to follow the Devs' slaughter of Javy and the Yanks, and it's pretty cool once you stop being overwhelmed. However, the score is shown on top TV-style, with one team name on the left and one on the right, with their scores. So the Yanks were on the road, and the top said Yankees 2 Rays 0. The Rays took the lead, and suddenly the team names were switched! Rays 3 Yankees 2. So it's not the classic "road then home" set-up, it's done by who's winning! What is that? I understand that the one thing you can always use to see who follows sports and who doesn't is hearing someone say the score. If you ask, What's the score of the Red Sox game, and they say, 5-8, they don't follow sports. However, when the score is written out during a game, the teams should have their spots that don't change. Road on top, or at left. So at a glance you always know who's road and who's home. Can you imagine if on the Green Monster, they swapped the team names on the scoreboard, always keeping the winning team on top? Terrible. And in At Bat, you're not seeing the field, so if you flip a game on, you don't know who's at home by looking at the giant score at the top. (And I know there's the bottom linescore and a little boxscore which show road team on top, but still, the top one should be right and consistent with the others.)

Except for having to see the Gerbil go in, what a fun year it'll be for the Red Sox Hall of Fame.

Jimmy Piersall played in my dad's day and came from a town right near his in Connecticut. I read his book, Fear Strikes Out, back in high school. Check it out, but just know if you opt for the movie version, you might think it's a comedy when you see Psycho playing baseball.

I was a fan of John Valentin, and Kim loves the guy. Here's my random John Valentin story: Around 1995, my dad and I were at Fenway, and we had some pretty sweet seats (the ones my uncle got us occasionally in that era) in the field boxes behind the Sox dugout. We noticed to our right a couple of guys who had the same face as Valentin. I mean, unmistakably members of John's family. We finally made the decision to say something to them, so my dad turns and says something like, "you guys gotta be related to the shortstop." And they looked at us with the blankest of stares. We kind of thought they were kidding at first, and my dad may have even tried talking to them in Spanish, but they just shook their heads as if we'd just asked them if we could buy them a penguin sandwich. I will always believe those guys were Valentins, and just didn't want to be bothered, which I can respect.

Tommy Harper went through a lot of shit. That's another one to look up if you don't know the story. So glad to see him honored. And he pointed out that even though Jacoby broke his stolen base record, he still holds the Brewers' franchise record, and he seems pretty content with that.

Eddie Kasko is also getting in, and in this year's memorable moment category, it's the Brunansky catch! This is one of my absolute favorite moments in the me-being-alive-and seeing-and-understanding-what's- going-on era. A great finish to a great division race, which happened when I was 15 years old--kind of the capper to the "childhood" portion of my Red Sox fandom. And while '86 and '88 were very special seasons, neither of those division races went down the absolute wire. The Bruno catch in '90 clinched the division on the last play of the last game, and since it was on ESPN, we actually got to see it. I remember my science teacher--a dude who'd never brought up sports before--asking about the game the next day. The play was mysterious in that Tom went out of view to make the play, but also that the highlight kind of disappeared for a while in the pre-Web world, along with me soon going off to college, and the new wild-card era beginning. For the rest of that decade it seemed almost like some obscure piece of trivia. Like, Hey, remember that guy who played Schneider on One Day at a Time? Yeah! Remember when that guy dove into the corner and nobody saw him catch the ball?? Yeah!!! What were those guys' names.... But I never forgot. I'm glad the play is "officially" being recognized.

So congrats to all involved. Except Zim, who can suck my butt. Fingers crossed what they meant to say was that Pedro's throwdown is going to be inducted as a memorable moment.

Good to see Lackey pitch like that. Ruined by: Bard, Drew, Victor on that one play. Bard throws an 0-2* change over the plate. Drew does a slight lolligag before throwing way up the line. And Victor still could have gotten that ball and made the tag.

Still, we had a chance to win it. I love it when you're in that position where if you win, it's a walk-off. But we didn't win. We already knew 1,000-er-maleoffspring could pull a fastball way out of the park. And he did it again. Those balls are going really far for Baby Grand--is Mickey Rivers supplying him with bats or what?

Should be 2-1 minimum. Instead, I'm pissed. Another off day, then it's at KC for 3--first day game of 2010 on Sunday.


*I think it was 0-2. Right? Somebody check, I'm gonna go do something else because I don't want to look at Yankee names anymore.

If one man walked around on the streets saying the sky was falling, would the media feel the need to scream to the public that the sky is not falling? No--unless they wanted to perpetuate the myth because they are absolutely rooting for the sky to actually fall so they have something to write about....

The sane people don't need to hear that the sky is or might be falling. But to think that we need to be told that the sky isn't falling is even worse, because it insults our intelligence.

It's 92 degrees on April 7th.

Peter Brady '72 vs. the Mysteriously Rapid Recoverer, 7:10 p.m.

Went to the game with Kim tonight. Got there in time for first pitch, just went to our bleacher seats, so I don't have a lot of pics, but I will post some tomorrow. Turned onto Huntington and the car in literally the first spot was about to leave, so I jumped in there. It was 6:07, and the meter went till 6:00. So after two 2010 Fenway games, my parking fees total $0.00! It was a 70-degree day, but definitely chilly in the bleachers at night. There were more Yankee fans tonight--fortunately the ones right around us weren't the horrible kind. Tried the veggie burger for the first time. $6.50 for that thing. Like all veggie burgers/dogs, Fenway's are okay, you just need to load 'em up with condiments and they're fine.

The E by Scutaro followed by the bases loaded walk effing killed me. I don't like giving the Yankees games. We should be 2-0 and they should be alone in last.

Only a few hours after I mentioned here that Pete Abe treats Red Sox fans like imbeciles, he writes this: "Have patience with Jacoby Ellsbury. He can't learn to be a good leadoff hitter unless he's hitting leadoff." Well, thanks. I'd already burned all my Ellsbury memorabilia and written a petition to trade him because I was disappointed in his 2010 performance through ONE GAME, but thanks to your fine advice, I'll be patient and maybe give him another at bat or two.... Abe also referred to Nomar and Pedro as being on the "Red Sox Redemption Tour." We always loved these guys. What redemption? I'm getting very, very close to my all-out Boston media boycott. It's so bad that even TC, on EEI, said that maybe the Red Sox needed to play the Yanks to start the season to "get people interested in the Red Sox again." Yeah those 500 consecutive sellouts haven't shown me much... it's as if anyone who enters a Boston sports radio station or starts writing for a Boston paper loses their mind.

On the radio on the way home, some dude said that Jeter was hitting leadoff "as usual." From 2006-2008, you know how many games Jeter batted leadoff? Nine. Just sayin'. So "usual" = "a quarter of the time over the last four years."

But none of this is as bad as the Yankee fans behind me on Sunday and tonight. Sunday, the guy looked around and said, "I'm surprised there isn't more advertising here." Then tonight's guy said to his buddy that Nick Swisher "seems like a really serious guy." I guess this diehard Yankee fan just happened to miss 2009.

And hey, can I get a link to the standings on redsox.com? If you see a direct link, let me know. In the past you had a link, and they were shown right there on the front page--at the least the AL East was. Now you have to click "Scoreboard" and click the standings link over there.

Okay, obviously I'm pissed about a lot of things right now. Lackey needs to shut 'em down and shut 'em up tomorrow!

Here we go. Some vids first:

All spring training, I thought, If Mike Lowell is still on the team on Opening Day, what an ovation he's gonna get. So there my mom and I were at Fenway Park, trying to figure out who'd be announced before Lowell, so I'd know when to start rolling. 24--Manny/Dewey. 23--Cameron, a starter. 22--Billy Hall. That was my man. Soon as I heard his name I got ready. And we went nuts for Lowell, and he tipped the cap.

Below, two Pedro vids. More on that later.





Now back to the beginning. Mom drove to Providence and then we headed up to Boston around 3. Remember my teachings, people: Rule #1--never pay any money to park at Fenway on a Sunday. Meters are free. Unless you're arriving right at game time, you should be able to find a metered spot within walking distance.

Got in and did the Monster Seats thing, after waiting on a long line. After that initial half-hour, we went right to the home dugout. Above is the scoreboard with the rare "Opening Night" on there.

Almost right away I spotted Dr. Dre of all people. Turns out he was there pimping a new MLB line of headphones. Only $400 each! Somebody has to hook up Dre and Kapstein (though Jeremy was headphones-free on this night).

And here comes Dre right at us into the dugout. He had no tough-guy stage-face, and almost seemed surprised and embarrassed to be noticed, but definitely happy that he was.

John Henry then walked into the dugout, to zero percent of the amount of recognition Dre got!

I looked to my right and saw the puffy face of Curt Schilling. I had no idea Nomar was in this shot till I looked at it at home. They both were there as ESPN employees.

Amalie and Theo.

I recognized NBC-4's Bruce Beck, since I watched the New York TV stations from age 0-31.5.

I swear I tried really hard* to give this guy the Benjamin of the Doubt when he came slinking back to the Red Sox side. But when he came right out treating Sox fans like we're imbeciles, and acting like the Yankees and Red Sox are similar, I turned on him quickly. Maybe he'll change his ways. Here he chats with Howard Bryant.

*not that really hard

Youk went over to meet a Joe DiMaggio jersey-wearing Yankee fan.

Over on the Yanks' side now. The Yanks seem to be required to wear helmets in BP now. Teixeira had the flapless on. First hawk appearance of 2010--look closely. Click all to enlarge if you forgot or something.

The old ticket booths on Yawkey Way are currently mini-museums to the last five pennant-winning Sox teams. Here's the 1975 one.

And here's a look inside the '67. It just hit me--why is Hawk Harrelson's name on the back of his jersey? I'll go back and read the card another day for answers.

Hadn't taken this shot in a while, so....

Looking at the new home plate concession area from up the third base line. SO much more space there where the bathrooms used to be.

Opening Night. The long, wet winter is over.

Looking out behind the right field grandstand at Remy's new place, and the roof of the Baseball Tavern beyond.

Tek, first guy on the field in home white uni.

Pedroia's first crazy leg-stretch of '10.

Too bad I didn't get a better shot of the Pru with red on the top. I've always known the Empire State Building to have different colored lights, but in all my nights in Boston, I've never seen the Pru go colorific. (Though it is creative with its "GO SOX" and/or "1" light-routine.)

So I tried the new veggie dog. It'll do, flavor-wise, but I don't know if I'm gonna spend five bucks on it every time. I will try the veggie burger next time.

And now we're getting closer to game time, with a flyover, and an anthem which included fireworks that we couldn't see since we were under the roof in the back of section 9.

Russell Nua introduced. It was fun as usual to boo the entire Yankee staff.

Johnny Pesky, still goin' strong.

Flag on the Monster.

Joe Castiglione and Don Orsillo emceed. When Don said there was a special guest who was a great Sox player, we had no idea what was coming. Then I heard "1999 All-Star Game." (!) Oh my lord, it's Pedro. Amazing.

37,000 went ballistic as our beloved Pedro sauntered in from left field, stopping only to greet a guy who loves to be the center of attention even when someone else is in the spotlight.

I'm glad this was kept a secret, or else WEEI's giveaway cards would have said something like "Go Home Pedro, We All Totally Hate You, We Meaning the Assholes Who Work at Sexist, Racist, Homophobe Central, Not Any Actual Fans, Whom We Mock For Loving the Team Despite That They Keep us in Business. God We're Fucking Pathetic." You know, if they had room.

Pedro went over to Pesky...

...and then greeted the fans.

Now Pedro's with his old mates. Here's he seems to be playing "guess which hand?" with Wake.

Now hugging Papi.

And here it is, the first pitch of 2010. Over 70 degrees at 8:00--and I never did put the sweatshirt on over my short-sleeve shirt.

It was Easter Sunday, but this fan remembered not everyone celebrates the 'ster.

In the seventh, there was commotion at Canvas Alley down in front of us. Non-stop picture taking. I finally figured out it was whoever would be singing GBA, which is only sung on Sundays at Fenway. Turns out it was Steven Tyler from Aerosmith.

He couldn't seem to walk very well, so this daughter/wife aided him on and off the field, and harmonized with him on the last line of the song.

Same deal in the eighth--this time, I figured it out. Who else would be there to sing Sweet Caroline? (Though I was still keeping my fingers crossed for some kind of crazy hip-hop version by Dr. Dre.) When I saw the "Keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn" jacket, I knew it was definitely Neil Diamond. (Love the sentiment, but he's a few years late!)

Here's Neil during a shortened version of SC. Oh, and I liked how our section kept doing "Marcooo" "Scutaroooo." Reminded me of being a kid and hearing the grandstand and bleachers go back and forth: "less filling!", "tastes great!". However, I feel the Marco and the Scutaro should be short, not long. When I would play that game at the pool (my method was to always run outside the pool when I was Polo), the Marco and the Polo were crisp and quick. Not every chant in the right field grandstand has to be in Dar-yl style!

As you know, we came back to beat the bastids. The Yankee fan count was a little low, but there were still plenty of 'em, each one trying to out-obnoxious-ify the next, though many like to just play the "role" of loud New Yorker. I got chunks of guys like those in my stool. But the guy right near us was a true fuckface. First inning, he starts with the rare outward racism. Ellsbury got out, and he yelled for him to go back to his reservation. Victor Martinez came up, and after mocking the Latin music that played, he turned to the Sox fans who brought him and said, "you guys have a few of them, don't you?" Then he just mouthed off the whole game. The good news was that he required beer at such a rate so that he wasn't in his seat for most of the game. When it was 5-1, him and the other entitled Yankee fans were more certain of victory than anything in the world. Seeing them have to shut up alone was worth the price of admission.

The man came in and put the nail in their coffin.

Youk smoothed out the ground before the last inning started, and soon...

Dirty Water, Tessie, Joy to the World... Us, 1-0. Them, 0-1.

Neil Diamond singing Sweet Caroline:

I will have much more to say about the experience at the ballpark last night, along with pics/vids, but here are my thoughts on just the game itself:

1: It seemed key at the time to get the Yanks 1-2-3 in the first. I knew Jeter was going after that first pitch--he did and we got him out.

2: The dongs. Wow, first AB for 1,000erson and he hits it over the bullpen. Let's just hope he thinks he can always try to pull the ball against Becket and ends up with a lot of groundouts. Posada's pole dong seemed like a pretty hard-hit ball. Other than the two HRs, Becket wasn't horrible, but didn't have his best stuff obviously.

3. Good job by the new faces! Beltre, Cameron, Scutaro, Schoeneweis. And underrated is how Victor saw 30 pitches in his 5 ABs. I love seeing the "#P" in the boxscore.

4. I hate the whole "winning relievers/losing relievers" thing, meaning how you've got guys you put in when you have a lead, and guys you put in when you're trailing. It makes me feel like your team is giving up on any game they're losing after five innings. But I'm wondering: we brought in RamRam when trailing. Then we tied it. Now we want to hold the other team to where they are. So if we've established RamRam as a "losing reliever," why does he stay in? I think Okie was coming in to face the 3rd batter anyway, but I was calling for him to start the inning. And Ram-squared gives up a walk and a double to those two guys, and both score! I guess if all your relievers were awesome, you wouldn't have to ever worry, so I guess this is just the way teams have to do it.

5. My one-game take on Girardi 2010: The guy was under so much pressure to win it all, he played every game of 2009 like it was do-or-die. In 2010: "ehhh, let's just go with Chan-Ho Park here... Joba? Ehhhh, so what, I'll wait till we're losing to bring him in, I got my championship..." Granted, I don't believe Joba has proven anything yet, but he's their big bridge to Mo--last year Girardi would have had him in to start the 7th (provided he didn't have Hughes out there, like this year).

6. Seriously, when I saw Chan-Ho Park, that's when I knew we were gonna come back and win. And we did.

7. I looove seeing Swisher out in the outfield. That play was right in front of us, and you could see that ball was gonna go right by him, and it was a guaranteed triple.

8. From my angle, I thought Pedroia's dong was either a foul ball or a pop-up. Then it reappeared from behind the roof and fell in over the wall.

9. You could see how fast Cameron is on his routine grounder to A-Rod. He was only out by a step.

10. A-Rod grounded out, and after running through first base, he did his classic "show pony," feet kicking up as he ran slowly in a huge arc back toward the dugout, going way out into the outfield and almost in effect "rounding the bases." I was about to say "the guy's doing a fucking victory lap for grounding out," when the Yankee fan behind me beat me to it!

Pedro, Diamond, Tyler, Pesky, Lowell, warmth, veggie dogs, and making Yankee fans shut the hell up...what a wild night! But look who else was there: Dr. Dre! Wearing not only a Red Sox jersey, but Red Sox headphones! He wasn't actually introduced or anything--obviously I didn't see the broadcast, so can anyone tell me why he was there, other than just being a guest of the team?

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow night with all the pics and videos I took at Opening Night.

2003: The world is still shocked to see something like video playing over their dial-ups, and carrying a thousand songs requires a van. Also, a million Arron Boone dolls get a million knitting needles through the chest. A 28-year old Jere is frustrated beyond belief with not only what happened on the field, but with the ongoing struggles of a Red Sox fan in Fairfield County, CT, the only place in New England without NESN. He travels to Fenway and beyond and sees his team more in person than on TV. The plan is to make a documentary, or something...(the first scene meant to show our hero in a "Cowboy Up!" shirt with the snow falling behind on January 1st, 2004, which, like every other, was certain to be "the year"). But then..."you should start a blog"..."what's a blog?"...and here we are.

Of course, back then blogs were a free way for real people to talk to everybody. Now I have to compete with paid reporters who are given space by their company and have a built-in audience before they even start. But that's another rant for another day.

So my first season blogging was the second-best year ever. That's because in 2005, I moved from to CT to NYC just in time for the "reign." Fun stuff. In 2007, I moved to Somerville, Mass., and changed the "IN" to "FROM" in my blog title. By then this place had become a lot more multi-media-ish. In '08, my girlfriend and I bought a house in Providence, where I am now. I go to a lot of Red Sox games, take pics and stuff, and do a lot of other nerdy baseball stuff that hopefully you'll enjoy. As always, stay tuned. Thanks.

Despite that every year you'll hear that the rivalry (along with rock 'n' roll and Saturday Night Live) is "dead," there's nothing like being at a Red Sox-Yanks game. I'm ready. Off to Fenway for the first game of 2010....

Here it is, "your" 2010 Red Sox Opening NDiaghyt roster, from Atch to Youk.

What an ovation Mike Lowell will get tonight when he's announced. I'll definitely try to film that one.