Update, 1:52: Wow, I tweeted a question for Skip Lockwood and it was the first question they asked him, after Don interviewed him. My question was if he still had his Seattle Pilots jersey. He didn't answer me about the jersey, but he talked about his time with the Pilots. Nice job by whoever the woman was that read my question to Skip via cyberspace.

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Update, 12:57: I'm watching the live stream of Xmas @ Fenway on redsox.com. Check out this screen shot of Keith Foulke holding a skunk:


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Update, 10:40: found this--looks like September games go on sale TOMORROW (Sunday) morning at 10 am. At least that's the plan as of now:


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Update, 10:35: A few minutes ago I went into the Sox Pax just to see how long it would take. And it just popped. So I COULD get Opening Day tix right now...but I won't. I see they have standing room for that, so I could get the 4 games, including OD for just $100. Right now. I hate this feeling! Not gonna pull the trigger though. If any of you wants to go to OD really bad, though, and don't mind giving your CC # to a stranger, I can help you out, e-mail me. Looks like they've got bleacher, GS, RF box, pavilion box, and SRO.

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Got in at 10:02*, finished order by 10:05. Just got that one Astros game. September games not on sale, but we'll see if they add them later today.

Video of how it went down:



*Actually 10:00, but since the computer was freezing up, aka beachballing, I didn't get the actual purchasing window until 10:02. VWR FWP.

Good luck getting tickets today. As of this writing, the Ts are up on April/May, and Sox Pax, so you can get a head start if you know what you're doing. [Update, 1:37 a.m.: The September games are now showing the 1/26 date. We'll see if they change that tomorrow or if they've made the call to hold off on them till the big sale this year. Also, the game times are up. Still the usual 1:35/7:10 times for us, except, for some reason, one week in April, with three 6:30 games and a 4:05.]

Friday night I went to the free "Holiday Bash" at Fenway Park. First, here's a video of what I ended up bringing home, then it's on with the story.



I decided to park far away for some reason. If I'd known it was gonna be this cold, I wouldn't have. After a 25-minute walk with my hood up, I arrived at Gate B at 4:30 and was maybe 40 people from the front of the line.

At 5:00, they opened the gates, I got inside, and I half-pretended like I was just "soaking in the festive atmosphere" when really I was trying to find the Yard Sale, and hoping not too many others had beaten me to it. They had it in this big room underneath the Royal Rooters Club behind the Big Concourse. People were already digging through the jersey boxes. And it was no coincidence that the first people to get there were the types to go through EVERY jersey. I was nervous: do I wait for them, or try to squeeze in, and if so, am I missing being first at some other area with possibly new and better stuff? I walked into a side room of photos and banners and way fewer bricks than usual. (Bricks were $10--I already have enough to build my own Fenway, and last year they were $5 anyway, so I moved on.) I was blowing it, finding nothing, knowing I'm wasting valuable time at this early hour. Then I went to the bats. I heard a guy say "Marty Barrett." Interesting. The Barrett cost $75. I was kind of thinking $50 was my limit, which was part of the reason I was now focusing on bats instead of jerseys, which were $65 and up. Suddenly, Gedman. Two of Rich's bats, both cracked. $50 each. I figured there were two so I could always go back. I kept looking. A Jody Reed. A Marc Sullivan. A broken bat with a "7" that could be Trot's. A Scutaro model with the name suspiciously scraped off, as if someone was trying to hide it from the feds. Some Joey Gathrights and Bill Halls. And who is Brad Hewitt? Finally it hit me that I needed to of course grab a Gedman. I chose one, and then later grabbed a bat handle with 22 on the knob ($10), and noticed a barrel with Ryan Kalish's name on it and no tag. Hopefully they'd let me keep both for a ten-spot. I went back to the banner room and found the one that's explained in the above video. Had to grab it for $10 even though they're usually a lot more.
As I waited in line to buy, as carolers sang, I wondered why in the world I hadn't grabbed any of these team-signed big cardboard things for ONE dollar. The person ahead of me had several. I dropped the ball there. When I got to the cashier, she really thought the banner would be way more than the $10 I said I saw on there. She thought hundreds. She called across to somebody who yelled "fifty." But I kept standing there as she searched the thing, now with the guy looking on. He found the $10 price tag, and said, "ten." (I swear I didn't just slap it on there! But you know some assholes do that. And then sell the stuff.)
Then I asked about my bat pieces, and again the man was called over, and again agreed I only had to pay ten. Now I was carrying two bats worth of lumber, a gigantic balled-up banner, another free bag thing, and my camera. But the work was done. Now it was time to take some pics and see what else was going on.

In the Big Concourse was the "Enchanted Village." I almost got run over by a slow-moving train! Basically, this whole thing is a way for anyone to experience what goes on at Christmas at Fenway without the ticket-buying.

I then realized the Rooters Club itself was open so I headed up there. Mics were set up for radio interviews the next day at X@F.

Terribly, this is the best shot I got of Lavarnway and Farrell who were taking pics with fans. They just finished up as I got there, and Farrell was being whisked away. A guy asked for an autograph, and he apologetically said how he's got "explicit instructions" to get the hell outta there. I know you're on a tight schedule here, Johnny, but sign! It's fucking Christmas!

Former Sox catcher and announcer Bob Montgomery and Autograph Alley mainstay Dick Berardino.

Larry Lucchino signing. I also saw Wally, but did not come across Santa Claus.

Okay, back downstairs for more Big Concourse decorations. The positioning of this shot makes it look like that wreath is tiny and attached to the pole, when it's actually gigantic and hanging much farther back.

The tree.

Big League Brian was all Nutcrackered out.

They let people out into the seats for a laser light show on the Monster. (Sounds like my perennial Monster Movies idea! Almost...) I didn't see the show, but I ran into Kelly O'Connor of sittingstill fame, and she said it wasn't any more exciting than any non-Pedroia laser show. Which is to say not that exciting after the first 30 seconds.

But it was cool to see Fenway in the dark.

Was hard to get a pic of what was on the board without zooming.

Semi-zoomed out.

And we got to go in the clubhouse! After 35 years of totally never seeing the behind-the-scenes areas, I'm suddenly a regular. Thanks again to current ownership.

Somebody was having a pizza party in there.

The empty "VOMITorium."

They had actually sealed off this area from the cold and put this big heat-blower in. That was really nice, what with the cold-ass coldness I mentioned earlier.

Had to take one last check out at the field on my way out.

Good-bye until April, Fenway Park. Now I had another long walk, not only with the cold to deal with, but all the stuff I was schlepping around. Suddenly I'm walking past fancy restaurants in Brookline, in the dark, with a hood on, carrying a baseball bat. In November. There wasn't a lot of eye contact, let me tell you. At one point I tried to get a better grip on the Gedman bat by flipping it up and catching it since the other hand was full, and I snagged the broken part. But I was too cold to bleed! I just had a gash that eventually turned red. I finally unloaded the precious cargo at my car, and as I walked to Anna's Taqueria, I realized I was now a normal person again. Washing the wound in their bathroom cost me about 7 spots in line, but I was just happy to be somewhere warm. Mr. Brownstone greeted me on the radio as I headed back to Providence. Yow-za!

And now for the haul!
The Gedman bat. Nice wear, and of course the crack.

Look at the hollowed end.

The Kalish barrel. Love that logo. I looked closely at this bat and saw stitch marks, including the low ones that cost this bat its life.

Finally, the handle, which for some reason I assumed was Bill Hall's. But there have been several #22s lately. And then I noticed it had a hologram! I looked up the number at mlb.com, and here's what popped up:

Session Product Description: GAME USED BROKEN BAT
Session Name: BALTIMORE ORIOLES?@?BOSTON RED SOX
Session Date: August 13, 2006
Autographer:
Authenticator: AUTHENTICATORS, INC.
Additional Information: WILY MO PENA HANDLE

Hahahahahahahahahaha. Awesome.

I did a little "unfURLing"* and discovered that the big sale for all the June/July/August Fenway tickets will be 1/26/13. It's showing noon, but maybe that'll change to 10 am. And the urls for the September games say they will go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m. along with the April and early May. It's good to have these ahead of time just in case they don't put the links up until the last second. Usually they appear ahead of time though. So finding them now might not have helped me that much, but the big finds were the general onsale date and the confirmation that September will go on sale with April/May as usual. Still don't know why they try to keep that a secret every year.

*Wasn't too hard. If you know which of the tickets.com teams have already gone on sale, you just use those urls and start adding numbers till you reach the Red Sox section. I haven't found the Sox Pax urls but I found all the individual games--once you find one you've got 'em all.

Dear People Who Ask Me in March How To Get Opening Day Tickets,

Go online* tomorrow (Saturday) morning and get the Opening Day Sox Pack. It's the most
popular one though so it'll be tough. If you don't get one, you'll still have a
chance with the OD lottery. Good luck.

Sincerely,
Me

*If you're serious about it, you'll also be trying by phone via constant redial. Number shown here.

I'm still not sure how I'm gonna play it this time. I'll probably avoid Sox Pax since you're usually paying for three games you don't want to get the fourth one, and I'm not even in a position to be buying anything at all right now. And it's also always tempting to buy these April/May/Sept games just because they're the only ones available--but I think I'll wait for the summer tix to go on sale. Maybe tomorrow I'll just get some cheap tix to an Astros game, and that new tradition, the final regular season game, assuming they put Sept on sale later in the day. And then once April comes, I can always just go any day I want and get tickets day-of.

The answer to the "guess the autograph" from a few days ago is:

Brandon Lyon.

Tom's "BJ and the Bear"-related guess was "close" because, you know, bears, lions...we also had Chad Fox at the time. I got the autograph down the left field line, and I later discovered I had a blue mark on my Manny jersey which never came out--I still think it happened during the Lyon autographing, as people were holding pens and markers out. As for Brandon, I was shocked last year when I discovered he was still pitching in the majors. Hadn't heard his name in a while....

To NOT go! That's right, I'm a loser once again. I am a perfect 0-fer since they started making it lottery only.

Hey! Wait a minute! Hasn't the reason for having a limited crowd of lottery winners only been because they were always doing improvements to the park? The major improvements are done, so how come they're not going back to the old way this year? Then again, wasn't the old way to have people line up out in the cold and get wristbands, meaning it was still a limited crowd? But as long as you got there early enough, you were guaranteed to get in. I think. I don't know, I'm confused, all I know is that you don't need to be there to get tickets anyway.

So to reiterate the schedule: Friday night, holiday fun-anza with Yard Sale free for all, Saturday, April/May/Sept/Sox Pax on sale, the following Saturday, spring training tix on sale. Weird how ST is after real this year, so I don't get to use it as a "test run" of the whole VWR ticket-buying experience.

My friend Kara sent me the trailer for The Heat a while ago, and somehow I missed the fact that what's-her-name is wearing a PawSox shirt through practically the whole thing.

From a Phils-Sox game in Philly, 2003. Guy wrote his number on there, which is what my finger is covering.

So I've filled up my Stub Album through 2004. 34 pages, six slots each, some with multiple stubs. A lot left to go. One thing that stinks about this project is that it doesn't document all the punk shows I've gone to. You don't get a ticket stub at Newtown Teen Center. Maybe I should be going home from shows, writing the show info on my hand under the X or the stamp, and taking a picture. Of course I do have a lot of fliers, which act as documentation of shows being scheduled to happen, but not of having been there oneself.

Last night's big chore was figuring out a few little movie stubs with dates (but not years), times, and prices, but just a cut-off title, like, "The Ma" and "The Wi." (It was The Matrix--April 10th, 1999, at 9:50 p.m., at Crown Theatres in Danbury, for $7.75. I went with this Borders co-worker goth girl named Theresa. And the other was The Waterboy. I'm convinced "Wi" was just a mistake. Because the ticket is from 11/7 (9:40, $7.75, same Theater), and that's the weekend it came out, and I know I saw it in the theater, and I don't see any other movies starting with "Wi" in that era.)

So I've been going through my hundreds of ticket stubs and putting them in order. I found an unused photo album with a lot of pages so I've been stuffing that thing with 'em. The earliest ticket that I have, or that I've found anyway, is this one, from Shea Stadium, 1983:

The $550 price is for the season, though that would always confuse the hell out of me as a kid. My dad's friend had these sweet box seats, and in first/second/third grade ('81-'83) he and I would go to games, sometimes on school nights with me sleeping on the ride home. I know we saw at least the Reds, Cubs, and Cards in those years. Shea was only an hour away (and a friendlier place to take a little kid than Yankee Stadium--though I was going to games there as early as 1980), and we rooted for the Mets in the NL because they were the Yanks' in-city rival. Oh, and they stunk. Those games were always empty. The stub above is from the game where Cards pitcher Dave LaPoint hit a line drive right at us. The ball slammed off my dad's palm and rolled away.

The second-oldest one I found was this Fenway ticket from a Sox-Yanks game on my 9th birthday:
I'd been to Fenway before this, starting in '82, but this is the oldest Fenway ticket I've got. Unless something else turns up.

And here's my third-oldest stub:
Oil Can Boyd pitched in this game against the White Sox. Looks like we were out by Canvas Alley. That $9 seat'll cost ya $52 today.

I only have a few more tickets from pre-'90, but around then I started saving every single one. I'm thinking what I might do is make a blog where I show a stub from whatever day it is currently, from a previous year. And talk about it. Between games, movies, and concerts, I wonder if I've seen an event (that I saved a ticket from) on every single day on the calendar.