My kid brother, as I have mentioned, is an Oakland Athletics fan. This has been the source of much strife in our relationship; while he's an otherwise fundamentally cool person, there are some things which are unforgivable. And Oakland is one of them. We watched That Sweep Of The Pennant together on a snowy old television that only, technically, managed to be colour; the first game I saw at Fenway (described in "Remembering Roger") was a heartbreaking loss to Oakland. Yankee-hating is traditional and worn, a comfortable sound without much true venom to it; hating the Athletics is personal.
Last night I was at MIT, for my regular Friday AD&D gaming session. We recently worked out a good way of getting Toy (my laptop) hooked up to the Random Hall dorm ethernet, though picking up an IP is occasionally tricky; during the session I was not only able to drop messages to my gamemaster (more efficient than notepassing), but also to watch the gamecast on ESPN. 13-6. Ow. Brian Rose. Ow. Ow, ow, ow. Appier. Ow. And there was much ow. The other Sox fan in the group had to shut down his web gamecast window in agony, but I stuck it out -- bloodyminded masochist that I am.
(As I write these words, my radio plays the Standells. That's what's happenin', baby.)
So when I got home from my AD&D game, I set my clock alarm. There would be vengeance, for Pedro was pitching.
I actually got up before the alarm, got myself together, did a quick scan of alt.sports.baseball.bos-redsox, made a few flippant comments, and staggered out the door to grab the T for Fenway. (Living on Commonwealth Avenue has its few advantages.)
The game was, of course, sold out. There were people drifting about in search of tickets, people selling tickets at exorbitant prices. I did get in, and headed for bleacher section #37.
Not that I ever got to my seat. I wound up, after the anthem, drifting up and sitting on the concrete steps in front of the K-Men, who were being enthusiastic as always. I'd been told that there were five to seven of them expected to turn up; I must say that it was the most numerous five or seven I'd ever seen in my life. Somewhere over a dozen, more like -- I never did count all the red figures.
Each of the starting lineup for the Red Sox had a small child with him to come out onto the field for the anthem; Darren Lewis had two. Since it was the 'Kid's Day Opener', I thought it was a very nice touch. A Cub Scout troop presented the colours, and a school choral group did the anthem, and balloons were released.
The first batter for Oakland was a K tacked to the wall, as was the third; the K-Men had a somewhat heated discussion about how best to post the second K, and it was eventually declared to be staggered for ease in counting (and, as I pointed out, aesthetics).
Then the Sox were up, and the upper part of the bleachers erupted into song. The tune of the song was, of course, quite familiar; my brother's redeeming virtue in the sports world is soccer, and so I knew "Ale" quite well. However, the song changed to "Jose, Jose Jose Jose, Jose, Jose...." It was quite catchy, spreading out from the Men In Red to me (I can't resist a good excuse to sing) and, over subsequent innings, to the point that it seemed the entire upper bleachers greeted Offerman's at-bats with a chorus of song, almost entirely on pitch, like a rooster greeting the sun. The roosters were satisfied to see Offie single.
I thought Trot Nixon nearly managed to run out his bunt. He moves like a cheetah or a greyhound, all limbs, smooth and fast and almost surreal. Pretty swing, too, when I can see it; from where I sat today it was hard to judge. Daubach followed him, hitting hard -- he hit hard all day, like he's been hitting all through the season so far.
There was some discussion around me that "Nomar's struggling... he's only batting in the low three hundreds, and he's only had the one extra base hit...." That amused me immensely, especially since I'd been at the game with that hit, a beautiful arcing double down the third base line that landed fair by maybe a double handspan and, I think, reached the wall; since I was sitting over first that game (my general preference, though being a bleacher-critter isn't that bad either) it was a perfect view.
Pedro wasn't doing well at all, though. It was a bad game for him -- which showed at the top of the second with a first-pitch home run given up to Oakland's first baseman. I winced, and then redoubled my efforts in shouting; the inning ended in a satisfactory manner, with another strikeout. And the K-Men banged the inverted K against the wall with a red umbrella, and then counted them off: "One! Two! Three! Uno! Dos! Tres!"
There was some distraction interjected here; a Yankee cap was spotted. (There were, of course, several fans scattered about wearing official 'Yankees Suck' t-shirts.) The crowd stood, and pointed, and chanted "Yankees Suck!" at the chosen victim, and one of the K-Men climbed up on the seats and begged and pleaded, inaudible from where I sat, but easy enough o read, "Take it off. C'mon, take it off." The crowd took up the chant, "Take it off! Take it off!" until someone else sneaked up behind the Yankee fan, liberated the hat, and waved it triumphantly before handing it back with a little bow. As the K-Folk returned, they noted to each other, "He was a good sport about it, too. Aside from the finger."
A little bit later, a security guard drifted up and said, "No more Yankee stuff. The kids."
A triple for Alexander and a walk to Lewis left runners off the corners, and Hudson threw the ball away. Run scores. Error. Despite the rooster serenade, Offerman flew out. More chaos ensues, capped with the triumphant bellow of, "WALL BALL!" as Everett knocked one off the Monster strangely for a double. The other taunting cry of, "Bull-pen, bull-pen," finally panned out, and a new pitcher put in an appearance, though not before the Sox had batted around, with Alexander, who led off, flying out.
Pedro continued to struggle, clocking the second batter of the next inning with a pitch. (That runner later scored.) He did, however, pick up another K (swinging). "One! Two! Three! Uno! Dos! Tres! Cuatro!"
Also in the bleachers, to my left, were a few fellows who seemed to be from Holy Cross, if I got their origin right from bits of conversation I overheard. They went shirtless, and had NOMAR painted across their chests, and PEDRO painted across their backs; a sixth one of them was being adorned with a growing collection of Ks. They tried another chorus of 'Yankees Suck!' when another Yankee fan presented itself, but were not much joined (whether because of the memory of the security guard, or because they were nowhere near as funny as the melodramatic presentation of the K-Men). They are also the origin of the section quote.
Both the K-Men and the Shirtless People were frequent tourist attractions in quiet moments, with people drifting by to take photographs. In the beginning, several of them said, "Wait until they have a few more Ks up," and by the end of the game there had been about a half-dozen exploring the local tourist attraction. Several of them made the, "I know that one! He's in the commercials!" comment.
The wind was blowing out for most of the game. The ball that Tek hit lifted itself almost gently, sailed slowly through the air, and landed, nestling itself into the net on top of the Monster. I'm not a big fan of home runs, really; they're too simple, and I'm a fan of the defensive play rather than the massive offensive play. But I'll not turn one of those home runs down if it comes my way.
Alexander should have been out, but the shortstop's throw pulled the first baseman off the bag. Error, number two. Which turned into a run on a later wild pitch.
Next inning featured another runner (DLew) safe at first as the center fielder bobbled the ball twice beneath the carefully observing eyes of the bleachers (everyone stood so as to get a good look), and a bobbled ball on the third baseman's part. (Errors three and four.)
There was also, in the next inning, a twice bobbled ball on the part of the pitcher, but that wasn't an error; what would have been a double-play ball was just O'Leary out and Nomar at second, instead. We also got slightly rained on, a light spattering of droplets.
The Shirtless People were prone to shouting the inanity of, "Strike 'im out, Nomaaaaah!" at random intervals, in between complaining that they were bored. I did mutter, "Baseball is only dull to those with dull minds" under my breath, and allowed myself to remain bemused. "Nomar had a home run last at-bat," they said when Varitek was up again; they whooped and hollered and sang "Jose" slightly flat, but they did wind up getting drowned out more often than not when the rest of us sang.
Final score: 14-2. Three of those 14 were unearned. Nine strikeouts for Mr. Pedro, and one for Wakefield (Cormier pitched the eighth with his usual grace and efficiency). Four errors on Oakland, none on the Sox.
After the game, there was some milling about and talking, and discussion, and I showed off my RSFAAI shirt, which I'd worn on Wednesday, but it had been a bit too chilly to show off then.
It felt good, to stand in the bleachers, facing the K-spattered wall, spread my arms out, and bellow, "There is no curse!"
Walking back in the vague direction of Kenmore Square, there were the usual crowd, one of them hawking Yankees Suck t-shirts. (I'm dithering about getting one of those, though it's not actually my opinion; see the piece about the great rivalry; I'm probably going to get a K-men shirt, though.) A bit beyond him was someone wearing a black shirt, with 1918 printed on the back in bright white letters. I was unsurprised to see the Yankee symbols on the front, but the silliness of the thing had me giggling all the way back to the Square. It's really hard to take that sort of thing seriously, especially with the brilliant rhythms of the bucket-drummer on the bridge in my ears, and the rolling hilarity and triumph of that game, seen from the wild madness of the bleachers, in my soul.
Hail Pedro. Long live the K-Men. There is baseball, and it is good.
Additional game information drawn from the official Major League Baseball game summary and recap as well as my own personal scoresheet.