Not quite 19-18…

I had no plans of being at Fenway this weekend, but got invited Thursday night to Friday’s game and who am I to turn down such a generous invite, right?

Some random observations after that fabulous beat down:

I have never seen so many fans of an opposing team at Fenway.  I read somewhere that there were 1000 Cubs fans there.  I dispute this greatly because there were certainly more than that.  It felt like half the park was in blue and wearing caps with “C” on them.

Not that I’m complaining because for a group of devoted fans that travels this way they were surprisingly polite and very friendly.  For their large numbers, they weren’t heard from much because the Red Sox took them out of the game early but I’ll admit this, during “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” I heard as many fans sing “…root, root, root, for the CUBBIES” as I did “RED SOX”.  It was a little freaky.

Random jerk of the night:  Around the third or fourth inning, a couple shows up and sits about five rows in front of us.  Neither dressed in any kind of team gear except the guy in the couple, wearing pressed jeans and a long-sleeved dress shirt, has a baseball cap on.  The team?  New York Yankees.  I don’t think this applies for all fans, but if you’re a Yankees fan in Fenway when the Yankees aren’t playing (or a Red Sox fan in the Bronx when the Red Sox aren’t playing) and you pull this move you are saying two things:  “Please engage me so we can get in a fight” and “I’m a total asshat”.

Speaking of showing up late…the two seats in front of us were empty most of the night.  Around 9;30, a couple shows up, staring me down and the gentleman says, motioning to my seat, “We’re here”.  It’s a good thing the Red Sox were winning because had I been in a bad mood I’m sure I would have been much more snarky than I was.  “No you aren’t”, I calmly replied.  The guy looked at his tickets and responded “You’re right!” and then went on to tell me how impressed he was that I was so sure and wondered if I was a season ticket holder.  They showed up in what was, I believe, the top of the sixth inning and left after “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”.  What the heck was the point?

I got the anti-nerve wracking game that I requested.  So much fun, I have to admit.  Regardless of how nice the Cubs fans were, it’s always enjoyable to witness your team go crazy offensively.  Jon Lester, struggling for Jon Lester I suppose, pitched six innings and gave up five runs and Scott Atchison (being made fun of by a Red Sox fan a few rows behind me, “Oooh, we’re going to scare them now, we’re bringing in Atchison!”) made (relatively) short work of the Cubs himself.  We didn’t use up the bullpen, unlike the Cubs, and that gives me hope for the next two games.

I didn’t meet one person who wanted to tell me about The Rapture yesterday.  Was a little disappointed.

The game was long but well worth watching.  It occurred to me that National League fans really aren’t accustomed to such long games, although in fairness this one was a bit longer than the average Red Sox game.

Another highlight:  Watching the out of town scoreboard.  Our seats were such that we had the perfect view of it.  Seeing the Mets/Yankees and Rays/Marlins scores while watching our own score get higher and higher topped off a perfect night.  Leaving the park knowing that not only did the Red Sox win convincingly but that they moved to a half game out of first place in the process made the ride home pretty damn sweet.

So today Alfredo Aceves reminds us that as great as things are going for the Red Sox right now, we have the whole rotation issue going on.  That isn’t to say that I don’t think he can pitch a great game, I do.  I just find it amusing that as pumped as I was about everything surrounding yesterday, one of my first thoughts this morning was “Who’s pitching tonight??? Oh, Aceves…”.  Kind of like watching a documentary on the reproductive habits of ants moments after watching Die Hard.