There is really nothing quite like watching a game at Fenway Park…….
I went to the first game of the series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and my beloved Red Sox. I ended up taking my little brother as a present for his graduating from high school this last May. It was the first game I had been to all season and despite our loss, it was simply amazing to be there.
The lights, the fans, the ridiculous way the announcer pronounces the player’s names, the seventh inning stretch, overpriced crappy beer, hearing “sweet caroline” blare over the loud speakers before the bottom of the 8th, and harassing fans of the opposing team, its all part of the great experience of Fenway. Seeing a game somewhere else just isn’t the same.
The only thing I don’t understand is why every time I manage to get hold of some tickets, they are always in areas that are surrounded by fans of the opposing team. I went to the Sox/Yankees game when they hit four home runs in a row in a single inning and our seats were smack dab in the middle of a crowd of Yankees fans. I’m always a little nervous when this happens to me now. I have a tendency to be a little bit loud and using profanity in everyday conversation is somewhat of a hobby of mine, these factors coupled with some beers and the intensity of emotion I feel always make me a little nervous that I’ll be ejected from the park. At the Yankees game I was consistently threatening to punch the 15 year old Yankees fan that was sitting next to me, and if we had been losing I probably would have. I stand up, I yell inappropriate insults at the other team, and if I hear you cheering for the other team I will at minimum, ridicule you’re loyalties, and maybe even insult your mom.
In the end its all in good fun. No one can claim that they’ve never had a little bit of fun acting like a drunk asshole at least once in their lives. It happens, lets not judge.
Of course I was especially looking forward to this particular game because they are both essentially my teams. The DBacks are my adopted team after the summer I lived in Arizona, and luckily they almost never play the Red Sox, as they are a member of the national league. They’re also a solid team, in fact we almost played them last year in the world series. They had a great start to their season, but have since fell behind a bit but they still show some promise. After all, they did in fact beat us last night. It was interesting seeing them play at Fenway park and afforded me the opportunity to experience the oddity of real live Dbacks fans. Even in Arizona they can be a tough thing to come across (last year when they played the Red Sox in Arizona Chase Stadium broke its attendance record, but you could only see maybe one DBacks fan for every Sox fan). But here they were in Fenway, cheering for their team. The girl sitting in front of me had really long hair that dropped behind her seat and it kept brushing against my knees. By the 8th inning I had a very vivid fantasy of choking her with her long stupid hair. Some would say this kind of anger is silly and pointless, and I suppose that if I claimed to be rational during sporting events, I would agree with them. The thing I love the most about watching sports is that it strips you down to your raw emotions. You are either the happiest you’ve ever been or you feel like jumping off of a bridge. You don’t really need a lot of thought beyond that, except maybe the restraint to not kill someone over the outcome of the game.
There are some people who don’t understand why people watch sports. I suppose in the grand scheme of things its just a game and in the end it doesn’t really matter. But they stand as a unifying force. They give people something to do and look forward to. They give people memories of family and friends. I can go anywhere in the world and bond with someone simply by discovering they are a fan of the same team that I am.
This last sunday I also had the experience of watching Italy play Spain in the Euro Cup quarter finals. Its easy to say that I know absolutely nothing about soccer except that you kick the ball into the goal, but a friend of mine who is into soccer wanted to check out the game and I figured a significant portion of my heritage comes from the Italians so I would go out and support them. We watched the game in a bar in the North End surrounded by other Italians and soccer fans. It was a scoreless game, went into overtime and still scoreless. They had to resort to penalty kicks and Spain ended up winning. How anyone agreed to the rules that allow almost 2 hours of play be absolutely meaningless, I’ll never know, but so it goes with timed sports I suppose. Again, it was awesome to see people come together, wearing their team’s colors, and cheering for them even though we’re thousands of miles away from where the action is taking place.
Anyway, back to baseball. I think I need to stop watching games. The last four I’ve watched they lost and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve become bad luck. Despite the loss and the fact I won’t be able to afford to eat the next two weeks, I wouldn’t trade last night for anything. There are very few things that get me as worked up and excited as watching a game live at Fenway. You can almost feel the energy in the air. It can be quite an awesome experience. And if you don’t understand what I’m talking about you need to invest in some tickets to the next home game and see why Fenway is one of the greatest baseball parks and why the Red Sox “ah the sickest team evah ked”.
GO SOX!!!!!
