Fenway Fun
I am a HUGE baseball fan. This is not a hyperbolic statement - indeed, I would say that I know an unhealthy amount about baseball. (sidebar: have you ever wondered if you took all the useless information out of your head such as sports stats, pop song lyrics, etc. and replaced it with "useful" information, how quickly may be able to solve all the world's problems? No? Think about it! I bet half the actual bulk information I know is totally useless for any constructive purpose). I could name you the starting lineups of every team in major league baseball. I could name the top minor league prospects for most teams. I am obsessed with our Philpott fantasy baseball league (although, sadly, am always the bridesmaid, never the bride - thanks James and Jason). I have watched Field of Dreams (my favourite movie of all time) roughly 10 times and cried each time Kevin Costner and his dad play catch at the end. I also played baseball as a kid (and was pretty decent - I could flash some serious leather from the shortstop position). So, naturally, while living in Boston, a visit (no, make that pilgramage) to Fenway Park was pretty much a mandatory experience. Furthermore, as a HUGE Blue Jays fan, it only seemed natural to see the Jays play the BoSox (actually a hated Jays rival, my major difficulty with living in this city). So, this Saturday, in the face of Hurricane Ernesto, I went (with Brett and Courtney) to Fenway to watch the game. It is incredibly small and obviously very old (you can't hide the fact it was opened in 1912), but for a baseball fan, you really don't care - you are at one of the three shrines of baseball (along with Wrigley Field in Chicago and Yankee Stadium in NYC) and that's all that matters. The game was great (Jays won it 5-1 behind a great pitching performance from $55 million man A.J. Burnett) and the entertainment in the stands was nearly as good. One thing I will give Red Sox fans credit for is their passion - they are seriously hard-core people. Indeed, out of partial naked fear, I take great pains while talking to Bostonians to emphasize our mutual hatred of the Yankees as opposed to any loyal Jays fan's strong dislike of the BoSox. However, when you sit in the bleacher seats at Fenway, loyalty apparently is occasionally interchangeable with insanity. Below is a picture of group of kids (and poorly supervised ones at that) who became, let's say, "unhappy" in the 8th inning when the Jays took a 3-1 lead and three slightly obnoxious Blue Jays fans (right in the bottom left corner of the photo, I cut the most obnoxious guy out of the picture unfortunately) got somewhat happy about it. The kids responded by pelting them with peanuts and popcorn for about five minutes, including some fairly heated pointing.
With an assist from the beer they had clearly consumed, the Toronto fans proceeded to taunt the popcorn throwers (whom the Red Sox could have used on the mound yesterday) by counting out the score with their fingers, prompting a rousing chant of "USA! USA!" from the kids (and some of the surrounding bleacher people). At this point, we were slouching deeper into our seats to avoid attracting attention to our obvious Canadianness. However, after about two batters worth of flying food, Fenway security finally clued in to the potential for a 100 little people-on-3 big people riot and intervened, moving the Blue Jays fans closer to the field and out of the arm range of the pint-sized mob (much to the mob's dismay it must be added)...
Of course, this did not shut these guys up (particularly as the Jays tacked on two more runs in the 9th), but it did diffuse the situation slightly. As a charming final gesture, the Blue Jays fans waited in their revised, closer-to-the-field row after the game was over as all the kids were filed out to say "goodbye", to a chorus of extensive heckling and, from this one kid, a "thumbs down" (I really love this picture).
Actually, we were kind of glad the Jays fans waited in the safety of the stadium. We were scared that if they had left first, outside of the Fenway security auspicies, that the kids were going to hunt them down. Sort of reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode where a bunch of karate kids take down Kramer in a back alley. Brett was actually talking to one of them, at which point we were invited out to some sketchy bar in Boston to "celebrate" with other Jays fans... somehow, we managed to decline that all-too-tempting invitation. So, a great day baseball, history, and a near child brawl... just another day in the bleachers at Fenway Park (and yet another reason that I love baseball).
(more pics on my Flickr site)
