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Boston: Bean, Beer, and a Buffalo

By YankTank, Section MLB
Posted on Thu Apr 26 2007 at 10:28 PM EST
More on: yankees, red sox, road trips, fenway (all tags)

"I have just returned from Boston. It's the only thing to do if you find yourself up there."
-Fred Allen, (1894-1957) comedian

I don't eat New England clam chowder or Boston éclairs. I don't wear the color red at all during baseball season. I weasel out of business trips that involve a Massachusetts destination. The city of Boston, to me, is no different than mint chocolate chip ice cream, margaritas, or "The Lord of the Rings." I don't care how universally popular they are: I've tried 'em, and I hate 'em.

I went to Fenway once before, with my sister. July 16, 2005 is now one of those days we never speak of. Sometimes my parents will bring it up, and the two of us will look at each other and shudder. It was like that time I started a new job and got roped into doing Habitat for Humanity. I spent the day putting up Pink Panther insulation during a torrential downpour in some southern NJ town. I should have felt good about the experience, but at the end of the day, all I had to show for it was a discernible film of fiberglass coating my skin, that three consecutive showers couldn't even fully deplete. Not only did I look like an engagement ring if the sunlight hit me in a certain way, but I also felt like I was getting stung over and over again by those annoying green-eyed flies at the beach.

And just like that whole volunteer work experience, the best thing to emerge from my 2005 Boston pilgrimage was a fairly impressive response to the "whatdyoudothisweekend" office pleasantries on Monday morning. I admit it. Some people get off on the volunteering thing. I don't. Some baseball fans get off on confronting rivals head on. Not me. I swore off the city and all its constituents. Until now.

I decided to give Fenway another chance when my better half Shane declared that road trips to Boston were an integral part of the fabric of his very being. Which is ironic since avoiding Boston is an integral part of MY being. Semantics. [My mom: "Stop being such a baby. You should be thankful this one knows what a baseball is."]

So away we went. We hopped on the Greyhound, and I braced myself. I once read that one of the most significant indicators of a heart attack is "an impending sense of doom." That's also a fairly spot-on description of my mindset during the 3-hour trip. I had been to Beantown before. I knew what was coming. Generally speaking. As you can imagine, I wasn't wholly prepared for everything that went down on Sunday, April 22.

The Good

1.    Significantly less heckling as compared to my previous trip. My sister explained why: "You were with a guy. They're not gonna heckle Shane because he's with a harmless chick. They're not gonna heckle you because you're with a guy." I wasn't convinced. "Okay, the reason no one bothered you was because he was wearing a Rivera jersey, who might as well be the patron saint of Boston Rallies. And you were wearing a COLTER BEAN JERSEY. You couldn't have a picked a weirder play to endorse if you tried." So there's the secret. If you want to go unnoticed in enemy territory, wear the jersey of someone so arbitrary, it throws the feeble-minds of Boston into a tailspin.

2.    The improbable bullpen call to Colter Bean. Unfortunately, I realized that sometime between his last call to the majors and this current one, his number had changed. So not only was I wearing the shirt of a guy who's pitched roughly the same amount of innings as Winnie Cooper, but I'm sporting a 63 when apparently he's 47. (And yeah, the shirt was one of those custom-made ones that, up to now, little kids had the market cornered on. Don't ask why. If you have a New York Islanders #81 jersey or Utah Jazz #5 jersey, you understand.)

3.    No dealing with scalpers. No selling our kidneys on the black market to afford tickets. Just waited on line for 3 hours the old fashioned way. So strange. Yankee Stadium has nothing like that. We paid face value for tickets right behind home plate. But in a way, it was almost too easy. I felt like we were Hansel and Gretel being lured into the Gingerbread house.

4.    It was Jackie Robinson day, (sort of, I have no idea why Boston decided to celebrate it a week after the rest of the baseball-viewing world. I know it had something to do with a rain-out, but isn't that like postponing Christmas because it didn't snow?) And the oddest part of this was the fact they commemorated the day with a montage of all the African Americans that played for Boston over the years. Which is basically like the Nationals showing a montage of walk-off HRs.

The Bad

1.    I have a bunch of logistical problems with Fenway, starting with the fact that no one walks around selling beer. And of ALL the stadiums in the world that I don't want to crawl over people to get a beer, Fenway is #1. FURTHERMORE, I get carded every. Single. Time. I got a beer from the same woman each time, and she still scrutinized my license like she was the bouncer at China Club or something. It holds up the line. It's awkward, an inefficient waste of time, and ridiculous. It especially irked me since I was tipping her fairly well. When she did it the 4th time, I paid with 28 quarters.

2.    The second problem is the opposing team "stats," if you can seriously call them that. Giambi steps up to bat, and the big screen reads, "Batting average with men on the corners with 1 out during games played in sub-65 degree weather that are played on the same day Condoleezza Rice has spinning classes and Dunkin Donuts is having a promotional latte day: .023." Julio Lugo steps up to "BEST HITTER IN THE HISTORY OF LIFE, WHO NEEDS A BATTING AVG WHEN YA BELIEVE!" I guess I should have been relieved there was no "Meet the Sox" song a la Shea.

The Ugly

1.    The gratuitous promotion of Matsuzaka which included, but was not limited to: jerseys written in Japanese, giant box hats that resembled dice, Karate Kid-esque head bands, and the wild glorification of a guy who ultimately gave up 8 hits and allowed 2 runs in just the first inning. Yes, we lost. Yes, we got swept, and yes, little Chase Wright probably feels like Natalie Gilbert in her National Anthem singing debut. But none of us were touting the fetus on the mound like he's the most ruthless competitor since Tyson or the most ferocious beast to pitch since Bob Gibson.

This is a classic Boston move. They're too...excitable or something. I empathize because Red Sox Nation reminds me of my manic fantasy drop/add behavior. I have no patience and pick up people on 2-game hitting streaks at the expense of dropping a sidelined Hideki. Boston picks up 2003 WS MVP Beckett and basically is like, "HA! Take THAT!" But I don't think the 5 point something ERA he posted last year is what they had in mind.

Then Matsuzaka becomes the most desirable status symbol since a Maserati, so Theo Epstein becomes a middle-aged woman at a Fireman-sponsored date auction. "50 BAJILLION DOLLARS!!" frantically waving money around. Then Papelbon has a strong freshman season with a muted end. (Blown saves, lost time in August, high pitch counts...) So while the kid's recovering from a tired arm in the offseason, Epstein decides "HEY, HE WAS SO GOOD AT CLOSING, LET'S MAKE HIM A STARTER!"

It reminds me of a late-inning Tetris game, when the techno-Nutcracker music starts speeding up, and you end up dropping long skinny pieces in the wrong place because you're too frenetic.

2.    And of course: the back2back2back2back dings. I was in the bathroom for one of them. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom actually, mostly because I figured it would be better to make a few long trips than a million short ones. The idea of asking Sox fans to "excuse me" as I inched my way back to the middle of the row, was terrifying. I felt like Angela Chase in My So-Called Life seeking refuge in the girl's room when she had a zit or a math exam.

I could gauge what was going on in the game by virtue of the proverbial roar of the crowd. Here it is: there are few things more unsettling and disappointing and deflating than that the spontaneous explosion of cheers in an opposing team park. When you're waiting on line for a beer, or hiding in the bathroom, or walking back to your seats, that burst of screaming is akin to leaving the office in the afternoon, getting in the elevator, pushing 1, and then hearing the DING indicating the elevator is making pit stops en route to your escape.

3.    The buffalo that egregiously body-checked me in the bathroom while barking "F*#@ing Yankee." While my instinct was to respond, "F*#@ing fat ass," I fettered myself. Her sidekick, with less of an El Guapo frame, and more of a Julian Tavarez look, murmured, "What's up, 2004." It was getting more and more ridiculous. A mean fat chick, (shouldn't they all be jolly like Santa?). And a 2004 reference from the peanut gallery, (which is the official party line of Yankee-haters with little to no additional sports knowledge, packing even less of a punch than 1918 chants). How do you respond to that? The answer is, you don't. For the same reason Jeter and A-Rod and Co. didn't retaliate after being hit by pitches.

* * *

I can't really complain. I got to go to a Yankee/Red Sox game. I came home in one piece, at 4:45am. I dragged myself to work 3 hours later and was too delirious to be fazed by all the sweep jabs.

My sister said the ESPN broadcast of the game was the absolute worst she's ever seen/heard. "I won't go into details, but I will say that Joe Morgan made a shout out to his daughter's gymnastic team." I started to tell her about the game, but she stopped me, claiming it brought back too many memories of our trip there in 2005.

"You know what?" she said after a little bit. "Remember when we sat behind the dugout two summers ago, and it was 108 degrees--we played Texas, it went into extra innings, and A-rod hit one of the longest shots ever?" I did. "And remember how we wanted to leave so much because of the heat? We couldn't even enjoy the game. That's what Boston is like. When we went, the Yanks won 7-4 with Randy pitching, and bullets have left guns slower than we left Fenway. It's just. Not. Worth it." Amen.

But as it turns out, Shane goes to Boston every time we play them. So just like a hungover fraternity pledge on a Sunday morning who grumbles about putting his foot down ("I'm so done with hazing!") and never chugging Bilk (beer/milk cocktail) again, I have a feeling I'll soon enough be in the line of fire again--my adamant convictions invariably nonexistent, my "impending sense of doom" holding office hours in my gut, and my Yankee-blue blood bubbling with the comforting relief that my ticket to Boston will always be a round-trip one.

See you in June, B.