Sure I am moving on Wednesday and I hadn’t even made a dent in all of the packing I need to do but I wasn’t about to turn down the offers I received for both Friday’s and Sunday’s games. Late Friday afternoon, wrapping up a hectic workweek and dreading all that I had to do that evening, I received an email from a pal that offered me a front-row seat behind home plate. There was no chance I was turning that opportunity down, just as there was no chance I was turning down the offer from a business contact to join him in the “Legends Suite” for yesterday’s game.
Friday night was a slugfest, and from our vantage point, it looked as though Wake’s knuck didn’t “knuck” a whole lot. He managed an uncharacteristically low strikeout total of just one in six innings of work. In Wake’s defense, the Tigers have a nice lineup working right now, with personal fave Placido Polanco leading off, Chris Shelton providing a lot of pop, Pudge in the 3-hole, Magglio fourth and Dmitri Young fifth. The impressive rookie Curtis Granderson bats ninth but at .286/.322/.571 this season, don’t sleep on him. Granderson collected three hits on the evening, including a contraversial home run, while Pudge and Magglio went back-to-back off of Jeremi Gonzalez in the 7th.
Offensively for the Sox, Tony Graffanino and Manny Ramirez led the charge, though Boston received contributions from up and down the lineup. They plated three, two and four runs in the 3rd, 5th and 6th innings respectively, and would go on to win the ballgame 9-8.
Two amusing tidbits from the game; first, I sat next to an influential television executive and his 11 year-old son, who live in Los Angeles and were on the final leg of what they dubbed “an historic baseball vacation” that featured stops at Wrigley, Yankee Stadium (don’t ask why), Cooperstown and finally, Fenway. The father’s good cheer and enthusiasm for baseball made for great conversation and we shared a good laugh when, of all people, Jay Peterman sung God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch. The son offered up wonderful baseball talk, and though just 11, carried himself as though he wasn’t a day under the age of 17. The second tidbit is a little anecdote about the Fenway faithful, and though we can be a bit hard on the masses here sometimes, Friday night was a reminder that, on the whole, Sox fans can be genuinely witty. After a dubious 4th inning home run call down the right field line off the bat of Curtis Granderson, a discussion amongst the umpires, and subsequently, Terry Francona’s ejection ensued. Like Francona, the fans believed the ball was foul. For the remainder of the game, any time a ball was hit foul into the stands on the first base side, fans would simultaneously rise, and in a sarcastic manner, twirl one of their arms around with their index fingers pointed in the air, the umpire’s call for a home run. I gotta say, it was pretty funny.
Saturday’s game, which I did not attend, sucked. The Sox got their asses kicked, and it was another painful reminder of just how far this team has to go before its pitching is ready for post-season play. Bronson Arroyo, Jon Papelbon and Jeremi Gonzalez were the culprits. Offensively, the Sox were once again quite good as they plated 8 runs. Problem was, they gave up 14. David Ortiz and Trot Nixon homered.
Yesterday’s game was quite an experience. I arrived with a friend at the park around 11:30am (gametime was at 2pm). We joined up with our group, entered the Park at 4 Yawkey Way, and walked through the business offices and outside a door at the top of the third base grandstand. Our tour guide (the wonderfully warm and knowledgeable Ed Brickley) took us down the stairs and we walked onto the field just to the home plate side of the Tigers’ dugout. Tigers manager Alan Trammell was sitting alone in the dugout at this time, and since he had been tossed out of Saturday night’s game after his team was victimized by some brutal umpiring, a leaned down and said, “Mr. Trammell, for what it’s worth, you had every right to be upset last night.” Since I had my Sox cap on, he chuckled, as though the fact that a guy in a Sox cap would be compelled to say such a thing provided satisfactory vindication. We continued up the left field line, walking along the warning track until we got to the Monster scoreboard. We snapped a group photo under the center of the scoreboard and got a good laugh when Chris Shelton, himself poking around inside the Monster, scared the bejesus out of one of the women on our tour when he grabbed her shoulder from insider the wall as we leaned up against it for the photo. We headed for the triangle, passing Roberto Petagine who was playing long toss in left-center, to where Kirk Gibson and Bill Hasselman were conversing by the Red Sox dugout. In the dugout, Tim Wakefield was throwing a side session, just two days after his Friday night start. Ed (our tour guide) pointed to a spot where Mickey Mantle once hit a 485-foot home run to dead centerfield and as we continued onto right field, he alerted us to the seat in the bleachers 37 rows up where Ted Williams’ famous 1946 home run landed.
As we continued back down the right field line, we passed Wade Miller throwing a side session but by no means airing it out. Matt Clement was also outside tossing lightly. We went past the Sox dugout, out of which Bronson Arroyo emerged, and continued around home plate back to where we entered the field by Detroit’s dugout. We walked back up the stairs and headed for the remainder of our tour through the press box (saw Gordon Edes wheel his travel case smack into a wall), through the Red Sox Hall of Fame and finally ended up in our suite.
Our legend that would join us that day was Lou Gorman, former General Manager for the Red Sox. I waited a few innings to talk with him, but, among other topics, I was dying to know his feelings on some of the more advanced performance analysis techniques that were being employed by the Red Sox and some other teams. Interestingly, he told me how he admired Earl Weaver and his view that the 27 outs you get in a baseball game are precious, and should rarely be given up. He then told me that he didn’t have much use for statistics. Paraphrasing, he said they play a role, but fall short of telling you what a good scout can. I tried to explain to him that Weaver articulated many of the most important Sabermetric themes, just as Branch Rickey had before him. He still seemed unimpressed with the field and admitted he hadn’t read very much Bill James. All in all, he was fascinating to talk to and had some good stories about Nick Esasky, Jeff Bagwell (yes, I asked him about it), Dave Henderson, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and much more.
As for the game, the Sox romped. Bill Mueller had his best all-around game of 2005, and David Ortiz homered. David Wells was excellent, notching his 11th win of the season. The Red Sox remain a game-and-a-half ahead of the Yanks in the AL East and will now host the surging Devil Rays for four games.
It was a baseball weekend to remember and one I am glad I experienced…even if it means I’ll be pulling a few all-nighters in order to get packed up.
Comments Off 
