Fenway Calling

The Angular Emerald

This is a story of coming home, coming back to that emerald hardball bandbox called Fenway. I live in Jersey, and had a meeting at ESPN on Thursday, which happened to be the day of Game 2 of the World Series.  Bristol is exactly halfway from my current home to a World Series game at the Fens, something I had never experienced despite a life FILLED with front and center sports exposure.  And this Fenway was my cradle, where I got the free sports crack (OK, Fenway bleacher seats were actually 75 cents). This is where I grew up taking the T to Kenmore with my buddy Jon. And then we would go home after the game and emulate Tony C while playing Wiffle ball, and sleep over at each other's houses listening to the worn out record "Impossible Dream" until we had it memorized. In the morning we would read the Boston Globe sports section and do it all over again, maybe taking the Mass Ave bus instead of the T to mix things up.  When we were older and stronger, we climbed the Whiskey sign in left field to see sold out games from above the Monster.  I had a summer job lifeguarding at an outdoor hotel pool on the 6th floor terrace, and could see the lights of Fenway and listen to Boston sportstalk in July about what to do with DH Jim Rice in a hypothetical World Series as the seeds of Red Sox Nation began to flower.  I arrived 18 months too late to catch the '67 Impossible Dream, but that fact made me intensely hungry to compensate.

"Ohhhh... Boston You're my Home"

Fast forward to Thursday.  Leaving Bristol with no ticket and lots of potential doubt, I had to choose East or West on Route 84, Jersey or Beantown. Love track was the left turn, fear track was the right.  I went left.  I had made a dozen calls to all my deeply imbedded sports contacts in hopes of scoring a pass, and their responses all echoed this one theme: I had a better chance of walking across the Charles River than I did of getting into the game, yet I still felt the love, the pull of the green. I parked in Cambridge and jumped onto the Red Line, transferring to the Green line as if by rote.  It was a long day, so I rested my eyes on the trolley ride, sneaking peaks at the stops. And then it hit me... Holy S*** I was on the wrong train heading into a foreign land!  I made the classic error, getting onto the only westbound Green Line trolley that didn't take you to Fenway...Arborway!  Yikes, I had never done this before, and suddenly I'm scrambling past Northeastern University, bushwacking through foreign turf, the Muddy River of the Fens, experiencing this part of Boston for the first time.  The white sign on the side of the road was foreign, yet it made perfect sense. Before long I saw giant towers beaming light in the distance, the Sox anthem Dirty Water by the Standells was faintly audible, and knew I was on the right path to the Shire.

Don't Forget '46 Teddy Ballgame

Shuttling behind two fans wearing Sox jerseys, I cleared the reservation and found myself on Lansdown. I began slowly circling the park and checking my texts.  Although my practical sports TV working skills may be limited, I do have a mighty rolodex, and I called in requests to some of the major players I've known and loved in my 30 years in the biz. The result was a whole lot of loving  No's.  No luck, no dice, no credentials, no ducats.  But I had an ace in the hole, and was feeling it.  As I circled the park I heard the scalpers at work; 500 clams was the going rate.  These guys thought I was a mark, not knowing that my budget allowed for only a couple of beer, peanuts, and gas back to Jersey. I walked past the statues behind Gate B, and the Splendid Splinter was freshly adorned with his own Boston Strong beard. Next stop the TV compounds, where it's impossible for me not to know SOMEONE.  And there he was, Russ, my old unit manager from HBO Wimbledon.  We did a wonderful shmooz, complete with handshake and industry gossip, each lobbing in relevant names and scraps of news.  And then I asked him, "how tough is it to get a pass?"
"Huh? Impossible, sealed tight, photo ID's only." I moved on.  Fresh texts had arrived: "Tough ticket;" "No Luck;" "Need Cash;" "No answer from my guy;" Essentially, all the same answer, 'Nuttin Buddy'. But I'm a dialer, and as one door slams I start knocking on another to keep hope alive. My filmmaking buddy Bob had told me that Sox management, one of his top clients, might be able to get me a ticket if I could pay face value. My $40 beer money clearly wouldn't get it done, but I had a lead, and at this late hour, my only one.  Night had fallen, and I shuffled to Yawkey Way under the Monster Seats.  Boston's Finest staked out the corner and the Stones blasted Gimme Shelter from the outdoor bar speakers.  Mick and the boys scored the scene perfectly "It's Just a Shot Away."

My schoolboy buddy Jon, a career journalist in Boston, had the contacts to get himself and another classmate Matthew into the Bleachers. It was Matty's birthday eve, and they texted me that they were on the other side of the Mass Pike bridge, waiting for their ticket exchange.  They had no extras, and they were paying dearly.  I had been fantasizing all day about seeing them inside of the Green. And then my cel rang.  It was Bobby the filmmaker, now the dealmaker, live on my phone.  "Only 'cause you tell me the best stories..." and his tone of voice told me everything. A day full of hope had fulfilled its promise, and in half an hour a freebie would be waiting for me at the elite Will Call window.  The Gods of Green had smiled; I was going in.

Ridonkulous

My HS boys arrived just after I got my ticket, a wonderful 1st base side ticket with the plutocrats, not my style necessarily, but I was happy to conform.  We strolled in and got our round of brews. I shelled peanuts, and blissfully watched the pre-game ceremonies with my home boys.  James Taylor made me misty and we moved to our respective seats.  I sat with a nice lady and her son; she knew her baseball. I scored the game and kept a running commentary to myself and everyone at the same time.  After four innings I saw my bearded birthday buddy Matty cruise by in front of me, limping with chronic knee pain. He had had enough of the bleachers and was going to take his chances with standing room up in the grandstand near home plate.  I left the oligarchs and joined him, and seconds later, Jon. We may not have had a seat, but we were a threesome.

We were now getting jostled, our view obstructed more often than not, but I was with my boys, at home.  Dodging and moving, shucking and jiving, talking serious hard ball as the Sox were fighting an uphill battle against great pitching in a 1-0 hole. Although Matty didn't have the proper plastic dangling from his neck, his knee was killing him, so he took a disabled seat, front row standing room, against the rail.  Before Jonny and I parted from Matty, our wise bearded buddy shared the fact that historically the 6th inning brought the Sox great tidings.  We nodded and split. I had a hunch about the stairs to the Monster Seats, so we headed up the third base line.  Security was wearing Red Jackets, like half of the Fenway population, so they kept moving us along when we least expected it, and they were out in force. There was no comfort zone, standing room was six deep and if you paused to glance at the game while walking, there was hell to pay. Despite the hassle, this was more my style than hanging with the 1%.  This was a shared experience with Jonny, the guy who introduced me to Fenway 40 some-odd years ago.  If experience counted for anything, we would solve this Fenway riddle.

So we went to the far end of the left field grandstand, around the corner from the predator security forces, and found the Monster Seat stairs.  Climbing a quarter of the way up we got a clear view of 80% of the field, just under the rusted overhang.  From a security standpoint, we were in no man's land.  We had found the elusive seam and watched the game in peace. Pedroia walked in the bottom of the 6th, and we saw Papi stride to the plate. We would have been happy with a bleeder, but instead we got the blast.  We saw the majority of the ball's flight, but had to use our imagination to visualize the ball rattling around the first row of Monster Seats. What we did see clearly, was the hyper maniacal wave of energy from the entire left field grandstand down to third base.  It must be what Brazil is like when they score a winning goal in the World Cup.  We were inside a human bee colony after a being shoved by a stick, a scene I will never forget.  My lifelong Fenway buddy high-fived me and we drank it in from our little perch. A glimpse of eternity.

It was the last half inning on my score sheet.  I didn't want to play accountant any more.  It was probably a good thing.

Read it and Weep

The next entries for those keeping score revealed a painful collection of blunders, from bases on balls to a catcher doubleclutching on double steals to a Yale man making a frightfully poor decision to launch a hideous throw.  Every Cardinal incompetence that Red Sox media nation had held up to the world to portray the Red Birds inferiority was now happening to the Sox. In spades.

We collected a last round of tasteless beer for Matty as we returned to home plate, down two runs and and minus our manic energy.  The crowd was going dark: from life of the party to hung over school night.  Dark energy prevailed, lips that had once been smiling were now downturned as a lead had become a deficit in the blink of a hideous half inning. The Cardinal bullpen was firing 98 MPH BB's  toward the now impotent Sox bats.  I tried to use my ticket stub to clear out three riff-raff from what I thought were my seats, but  the gambit failed miserably. I chose the wrong row, then cowered away; MOJO had left the building. The three of us found obstructed seats next to a girder, and tried to will away the negativity, but there was no combating such lively pitching arms, and the now proud Red Birds had flipped the script, ending the Red Sox nine-game World Series winning streak. Jon and I could feel Matt's arthritic knee as we limped out of Fenway, in front of angrily honking S.U.V.'s, across the B.U. Bridge and finally to Matty's Toyota.  It was a long and painful mile, but we were with perfect, symmetrical company.  I was one of three high school classmates, lamenting a loss in the shadow of Fenway, in a swarm of wounded, drunken and bitter Sox fans. I knew this scene better than the Green line on the T, this was the flip side of the elation coin, and I loved it just as much.  From Papi's heroic blast to Breslow's boner, according to Rudyard Kipling triumph and disaster are both imposters, and on this night they occurred a half inning apart.   The evening's symmetry was stark: joyous arrival followed by deathly departure. The same coin in that iconic venue, hardball's hub, Fenway Park.

It stroked midnight, and it was now Matt's birthday. We peed in the bushes and piled into his car.  Jon's early Friday call at the TV station was now only hours away; his bright side was that he wouldn't be staying up late reviewing the happy highlights. We dropped him off and headed to the Square.  Matty would be painting a floor on Friday on his tortured knee. But it was his birthday and he wanted to explore Harvard Square's first new musical night spot in decades. We crawled into the bar and spent an hour sipping scotch and nicotine, telling our bittersweet tales of life and made a few friends while we were at it. It was in between today and tomorrow, back in high school, in the Square, at home.