Friday, March 3, 2017

Me and the Monster



I’m one of baseball’s unlikeliest fans. I certainly didn’t have a sports-filled childhood. My parents’ idea of a leisure activity was a spirited dinner argument over how to pronounce ‘medieval’, reading the latest New Yorker, and building a better cocktail.

          And yet there I was yesterday, atop the Green Monster and happy as a clam.

          For those of you who aren’t Boston Red Sox fans (improbable as that may be), the Monster is both a treasure and a terror for players.

          This green wall in left field was part of the original Fenway Park construction of 1912. It was made of wood and was covered in tin and concrete in 1934 and still makes a distinctive sound when a ball thunks off of it. It’s the tallest wall in a Major League park and at over 37 feet high it takes experience and skill to know how to field it.


          This is why, when the Sox replicated Fenway at their summer training location in Jetblue Park in Ft. Meyers, they included all the dimensions of home field in Boston, right down to the Monster. (Or, as they say in Beantown, the Monstah.)

          It provides a different perspective on the game, perched up there. Unfortunately, you’re also at the mercy of the relentless Florida sun, so I’d been watching the weather report with zeal and had lathered us both up with sunscreen that morning.

 We lucked out – it was a partly cloudy day.

The Sox creamed Tampa Bay.

And My Guy, aka The Birthday Boy, checked one more item off the bucket list. 

         

8 comments:

  1. Cool! I love that last picture. :-)

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  2. What fun! My aunt and uncle were snow birds, and my aunt a die hard Indian fan. They had season tickets to the Indians spring camp, in Florida. Both were gone before the camp was moved to Arizona. I think my aunt might have blocked the moving vans.

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  3. I used to enjoy watching baseball and if I went to a spring training game perhaps I still would. I don't now because two people going to a game would cost upwards of $100 what with tickets, a beer or two and some food. They priced us right out of going. but that's not the reason I don't enjoy watching, and I mean there at the game, I don't watch on TV at all. When they started televising every game then the game got longer as the players stood out on the field scratching their nuts and spitting waiting for the commercials to be over. I'm sitting there in the stands yelling 'play ball'.

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  4. Well, I learn something new everyday!

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  5. I was wondering if you would take advantage of spring training in Fl. I listen to them on a radio app. So glad it was a super win.

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  6. I know zero about sports. Fun though to read about other bloggers interests.

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  7. Sounds like fun. Glad your Guy had a happy birthday.

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  8. A very happy belated birthday to your guy.
    Sport? Not for me. I suspect I would have been happy with your parents involvement in it. But know I am in the minority.

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