Monday, May 19, 2008

Sport

I've been thinking of putting up a baseball post lately - seeing Joseph's Rangers within a game of .500, that sort of thing. I have more concrete inspiration now - I come home from seeing J'Entends Plus la Guitare (a rare and precious Philippe Garrel screening at Harvard) - in time to watch Jon Lester finish off a no-hitter. The sentimental among us should be pleased. The cynics among us should become a bit sentimental. The Red Sox fans among us can think we have 2 starters with a combined 48 starts and 2 no-hitters.

3 comments:

Joe Baker said...

Almost at .500 now after the 12 inning loss to Minnesota tonight. And any no hitter is nice, no matter who throws it.

And FYI.. I'll be seeing the Red Sox play in August... at Camden Yards no less! My brother and I are roadtripping it out to Washington DC to visit friends for a week and a half and we purchased tickets to a Wednesday night game in Baltimore against the Red Sox. Pretty psyched about that.

Erik said...

For ten years in a row (1995-2004)I visited Chicago to see the Cubs play. Unfortunately I couldn't keep the streak going, because of credit card debt that I decided I had to take care of.

The most historic moment I was blessed to witness was Sammy Sosa tying Hack Wilson's team record for home runs in a season (56) in 1998. I even snapped a picture that I blew up to an 8X10 and have hanging on my bedroom wall.

Less significant but treasured moments nevertheless were such as seeing a night game and feeling the cool breeze around my neck on a summer night while sitting near the left field foul pole, and thinking "this is the life..."

Or my very first Wrigley experience (which was my high school graduation gift from my father) and having been delayed getting to the ballpark by historic flooding, and thinking we'd miss the game but nevertheless trudged on, and arrived just in time to see Keith Moreland hit a 3-run homer that broke it open in the 4th inning of a game against the Mets in 1987.

weepingsam said...

It's odd - I've been to a lot of games, but have never seen anything historic - came closest once in Candlestick park - Padres were playing SF; the Padres starter - the non-ambidextrous Greg Harris - broke his finger bunting after 2 hitless innings: Rich Rodriguez came in and threw another 4+ innings of hitless ball - losing the no hitter in the 7th. Giants ended up winning, 1-0. Thanks to the magic of the internets, you can see the box score at baseball-reference.com. But most trips to the ball park are a delight - though I admit, somewhat shamefully, the were more delightful when you could go at will, rather than plan it out years in advance. (This may not apply outside of Boston.) But there have been some thrills - Pedro striking out the first three batters on 9 pitches; seeing Jacoby Ellsbury play his first major league game - beating out a routine grounder to the shortstop in his second at bat; going to the first game after the 94-95 strike, buying a ticket for $5 and sitting in the first row over the visitor's dugout; a couple extra inning pitchers duels - John Tudor and Bob Stanley going 13 and losing in one - back in the dark days of the 80s... Walking out of Camden Yards one July night because Tony LaRussa was running through his entire bullpen in the 6th inning - I haven't forgiven him for that... the fact that I have been to more stadiums that no longer exist - Veterans stadium; three rivers; candlestick - than that currently exist - Fenway and Camden Yards...