Fenway Park Knows There’s a Yankees Fan Hiding in its Midst

May 24, 2013

If you live in the Northeast region of the United States, you were most likely blessed with gross, frigid weather for Memorial Day Weekend. For the second straight time paying the city of Boston (and Fenway Park for that matter) a visit, I was greeted by rain, wind, and cold. During the summer. In fact, upon my arrival, I received the following text message from Maria: “I feel like you bring rain to Boston every time you see the Red Sox!”

Despite the rain falling in sheets, NESN (New England Sports Network aka: New England’s version of SNY or YES) assured us that first pitch would go on as scheduled. Skeptical, we left Erin’s apartment (armed with towels, umbrellas, and layers) and took the green line to Kenmore with enough time for us to grab food and get to our seats before Jon Lester was set to take the mound for the Sox. 

When we reached Fenway Park, we stopped briefly outside to take what’s becoming a traditional yoga photo outside Gate C on Lansdowne Street. Because yoga and baseball totally go hand in hand. Right? Since I’d already started doing eight angle pose at the games, I felt obligated to do it here…with my poor midget hands sitting in the cold, dirty puddles of the Boston sidewalk. Pleasant. Don’t worry. Erin showered my hands in anti-bacterial cream as soon as I stood up.

Naturally, once we got inside, we found the tarp covering the field and the already tight concourse packed with people trying to stay dry during the rain delay. We knew that the best “meat” in the ballpark was the kind sold from vendors stationed on Yawkey Way, so we headed in that direction pretty soon after entering the building. Unfortunately, when we reached our destination, we discovered Yawkey Way to be totally deserted!

 

Quite unlike the Yawkey Way I remember from my last visit:

We stood in the rain for a few moments, contemplating the gravity of the situation. Now we’d have to eat a hot dog from INSIDE the stadium. Meat that, based on our last memory of the Fenway Frank, was just one step above the Dodger Dog (aka: grilleddead baby finger). This was an unappealing prospect. We talked about not eating. Yes. Me. I actually talked about not getting food. You’ve seen the unlimited powers of my stomach right here on this blog and yet, here I was telling myself, “You’re really not that hungry.” When have I EVER said that? Oh, yes. When I had food poisoning.  

Erin had gotten a really cool souvenir Ted Williams soda cup with his career stats on it. I saw it on display at a few concession stands and decided I wanted one. I rarely drink soda, but for $7.50 (with free refills I might add…very cool), I felt that the little splurge on root beer (although I’m not sure why they were so against filling my cup with actual beer) was worth it. The stand right next to the Gate C entrance (yes, we walked all the way back to where we’d come in) had no line. After receiving my soda, we noticed a sandwich board nearby listing the specialty Fenway Franks they had to offer. There was A LOT! Infinitely more than when Lisa and I came to town.

The lovely man pulling cashier duty told us that normally, he’s supposed to charge $2 extra/hot dog for adding toppings, but if we rung out food up together, he’d only charge $2 total for our toppings. Obviously the man was an angel sent to take care of us (before you question this, yes, I can be bought with something as simple as $2 hot dog toppings…and yes, I’m aware that this is pathetic). As he fixed our hot dogs, I noticed that something truly terrible and tragic had happened. My Ted Williams cup was not Ted Williams at all. It was Carl Yastrzemski. What the shit? Calmly, I put my best smile on (the one I use when I want something from you) and asked if I could switch cups. Pretty please? His supervisor kindly explained that there were none left, only the one on display, which had a hole punched into the bottom to prevent theft. Carl Yastrzemski was the park’s “series 2” cup and Ted Williams was “series 1.” I was stunned. Was Yastrzemski a great player? Yes. Did that mean I wanted his cup? No. I’m a f*cking Yankees fan. What the hell do I want that sh*t in my bedroom for? Ted Williams was the only acceptable option for me. He seemed to sense my distress because he offered the Ted Williams display cup to me for no charge, which I happily accepted. It’s now in my bedroom (with Yastrezemski’s cup tucked into it) next to the ball Adam LaRoche tossed me during a batting practice at Shea Stadium from his days as an Atlanta Brave.

The hot dogs renewed our faith in the Fenway Frank. Let’s call it a comeback, shall we? They were NOT garbage. They were pretty damn yummy and cost us a total of $12 for both. Erin’s hot dog had nacho cheese sauce and chili while mine was topped with jalapeño peppers, spicy mustard, Choulula hot sauce, and sauerkraut (because within me lives a fat kid that loves cake and pizza).

 

You may have noticed from this photo that I’m not wearing a Red Sox hat (and if you didn’t notice, now you have). I’m wearing a Notre Dame Softball hat. The Fighting Irish was not playing that day or anything like that, but I refused to wear a Red Sox hat and I was not going to be “that a-hole” who wears Yankees hats to games in which the Yankees are not playing. This hat prompted a lot of charming old men working at Fenway to ask what position Erin and I played on the softball field (catcher and third). We’d never played for Notre Dame (the hat is a gift from Old Man Ed that was bought during his trip to see the Notre Dame football team take on Stanford several months earlier), but they didn’t need to know that.

We got to our seats just as the Red Sox were gearing up for their first inning. We wiped down our soaked chairs with Erin’s towels and settled in under the umbrella. Our section was empty and we hoped that the rain had driven most of the crowd away so we’d be able to keep the umbrella over our heads for the duration of the game.

 

 

 

Luck would not be in our favor. The umbrella lasted over our heads for maybe 10 minutes. After the people sitting behind us showed up, we lowered the umbrella to cover our legs so at least our thighs wouldn’t get wet. We spent the rest of the game looking and acting somewhat like this:

It was like Fenway Park knew that within its midst, there was a sleeper agent. Someone dressed in a way that was passable for a local Red Sox fan, but harbored love for the enemy. That sleeper agent was me and the enemy was the Yankees. In my only two Red Sox games at Fenway, a heavy downpour slammed us, like the stadium tried to purify itself of the toxin strolling along its concourses, sitting in its seats, and eating its food. I did not belong there.

Besides the shoddy defense (caused by what we assumed was the bad weather) and 3-run 2^nd inning by the Red Sox off of Justin Masterson, the game proved to be somewhat uneventful until the 6^th inning. Through it all, the rain continued to fall and our clothing continued to soak through our layers of clothing. Here we are, fake smiling in our misery:

Here are some cute kids that were small enough to sit and fit beneath this umbrella. Lucky turds:

Oh, look. More f*cking rain:

At this point, we were begging for 1, 2, 3 innings. Please, just end this game. The Sox were winning, we wanted to go home. The players MUST’VE wanted to go home, but it would not be so. The Red Sox decided to stage what seemed like a never-ending rally in the 7^th that included a bevy of pitching changes (in actuality, it was only 4 runs and 2 pitching changes, but it felt like a lot more as we sat there shivering with clenched muscles and chattering teeth). We agreed that once we stood, we were so drenched and cold that there was no way we could possibly sit back down. We’d just leave. At the end of the 7^th, we’d had enough. The Red Sox were ahead 8-1 and I’d swear that the rain began falling harder.  

Before we left, we asked the security guard to snap a photo of us with the field. He took two.

 

Like our sarcastic thumbs up in front of the Green Monster? As he gave back my camera, he noticed my hat.
“You played softball?”
“I did. Yes.”
“What position?”
“Third.”
To Erin. “You?”
“I was a catcher.”
“You were the smartest one of the field.”

Haha. That man was awesome.

-Serena

Yankees Opening Day 2013

April 1, 2013
Strangely enough, this year’s opening day experience felt like one giant “That’s What She Said” joke as opposed to an actual baseball game. I mean, I barely recognized the lineup that the Yankees fielded that day, one of the players sounded more like a brand of tomato sauce (Ben Francisco – FranCISCO, that’s fun to say!) and I had the privilege of staring at an a-hole play firstbase for most of the game. Plus, there were actual “that’s what she said” jokes being made throughout the entire day. The rumors are true. The joke does not get old. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

The beginning of our story begins in Staten Island. Our ride needed to make a pit stop in Staten Island before heading to the game, so he dropped Jess and I off at a sh*t-hole diner in a really sexy part of Staten Island (said no one ever) for the better part of 2 hours while he gallivanted about conducting his business. Initially, the men working the diner seemed excited to have two young females with big boobs and all of their teeth walk in to their establishment. We even got free coffee out of the deal. However, after a solid 45 minutes of our personalities, our boobs weren’t nearly big enough to get away with our behavior. I’m not sure anyone’s boobs are big enough to be quite honest. When we were done eating, there was simply not enough to do at the diner to keep us occupied, so we settled for texting our ride incessantly like real f*cking a-holes:

“You said 40 minutes. It’s been more than 40 minutes.”
“A man with a hearing aid told us to be quiet.”
“Where is the closest tourist shop? Jess would like to purchase an ‘I love Staten Island’ t-shirt. Perhaps a snow globe of the Staten Island ferry.”
“Does Staten Island have WiFi?”
“There are a lot of construction workers in here. Is that common for Staten Island?”
“They want to know when our Uncle is coming to pick us up.”
(he actually laughed aloud at the last two)

When we were finally collected at 11:30, the guys at the diner practically threw a parade in our honor. I’ll admit that I’ve been inside quite a few female strip clubs and I assure you that I’ve never seen a happier group of men than these three guys when we exited the premises.

We apparently exerted a lot of energy acting like complete d*ckheads at the diner because Jess took a brief power nap on the way to the Stadium whereas I seemed to have temporarily blacked out because I have almost zero recollection of the drive. It was either incredibly uneventful or I’d been roofied back at the diner. On our approach to the Stadium from the Major Deegan, I managed to snap a few photos of the utter beauty that is the Bronx for you. I figured you’d enjoy it.

Okay, this photo isn’t so bad. It actually creates the illusion that Yankees Stadium is located in a lovely, peaceful location. It’s not.

Walking from the parking lot to the stadium, I had the fortune of needing to follow this fool:

Don’t you think it’s a little early to be jumping on this a$$ clown’s band wagon? Actually, I’m gonna go ahead and say that you shouldn’t EVER jump on this a$$ clown’s band wagon. EVER.

We settled into our awesome seats to wait for the pre-game ceremonies, which was a fairly difficult task for us since we were hungry…again. But we managed...with a touch of goofiness.

We (me) showed my Big Texan some love:

I can’t stress enough the awesome view we had of the CC Sabathia/Jon Lester matchup. It was amazing. Too bad the action sucked, as Brother would say, a bag of dicks. More on that later.

We held a moment of silence for Bob Turley, old time Yankee pitcher who’d died on Saturday.

The moment of silence for Turley, however, wasn’t nearly as heavy or sad as the league-wide moment held for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. I can’t speak for what other teams did, but the Yankees’ scoreboard showed a scrolling list of the names of the victims.

 

Former Rock of Ages star, Constantine Moroulis sang the National Anthem. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Constantine. He’s an adorable, scruffy, dark-haired (yes, yes, yes) rocker boy (honestly, is there a man out there that can out-sex a rocker boy? No. I think not) that used to perform epic 80’s rock tunes on Broadway. I am pretty sure that I just described the ideal male. All this man needs is a cigar and a bottle of Johnny or Jameson. Having said that, I’m pretty confident that he invented his own lyrics to the National Anthem. I don’t know if I should be proud of his artistry or offended that an American citizen potentially doesn’t know the correct words to his nation’s Holy Grail of songs. 

One of Mamadukes’ favorite Yankees, Sweet Lou (Piniella) threw out the ceremonial first pitch. I actually got a snippet of video for you. I’m so proud of myself because it had been so long since I used the video feature on my camera that I actually forgot what I was doing and just pressed every button on the camera in hopes that I caught something…anything really. I was and am not picky.

Here’s the bad news about our seats. I had to look at this a-hole for most of the game:

Annnnnnd with Sabathia’s first pitch, we were off!

Literally. Jess and I were starving. We needed sustenance. We couldn’t possibly concentrate on baseball on a semi-empty stomach. Imagine. Listening to your Food Baby whine and jibber jab while trying to focus on Sabathia’s first performance of the season. Thankfully, a Premio sausage stand was two feet away from our seats. It was like Baby Jesus wanted us to be happy. And by Baby Jesus, I mean Joe Mauer, not the actual baby Jesus. The line at the stand was super short as well! BONUS! We might have to stare at an a-hole playing first all day, but we’d at least be feeding while we suffered. Fatty baseball food and booze can alleviate just about any pain.

Turns out, Baby Jesus was mocking us. This was the longest short line in the history of mankind. I’ve taken quicker showers than this line moved (as a reference point, I take such long showers that Brother has asked if I’ve managed to solve world hunger while in there). We each ordered a foot long hot dog, Italian sausage sandwich (hot for me, sweet for Jess) and a beer for $26.25/each. The amusing part of that order is when I ordered what I wanted, the woman asked, “Do you want to pay for this together?” Jess made a face and replied, “That’s HER order! I want the same thing though.” By the time we got back to our seats, it was already the top of the 2^nd inning. How long does it take you to fetch two already made sausages and hot dogs? This is what our food looks like together in all its glory:

And since you’re a bunch of perverts, here are the phallic photos of us eating our food:

We decided to take the sausage photo ourselves because of the creepy dude (who you can see in the background of the sausage photo) who enjoyed taking the hot dog photo WAY too much.
Creeper: “I’ll take another one if you want.” Winky face.
Jess: “Yeah, I’m sure you will.”

As for the Yankees, their Cracker Jack defense and Sabathia’s inconsistency gave up 4 runs. Fantastic. The offense, on the other hand, only accomplished picking their nose and flicking it at the Red Sox on the field.

Speaking of the Red Sox, Dustin Pedroia, his gross facial hair makes him look like “a little fur monger” (according to my notes on the game).

I feel it necessary to comment on our neighbor sitting in front of us because I’m a bitch. He was an international tourist enjoying his first baseball game. For starters, everyone could see his passport hanging out of his back pocket. He was basically begging to be robbed. This is the Bronx, not Uptown Manhattan. Secondly, he chose to drink Budweiser…the King of Beers. Coming from Europe, you’d think his taste in beer was better.  Lastly, he was a big fan of “Love Fool” by The Cardigans. Nevermind the strange situation that would prompt Yankees Stadium to play that song in the first place. This dude straight up jammed out to the song. There was an air guitar involved. Who does air guitar to The Cardigans?

Things continued to go downhill on the field for the Yankees. The jack wagon filling in for Mark Teixeira at first is apparently unable to field a bunt, which by definition makes him an a-hole. This is the man that’s supposed to be replacing Alex Rodriguez at third. AROD is a lot of things: pretty, fragile, dumb as a doorknob. At the VERY LEAST, the man can field his position properly. The Yankees really should’ve considered starting me in Tex’s place. I’m a borderline expert on bunting. In our seats, we had other issues:

It was around this time also that I was informed that my “breasts pay property taxes.” In case the joke is above your heads, it basically means that my boobs are so big, they’re a piece of property that warrants taxes to be paid on them.

In the top of the 7^th, Old Man Ed fetched us each a Lobel’s steak sandwich (FYI: $16) and a Stella (a lot of money for a beer…I don’t know. I didn’t pay). The Red Sox were winning by 5-2 at this point. Good times.

Jess’ neighbor was an enormous fan of 80’s music. Jess had to endure him singing along to every single 80’s song that Yankees Stadium’s PA system played. Not anything current though. Snoop was definitely not on his list of favorite songs. By the end of the game, Jess had had enough. “If he wasn’t so enthusiastic about the YMCA, I might’ve been able to endure Queen.”

With the Red Sox winning 8-2 in the 9^th, it was time for us to leave. In the car, we ate leftover munchkins and argued about who needed to charge their phone more.

Since I was the passenger, I got the task of plugging everyone’s charger into one outlet or another. The USB port for Jess’ iPhone proved most challenging:
“I can’t find the hole.”
“You need to get your head in there.”
“I still can’t find it!”
“Really get your head down there!”
“I can’t see! It’s too dark!”
“Did you get it in?”
“Oh, I found it!”
Yup. You guessed it. “That’s what she said.” It doesn’t get old.