RED SOX NATION!

by Mike McGuirk

from ChinMusic! #6

I just went to 5 Red Sox games in six days. I haven't slept much so sorry if this goes on a little.

I saw the sweep in Oakland and then on Thursday at the last minute me and my friend Jay Boronski made frenzied attempts to first buy plane tickets that weren't $500 to Seattle and then to rent a car. We came up empty. In a last ditch effort we made a round of phone calls asking to borrow cars from people. Phone calls that potentially alienated girls we've dated, ex-girlfriends, a number of good friends and acquaintances.

Here is one of the responses I got:

>>Hello:

>>I received your bullshit call. Give me a call today at work so I can tell you (phone) face to (phone) face to fuck off.

>>Regards,

>>Olb

Then like an angel my friend Tara swung some deal at Alaska Airlines and got us on a flight Saturday morning. We arrived in Seattle at 11AM. Jay's friend Milo picked us up in a 2001 Audi Quattro, black leather interior, exterior made entirely of aluminum, oil-slick button on the dash -- the whole nine yards. That is an $80,000.00 car. On the way into the city Milo said, "This car goes really fast" and punched it up to 120 mph. Then he said "It also has really good brakes" and he slammed them on and I am convinced that for a split second the car actually stopped.

The sox dropped two, the Yankees picked up two and the mariners inched into a half game out of first. But Pedro was worth it. So was Rickey's diving catch to stop the bleeding and the time they nailed Ichiro trying to steal third. I also saw a successful bases loaded bunt, a play that will probably not happen again this year.

Pedro's dominating performance yesterday was like watching the sweet, bloody climax of a well-made revenge flick. Every strike he threw fed me and healed the wounds suffered in the two nights prior. The only way it could have been better would be if he had opened the game with a high heat Ichiro drilling. Then the night would have been perfect.

Safeco is beautiful. Really a great park and the Mariners are without a doubt a technically great team. They truly appear infallible and you can't help but respect them. In fact I like the Mariners a lot but that Safeco place is kind of warped. Boronski called it a utopia of corporate sponsorship. It's a fascist wet dream. I distinctly had the feeling that somewhere underneath the park they were torturing children, first to expiate the sins of those above watching the team turn DP after DP and secondly to grind the kids up and feed the pigs in the stands their kielbasas. The park mercilessly pounds you with theme music, ads, mascots (a moose, a monkey, a superhero who collects the recycling) there is a dot race, a boat race, a keep your eye on the ball three card monte thing, a blooper montage, a trivia question, an attendance question, a who could this be? mystery photo, I looked at the screen in right field at one point and it flashed "Mariners Moose!" -- that's it. Just Mariner's Moose! what is that for? I suspect the idea of a child losing interest during a long wait between Ichiro at bats is a frightening proposition for the shadowlords that run that place so I guess there's your motivation.

There's a theme song for when a wild pitch is thrown ("wild thing") a theme song for when there's a walk (three guesses) a theme song for everything. I know everybody does this but the shit was loud and in your face. The fake clapping sound scared the shit out of me when I first heard it. Between the howling trains blaring out of nowhere every 5 minutes and the ceaseless music track I was a jumpy as shit by the end of the game on Sunday. On Saturday night they played closer Kazuhiro Sasaki's thump-house fag theme in between his pitches. The Sox had men on and 2 outs in the ninth, a high-pressure situation and they had this boom boom boom gonna make you sweat shit going full blast. It would stop and start -- the players had to wait for it end to get in the batter's box.

There is a pregame show featuring two faceless newscasters down on the field interviewing players and making jokes like "Well Pedro's pretty unhittable, but our Mariners are too -- they don't hit the ball till it's pitched!" yuk yuk. There was a looped announcer an hour before the game selling tickets, encouraging charity, laying down the law, introducing children, putridly gushing highlights from the game the night before ("Bases loaded -- He wouldn't bunt! Or would he!!?"). There is a constant seamless stream of song snippets from when you enter to when you leave. It's all turned up so loud you just get beat down.

At both games the grounds crew did a choreographed dance in between the 5th and 6th inning to the ecstatic shrieking and apparent surprise of the crowd. In an interview with the crew chief that aired in between the starting lineups and the star spangled banner I learned that they do it every night. What I didn't get was why they don't just do it between every batter. It would work better that way I know it because there was a split second between batters once where my mind actually wandered. Luckily the thought I had was how important it is for one to obey one's thirst.

You can watch the relievers warming in the bullpen from about 6 feet away, separated only by a chain-link fence, which strangely enough makes them seem even less human. It's nice to get close but with all the children everywhere and the fence and the way professional baseball players keep from going insane by pretending it's normal to have people staring at them and ignoring those same people -- with all this it really feels like the zoo. I guess the accessibility is something you think you want, everybody wants to see the pitchers warm up, I want to see them too, but I don't want them to feel my eyes upon them, like they're a goddamn polar bear in a bathtub at Southwick Animal Farm. It's fucking creepy.

That first night's game was tough. Not to uphold a stereotype but I heard grown Mariner fans ask, "Are we still winning?" a number of times. Also Spike Owen threw out the first pitch and they had a Spike Owen ceremony before the game and they showed his face on the big screen and said "Spike Owen" maybe fifty times between batting practice and first pitch. Then in the fifth inning they had a "Who's This?" photo on the big screen. A photo of Spike Owen as a 20 yr old. Next to the photo it said "Can you name the Mariner?" and then after a couple seconds I swear it said "Here's a hint: His name is Spike."

It may sound like I'm bitter about the 2 losses but I'm not bitter, honest. That park is freaky. I like the Mariners and am fully aware of my Sox's chances come the end of the year (especially when they do shit like send Manny Ramirez to home from first base). But who cares. This season is fun so far and every fan knows your team doesn't need to win for you to love it. Winning it all is just some kind of gift a small portion of fans get. That doesn't mean I don't want it. What I want is to win it all and for Pedro to hit as many batters as he can in the process. Head shots, chin music, sore-ass, small of the back. Senor Plunk.

After the loss we ended up in a bar called the Central and we turned it into Red Sox Nation on a rampage -- like 20 -30 Sox fans literally took over and went bananas -- chanting screaming slamming the tables with our fists. It is with great pride that I tell you our table was the main and initial instigator. Me, Jay, Tara and Jason and Amy -- this pair of siblings from Vermont that we met in the bleachers (I knew we were going to drink with them after the game when in the first inning Jason referred to Drew Bledsoe's playoff game heroics in Pittsburgh as being "Just like Pele's full rotation kick in Victory") -- led the bar in a litany of toasts to our heroes, defiant triumphant chants and x-rated taunts at the top of our lungs -- it was euphoric beyond description, there was this atmosphere of victory in defeat that was unbelievable.

It started out with just our party being real loud and pro-sox and then it just grew and grew. The Sox fans came to us. The brother and sister duo from the bleachers turned out to be the children of a former Bruins goalie named Bob Ring. The guy played a total of 8 minutes and got lit up for 4 goals in a 1965 loss to the Rangers. But it didn't matter; he was a Bruin. They told us a story about their father rooming with Derek Sanderson in the sixties, when they were both in the Bruins farm system. The Bruins organization had two farm systems, Bobby Orr was coming up in one and Derek Sanderson was coming up in the other, along with Jason and Amy's father Bob Ring. Since the NHL Bruins team had been terrible for years the organization was excited about the talent they were amassing in the farm system. Orr was already a great player with a reputation. To prove to the public that in a few years they would have a contending team the owners decided to have the two farm squads play each other in the Garden. The night before the game Ring was having dinner at Derek Sanderson's house. Sanderson's father offered his son some advice, "Derek, they're gonna remember two guys after tomorrow night and those are the guys that are gonna make the big leagues. There are only two players on that ice that are gonna matter for shit after tomorrow night -- Orr ... AND THE GUY WHO FIGHTS ORR!" The next night Sanderson jumped on Orr almost immediately.

Someone stood up and yelled "To the Bruins!" and we all clinked. Then bleacher guy Jason toasted the Sox and then I stood up and yelled "To Oil Can Boyd!" and it was on. The litany went on and on. Denny Doyle, Bruce Hurst, Cam Neely, Marty Barrett, Bill Lee ("The Spaceman!"), Kevin McHale, Izzy Alcantara, Jim Rice (Jim ED!"), Adam Vinatieri, Bernard Carbo, Rico Petrocelli, Carl Yazstremski, Bobby Orr, Derek Sandersen, Drew Bledsoe, the New England Patriots, Dwight Evans, Whitey Bulger, Juan Beniquez, John LeClair, Irving Fryar, Jimy Williams, Paul Pierce, Lawyer Milloy, Spag's is next to Lizer, Left on Spitbrook, Right on Daniel Webster, Mike Dukakis, Kitty Dukakis, Rubbing Alcohol, Dave Patten, Jim Craig (Jay yelled "He killed somebody while driving a boat! DUI! Boat style-y!") Freddy Lynn, Rick Burleson ("The Rooster!"), Carlton Fisk, Steve Grogan, George The Boomer Scott, Nate "Tiny" Archibald, Peter McNabb, Dave Henderson, Robert Parrish ("The Chief!"), Luis Tiant ("El Tiante!") Tony Conigliaro (a hush for Tony C.), Jerry Remy, Steve Renko, Cedric Maxwell, Bill Russell, Larry Legend, Paul Pierce again, New England Patriots again, Terry O'Reilly, Meadowlark Lemon, the girl in the red shirt over there with the big tits. The Mariners fans had never seen anything like it. During the game, when we raised the old-school '"Here we go red sox here we go!" cheer in the bleachers people were mystified, freaked out enough and now here in the bar -- they looked at us like we were totally insane.

There were people buying double rounds of beers. One of the bartenders was from Lawrence Massachusetts and he gave us a free round. The bar ran out of Rolling Rock. A guy bought 22 shots of Jameson's and passed them out. "To Red Sox Nation" Then "Here we go red sox Here we go!" went up for a long time. It was followed by a Yankees suck cheer and then a bunch of doo-dah cheers, like "Jeter takes it up the ass doo-dah, doo-dah" and "Ichiro is an H. Mo doo-dah, doo-dah" which I didn't understand until I worked out the syllables right but the best one was from our Vermont buddy who was lamenting and praising Bledsoe all night. "Drew Bledsoe came into that Pittsburgh game and I got chills! I got chills! If I could live that moment again I would give anything. He came in like Lazarus! Belicheck rolled away the stone and Drew came out and right away first pass he went long to show his arm was still strong. Then he ran that same play that got him hurt and got hit and his aorta didn't burst! Then he tossed one in the pocket beautiful right to Dave Patton. It was beautiful. It was like Jesu Christo. He did what JC would have done. And you know what? You know what? Mary Magdalene had her money on Pittsburgh!"

He asked if I had read Bledsoe's goodbye letter to the fans:
"If I could be Yaz for you I would.
If I could be Cam Neely I would.
If I could be Larry Legend for you I would.
Because I love you.
But I'm not Cam Neely.
I'm not Teddy Ballgame.
I'm Drew Bledsoe and I love you.
God Loves All."

Then he led us in "Drew Bledsoe he bled for you, doo-dah doo-dah"

We started chanting "PE-DRO MAÑ-ANA, PED-RO MAÑ-ANA" because we knew what was going to happen. You could feel it -- 9 game winning streak snapped, consecutive losses, he felt great in Oakland, it was gonna be warm. 8-0 and 0.98 ERA in Seattle. Everybody knew what was going to happen. We believed because Pedro is a champion. "PE-DRO MAÑ-ANA, PE-DRO MAÑ-ANA" louder and louder and more insolent as it got louder. I figured we would be killed but fuck it it was pure Boston impossible dream cursed sox fan defiance. It felt incredible. It was like the end of the Bad News Bears. We lost fuck you we will win tomorrow.

The next day me and Jay got to the game early so as to catch batting practice. When we got there a slow moving parade of children was circling the perimeter of the field in their little league uniforms. Normally I would have been touched by the kids with their gloves and their team uniforms but I was in a bad frame of mind. I hated those kids. The thing I hated was that some of the kids had regular little league uniforms, with the logo on the shirt and crappy hats. But they were outnumbered by kids in uniforms that were exact replicas of major league teams. For some reason I just thought how much the kids in the crappy uniforms hated playing the kids in bright green and yellow A's uniforms or the full-on Indians get up. That would suck.

We went down to the field and watched the Mariners Moose cavort around with kids as they passed by the visitor's dugout. We were standing right by it and there was a security guard in his 80s looking on passively. I told Jay I would pay him $10 if he jumped on the field and put the Moose in a headlock. The security guard must have heard me and he apparently thought I was serious because he came over and said, "OK you guys better go find your seats." The game wasn't starting for like 40 minutes. Another asshole. So we took some seats no one was sitting in right by third base. We decided we would stay there until somebody with tickets came for them since our seats were in the bleachers.

Fifteen minutes later a family came and asked us if maybe we had made a mistake and were in their seats. I hated everything at this point so I said, "No, these are our seats." The husband said, "Really? Are you sure? Because we have this row and these seats. Maybe your tickets are wrong." I said "No our tickets are right. Here take a look." And the guy looked at my ticket for a minute and said, "These are bleacher seats, you need to go over…" and I said, "Hey buddy how about this -- how bout you go fuck yourself. These are OUR seats. Our seats aren't in the bleachers. YOUR seats are in the bleachers. Our seats are right here by third base. I ain't sittin' in the bleachers. So why don't YOU go get the fuck out of here and go sit in the bleachers." The look of shock on his face made me nervous for a minute like we might get thrown out now but he turned meekly and said he was mistaken and sorry to bother you and went and sat in the bleachers. Me and Jay high-fived each other and went back to smoking angel dust.

Pedro strode out to the hill and just mowed them down. He was like Billy Jack karate chopping the system. It was the Pedro we needed, the untouchable, god-like Pedro. You can tell how he feels from the bleachers. His body language is a clear signal to the world. I AM EL DURO. He struck out the first four batters. He went ahead 0-2 on practically every batter he faced. After throwing more than a hundred pitches he brought a 97 mile an hour heater down on Ruben Sierra who popped it up to end the 8th and then Sunny Kim finished the 9th ugly style and ruined the 10-1, 3 hit, 12 strikeout final, ending it at 10-4. Anyway Pedro shot them down and we got our one win and stayed in first and I know I know it's May. But it was nice when 2/3 of the stadium left in the 6th inning and there was a line of crabby pissed off little shits outside "Kid's Cove -- the Fun Zone Ballpark for Kids!" that wrapped around the centerfield walkway. In the 9th, when the Sox took faceless Seattle reliever J Kay out behind the shed and gave him a good old fashioned pasting, the music stopped and as one batter after another slapped no-out, run-scoring doubles all over the place and Kay was officially being hung out to dry the only sound was the exclamations of sox fan joy spread around the park, the rest was just dead silence.