Earning his keep

Well, David Wells did well last nite. Finally proving that he's worthy to be a Red Sox.

For that matter, Randy Johnson did not do too well. I love that the Yankees are below (WAY below 500) Let the Curse of the ARod begin!

Fever Pitch and Sunday's Game

First let me talk about Fever Pitch. I went to see the sneak preview on Friday night so I can get psyched up for Opening Day. I thought it would be the perfect chick + Sox fan movie. I'm not sure if it was a great chick flick, but I loved the Sox-ness of it all. The clips and references to historical Sox disasters/triumphs made me relive memories. Talk about an emotional roller coaster. Of course, the clips of last year's World Series brought tears to my eyes as I remembered that moment when I was in Boston Beer Works celebrating.

Anyways, Sunday's game. The elation at the end of last season suddenly wiped out. Reminded me of the fate of a Sox fan. Even winning the series, some things never change. It's kinda nice. Though I can't even believe the Yankees fans showed their disgraced faces at all. How can one live down the biggest choke in history? I'll have to ask some of my Yankees fans-"friends".

Is it just me, or is it just plain weird to see David Wells playing for us. Against the Yankees. I think he intentionally blew it as he is not a true Sox player. We'll see over the season if he can prove me wrong, but I can't wait for Schilling to play again. Our home opener on the 11th will be sweet. Though I don't think Schilling's playing until the 13th. He really should open on the 11th. Without him and the bloody sock, we wouldn't have done it last season.

Happy Days are Here Again

Do you know what puts a smile on my face? That there are MLB game stats again. That means it's Spring Training and baseball season is coming up again.

When I lived in Boston, it meant so much more. Spring Training meant that even though there's a foot of snow on the ground, the end is near. Even though I live in California, I still have experience joy when March comes around.

March is the greatest month in the world...

1) March Madness (will, it was better when Stanford was ranked)
2) End of winter soon (Too many years in Boston to say March was the end of Spring since we'd get freak snow storms in April)
3) Planting of flowers in the Boston Garden
4) Excuse to consume massive amounts of Guinnesses in the middle of the month (3/17)
5) BASEBALL SEASON SOON!!!!

Normally I'd be sad because it also means the end of hockey season. But yeah, no tapering off of Bruins games for me this year...

So, go out and celebrate all you New Englanders or Baseball fans! I'll see you out at the pubs on St. Paddy's Day!

Kenmore Square the night of chaos and celebration 

Boston Beer Works the night we clinched the World Series title 

Cubs Next?

Now what? Well, I do have a whole off-season to figure out what I'm going to do next season. It just seems wrong to be a Sox fan without feeling the anguish of yet another defeat. Will the loyal die-hard Sox fans know how to cope next season? What is opening day going to look like as Yankees fans hide their heads in shame?

Maybe it's time to root for the Cubs. Or maybe I'm a masochist.

The Red Sox winning was perfect. The beauty of sports is that there is no determined outcome and that the field is level. Of course, that's not true in reality, but it should be. I used to love hockey because the players didn't seem as obsessed about their own salaries and still seemed to play because they loved to play. A sport where they still respect their coaches and knew when to suck it up. The same reason that I like college basketball. And then all the hullabaloo occurs this hockey season and we are without hockey games this year. For someone who is not a football fan and not a big pro-basketball fan, the only games I counted on were baseball games and hockey games. What a topsy turvy year.

Though one of the best hopes to come out of this year is that maybe it will be the beginning of the Curse of the ARod for the Yanks. One can only dream...

Mounties and stormtroopers

So, I'm back. Went to Boston Beer Works (by Fenway) at 5:30pm to get a seat. Even though it was looking good that we would actually win the series this year, the actual moment that we clinched it was amazing. One of the most thrilling moments in my life.

I just came back from the festivities. It was crazy, There were a ton of police in riot gear marching in lines down Brookline Ave. It looked like a mass of stormtroopers (in black rather than while). And they redirected us out of Brookline to Kenmore. The main action was in Kenmore and Landsdowne. There were more police in riot gear and mounted police, but didn't do anything to decrease the insanity. People started fires on the street, climbed traffic light posts and launched themselves flying into the crowd. There was a guy with a bagpipe. Lots of drunk people (most of them probably freshman who just became Sox fans to have an excuse to party). There were fireworks. There was flashing. There were side parties. It was chaos and we all loved it. It was what we had been waiting for for 86 years.

Thank you Derek for your consistent pitches. Thank you Curt for bearing through the pain. Thank you Pedro for your strikeouts. Thank you Wakefield for sacrificing your starts. Thank you Papi for your homers. Thank you Johnny for your grand slams... The gratitude that we Sox fans feel for ending our misery and pain is boundless.

Though now that I've been trained to see baseball games as a series of agonizing defeats, I don't what to do now that we've finally won. Maybe it's time to be a Cubs or White Sox fan now.

Keeping the Faith

Words are unnecessary to describe how a Sox fan feels right now. Here are some points to consider:

1) We came from a 0-3 deficit in the ALCS
2) we defeated our nemesis
3) we redeemed ourselves from last year's ALCS Game 7 fiasco
4) we have not been to the World Series since 1986
5) We have a chance of beating the Curse
6) The whole world was rooting for us (the underdogs)

So really, it was a sweet victory no matter how you look at it.

So, I'm going to Boston on a red-eye tonite. My manager was kind enough to let me work from Boston all next week so I can be in town with fellow fans as we beat the Curse. Of course, I will also need to purchase a whole bunch of merchandise that says some combination of "Sox" and "World Series" and "champions" since this is such a rare occasion. Besides, how can I go against commercialism. On the bright side, I guess I'll be helping out the economy this way.

See you all in Beantown!