It’s a rainy Monday and my mind is definitely not on work today. I’m still busy reminiscing over the events that transpired at Fenway Park this past Friday. The events that shot April 20, 2012 up to the top of my list of most memorable sports moments for me (at least that I’ve witnessed live.) For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how the Red Sox organization would pull off the introduction of some 200+ past players and still start the game on time. But they did it, and did it in star-studded style.

Photo by me.

Baseball has always been a very emotional sport for me. I’ve been a fan as long as I can remember — thanks to my dad, grandfather and even my great grandmother (who loved her Sox!) I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love this team. I’ve endured so many ups and downs over my 35+ years of following them — for most of those years, I suffered mainly through the ‘downs’. The ‘ups’ came later. When the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004 after an 86 year drought, I cried.

I knew from the time I secured tickets for this historic game that I would be a blubbering mess. And stupid me, I forgot my tissues. I spent a good portion of the celebration wiping tears from my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt. And just when I would get myself under control, another past player would appear and the waterworks would start again. But nothing made me out-loud sob like when Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield (with David Ortiz) wheeled out a 92-year-old Johnny Pesky and a 94-year-old Bobby Doerr to the middle of the field. I’m too young to have seen them play, heck my dad is too young to have seen them play, but there is just something about Johnny’s relationship with organization that gets me every time I see him.

Photo by me.

My Top 5 6 Loves from Friday, April 20th:

1. Yaz. Enough said.

2. Seeing some of my favs from my childhood – Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Jerry Remy, Carlton Fisk – to name a few.

3. The return of Bill Buckner to cheers! And of course, Terry Francona’s return to the biggest cheers. I miss him a lot right now!

4. The roar of the crowd each time a favorite walked onto the field. Fenway seemed to be almost buzzing with excitement, like nothing could ruin the day….

5. The throwback uniforms. Although having no numbers on them made it a bit difficult to keep track.

6. Getting to meet Becca in person!!

My Top 5 Dislikes from Friday, April 20th:

1. The obvious missing players. Where or where was Rick Burleson?? I know some had an excuse, like Fred Lynn. But Mike Greenwell, Ellis Burks, John Valentin, Bob Stanley… where were they?

2. A ceremonial first pitch that made me want to gag. Caroline Kennedy, Mayor Tom Menino and Thomas Fitzgerald threw out the balls to Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski and Pudge Fisk from their seats. Lame.

3. Not learning until after the game that the Budweiser Deck was filled with a bunch of old players. CRAP!

4. Warm grape juice. I’m going to tell you a secret… I barely took a sip. *bleck*

5. Losing the game. That sucked.

Despite the loss, it’s a day I won’t soon forget. I’m so thankful that my father-in-law invited me to meet him in Boston for this unforgettable event. (Happy Birthday to me — a few months early!)

Photo by me.

Up until yesterday, I had two very memorable trips to Fenway Park — my first trip in 1978 when I was eight years old. It was a four generation outing with my dad, my grandfather and great grandmother (who was a huge fan!), and the Derek Lowe no-hitter. This one definitely tops the list now.

Becca did such a fantastic job recapping yesterday’s events with some amazing photos (if you missed it, click here) which is great because basically all I did was cry and ended up taking some extremely blurry pictures. It’s hard to  cheer, sob and snap pics all at the same time. What an amazing day! Like the final out of the 2004 World Series, I know I’ll never be able to watch footage from yesterday’s festivities without bursting into tears. It was such an emotional day for all Sox fans. Even the season ticket holder next to me got misty when Nomar walked onto the field. He said to me, “he was worth the price of admission for every game I went to that he played in. Now I’m crying!”

When I arrived for the game yesterday, I had a good feeling about this series with the Yankees. I thought nothing could go wrong — it was a beautiful day, Fenway turned 100 years old and I wasn’t at work — the Sox had to win. But they didn’t. So they’d win the second game, right? Nope. I wish I could’ve had ended today’s game after the 6th inning so I’m breaking this recap into two sections.

PART 1: Innings 1 - 6

For the first six innings of this game, I laid on the couch thinking, “crap, this is how the game should’ve gone yesterday!” Felix Doubront pitched six strong innings, giving up just one run on five hits to a pretty potent Yankees offense. He looked good and his 93 mph fast ball looked effortless. His only mistake was leaving one out over the plate in the top of the 6th for Mark Teixeira to belt over the Green Monster. On the slo-mo replay, you could see Mark’s eyes get real big and I’m sure he was thinking Christmas came early. He struck out seven Yankees and walked just two. At this point, I thought nothing could go wrong.

Even the offense decided to show up today. Almost every batter in the Red Sox lineup had at least one hit — everyone except the 3rd base platoon of Kevin Youkilis, Nate Spears and pinch hitter, Nick Punto. David Ortiz went 4 for 4 with an RBI and raised his average to .436, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia broke out his early season slump going 4 for 5. Both Mike Aviles and Cody Ross had two RBI — Cody’s coming on a monster homerun to straight away center that hit the camera tower. The Red Sox scored two in the first, three in the second, two in the third and two in the fifth and looked to be on their way to breaking their current four-game losing streak leading 9-0 after five innings.

But we all know that any lead against the Yankees is not big enough. In the 6th, Doubront struck out Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez before giving up the four-bagger to Teixeira. Curtis Granderson popped out to short stop to end the inning. Doubront finished the 6th with 99 pitches. I totally expected to see him in the 7th. That was not the case…. hence the second part to this recap.

PART 2: Innings 7 - 9

Vicente Padilla relieved Doubront to start the 7th and struck out Andruw Jones to kick things off. Russell Martin singled to right field and then FOX switched over to the White Sox v. Seattle game for the final three outs of Philip Humber’s perfect game. Now I love to see a perfect game just as much as the next fan but in my opinion, they stuck with the celebration a bit too long for my taste. By the time FOX went back to the Red Sox game, the wheels were starting to fall off the bus. The score, which was 9-1 when they switched coverage, was now 9-5. WTF? Nick Swisher blasted a grand salami to pull the Yankees to within four. And my nails got considerably shorter.

Matt Albers came in to relieve Padilla who couldn’t get the job done, and promptly gave up a three-run shot to Teixeira to bring them within one. And I really started to sweat. This is one of those times being married to a Yankees fan really backfires on me. I may or may not have been nanner-nannering my husband about Freddie Garcia’s stellar 1.2 inning outing. Karma hates me.

Franklin Morales came in to relieve Albers who also stunk it up and got out of the rest of the inning unscathed. In the end, the Yankees scored *cough* seven runs *cough* in the inning so I guess there was some scathing, just not for Morales. I honestly can’t bring myself to give the gory details of the 8th inning without leaping out the second story window of my house so here it is in nutshell. Bobby Valentine brought in Alfredo Aceves for the six out save attempt after Morales gave up a lead off single to left. That didn’t happen, he got the loss. The Yankees scored seven more runs on a lot of hits and a couple of walks and now Red Sox nation is pissed off. The boos for Bobby V. were deafening.

The game lasted 3 hours and 52 minutes. It felt twice that long but I’m sure that had a lot to do with having to listen to Tim McCarver and his butchering of nearly every aspect of the broadcast. If you care to take a gander at the painful box score, here’s the link, courtesy of the Red Sox. The series wraps up Sunday night at 8:05pm with Daniel Bard facing off against CC Sabathia. Surprisingly, right now Bard has a better ERA then Sabathia (4.63 vs. 5.59). Let’s hope we can at least salvage one game of this series.