I was looking for my thread before going to Baltimore and found this one.

Only 20 more days left until baseball. Some of you may want to anticipate with me. LOL!

I'm anticipating with you JJ5, thanks for bringing this thread up. I'd never seen it.

I've got my tix for the Red Sox home opener, so I'll be there to see them get their World Series rings, and I can't wait!


I have a favorite fun moment to relate. A girlfriend and I were at a Sox game in the early part of 2004 (mid April, I think). It had been a good, close game, but it was tied going into extra innings. In spite of Sox fans reputation for styaing to the bitter end, some people had started to leave, so we moved down in the stands to a nice couple of seats in the loge. Bottom of the 10th, tie game, David Ortiz at the plate, the crowd standing, hoping for the best. I turned to my friend and said "Gee, from down here, I can't see very well, with all these tall people standing". And she replied "don't worry, you'll be able to see the ball when it flies way over everybody's head and over the monster". Well, wouldn't you know it...the very next pitch, Big Papi slams it over everybodys head, and over the wall. Game over, and everybody is going home happy. My friend called it.

Course, with Ortiz, that wasn't all that hard to call...

chinacat - I am so jealous I can't stand it. Opening Day 2008 - good for you! We were at Opening Day 2007 - it was great.

Of the many baseball stories over the years, I guess the best one will always be my First Professional Game.

I was taken to Yankee Stadium by my wonderful Mother. Mickey Mantle was playing right, and Whitey Ford was pitching. The 'other' team was the Washington Senators.

What I really remember most ....being that I was a city kid from the concrete jungle.....was that I was AMAZED by the VIVID GREEN Field that was inside this concrete structure!!.

To rob a Quote from that movie RUDY..."Mine eyes has not seen a more beautiful sight!!"

Definitely anticipating Opening Day even while listening to the Sox boycott their game today (since resolved and started). With all the games I am going to this year, its about time.

May 29: Dodgers @ Mets (Torre return to NY)
May 30-June 1: Red Sox @ Baltimore (all 3 games)
July 2& 3: Red Sox @ TB
July 5: Astros @ Braves
August 8: Red Sox @ White Sox
August 9: Cardinals @ Cubs
August 11: Nationals @ Brewers
August 13: Yankees @ Twins

Plus a few games at Fenway and at Yankee Stadium.

Was in Oakland for Schilling's 1 hitter last year - **** Shannon Stewart.

Was at the game when the Sox clinched the Division last year.

Scary one - was at a New Britain (Twins AA game). First row behind the dugout and woman sat down with her 2 year old in the seat next to her (behind me) and got on her cell phone. Within minutes, a liner off the dugout went buzzing past my ear as I was diving out of the way. Still don't know how but I got my hand up and caught the ball. You could count the # of stitches on my hand. Handed the ball to the kid. The mother never flinched even after I showed her my hand. ANd she wouldn't move. I got an usher to have her moved.

I have so many baseball stories that your eyes would glaze over if I really started.

The last night at old Comiskey I will never forget.

The first time I went to the Cell and accidentally tripped over the decoration in the parking lot/street that used to be old Home Plate at Comiskey, I nearly cried.
Didn't really cry, but chocked up for a couple of minutes.

The game where my youngest son and his best friend (about 12 or 13 both of them then) and I stood in the back of the bleachers about 5 hours during rain delays to see us win in 13 innings by being walked home.

The game where I fought with my then husband to stay (it was 4th of July weekend and it was 100 degrees at 9pm at night)in a tied extra inning game, and then saw Robin Ventura hit a grand slam walk off home run.

Games in lots of other cities.

Games where we caught fly balls and foul balls with our heads or our arms, not our hands. LOL!

One in which I thought I saw my son way down behind the dugout and went to see and sure enough- it was him and all his family including his FIVE DAY OLD DAUGHTER. And it was hot out. She is the Flag Day baby, and she has survived to be a good player herself, actually.

This is really, really weird and you don't want to know how this happened as it is a LLLLLOOONG story.

But does anyone want to buy cheap a pair of tickets to the April 14- Monday night Baltimore-Toronto game in Baltimore?

This year I am going to Baltimore, Detroit, and maybe a third stop in either Milwaukee or MN late in the season.

And of course I will be at US Cellular often. And the Cubs, may be as well. They may be playing on the Southside while Wrigley gets a rehab.

Only 2 more years and I won't even have to drive. They are going to put in a stop for us on the Metra in 2009-10, if the Feds come through. I won't hold my breath.

I haven't read the thread although I will when I have time because I love baseball stories. In case no one's mentioned it (though I'm sure someone must have), if you're a baseball fan, you really must see the Ken Burns baseball series. We taped them all and watched them backwards -- present day to early days.

Anyway, I have several great baseball memories but one of my favourites is the day we were flying back home from Sao Paolo, Brazil to Toronto. It was a business trip, so we were flying first class -- already a fabulous treat -- and early in the morning we were woken up by the pilot who thought we might want to know that Toronto had just won the World Series for the second time in a row!

goddesstogo, do you want a pair of tickets to April 14, Baltimore against Toronto game IN BALTIMORE. You'd need to fly. LOL!

You probably have work and it is not around the cornor, but if you want them, you have free tickets. They are in section 15, reserved. Not cheap seats, but also not the very best- but near 1st base.

I could sell them on stubhub or ebay, and might if I can't find anyone to use them.

TWO in a row, that must have been a good moment to wake up to!

My tickertape in 2005, I'll never forget as long as I live. 1.75 million people in that LaSalle canyon where it deadends on Wacker- it was beyond any description I could make. The el stopped in mid track and helicopters practically shaking hands with people hanging out of 30th floors etc.

And then conversely there was Disco Demolition night.

That's how baseball goes, sometimes so up, and sometimes so down.

JJ5, why the change in your Baltimore trip? Are you still going to Baltimore?

Oh, so I just read through and nobody had mentioned the Burns series. Well, my dears...it's just chock full of wonderful stories. One of my favourites (and I wish I could remember who it was that told it -- Stephen Jay Gould maybe?) was that whomever-it-was's father was a big baseball fan and used to take him to Yankee Stadium all the time. The Yanks were the kid's heroes. In those days, he said, you used to be able to exit the stadium by walking across the field and going out the other side. Somehow the kid had gotten the idea that is was where long-ago now dead players were buried, and he was certain he was walking over their sacred burial ground!

Another fan was the historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin. She said she grew up in NY when you were either a Yankees fan or a Giants fan and your allegiance never wavered. When she was a little girl and off school for the summer, her dad charged her with the duty of listening to the ballgames on the radio and telling him everything that happened when he got home from work. She would sit at that radio and write down who did what and when and tell her dad all about it when he got home. Of course, he could have read the whole thing in the box scores in the newspaper but he really made her into a big baseball fan and it was a great connection between them.

I think I'm not as much in love with baseball as I am the experience of going to the game. I just love it. We go to the minor league games in Buffalo where the kids run down to the field to get autographs not of the players but of the mascots! And for the first time in my life and the last chance I'll ever have, I'm going to a Yankees game at Yankee Stadium in April.

Agreed on World Series parades. The 2 in Boston (04 and 07) were unbelievable!!!!!!!!!

Oh JJ, I'd love to and I wish I could but I just can't see that happening, especially when we're going to NY a couple of weeks later. Thank you so much, though, for the offer!

And, of course, I just remembered that we went to a BlueJays game with you and your fella -- what a special day that was for us!

Yes, I'm still going. These tickets are for a game two days before I get there. A well meaning but quite superfulous gift. LOL!

Yes, I'm going to be there with bells on.

I thought not, that it wouldn't be possible.

Any more Baltimore or Toronto fans out there who want the tickets 1/2 price- just speak up. April 14 7:05 pm start in Baltimore, Camden Yards.

I went to two Yankee games at home against the W.Sox in the 2001, spring ones, before 9/11. We won. BOTH!

I was at game 3 of the 2004 ALDS, when Ortiz hit a walkoff in the 10th inning to clinch the series against the Angels. That was really my best baseball moment.

My first baseball game ever was so long ago, I barely remember. It was 1983, Cubs@Dodgers. I wasn't a fan of either team. I was in LA for the summer, and was offered the tickets under the condition that I supervise 5 or 6 13 year old boys who were having a birthday party. So I remember serving chocolate cake in box seats, and, well, these were 13 year old boys...there was cake everywhere. I think the game went extra innings, it was VERY long. And the birthday boy was a Cubs fan, so there was a fair amount of heckling. It was fun though.

My first ever Red Sox game was 1992 or maybe 93. And Clemens was pitching.

I feel really privileged, in a relatively small number of games, over 15 years, I've gotten to see Clemens, Pedro, Schilling and Beckett all pitch in person.

there's no doubt...Pedro was the best! I saw him pitch maybe 3 or 4 times at Fenway, and once at Yankee Stadium, and it was always the best.

China_cat, every time I went to Fenway to Pedro pitch, something would happen

1) First time, he showed up late and Bryce Florie started in his place. Then he came in relief
2) Got "injured", Bruce Chen started instead
3) car broke down on Mass Pike - never made game. He pitches masterpiece.

Similar to me and Clemens
1) Hurricane
2) Sudden sickness
3) etc

Then saw Clemens get bombed 3 times when he was with the Yankees

JJ5, please post a trip report of your Baltimore trip when you get back as I am obviously heading there shortly thereafter.

tchoinere..I was at the Bryce Florie game too!! That was the first time I was supposed to see him. And I was with 9 friends, I had bought the tickets for us. We go there, they are doing the lineup, and then they said "and the starting pitcher...Bryce Florie." We were so stunned, they'd only aquired the guy a day earlier, we had no idea what was going on.

It all worked out though, since Pedro came in in for the 4th and finished the game, as I recall. what a weird game that was!

and such a fun coincidence, that we were both there!

I saw Pedro start against the Tigers the next season. And then I saw him pitch against Mussina in Yankee stadium in '03, a game tha was tied 1-1 going into the 9th, and then they lost it on Todd Walker's error in the bottom of the inning. That was the game where Pedro hit both Soriano and Jeter and sent them to the hospital.

I definitely will post a detailed trip report. Oh, I'm not a worrier but I am crossing ever digit I have that my son's surgery doesn't get scheduled that week. I mean it, say a prayer if you believe it will help. Or good thoughts if you don't.

Because I can't wait to get there and see the guys play ball. Opening day is not that far away and we are supposed to get at least 7 inches of snow tomorrow. LOL!

Happy First Day of Spring? That means baseball is almost here, to me.

Yes, I too remember the injury games very much. I was very close and watching when Ozzie and the 2nd baseman ran into each other full force and he broke his leg so badly. It was obvious immediately.

Actually, Doris Kearns Goodwin was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Her baseball memoir, Wait Till Next Year, is a great read.

http://www.amazon.com/Wait-Till-Next.../dp/0684847957

Thanks, ellen. I did mean to say Dodgers but I had Yankee Stadium on my mind. It's a great book, isn't it.

That book is a great read - one of my all time favorites.

We were at the 2004 Red Sox parade - in the drizzle with a million plus fans. Rode the train in from Haverhill. Conductors didn't even bother to collect tickets. Everyone had a Red Sox hat on and sang Take me out to the ballgame - including the hip hoppers who got on in Lawrence. Great memories.

Last year my dh and I saw Bucholtz's no hitter and he saw the back to back to back to back home runs.

I love the Red Sox!