I’m spending the night at the Logan Airport Hilton in Boston before flying to California tomorrow. Elana and Patrick are already out there and awaiting my arrival; E’s going to be picking me up.
Staying here is a much better idea than the original plan: up at 6am, leaving for Boston by 8, getting there about four hours later, and then sitting on a plane for nearly seven hours. It occurred to me thisk morning, but I didn’t actually do it until I mentioned it to E on the phone and she agreed it’d be much better to sleep well and not exhaust myself on the drive right before flying.
Instead, I’m able to relax and sleep in, with no pressure: just get my ass over to the checkin desk in time. I still miss E & P and can’t WAIT to get to see them tomorrow when I land.
However, getting to watch an important Red Sox game in a bar in Boston was a great distraction. The bartender had to share his opinions with nearly everyone working there—the guys keeping the tables clear, and the women doing a great job waiting on the tables. Coupled with a sly grin, he’d announce to them that the Yankees “really should’ve just stayed at home.” It was sometimes only a few minutes between each time he’d share this with someone new.
Sitting next to me at the bar were two couples, each clearly Bostonians somewhere in their 50s. The Red Sox hit a ball, they led the cheer. A ball hit by the Yankees is caught, they led the cheer. (The bar had at least fifty people in it, about half of them eating food and all of them drinking some form of alcohol from what I saw.)
The lady next to me, one of the wives, kept shouting, “Go Mike! Yeah Mike!” Her voice was just barely audible over the sound of her hands crashing together in boisterous applause. I didn’t need to use Google to guess the pitcher’s name.
Reuters confirmed what I heard on the radio driving into Boston about security at the game: “The Boston Globe reported that 876 officers and commanders would patrol Boston’s Fenway Park at each of the three games for the American League East title, which would guarantee the winner a spot in the playoffs.”
As I made my way onto Route 1 towards Logan, the radio commentators (all on AM stations, none of which came in well—what’s the “official” Boston Red Sox AM station to use??) criticized the umpire behind home plate. This was later echoed by one of the husbands standing at the bar: the ump seemed to wait a long time to actually signal whether or not it was a strike. On the radio, they theorized the player at bat heard the call before the ump finally decided to signal the official opinion to everyone else.
The lady next to me concurred on my conspiracy theory: much like George Bush in the debates, the ump probably had an earpiece making him wait to find out what his call was supposed to be.
Despite any of that, I learned that American Baseball is perfectly matched with a well-poured pint of Guinness. 🙂
One sleep ’til I see my darlings…
