Projo Sox Blog

At Safeco Field, we sat in front of two thoughtful young men who treated us to a noisy conversation about what they saw as the coming global warming-induced apocalypse; at least they left after three innings. At Oakland's McAfee Coliseum, we sat behind a teenage boy who gleefully screamed, "Red Sox suck," over and over and over and over again. He stayed till the last pitch.

And by the way, give us credit. We stayed for the last pitch at every one of these debacles. We're not Yankee fans, after all -- not the types to sit out the tough years only to resurface and irritate the rest of the baseball world when things are going good. No, we'll watch our team stumble with quiet dignity, and come away talking about how at least Manny Delcarmen pitched a solid seventh inning.

We're not disappointed we came out here, but things were certainly different then we expected months ago, when we purchased tickets for these five games. We weren't expecting to win all five, but how can you not look forward to traveling to see David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek? How could we have expected that we'd in fact be watching Kason Gabbard, Eric Hinske and Javy Lopez? And oh my God, how did Javy Lopez get this bad? Every time he comes to bat it's like you can flip a coin, is he going to strike out or pop the ball into the third baseman's mitt. Well, at least he calls a great game behind the plate. Right.

Just Saturday afternoon, we were walking around Pike Place Market in Seattle, and Boston's baseball faithful were out in full force, and in full swagger. That night, we had Manny and Ortiz in the lineup. We had David Wells pitch a great game. And we had the lead for most of the game. But then Mike Timlin came in, and before we knew it we were behind. And once we fell behind Seattle on Saturday, we were behind to stay, for days.

In case you're interested in following in our footsteps some day, here's some helpful information. Seattle is a beautiful place with a terrific ballpark. Win or lose you will be happy to be there. Oakland is a nasty, horrible place with a sticky, smelly concrete hunk of a stadium, whose employees berate you for no reason. These people can't fill their own seats for a perennial playoff contender, and yet they treat visiting fans like they're truly appalled that you've come to spend money in their city. For awhile I was rooting for the Sox to do something just to spite these people. To no avail.

I'm going to bed now, because my computer time is about up. I predict that I'll have a nightmare that goes like this: It's second-and-third, one out, Dustin Pedroia is up, and Carlos Pena is on deck ....