310. The distance from home plate to that green edifice and a number embedded into the DNA of all members of the Red Sox Nation. To get there you have to be able to hit a major league fastball hard and high enough to clear its 37 ft height. Along with the ivy walls of Chicago’s Wrigley Field, the Green Monster of Fenway is an icon of MLB. Put it on your bucket list; attending a Red Sox game in person is a whole ‘nother experience.

I became a Red Sox fan in October of 1967 at the age of ten. I had contracted the chicken pox and was confined to home for two weeks, happily coinciding with the World Series that year. It made up for all of the skin pain, itching and scratching.[1]My mom was attending college, and my step-father was at work in Mobile, so I was home, alone.
Well not really – my cousin Randy had been expelled from his family up in Kentucky for the normal adolescent bullshit behavior that we all did and now take for granted, and had sought refuge with us on his way to New Orleans (where he later turned out to be a successful restauranteur and owner of a Cajun gourmet grocery store – so I guess he wasn’t all bad).

We spent a lot of time that lazy October in Alabama on the couch watching the Sox take on the Cardinals. I got to love Yaz, Tony C., Jim Lonborg and the whole impossible dream of that 1967 post-season. That they came up short and had to wait until 2004 to once again hoist the World Series championship banner over Fenway was incidental. I dreamed of going to Fenway one day to see it for myself, and thanks to the Navy, I did; and then some.

When I was a student and later staff member at the Naval War College back in the 90s, my wife and I went up to Boston several times, and caught Red Sox games. I was hooked. Following a sea-duty payback tour in San Diego (where I once worked for a guy named Vic for a short time), I was fortunate to be selected for senior service school, and better yet got to go to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a National Security Fellow for the one-year, long tour. What a deal. Top on the list of things to do was to get my ass back to Fenway, which I did probably a dozen times.
The Red Sox and the Yawkey family had a soft spot for vets. If you went to Gate D on Yawkey Way (down the right field line) and showed an active duty ID card, you paid $6 and could sit anywhere in Fenway anywhere there was an open seat.[2]I sat everywhere I could. My best seat was behind home plate back when Pedro Martinez was still Pedro – 100 mph fastballs and 98 mph nasty sliders. I saw many a batter take that strike three call and walk back to the dugout shaking their heads – the hissing of his slider was UFB, sounded like a low-flying UFO.

My current My current employer is putting renewed emphasis on continuing education, so I took advantage of that earlier this summer by requesting sponsorship to attend a day-long seminar at MIT on Blockchain – watch this space. Before signing up, I checked the schedule and saw that the Red Sox were doing a home stand. Done deal. I went up there and got to go back to Fenway. It was awesome, and the crowd of 30,000 standing and singing “Sweet Caroline” at the 8thinning break was unforgettable. Then the Boston catcher cranked one over the Green Monster in the bottom of the 8th. What’s not to love about that? But wait, there’s more.

A couple of months ago, my boss sent me an e-mail asking if I would be up to going back to the Kennedy School for a week-long seminar on cybersecurity. Since this was around the time that I would take a week off for a summer family vacation, things were looking good. I checked the seminar agenda, and there was a free night on Wednesday, getting better. I then checked the Red Sox schedule and there was a game that night. Fuck, I was in. I still had to compete with the rest of the company division’s nominees – I got selected.

I took the family with me and had the pleasure of showing them life in Red Sox Nation, as well as Boston. They ventured around the city all week while I was stuck in seminar sessions most of the day, but that Wednesday night was worth it. Fenway at night, the game, and all of us singing “Sweet Caroline” with 30,000 others and rooting for the Sox. There were tons of hits and six homers, including two blasted over the Monster. The Sox lost, but who cared? It was great baseball in the best fucking ballpark, ever.

On Friday, we went to see the USS Constitution, which I had been underway on during a retirement ceremony 20 years earlier for Darth Langston, who had been instrumental in getting the ship re-habbed and making her ready to sail again. People from Boston wait years for that opportunity – we had it given to us and they were pissed, judging from the tone of letters-to-the-editor in the Boston Globe later on that week. Anyway, I was chatting with the OOD on the way off ship and he asked if I was former Navy. I told him I was a retired 0-6 and he asked if I wanted bells. Hell yeah I did, and got them. Schwergen!

It is no small wonder that I have Fenway in my blood – my dad was from nearby Fitchburg, and left to join the Army Air Corps during WWII in 1942, and later settled in Memphis where he was one of the first Air Force jet engine mechanics stationed in Millington servicing F-86 Sabres during the Korean War. He met my mother there, and after he got out he ultimately wound up founding a specialty steel company based on his knowledge of metallurgy gained in the service. However, his sport was basketball. I played it and got pretty good at it; I could even dunk when I was younger, but it was just okay. I never loved it unless MJ was on the tube – he was riveting, just like Tiger in golf.
As you can probably guess by now, I loved baseball, and really got into it when we moved to Fairhope from Jackson where I grew up as a Finnish red neck. My next door neighbor was Dewey, a phenomenal athlete in the day, but under-sized – a tough and wiry guy who was 5 ft 7, and weighed 135 lbs, and faster than shit. I wasn’t much bigger but didn’t have his level of game. He later joined the Air Force instead of going to college, despite some small school football scholarship offers.

Dewey and I played whiffle ball almost every afternoon. We would combine our baseball card collections, shuffle the deck, divide them in two, and select our starting lineups based on the hands we were dealt. During the game, you had to bat either left or right-handed and in the style of the player on the playing card. If you were Yaz, you had to try to hit like Yaz. That included imitating all of their at-the-plate mannerisms. Oh, and you had to pitch the same way. So if you were Phil Kniekro, you had to learn how to throw a whiffle ball so it would knuckle. Righty or lefty, it didn’t matter – authenticity was what we sought to create.

Our games were in his front yard, which had a straight sidewalk about 35 ft long, and a metal fence and gate. The pitcher delivered from a spot by the gate, and the steps behind the batter proved to be a handy backstop. There were two tall, skinny pine trees situated equidistant from the gate, itself, and that was home run territory. Anything hit over the fence outside that was a double. We would play three inning games, and then shuffle and cut the deck again. We played for hours.

When Dewey and I weren’t battling out back, our house on Pecan Street had the biggest front yard in the neighborhood, and we had kids from all over town show up to take part in pickup baseball and football games. For baseball, we used tennis balls so we wouldn’t bust out the windows of our neighbors across the street. Football games were more sedate as we played touch – the ground was pretty hard and there were roots near the oak trees in the front. If we wanted to play tackle, we would go up to the high school field or out to Stimpson Field, the local sports complex. Our baseball games graduated to softball, and then beer. We would go to Stimpson, maybe dragging a keg, and go at it on the Little League field since it was easier to hit dingers there.

There is nothing like the adrenaline rush that comes from smacking one out of the park and enjoying the home run trot, at least clothed and in public. It explains a lot about what guys endure to get to the majors. I had my share.
That gets me back to Fenway, and the rest of the story. Warning: if you don’t like the F-bomb, then stop reading now.
It was in the Spring of 2000 on a nice Saturday evening, and I dutifully made my way from my rented home in Waltham, taking the number 68 bus to Harvard Station, and then the T’s Red Line train to the Charles/Mass General Station. From there I walked through the Fens to the ballpark. I stopped off at the infamous Cask & Flagon on the corner at Lansdowne Street, slugged down a Boston Lager, and then trudged over to Yawkey Way and Gate D. I flashed my ID card, paid the $6, and then entered the arena. I had about 45 minutes to kill and find a sitting spot. That night, I chose to sit on the left field line just behind the visitor’s dugout. It was a spectacular evening. The Sox were playing Tampa Bay, and their owner was seated a few seats down from me towards home plate, with his stunning trophy wife or whatever. I had a bag of peanuts and another cold one – life was good, and then it got real interesting.

Jose Canseco, Devil Ray

Jose was a beast back in the day, a member of the original Bash Brothers along with Big Mac, who I saw put on a batting practice exhibition of long-ball hitting one sunny day in San Diego at the Murph which still defies description. Jose had played for the Sox a few years before – his memorable highlight reel moment as a member of the team was the play he made (or didn’t make) on a long fly ball that bounced off his head and over the wall for a home run. With that and juicing, as well as bragging about it later, he was rapidly making himself an MLB pariah; and the fans knew about it.

It was the top of the 1st, and Jose was in the on-deck circle waiting his turn as the DH for the Rays. That’s when this Boston fan seated a few rows up from me started to get on his case:

“Hey Jose, you loosah? Yeah, I’m talking to you! You fucking suck! You sucked when you were heah, and you suck now! You’re a fucking loosah and going to strike out. You fucking suck!”
I could see Canseco’s shoulders tighten. This guy was loud. But Jose didn’t look back, strode up to the plate and, sure enough, struck out. He made the long walk of shame back to the dugout, but not without even louder commentary.
“See, I told you that you were a fucking loosah and going to strike out! You fucking suck!”
Canseco went into the dugout, and didn’t emerge until a couple of innings later – once more in the on-deck circle. Game on.
“Hey Jose, ya loosah! Yeah I’m talking to you! You’re a fucking loosah and you’re going to strike out again. You know why? Because you fucking suck, ya loosah! That’s why”
You could tell Canseco wasn’t amused by this asshole, and getting even is sweet revenge. The Rays had a mini-rally going on, with two men on base but with two outs. He strode up to the plate, took a couple of pitches – 1 and 1. Then he hit the longest fucking home run I have ever seen – the ball was still rising as it passed between the Citgo and Coke placards on the light standards that framed the Green Monster. It went way beyond Lansdowne Street, and probably landed on the Mass Pike. Fucking incredible.

Canseco settled into his home run trot, did a hand slap with the 1stbase coach and clapped his hands as he rounded second – you could tell he was laughing. A slap on the ass from the 3rdbase coach, and then high elbow bumps with the two guys who he had driven in followed. As he dog-trotted back to the dugout, he finally looked up into the stands with a big shit-eating grin to stick it to his heckler-in-chief. The guy’s comeback was priceless:

“Yeah? Well you still fucking suck!”
We were rolling in the aisles, it was that funny. I am not making this shit up.
Copyright 2019 PtLoma
www.vicsocotra.com

[1]A word to the wise for you readers out there approaching or over 60. Get the Shingle’s vaccination now, and make sure you get the newer version. I’ve had both. You don’t know where it will strike – a sailing friend of mine contracted it during an ocean race to Bermuda in his eyes, and had to be med evaced back to the states from Hamilton. He spent two long years visiting ophthalmologists to get his vision back to normal. Don’t fuck around with this shit, please. It only hurts a little bit.
[2]The New York Yankees reportedly offer the same deal, but I haven’t had the chance to confirm that. It should also be noted that the new owner of the Red Sox, John Henry, kowtowed to the PC police and re-named Yawkey Way back to its original name of Jersey Street, and for a short time later David Ortiz Way. This was due to accusations of racism leveed on Tom Yawkey, as he was the last MLB team owner to integrate his lineup. Last year, the team’s address was changed back to 4 Jersey Street. In an ironic turn of fate, Jersey Street, named in the late 1850s, is a reference to the sixth Earl of Jersey, George Augustus Frederick Child Villiers, who made his fortune by profiting on the British slave trade…