went to my 5th ballgame in 7 days last night. decided that minute maid park, though more comfortable, is no fenway. got a no-hitter commemorative poster. put it up on my wall here at work. and the astros got back in the win column. yeah!
we now resume the book that my diary has become with an account of the last day and a half of the great baseball road trip. (for the sake of debbie and her boredom, and not for jason and his short attention span.)
saturday (6/14): chowda, beer, and baseball
highlight: free beer, what else?
amusing moment: the one-foot-balancing contest on the t
i awoke to what quickly became the dominant activity in the brief periods of time we were actually at matt’s house and not out wandering boston–the boys crowded around the tv playing halo. what is it with boys and their video games? sheesh. anyway, we got our act together and drove over to the t stop to catch the train down to fanueil hall for some lunch. i had a sandwich and clam chowder. mmm, new england clam chowder. good stuff.
afterward, betsy and i did a little window shopping while the boys headed off to a bar. i was quite tempted to buy a lobster hat (antennae and claws and everything, how absurdly cool), but restrained myself with my new mantra: “must not buy more crap.”
from fanueil hall we headed a few stops farther on the t to jamaican plain, the home of the boston brewing company (maker of the many varieties of sam adams beer). we got there in time for the 2:00 tour, and though the place was packed with people, we all still had a great time. the tour guide was a young guy, probably 27 or 28, with a faded red sox cap, and he did a great job. he even noticed our astros hats and asked if we’d come up for the game; after the tour, we had a brief conversation about baseball. thus i have ranked him as the second greatest tour guide ever. in fact, he came very close to being the greatest tour guide ever, but in the end he failed to top the guy at the tower of london; but that guy was awesome, so being ranked 2nd is still like winning, really. 
anyway, the best part of the tour of course was at the end, when we all filed into a room and took our seats at long tables to be given a small sam adams souvenir glass. we got to taste their lager, summer ale, and october fest, all for free just like any other brewery tour, since it’s illegal for a brewery to sell directly to the customer. good times.
we hopped back on the t to find that matt and jason were either 1) crazy or 2) slighty happy from the beer, because they quickly created a contest to toss m&ms into each other’s mouths from farther and farther apart. when that bored them, they decided to see who could balance on one foot for the longest while the t shook and banged down the tracks. (jason won. and the other passengers on the train were amused.)
we got off at the prudential center and walked like 10 miles through a mall (“must not buy more crap!”) to get to legal sea foods for dinner, where i had salmon. geez. i love the food in boston. i know houston is on the water and all, and we have better sea food here than in, say, kansas…but nothing compared to new england. yum. dinner took a little too long though, and we had to really hurry the mile and a half or so from the prudential center to fenway for the evening ball game. we got there as the bottom of the 1st was just beginning, and were excited to see that the astros were already ahead 1-0.
betsy and i sat in two seats about halfway between third base and the green monster. they were pretty good–maybe 15-20 rows back, so the field felt really close. the only bad part is that fenway is such an old and small park that the seats are really close together, and divided into boxes. this wouldn’t have been annoying if vendors had come through the stands selling beer in addition to hot dogs, pretzels, cokes, water, ice cream, etc. but no beer vendors came down the aisles! and since betsy and i were on the end of a row, we were constantly having to get up to let the college frat boys farther down the row get out to get their alcohol. ah well. minor distraction.
we ended up talking some to an older guy sitting next to us, and discussing the huge differences between an old park like fenway and a new park like minute maid. we agreed that fenway had a much more “traditional baseball” feel to it, and he gave us some good-natured ribbing later in the game when the red sox took the lead (and went on to win by a score of 8-4). overall though, i found that the fans in both new york and boston were actually pretty cool. we didn’t get harassed or anything. i guess they save the hatred for each other. 
after the game it was off to the bars again, and finally back to matt’s.
(12:22 p.m.)
sunday (6/15): home sweet home
highlight: the gorgeous boston weather
amusing moment: navigating the red sox nation with a suitcase
we all slept in on sunday, to the tune of 11:00 for me. i finally woke up to the delicious smell of pancakes made by matt (at least i think they were made by matt, but then again, i was still sleeping). mmm. we lounged around for a while before heading out to the ballpark. edgar, chris, and betsy were going to another game while ron and i were flying home.
the weather in boston on sunday was absolutely fantastic, and i wished i’d decided to stay one more day (i didn’t want to have to take monday off, ah me). it even turned out to be a good game, going 14 innings before the astros unfortunately lost, giving the red sox a sweep of the series. but alas, ron and i had a plane to catch, so we dragged our stuff through the mobs of fans heading to the stadium to the kenmore square t stop, and went to the airport. we knew we’d get to the airport too early, but we didn’t really have enough time to go anywhere else. ah well. we sat in the food court for a while and both burned our mouths on a final bowl of clam chowder.
our plane was jam-packed and left an hour late, but other than that, the flight was uneventful. i just read the whole time. ron gave me a ride from intercontinental back to ellington instead of me taking the puddle-jumper, and i was home by 9:30 or so.
it was a good trip.
also, chris has just posted all the pictures (yes, all 218 of them, what can i say, i like to take pictures, and with my camera in illinois for repairs, i basically took control of chris’s) from the trip. here they are, if you’re interested.
