This Labor Day weekend marks the unofficial end of summer 2012. Cruelly, the Red Sox will still be playing baseball games until October 3. But thanks to Ben Cherington’s masterfully orchestrated trade last week, hope has been restored for 2013. Until that time…Sox fans like this guy in Boston Common Friday morning will just be chilling, remembering that old adage about what happens when you dare to dream big…
Posted in Fenway Park, Red Sox, Sports
Tagged Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, Nomar Garciaparra
MELROSE, Mass.–Residents of a small, quiet city seven miles north of Boston have been shaken to their core over the last six days as news spreads that a 12-year-old boy has gone missing after apparently setting out on a Back to the Future-style time-traveling mission to prevent the Manny Ramirez steroid scandal.
Harold and Martha Chavez last saw their youngest son, Joseph, on Thursday night after watching him play left field during a Little League game. (He wears No. 24, of course.) Upon returning home, their son learned the news that Ramirez had been suspended for 50 games by Major League Baseball for steroid use.
As lifelong Red Sox fans, the Chavez family was understandably devastated to hear the news, especially their young son.
“Joey really took it hard,” said his mother. “He kept talking about how the Red Sox’ world championships were retroactively tarnished. Before he went to bed, he said something about going 88 miles per hour in a DeLorean to go back in time and stop Manny from taking steroids. I just thought he was really tired or maybe coming down with a cold or the pig flu.”
Unbeknownst to Mrs. Chavez, her son’s time travel talk may have been more than just a Hollywood fantasy.
“He fell asleep holding this picture he had taken of Manny Ramirez clutching the World Series trophy on one of the Duck Boats during the 2004 parade,” said his father, Harold. “When I came into his room this morning, my son was gone and there was just this void in the picture. Manny’s on the Duck Boat holding thin air. The trophy is gone…”
Not coincidentally, an old DeLorean sports car was reported missing on Friday morning from Sal’s Auto Body in downtown Melrose. The Chavezes do not know whether their son managed to penetrate the space/time continuum. (Plutonium is not a known commodity anywhere on the North Shore.) Nor do they have any idea which year he aimed to visit or how he planned to prevent Manny’s use of performance enhancing drugs.
“I just hope he goes back far enough to make sure (the Red Sox titles in) 2004 and 2007 still count,” said Chavez’s 18-year-old brother, Brian. “Right now we’re just kind of in this limbo. Are the World Series titles tarnished? No one knows for sure. Plus, I haven’t seen my brother in five days so it’d be nice if he came home.”
It has undoubtedly been a trying week in the Chavez household as well as within the entire Melrose community.
“Those championships were so important to so many people around here,” said Regina Rice, 72, on her way out of the dry cleaners. “To have those banners be tainted, tarnished or taken away would just be awful. My husband died in 2006 and I’m dreading the day I’ll have to visit his grave to tell him he never actually saw the Red Sox win the World Series legitimately. This young boy going missing just exacerbates the pain.”
Inside a local drugstore, Richard McCarthy, 39, lamented, “All our memories are ruined. The 2004 season wasn’t what we thought it was…Nothing matters anymore. This missing kid is our only hope. What am I going to do with all the newspaper clippings I saved from that year? Are all my old copies of the Boston Globeobselete?”
Concern over mementos from past World Series victories appears to be justified. In addition to an alarming acceleration of yellowing (or aging) of his Globe newspaper clippings, McCarthy claims other prized possessions have become flawed. “I have this ball that was signed by the entire 2007 Red Sox team. Everybody signed that thing…even the scrubs like Royce Clayton and Bryan Corey. But last week, I noticed some of the signatures were smudged and are either no longer legible or barely visible.”
When asked if she thought her son would eventually return heroically to present day as Marty McFly did in the famed 1985 movie, Mrs. Chavez became noticeably distressed.
“I’m with Stephen Hawking. I’ve always been skeptical of time travel,” she says, blinking back tears. “But my son has seen that movie about 50 times so maybe he’ll be able to figure it out. Who knows?”
When told the future (and, in turn, the present) is ultimately altered at the end of the famous movie, Mrs. Chavez breathes a small sigh of relief. Reality quickly returns, however. A moment later, she turns away to again check the picture of Manny taken by her son during the 2004 victory parade. Alas, the trophy – like her son – has yet to reappear.
Posted in Red Sox, Sports, Uncategorized
Tagged 2004 World Series, 2007 World Series, Back to the Future, Boston Red Sox, Manny Ramirez, Steroids
BOSTON, Mass.–Fenway and Kenmore Square area residents are livid over the Boston Red Sox’ announcement Tuesday that hour-long discounts on food concessions will continue throughout the month of May:
Fenway Family Hour, a joint effort between the Red Sox and ARAMARK, was launched in April. During the month of May, nine popular food items will again be available at up to 50% off in price, including: Fenway Franks, pizza slices, pretzels, popcorn, cotton candy, fruit cups, veggie cups, slider boat (two sliders & fries), and Hoodsie ice cream cups. The discount is available at all locations throughout the ballpark and there is no limit on the number of items purchased.
It is a “first hour” provision that has residents particularly upset at the extension, which would seemingly appear to be nothing more than a gesture of good faith by the team to cash-strapped fans. The fine print within the promotion dictates that the discounts are only available for the first hour after the gates are opened (i.e. 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. for a 1 o’clock start). The undesired result, residents say, is a push by fans to arrive for games as early as possible.
“These games are all-day events now,” said 43-year-old Maryanne Donahue as she sat outside her apartment on Park Drive. “Fans are showing up in the area four or five hours before the game even starts so they can get a parking spot and tailgate or go to the bar for a couple hours before the gates open. It’s the Kentucky Derby here every night now.”
Ted Crane, a 25-year resident of the Kenmore Square area, says he’s also noticed an earlier influx of Red Sox fans on game nights this season as compared to prior years.
“These families with a bunch of kids are showing up with their hats and jerseys and novelty license plates…They gotta make sure they’re inside the park for the full hour of half-price food,” says Crane. “And I’ll tell you something else, they’re eating like it’s the Last Supper. Ice cream, hot dogs — sliders, for crissakes, sliders! At Fenway Park! — I’ve had to hose down vomit on the sidewalk in front of my building almost every day.”
As many as 100 Fenway/Kenmore residents have banded together in petitioning Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to order the Red Sox to cease its “Fenway Family Hour” plans for May.
“One month of this was enough,” says Maura Mastarrono, a superintendent of a building on Boylston St. near the park. “With the weather getting warmer in May, I can only imagine fans are going to be filing into the city even earlier in the day. The Landsdowne crowd? I see them strolling into those watering holes at 9 a.m. now so they can get a buzz going before scarfing down a bunch of cheap food.”
City officials did not return repeated requests for comment. However, a Boston Police Department spokesperson assured Fenway Pastoral that, “We have procedures in place for controlling public gluttony and ensuring that the presence of delicious, affordably priced food is not abused.”
Posted in Fenway Park, Hot Dogs, Mayor Thomas Menino, Red Sox, Sports
Tagged Boston Police Department, Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, Kenmore Square
BOSTON, Mass.—High-ranking Red Sox officials have begun privately prodding team president and CEO Larry Lucchino to seek psychiatric counsel after the PR ace spent most of the recent home stand obsessing over the synchronicity of plays involving Jacoby Ellsbury and cuts from Pink Floyd’s album, Dark Side of the Moon.
“This all started after the Red Sox signed Phish to play Fenway Park at the end of May. He’s been talking to a lot of the band’s hardcore fans and seems to have really taken to their culture and lifestyle. These people smoke a lot of marijuana and have been putting a lot of ideas in his head. I haven’t had a normal conversation with him in weeks. All he cares about is ‘what part of the song was playing during that play?’” said a Red Sox employee willing to discuss the incident “only because Lucchino has always been a douche bag toward me.”
Lucchino has become increasingly convinced that certain points in the album align in a meaningful way with particular baserunning plays involving Ellsbury such as the young phenom’s straight steal of home plate Sunday night.
Lucchino has apparently taken his cue from the popular rumor among the stoner/Phish fan community that Dark Side of the Moon contains parallels to the classic movie The Wizard of Oz when played on repeat. Just as the Dark Side of the Moon’s aural effects sync with the movie’s visuals if the album is started while the MGM lion roars for the third time, Lucchino believes a similar effect can be created if the first track is cued as Ellsbury crosses over the right field foul line during the first inning on his way to center field.
“Larry used to spend most of his time schmoozing and didn’t usually pay all that much attention to the game, so we knew there was something wrong when we saw him sitting by himself in the front row of the executive box with huge, sound-cancelling headphones on,” said a second Red Sox official speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The guy looked like Rain Man out there.”
Lucchino played the 43-minute album on repeat nearly 20 times overall during the weekend alone thanks to the length of Friday and Saturday night’s games. Lucchino reportedly told anyone who would listen that Ellsbury’s voyage Friday from second base to home plate on a passed ball from Joba Chamberlain unfolded in perfect timing with the lyric “run, rabbit run” from the song “Speak to Me/Breathe.”
Meanwhile, Lucchino claims he knew Ellsbury was going to steal home on Sunday night because the chorus from the instrumental track “On the Run” began playing as the speedy outfielder extended an extremely generous lead down the third base line.
The sources for this story acknowledged that Lucchino’s behavior may be a clever ploy by the prolific marketing guru to drum up attention from marijuana smokers for the upcoming Phish concert at Fenway Park. However, the team is taking surprisingly great pains to keep details of his behavior from the mainstream media. Looking foolishly docile in a series of recent photographs with his new fiance, John Henry certainly did his part to at least temporarily divert attention from the escalating situation.
“Are you kidding me?” asked the higher ranking official. “This has opened a massive can of worms and we are on the verge of desperate. I can already imagine the fallout from this—a minimum of five Dan Shaughnessy columns where he employs a bunch of predictable Pink Floyd lyrical references…Probably a littering of ill-conceived allusions to 60s rock music by those Inside Track cows. I’m pretty sure the front office wants to keep a lid on this one.”
“Peter Gammons has already perverted enough classic songs by trying to shoehorn their lyrics into his ESPN columns,” said the other source. “That’s the last thing we need to be promoting.”
Posted in Fenway Park, Music, Pink Floyd, Red Sox, Sports
Tagged Boston Red Sox, Dark Side of the Moon, Jacoby Ellsbury, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, Pink Floyd, The Wizard of Oz
BOSTON, Mass.—The scene was Patriot’s Day 2007, Fenway Park. A man sitting in box seats along the left-field line hucks a slice of pizza directly into the face of a nearby fan after the victim allegedly chided the chucker and his friends for bringing an entire pie into the ballpark.
Video clips on the Worldwide Web were viewed en masse. An estimated 5.3 million hours of productivity was lost, forever, throughout the New England area. It is a moment of team lore that will long live in the memories of Red Sox fans; an action of mass appeal that evoked snickering around office water coolers for weeks afterward and nearly made Don Orsillo wet himself in laughter. And, alas, a painful reminder of how a handful of hooligans can ruin something so simple and appreciated by the masses.
After numerous renegade imitators surfaced during last year’s Patriot’s Day, the Red Sox are teaming up with Mayor Thomas Menino and the City of Boston to prevent a repeat of pizza peltings this Monday commemorating the incident’s two-year anniversary.
“Full pizza pies will not be sold in the City of Boston until the conclusion of the Red Sox game, after all fans have exited Fenway Park,” a top aide speaking for Menino stated yesterday in clear, decipherable, articulate English. “Inside Fenway Park, city officials will oversee a strict one-slice limit per fan.”
In addition to banning full pizza pie sales, the city is considering adding a stipulation to the moratorium that would include a ban on the sale of triangular-shaped slices.
“While square-shaped, Sicilian deep-dish styled pizza is generally more aerodynamic, triangular slices often contain sharp edges and shards of crust that could inflict puncture wounds on or around the face and neck area,” said a research analyst hired by the mayor’s office.
Red Sox fans with tickets to Monday’s game have already begun forming contingency plans.
“I know a guy who’s going to get us a bulk deal on those Celeste frozen pizzas,” says Fred DiNardo of Haverill. “Me and a few buddies are going to bring a battery-operated microwave with us and heat them up on my tailgate Monday morning before the game. Those things are small enough that we should be able to sneak a few dozen into the park with us…if we don’t eat them all beforehand.”
Informed by Fenway Pastoral about the ban being imposed on fans, Attleboro season ticketholder Jim Robbins had trouble holding back his political views, “Mayor Menino is obviously out to get working class Red Sox fans. It’s unbelievable. First, he refuses to allow beer sales in the stands and now he’s imposed a limit on my pizza intake. Pardon the pun, but this is pure grandstanding run amok.”
Robbins added that he’s planning to bombard “any and all corrupt, agenda-driven politicos” he sees from his first-base-line seats with cola-soaked cotton candy.
Manchester, N.H.’s Meghan McDermott and her friends were so distraught when they heard the news that they opted to post their tickets on StubHub. “I wish we had sold them off before Mayor Menino made his announcement. I’m not sure there’s anyone who’s going to want tickets for this game now that they’re banning pizza sales and pizza throwing. This is a lose-lose decision for everybody.”
Indeed, McDermott’s sentiments are not only shared by thousands of fans who scooped up Patriot’s Day tickets in the hopes of joining a time-honored tradition, they are also backed by the most recent data available to neurologists studying the link between brain waves and laughter. “There’s nothing more stimulating to the laughter-inducing neurons within a normally developed human being’s brain cortex than a pie hitting someone in the face,” says Harvard neuro-physiologist Dr. Barry P. Wolf. “Why do you think WSBK TV38 aired The Three Stooges on Saturday mornings for so many years?”
Fenway Pastoral 
