“Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words.”
It poured all night long. I could hear it on the roof and windows, and I just stayed in bed and listened as I fell asleep. My house in Ghana had a tin roof, and the sound of rain filled all the rooms especially when the tremendous thunder and lightening storms came which announced the beginning of the rainy season. Those storms and that sound are some of my favorite memories.
Today is damp and gray. The rain became intermittent drops just before it stopped earlier this morning. Gracie didn’t mind and neither did I when I went to get the papers. There is barely a wind, and the day is quiet.
I have four nephews, my sister’s two sons and my brother’s. Mike, who lives in the next town and is a baseball fanatic and collector, still remembers his first visit to Fenway Park. I took both him and his brother Tim. It was a beautiful summer day, and we sat in the bleachers. Mike remembers who had hits, who pitched and how much fun he had. His first impression was how green the outfield grass was and that Fenway was smaller than it looked on TV. He has hopes that we’ll go to a game together this summer and so do I. Ryan and Justin are from Colorado, but they are Sox fans. It’s a family thing. They also remember their first game at Fenway Park. I took them too.Ryan remembers where we sat and who pitched. I am glad to be part of those memories.
My sister is having the whole family over for today’s Red Sox opening game. She was trying to figure out her menu when we talked yesterday. My friends Clare and Tony are coming here for the game. We’ll all wear our Red Sox gear including Gracie. We have been waiting for this day all winter.
It is cold and damp and rainy but baseball means summer isn’t so very far away. The game starts at four, my time. Colorado will call after especially good plays and after every Sox home run. I’m hoping they’ll be many. I’m hoping that phone will ring off the hook. I am so glad for the start of baseball season.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
April 1, 2011 at 11:28 am
In the baseball theme- “Letters In The Dirt” about the great Richie Allen by Chuck Brodsky
Some Chuck brodsky stats:
Albums released – 9
Baseball Hall of Fame Performances – 3
Songs in the Baseball Hall of Fame – 11
And he is still playing!
April 1, 2011 at 11:30 am
Pat,
I use emusic for most of my downloads, and I went looking for Chuck Brodsky baseball music yesterday, and they didn’t have any!!
April 1, 2011 at 11:33 am
Glad I was able to fill in – altho- what are you doing looking for an artist that is a Phillies fan???
April 1, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Pat,
He has some baseball songs which can be for any fan’s team.
April 1, 2011 at 12:00 pm
That sounds like a great way to mark the team’s Opening Day. Good luck to the Sox!
April 1, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Thanks, sprite
They lost! Oh, the pain!!
April 1, 2011 at 12:59 pm
I have to read about the game here then 🙂
Over here it´s football season ( or soccer as You call it)that starts the spring. I´m not the biggest football fan but naturally I follow my teams result every year. They usually start great just to get worse the longer the season goes 🙂 🙂 🙂 My teams name is GAIS but we call them the Mackerels, the team colors are green and black 🙂
It has been a foggy but rather nice day here. I had no fire logs at home yesterday so the cottage feels a bit chilly even if the temperature never dropped below 33 last night. But Nova and I stopped by the store to buy some more on our way home, so now there´s a fire in the stove again 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
April 1, 2011 at 6:42 pm
90.3F was the high here today. Air conditioner is blasting good, cold air! The low was 63.1F at about 3 ayem. Although we are both in the northern hemisphere, Christer, we seem to be a world apart in the thermometer department!
April 2, 2011 at 7:55 am
Hi RHMathis!
I guess I live rather much more north than You do 🙂 🙂 We rarely reaches 90,3 even during the hottest part of summer 🙂 🙂 🙂
Christer.
April 1, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Christer,
Here there are also pro soccer teams. My state has one called The Revolution, but soccer is more popular in the west than here in the east.
Ugly day all day here and also quite chilly.
April 1, 2011 at 1:25 pm
My girlfriend and I are spending 9 or 10 days in the San Francisco area at the end of July. Included in the plans are a Giants / Cubs game on the Bay! Already have the tix.
Should be a great vacation and can’t wait to see the Cubs again – it has been waaaaay too many years.
s
April 1, 2011 at 8:04 pm
s,
I watch the Cubs on TV but haven’t ever seen them live. When I took a long weekend in Cleveland I went to see the Indians, and I’ve been to Coors Field in Denver. I like baseball field trips.
April 1, 2011 at 6:01 pm
We have the Nat’s spring training here in Viera, about 15 mins from my house and I follow them like I do the Redskins. My first baseball game was the Cleveland Indians v the Yankees and the park was packed. My Nanny from Germany was doing my Dad a return favor for sponsoring her and husband to the US by taking us kids for a month one summer. I was 11 and had to have everything explained to me. But we had super seats just to the left of home base. It was a close game and the 9th inning some people were upchucking. I guess that’s a Cleveland fan since we were watching at their park on the lake. I had a fantastic time and none of the games ever compare with me to the first one seen right before your very eyes. Good post Kat!
April 1, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Z&Me,
My first game was when I was 12. It was a night game at Fenway, and I remember seeing the greenest grass I’d ever seen. I think I stood and looked at the outfield for what seemed forever. I couldn’t get enough.
April 1, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Last summer, my niece went to Fenway Park for a game Phillies/Red Sox. She says it’s a very strange place! Good luck to the Sox and to all the teams the people out here loved. You’re very lucky people to have a team.
Mario B, a dying Expos fan. (Hey! Vlad is at Baltimore, now!)
April 1, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Mario,
Next year Fenway will be 100 years old so it doesn’t resemble any of the newer parks. John Updike, an American novelist, called it “…a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.”
“If you’re wondering what’s wrong with Fenway Park in the first place, you’re not the only one. Fenway is special precisely because it has what modern stadiums lack: seats that, while often cramped, offer the best views in baseball; and the sense that, if you squint, that could be Smoky Joe Wood pitching to Ty Cobb out there instead of Jeff Fassero and Bobby Higginson.” – Webmaster Neil deMause (sportsjones.com)
April 1, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Just adding this :
http://marioexpos.unblog.fr/
It’s a blog of my own about all the players of the Montreal Expos history. I know it’s in French, but you can look at the pictures.
April 1, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Mario,
I loved the pictures. I always wished they had never had a baseball strike because it was the Expos surprising the baseball world with their record. I swear they would have made the World Series that year and maybe still exist.
I get to see Vlad when the Sox play Baltimore.
April 1, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Hey Kat!
Tonight is Opening Night for my beloved Mets vs. the Marlins in Miami. I am at work but am mostly looking at the game on a small monitor. I’m so happy I could almost cry…
I went to a game at Fenway many moons ago (early 80’s) and saw Yaz take batting practice. It was the most perfect day ever. Many years later I got his autograph with a bunch of other Hall of Famers when I went to an induction in Cooperstown. I still have it. I will not give it up for anything…
You must go to Cooperstown at least once in your life…
I wish you a great baseball season!
Coleen
April 1, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Coleen,
I am a Mets fan as well. I watch a piece of their game when it is on ESPN. The National League is something I know little about so I like to watch and get to know some of the players.
I have always wanted to go to Cooperstown, and I will!
I also wish you a great season. Nothing like baseball to clear way the cobwebs of winter!
Kat, whose Sox lost today!
April 1, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Someone should do a movie about the 1962 Mets.
April 2, 2011 at 10:23 am
Mario,
Far fewer baseball movies have been made in the last few years. I’ve been buying MLB videos instead.
I found this-
http://www.ontheblack.com/2010/11/08/video-of-the-new-york-mets-1962/
April 1, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Our hometown heros were the now famous Rockford Peaches (“A League of Their Own”). I found this interesting link to the AAGPBL manual on charm and beauty:
http://www.aagpbl.org/league/charm.cfm
April 2, 2011 at 10:13 am
John,
I remember them from the movie, one of my favorite baseball films.
April 1, 2011 at 11:07 pm
If you didn’t get to see last Sunday’s Parade Magazine here is the link to Roger Rosenblatt’s article about baseball. He says it all.
http://www.parade.com/news/views/guest/110327-take-me-out-to-the-ball-game.html
By the way the American League Texas Rangers opened the season and beat the Red Sox. I never thought I would live long enough to write that first part of the sentence. I had a chance to take in a game at Fenway in 1994. It’s the real deal. All the new ballparks are what I call neo-old. Arlington Stadium is one of those. What can you expect when the managing partner of the team was George W. Bush when they built that park.
April 2, 2011 at 10:16 am
Thanks, Bob
I had read it last Sunday but read it again today. It is a wonderful reminiscence of baseball when we were all young, but it describes perfectly how excited I get every near as opening day nears.
I am still in pain from that game!