Yes indeed I do. I’m blessed to be alive at all, and have the sense to know it. It’s especially easy to give thanks walking into Fenway Park under my own power on a beautiful spring night in May. (“We’re inside the TV,” I once heard a wondering child say after getting his first look at all that green.) I’m still considering the novel idea of Nomar Garciaparra as the designated hitter when a woman cardiologist throws out the first pitch. She may be a hell of a doc, but she still throws like a girl. We all give her a big hand, and we give the Red Sox a bigger one when they hit the field in their fine white home uniforms. I feel the same thrill I did when I saw them go out there for the first time, at the age of eleven or twelve, on an afternoon when the Tigers were their opponents and Al Kaline was still playing for them, and my arms prickle when John Fogerty starts singing “Centerfield” over the PA. They prickle again at the end when the Red Sox put away the Jays, 11–5, and the crowd starts out with the Standells singing “Dirty Water.”

Every ballpark has its eccentricities. One of my Fenway faves—many fans hate it—is the late-inning playing of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” I have no idea when this started or why fans took it to their hearts (it’s such a forgettable song), but there you are; it’s just a Fenway Thing, like The Wave.[14] The first notes of this song cause great excitement.When Neil sings “Sweeeeet Car-o-line!” in the chorus, thirty thousand people respond at once (and with no apparent prompting), “WHOAHO-HO!” at the top of their voices. And when he adds, “Good times never seemed so good!” the crowd responds, “So good! So good! So good!” How do these things get started? There’s simply no telling, but such things—which occur when the TV-watching world is stuck with yet another “Meet me at Foxwoods” jingle—are very much a part of not just the ballpark experience but your ballpark experience: what makes home home.

Man, I had a great time tonight. Manny Ramirez hit a moonshot, Mike “The Hardest Workin’ Man in Showbiz” Timlin got the win, and I was there to see it all with my friend Ray. Oh, and Kevin Youkilis, aka The Greek God of Walks, was up to his old tricks. In the bottom of the second inning, after getting behind 0-2, he fouled off a bunch of pitches from Roy Halladay, last year’s Cy Young winner, and finally worked a walk. He scored. Later, in the eighth, he walked and scored again.

It’s an OBPC thing: on-base per centage.

May 22nd