Red Sox Sonoma

Introduction time, folks! Entering my second season writing for Fenway West, I thought I’d introduce myself, and give you a little background into my Red Sox history. Last year I discovered Sawxheads.com, a social networking site for Red Sox fans, not unlike myspace, except that it’s devoted totally to all affairs Red Sox. Someone there questioned my fandom? fanhood? so in response, I wrote my Red Sox bio, as it were. I’ve already written about my father and his baseball history, so here goes my story as we find ourselves about to start a new season!

My name is Dave, & I am a Red Sox fanatic.

Can I remember the starting line-up of the ’79 Sox? No. The ’98 Sox? No. I don’t have the Green Monster painted on the wall in my living room, and I don’t have any Yankee TP (but I’d like to.) It’s been years since I’ve been to a game at Fenway Park. I can count the number of games I’ve been to there on one hand. (I have managed to go on a tour of the park since my last game.)

I do remember, however, the sofa I was sitting on at the summer house as I watched in horror as Tony C. got beaned 41 years ago. Eight years later, I was sitting on the same sofa watching Fisk wave the ball fair. In 1978, I was driving up the Florida Turnpike listening to the radio when Bucky Fn Dent….

I found myself in a bar in Death Valley National Park in 1986, when Buckner…

I got so unbelievably shit faced that night after the game that I couldn’t get out of bed for the next three days. Not even to puke.

Could anyone ever forget the R-O-G-E-R chant in October of ’99? I remember the look on Wake’s face after Boone hit his shot in ’03. The following October, I was home from work for 6 weeks after knee surgery, watching the whole post-season. That’s why I planned the surgery for mid-October! How about the pair of 17-1 games against the Yanks? And then of course there were the 4 back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs against the Yankees in 2007. I can still hear Jon Miller: “And that one’s headed for New Hampshire!!!”

There were several years I didn’t pay much attention to the Sox and baseball. For many years I had been actively involved in competition water skiing at the amateur and intercollegiate levels, thus tying up all my summers during that time span. I also spent three summers in Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks, where there was no TV or radio. We considered ourselves lucky if we saw a 3 day old newspaper maybe twice a week. However, the box scores, recaps, and standings were read in every newspaper I ever did get my hands on in all those years.

Somewhere around 1966 or 1967, this dorky, unathletic, 8 or 9 year old kid growing up about 50 miles south of Fenway, tried to emulate his older brother who was playing Little League and high school ball. I picked up a bat and a glove, and played sandlot ball with the other neighborhood kids. I usually played right field as most of the hits went to left, and I usually was at the bottom of the order. The Sox had gone from worst in ’66 to first in ’67 and there was a baseball buzz in New England that hadn’t been felt in years, although I didn’t know it at the time. I remember sometime in the late ‘60’s laying on the aforementioned sofa not feeling too well watching the Sox win and then feeling better. Of course I attributed feeling better to the Sox winning and not to whatever medicine my mom might have given me. I was hooked. 40 years later, I’m still here, I’m still a Red Sox fan.

Yaz, Tony C., Reggie Smith, Joe Foy, Rico Petrocelli, Mike Andrews, George Scott, Jim Lonborg, and damn if I can’t remember the catcher’s name!* No, I did not look those names up. Flashy Hawk Harrelson came in to replace Tony C. Do you remember that rocket that Jose Tartabull fired into home from right field and got the runner out? I still have my old copy of “The Impossible Dream” vinyl LP.

Thanks again to Matt O’Donnell, owner of the FenwayWest.com blog for inviting me to be a contributor to his blog. I had been active in on-line music discussion groups, and started a small Red Sox group for Sox fans in the Sonoma (CA) area. Matt saw my writings in that forum and liked what I wrote. I’m home a lot these days and writing about the Sox has been very enjoyable and therapeutic during this uncertain time of change, as well as rewarding in its own right.

The Sox won’t win every World Series in 4 games, they won’t win every World Series, nor the pennant, not even their division. (Same goes for the Yankees. Get used to it, Evil Empire.) Who knows, we may even see Pittsburgh and Kansas City squaring off in the Series someday!

Someday the Sox may lose 90 games in a season, or experience the turmoil the Yankees are experiencing right now. Hopefully this will not happen in my lifetime, but if it does, I’ll still be a Red Sox fanatic.

*Russ Gibson (RIP) & Elston Howard