Category: Baseball

My Favorite Sports

Bloganuary writing prompt
What are your favorite sports to watch and play?
View all responses

There was a time…

There was a time when my social life more or less consisted of watching sports. I’d say 50-60% of what I did with my free time involved watching sports. There was a period in my life where I had a partial season ticket package (10 games) for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League, a full season ticket package (40 games) for the Lowell Lock Monsters of the American Hockey League, and then during the summer we split a full season ticket package for the Lowell Spinners of the New York Penn baseball league (I think it was about 50 games and we went to half of them). At the same time I used to follow the Lock Monsters on road games because there were six AHL teams in New England. I would go to road games in three of the other five locations. Along with all of that, there were playoff games for the Bruins and the Monsters. One AHL season saw me go to maybe 50-55 games. Crazy.

Now? I still follow hockey and baseball closely, but I rarely go to games in person, and I have a tough time fitting actually sitting and watching games on television, or listening on the radio, into my busy schedule. I still hang on every goal and every run, but I miss tons and tons of every season. 

So the answer to the question, what are my favorite sports to watch? Hockey and Baseball. The Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League, and the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball. Those are my favorite teams. I also follow some NCAA hockey but my old school, UMass Lowell, is seriously crappy this year so they are tough to follow. There is a minor league baseball team in Manchester New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats who are in the Toronto Blue Jays system, but I haven’t been to a game there since 2007. This year I am hoping to get to a game and maybe follow them on the radio a little bit. We will see.

No Call Part 2
Boston Bruins vs Calgary Flames, October 19, 2006
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Boston Red Sox vs Texas Rangers, June 30, 2007

Who Will They Play?

Baseball, right?

Last night the American League Championship Series between the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros went to a deciding game seven and Texas won. I am not a Rangers fan, but I am even less of an Astros fan so I guess given two teams I don’t give a crap about the Rangers are the better outcome.

About an hour ago the National League Championship Series started a deciding game seven of its own between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Philadelphia Phillies. My first little league team, when I was eight years old, was the Phillies. Given that, let’s go Phillies!

Game seven is tied at one in the bottom of the third inning. Here’s hoping the Phillies win so that I can have a team I don’t hate playing in the World Series. I don’t really want to root for the Rangers again.

Also, here’s hoping the act of posting my hopes for tonight’s game doesn’t jinx anything. That’s just another reason for the Phils to win. Prove to me that my opinion has no bearing on the actual outcome, okay Philly?

Let’s go Phillies!

Playoff Schedule Fail

I understand how and why it happened but it still seems silly to me.

Two days ago, all four Major League Baseball Wild Card round series kicked off. This round is best of three games. I happily listened to a few of the games on the radio via the MLB iOS app while working. I wasn’t rooting for or against anyone in particular, but it was nice to follow some playoff baseball.

All four series ended in sweeps. All four series ended yesterday. That means that all of the game threes that were scheduled for today are no longer necessary, which means there are no games scheduled at all today. Tomorrow was a planned travel day (or rain make up day?) so there are no games scheduled for tomorrow either. So that means in the heart of the MLB Post Season, we have two straight days where there are no games at all, league wide.

Dudes… scheduling fail. Ouch, bro. I could have really used a game today.

Rest in Peace

Two Boston sports legends passed away this week. First, Boston Red Sox hall of famer Tim Wakefield died of cancer.

Wakefield is an absolute legend. There is no way he should have been as dominant as he was throwing those goofy little knuckleballs, but when he was on he was untouchable. Dan Douquette is a hero for eternity for signing this guy after the Pirates cut him. He could have been a villain for all eternity after Aaron Freakin’ Boone hit that playoff series losing walk off home run off of him in 2003, but he was such a pro and the roll model team player that he was able to rise above it. Taking one for the team as the Yankees were pummeling us in game three in 2004 and thus saving the bullpen to spark the comeback that lead to the Red Sox breaking their 86 year world series drought sure helped to win the doubters back.

Rest in peace, Red Sox hero and two time world series champion, Tim Wakefield.

That was yesterday. Today, we found out we lost former Patriots star tight end Russ Francis.

I am not a football guy, but I sort of was a fan when I was a kid, back in the days when the Patriots were eternally pathetic. I remember Francis from back then… a little bit. I think I may have had his football card, and he was a pro bowl caliber player at a time when the Pats were league renown door mats. I can’t remember actually seeing him play at all. I didn’t get football enough to know who was doing what back in those days, but I do remember hearing his name on the game broadcasts and I knew it was bad news when he left.

Rest in peace, Russ Francis.

As I said, it’s been a bad couple of days for Boston sports fans.

Minor League Baseball

I had a weird moment this morning. A weird moment where I really wanted to get back into minor league baseball. I don’t know where it came from, or why, but there it was.

My father used to split a season ticket package for the old Lowell Spinners team. We went to a ton of games and I always really enjoyed it. The Spinners no longer exist. I never went to a Pawtucket Red Sox game. They don’t exist either, though they are now in Worcester, which is easier for me to get to. I haven’t been to a Worcester game either. There’s the Portland Pirates up in Portland, ME. I’ve never been to one of their games either.

The team I forgot about, that is suddenly very interesting to me, is the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. They play in Manchester. Manchester is really close to home. Jen and I went to a Fisher Cats game on one of our first dates.

100b8810
June 14, 2007

I suddenly really want to go to a Fisher Cats game. I asked Jen if she’d go to a game with me this summer and she said sure, though she looked at me like I was weird. I think it stems from me wanting to go to a UMass Lowell hockey game this year, but never actually getting to one. I think this is an extension of that.

I miss minor league sports. I miss live baseball. I miss live hockey. I miss live music. I miss live life, a little. Not too much. I’m still 100% introvert, you know.

This is a weird state of mind I suddenly find myself in. Maybe I’ll catch a Fisher Cats game and this state of mind will go away. We’ll see.

100b8831
June 14, 2007

Red Sox Win

The Red Sox were down by one run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. A lazy fly to left should have ended the game, but the left fielder pulled an epic klutz and dropped it. It popped right out of his glove, putting the tying run on and keeping the Sox alive.

Then this happened…

Cats and Sports

First, pointless pictures of cats:

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Second, sports:

We listened to a chunk of the Bruins game on the radio in the car today. They beat the Penguins, a likely first round playoff opponent, thanks to a Pastrnak hat trick that put him over 100 points for the season. Glorious.

Right now I am watching the Red Sox. For the second game in a row they let the Orioles build a huge lead early and then started clawing their way back. They fell short by a run in game . Here in game #2 they train 8-6 in the seventh but are rallying. I’m not going to call this glorious, but it is pretty fun to watch.

Mostly Missed

The Red Sox game started a little after 2:00pm this afternoon. I had planned to listen to it on the radio while I worked. I got pulled into a critical meeting at 2:00 and didn’t get out to around 3:15. I had a few things to clear up after the meeting but I was just turning the game on at around 3:30 when I got pulled into a critical meeting for a different customer and didn’t get out until almost 5:30 when the game was over.

They lost to the Orioles, 9-8.

One game down. 161 to go. The statistical probability of losing 162 games this year is small, but really not small enough.

Go Red Sox!

Oh, and just for the record, the Bruins are tied at 1-1 with the Blue Jackets after two periods. Just so you know.

Opening Day Freeze

As expected, the Red Sox are getting trounced early in their opening day game.

It’s the fifth inning. It’s 39 degrees out. Call it baseball in the frozen tundra. I am honoring those who are freezing at the game by turning on the space heater while I work because I am really cold. At least I’m not outside while the Orioles hold an 8-2 lead.

Yikes!

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