Spring Training - Part II

Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day - Craig, Sean, Butch and myself head south from Tampa to Fort Myers to catch the Sawx - Twins game in the Sawx home park. Craig instantly gets some heat for his choice of seats - $58 for 4 lawn seats. Sean blames Craig's wife, Crystal, the Chief Financial Officer. My worries are immediate. I'm Irish and the sun is blazing - we're talking sun blistering hot.

The place is packed as I take a lap around the stadium. I'm noticing all the shaded spots along the walls are filling up fast. Sean saves the day by finding us a spot on the wall right in front of the Sawx batter's circle. Butch joins us in the second inning, as we practice our drills in keeping our spaces by spreading out on the wall when one of us goes to take a picture of the game. Craig, meanwhile, found seats along the first base line, 3 rows back - but we'd rather stand then risk the harshness of the sun. Meanwhile, I'm wearing my Red Sux t-shirt with my Yankee hat. The combination causes some confusion amongst Red Sox fans until I tell them to look closer at my shirt. No one seems amused. The most surprising part of the day is the total lack of Yankee Suck tees, but everyone is wearing green.

One of the vendors, Dan of the Monte, keeps trying to give me crap for my hat. He tells me NY stands for "Next Year" and has Wally the Green Monster shoot his watergun our way. Dan takes a shot later. Sean keeps reminding him to stand his post and do his job. Dan has spent most of the day telling people to keep the stairs aisle clear. We notice Dan is a little lax when it comes to the good looking girls, though.I went to buy a water. It cost $4.75. I think the vendor was embarrassed to sell it to me, because he told me the price before reaching for the bottle. I had already seen the price and my knees had already buckled before his warning.

The game: almost got my wish about Beckett limping off. He briefly came up lame on a swinging bunt play down the first base line, but he shook it off to pitch 4 innings. Varitek and Big Papi go deep. Craig thinks 'Tek is up for a big year. I make reference to someone's 'roid connection being paroled. The Bosox win 9-5, but I was able to enjoy Papelbum giving up a bomb on his first pitch in the 5th.

Sean takes a picture of the three of us against the wall and emails it to Crystal, thanking her for the "great seats". I have to school some Sox fan on the Red Sox retired numbers. He was about to criticize Butch for not knowing Fisk's number, but Butch isn't a Sox fan. This guy didn't know Yaz' number! The sun disappears around the 6th/7th inning and we finally go and sit with Craig. Great seats - too bad about the heat earlier in the day.

As for St. Patrick's day - had my Guinness at dinner.