Mindful Digressions

The rite of spring

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks and, for my present, my thoughtful wife scored tickets for us to go to Fenway Park to see a Red Sox game. I sure hope it doesn’t snow that night!

Yes, the 2012 Major League Baseball season, the rite of spring, is about to get underway. I recall last year at this time when the excitement in the air throughout Red Sox Nation was palpable. My beloved Boston Red Sox were declared, by virtually all baseball pundits, to be the team most likely to go all the way and to play in, if not win, the 2011 World Series.

Then the cold, hard reality hit. Being a Red Sox fan last season was not exactly a rewarding experience. The Sox got off to an awful start, losing ten of their first twelve games. By late April they seemed to have turned things around and began to live up to the pre-season hype. Everything was looking good until the final month of the season, when the Sox experienced their historic September collapse. Surely this new season can’t be any more disappointing than last year’s.

Or can it?

As this new season commences, I’m a bit more circumspect about the Red Sox’s prospects than I was a year ago. This is the “new” Boston Red Sox. Former Red Sox GM, Theo Epstein, who was at the helm when the Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007, is now the President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs, where he hopes to do for the Cubs what he accomplished for the Red Sox. Former manager Terry Francona, who skippered the team during their two World Series wins, lost his job almost immediately after the infamous September debacle. Francona is now a member of the broadcast crew for ESPN’s baseball coverage.

The 2012 Sox have a new management regime. Ben Cherington, a former assistant GM to Theo Epstein, is the new Boston GM. Bobby Valentine, who was a member of last year’s broadcast crew for ESPN’s baseball coverage, is the new Sox skipper. It seems Valentine and Francona essentially switched jobs.

Gone are closer Jonathan Papelbon, shortstop Marco Scuturo, and right fielder J.D. Drew. Catcher and team captain Jason Veritek retired, as did knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. The Sox have a new shortstop, a new right fielder, some new pitchers, and a few other less familiar names on the roster.

Can players who had outstanding 2011 seasons, like center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, have back-to-back great seasons? Will third-baseman Kevin Youkilis remain healthy for the entire season, something he’s been unable to do over the past two years? Will the starting rotation stay healthy this year? Can the bullpen keep it together in the late innings and preserve leads?

This year marks the centennial celebration of Fenway Park, Major League Baseball’s oldest ballpark. Dedicated and loyal Red Sox fans are excited at the prospect of another trip to the World Series in the same year that the storied ballpark is celebrating its hundredth anniversary.

Isn’t that exactly what baseball dreams are made of?

Or baseball nightmares?

Last year I was sure the Red Sox were going to go all the way and was crushed by their September crash and burn. This year my expectations are far less grandiose. If I’m pleasantly surprised by a great season and another trip to the World Series, that would be fantastic. But if they don’t quite make it to the playoffs, I won’t be as devastated as I was last year, when they were, on paper, anyway, expected to win it all.

Okay, that’s a bunch of crap. I’ll be just as devastated.

Super Bust

At the risk of sounding like every other bummed out, whiny, frustrated New England Patriots fan, sure, I was disappointed by the outcome of the Super Bowl. I would liked to have seen the Patriots win and bring the Lombardi Trophy back to New England. And I hate the New York Giants almost as much as I hate the New York Yankees.

Still, I can’t deny that the Giants deserve kudos. They won, fair and square. Quite simply, Eli Manning and his guys outplayed Tom Brady and his. The Giants’ receivers made some remarkable clutch catches, while the Pats’ receivers seemed to suffer, particularly during those crucial, late-game drives, from a serious case of the dropsies.

So we need to cut Giselle Bundchen some slack. Brady’s supermodel girlfriend was just standing by her man when she reacted to “Manning rules” taunts by a Giants fan after Sunday’s game. “You have to catch the ball when you’re supposed to catch the ball,” she snapped back at the fan. Adding fuel to the flame, she continued, “My husband cannot fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe they dropped the ball so many times.”

And while that is so true, Giselle, perhaps next year, when Brady and the Patriots return to the Super Bowl and do win it all, you should try to keep in mind that old adage about how kids...and supermodels...should be seen and not heard, right?

But I digress. Getting back to the game, which was distressful for those of us who are Patriots fans, the real disappointment for me was the mediocrity of this year’s highly anticipated crop of Super Bowl commercials.

Make no mistake. I do enjoy the Super Bowl games, even when one of “my” teams is not playing and I am, therefore, relatively indifferent about the final outcome. As long as it’s not a lopsided blow-out, that is. A close, exciting, well-played football game is great to watch, even when you don’t really care all that much about the teams on the field.

But let’s be honest. When you aren’t really invested in the success of either team, the real attraction is the ads. As the New York Post recently reported, a Nielsen survey found that 51% of those who watch the Super Bowl do so more for the advertisements than for the actual game.

After all, when companies pay an average of $3.5 million for a 30-second spot and are competing for the hearts, minds, and, most important, wallets of more than 110 million viewers, you expect a lot.

So yes, I look forward to the creative, innovative, and entertaining Super Bowl ads. And no, I didn’t go to the internet to take a sneak peek at the Super Bowl ads released on the web days before the big game. I wanted to be surprised and delighted in “real-time” during the game.

Sadly, this year there were considerably more misses than hits. When you get right down to it, it was pretty much the same old thing. Dogs, polar bears, babies, mostly second-tier celebrities, beer, soda, cars, and, of course, sex. Honestly, I didn’t see much that was genuinely new and exciting...or even very entertaining.

I was really looking forward to this much anticipated rematch between the Patriots and Giants, the grudge game in which the Pats were going to achieve redemption and would show the world that what happened at the Super Bowl four years ago was a fluke. And I was eager to see all of the clever, creative, funny Super Bowl ads.

In the end, both turned out to be a super bust.

Backing into the Super Bowl

I had more than a casual interest in the NFL conference championship games on Sunday.  After all, my hometown New England Patriots were vying for the AFC title, while my newly adopted and embraced other hometown San Francisco 49ers were going after the NFC title

Had both my chosen teams won, it would have set up a Super Bowl contest between my two hometown teams and given me a difficult who-to-root-for choice. As it turned out, I am not faced with having to make that choice.

Both title games were, if not particularly well-played, exciting, down to the wire contests. But in the end, both of the winning teams backed into the Super Bowl.

Technically, the Pats won, but it was a blown 32-yard field goal with 11 seconds left in regulation that kept the game from going into overtime. The Baltimore Ravens’ usually reliable kicker, Billy Cundiff, shanked a 32-yard field goal and the Patriots escaped with a 23-20 victory in the AFC contest. A few hours later, on the other side of the country, the NFC title game was knotted at 17 at the end of regular play and did go into overtime.

As you look back at that game, one pivotal play early in the fourth quarter set up the overtime contest. The Niners were leading 14-10 and had stopped the Giants on a third down attempt, necessitating a punt. But Kyle Williams, returning kicks in place of the injured Ted Ginn, Jr., muffed it, and that set up a go-ahead touchdown for Giants.

The Niners were able to tie it up with a late field goal and the game went into overtime. Once again, the Niners forced the Giants to punt, and once again Kyle Williams attempted the return. This time the ball was stripped from him and recovered by the Giants on the San Francisco 24. The 31-yard field goal by Giants’ placekicker Lawrence Tynes gave the Giants the game and a ticket to the Super Bowl.

Football is clearly a team sport, and you shouldn’t blame a specific player for the outcome of critical games like these. Having said that, there’s no question in my mind that Billy Cundiff of the Ravens and Kyle Williams of the 49ers were the goats. Had Cundiff made that late-in-the-game field goal, it would have sent the AFC contest into overtime. Given the way the Pats had played to that point, the Ravens might very well have prevailed in OT. And Williams’ two costly punt return errors virtually handed the NFC game to the Giants.

So now a rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl has been set up. Four years ago the 18-0 Patriots were supposed to have mopped the field with the Giants, but it didn’t happen that way. The Giants shocked the heavily favored Patriots and walked away with a last minute victory. The early line for this year’s Super Bowl has the Patriots, who have won 10 straight, as a 3-point favorite.

Yes, the Pats have won their last 10 straight games. The last time they lost was in early November, when they succumbed 24-20 to none other than the New York Giants.

Well, I know who I’m rooting for.

Déjà vu all over again

Exactly one year ago on this very blog I expressed my deep disappointment that the Boston Red Sox had been eliminated from post season play.  But this year was going to be different.  Before the season began, the 2011 Sox were considered by most sports pundits to be the best team in the Majors...at least on paper.

Unfortunately, the Sox got off to a dismal start, winning only two of their first 12 games.  Despite the promise, things were looking quite bleak very early in the season.

Starting in mid April, though, the Sox turned it around and posted a Major League Baseball best 81-42 record from April 17th through September 1st.  It was enough to put them in first place in the AL East at the beginning of this month and gave them a lock on post-season play.  Nothing short of a total meltdown could prevent the Sox from making the playoffs.

But a total meltdown it was.  Going into last night’s game, the Sox had won only 7 of 26 games in September, had not won consecutive games since late August, and were in a virtual tie with the Tampa Bay Rays for the AL wild card slot.

If the Sox won last night against the last place Orioles and the Rays lost to the first place Yankees, the Sox would be in.  If they Rays won and the Sox lost, the Sox would be out.  If both won or lost, there would have been a one-game tie-breaker today.

With that as the backdrop, my wife and I were glued to the TV last night, witnessing the real life drama unfolding on ESPN.  It was the final game of the 2011 regular season, and a crucial one for the struggling Red Sox. 

There were two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning of a rain-delayed game between the Sox and the Orioles, and the Sox were up by one run, 3-2.  Closer Jonathon Papelbon was just one strike away in the nearly desperate quest, despite a catastrophic September, to keep the Sox post-season playoff hopes alive.  Oh the drama of it all.

I should have known how the night would end when, at around 9 p.m. PT, the channel on my TV suddenly switched from ESPN to the CBS show, “Criminal Minds.”  As everyone who has a DVR knows, you can’t watch live TV while the DVR is recording two other shows at the same time, and my recording schedule had both “Criminal Minds” and “Harry’s Law” set to start recording at precisely 9 p.m.

By the time I realized what had happened and ran to the bedroom and tuned that room’s TV to ESPN, the score was tied at three and the Orioles had a runner on second base.  The next batter hit a sinking line drive to left and left fielder Carl Crawford was unable to snag it.  The runner scored.  Game over.

All the Sox and their fans could do at that point was to watch the real life drama in St. Petersburg, where the Yankees had already blown a seven-run, eighth-inning lead over the Tampa Bay Rays.  It was the bottom of the 12th and the score was knotted at seven.  ESPN switched to the Yankees-Rays game just in time to see Rays’ third baseman Evan Longoria hit a walk-off homer, giving the Rays the win, putting them into the playoffs as the AL wild card team, and crushing the hopes of the Red Sox and their fans.  Season over.

“We have met the enemy and he is us” – Walt Kelly

“Historic collapse.”  That’s what they’re calling what happened to the Red Sox this month.  No team has blown a bigger lead in September...a nine-game margin as of September 3rd...and missed the playoffs.

What happened?  In a word, pitching.  And, oh yeah, hitting.  And fielding.  It was a complete collapse.  The Red Sox starters were awful, having the worst ERA of any starting rotation in the Majors in the month.  The bullpen was unable to hold onto the few leads the Sox had achieved in the month.

With a few exceptions (Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia), the powerful Sox batting order was unable to hit when it counted.  An unusual number of fielding errors and outright bad base running decisions solidified the team’s September swoon.

The Boston Red Sox were masters of their own destiny.  Had they been playing even at a mediocre level, they’d be in the playoffs.  But sadly, the last month of the season was as bad as the first two weeks of the season for the 2011 Red Sox.  If only they had gotten off to a better start in April.  If only they had not blown so many opportunities in this last month.  If only....

Well, at least my son is happy.  The end is here.

The end is near

September 2011 will be history in a week and my son is looking forward to month’s end.  It’s not because he has anything against Septembers per se, or September 2011 in particular.  Why, then?  Basically it’s because baseball’s regular season will be over at the end of this month.  To say that my son is not a fan of what is arguably referred to as “America’s Pastime” is an understatement.

That’s entirely my fault.  When I was a kid growning up the Maryland suburbs of DC, I was a huge fan of the Washington Senators baseball team.  Being a Senators fan was a challenge, as they pretty much sucked.  The old adage was “Washington: first in war, first in peace, last in the American League.”

But still I was a fan of the game.  I played second base, and occassionally right field, for a little league team, the West Carroll Knowles Knockers.  (Yeah, seriously, the team was named “The Knockers.”)  I wasn’t a particularly talented player, either offensively or defensively, but I loved just being there on the field and playing the game.

The Yankees were pretty much the perennial champs of baseball when I was growing up.  It seemed that they played in the World Series every year.  While I hated the New York Yankees back then (my favorite movie musical was “Damn Yankees”) as much as I do today, I loved baseball and I would listen to World Series games on the radio.

I vividly recall sitting at the kitchen table listening to game five of the 1956 World Series.  The Yankees were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers (yes, Brooklyn...that’s not a typo) and Yankees pitcher, Don Larsen, pitched a perfect pame...the only perfect game in the history of the World Series.  And I watched it...with my ears.  It was thrilling.

But I digress.  My neighborhood pals and I would take the bus and trolley to Griffith Stadium to watch Senators home games as often as we could.  While they rarely won, I loved the baseball park experience.  And I never missed listening to away games on the radio.

Then the unthinkable happened.  When I was 14, my much-loved (and much-maligned) Senators up and moved to Minnesota to become the Minnesota Twins.  I was old enough to understand that it was just a business decision prompted by years of poor attendance and battles with city officials.  But that understanding did nothing to assuage my hurt.  I was devastated. 

Lo and behold, just a year later, a new team with new owners came to town and the “New Senators” played baseball in DC for another decade.  Like the “old” Senators, they were a pretty bad team.  In fact, the New Senators continued the tradition of their predecessors by maintaining a lock on last place in the American League.  But this was my hometown team and I was loyal.  Until I turned 26, when the New Senators up and moved to Texas to become the Texas Rangers.

I was not at the ballpark for the final game of the New Senators, but it was ugly.  RFK Stadium was filled with angry, jilted fans that continually interrupted play by throwing things onto the field, which continued throughout the game and into the ninth inning.

Even though the Senators were leading, the about-to-be-abandoned fans streamed on to the field and started a riot with two outs in the ninth.  Order was unable to be restored and the game was forfeited, bringing an ugly end...until just a few years ago when the former Montreal Expos took up residence in DC as the Washington Nationals...to Major League Baseball in Washington, DC.

(The Nationals are living up to the grand tradition of Major League Baseball in Washington, DC by remaining at or close to the bottom of the standings.)

But I digress yet again.  Twice jilted by my beloved Senators, and with no new, new Senators stepping in to fill the void in my heart, I swore off baseball.  So by the time my son was born in 1982, it had been more than a decade since I last gave a shit about baseball.  I never went to any baseball games, watched baseball on TV, or even read about baseball in the sports sections of my local newspapers.  Twice dumped by baseball, I was not about to get my heart broken a third time.

Because of my antipathy toward baseball, my son was never exposed to the sport.  I didn’t take him to games.  We didn’t watch them together on TV or listen to them on the radio.  I never shared with him the intricate box score statistics from the daily paper.  We never even played catch in the backyard.  I never instructed him on the rules or nuances of the game, much less on the skills to play the game.

It’s no surprise, then, that he feels the way he feels about baseball and is looking forward to the 2011 Major League regular baseball season coming to an end next week.

Despite the fact that over the past decade I have renewed my love and appreciation of the game of baseball, and though I am a rabid Boston Red Sox fan, I too, am looking forward to month’s end.  I’ll explain why in my next post.

Come September

September.  It’s a month of change, a month of transition.

It’s the month that typically marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall, when temperatures moderate, the night air begins to take on a slight chill, and the leaves begin their annual display of brilliant autumn colors.

It’s the month that starts out with a holiday honoring working Americans.  Unfortunately, there are fewer such working Americans this year than there have been for quite a while.

It’s the month that marks the beginning of the new academic year, when kids of all ages return to school after the summer recess.

It’s the month when college and professional football returns to the gridiron.

Possibly most important, September is the month in which Talk Like a Pirate Day takes place each year.  AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

Sadly, September is also the month that marks the epic tragedy of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by the Islamic militant group, al Qaeda.

But when it comes to Major League Baseball and pennant races, September is rubber hits the road time.  September is when baseball’s best teams push it up a notch to secure a position in the post-season playoffs commencing in October.

And for my beloved Red Sox, September was full of promise.  After all, they went into September with plenty of momentum.  They were in first place in the AL East by a game and a half over the Yankees.  At 83 and 52, the Sox had the second best win-loss record in the Majors.

Yes, September was looking to be a beautiful month for the dedicated members of the Red Sox Nation.  Until it started, that is. 

The Sox lost their first two games of the month, and by the second day of September had fallen out of first place.  Now, 11 days into the month, the Sox have only two wins against nine losses and have lost five in a row.  They are now 3½ games behind the damn Yankees, who look like they are on track to win AL East title.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still think...at least I hope...the Sox will make it to the playoffs, even if it’s as the American League wild card team.  And remember, in 2004 the Sox won the World Series as the AL wild card team.

But that could yet be in question if they continue to play the way they’ve been playing through the first 11 days of the month.  The Tampa Bay Rays have won seven of their last 10 games, including a three-game sweep of the Sox, and are now only 3½ games behind Boston in the wild card race. 

Unless the Sox turn things around and/or the Rays go through their own September slump, things could get dicey for the Red Sox, the team that, before the season started, was picked by just about every sports pundit to run away with it all.  The Boston Red Sox looked so strong.

On paper, anyway.

Showdown at Fenway Park - Part 2

In my last post I wrote:

“By Sunday night, one of these two teams will stand alone in first place, with boasting rights for the best record in the American League.  Will it be my beloved Red Sox or those hated Yankees?

“This is the reason I love baseball.”

And THIS is what I'm talking about:

Showdown at Fenway Park

Starting tonight the New York Yankees are in Boston for a three-game weekend series with the Red Sox at historic Fenway Park.

Since their last series in early June, the Red Sox have a 32-16 win-loss record, second best in the American League.  The Yankees have a 35-15 record, best in the American League.

With 52 games remaining, the two teams are tied for first place in the AL East.  Each has a win-loss record of 68-42.

The Yankees have won seven games in a row, eight of their last ten.

The Red Sox lost their last game and have won six of their last ten.

In the past seven games, the Yankees have massively outscored their opponents 55-16.

In the past seven games, the Red Sox have barely outscored their opponents 31-26.

The Red Sox and the Yankees typically play each other 18 times each season, not including post season play.  In each of the previous three seasons, the Red Sox and Yankees split the series 9-9.

So far this season, the Red Sox and Yankees have played nine games and the Red Sox have won eight of them.

In 2009, the Red Sox won the first eight games against the Yankees, but the Yankees won nine of the last ten...and went on to win the World Series that year.

The Yankees are red hot right now; the Red Sox are not so hot right now.

The Yankees – Red Sox rivalry is one of the oldest, most famous, and fiercest rivalries in professional sports.

By Sunday night, one of these two teams will stand alone in first place, with boasting rights for the best record in the American League.

Will it be my beloved Red Sox or those hated Yankees?

This is the reason I love baseball.

What HE said

It’s an ugly thing to watch American League pitchers attempt to bat and American League designated hitters attempt to field.

In the American League, the designated hitter (DH) rule allows pitchers to never have to step up to the plate.  It also allows players like Boston’s David Ortiz (aka, “Big Papi”) to never have to take the field.  The National League has yet to embraced the DH rule, so NL pitchers are used to batting, and some are decent hitters.

Each year, a few weeks prior to the All Star game, Major League Baseball attempts to spice things up with what is referred to as Interleague Play, where teams from the American and National Leagues square-off.

When an American League team visits a National League park, NL rules are followed.  Thus, pitchers have to hit and DHers, like the lumbering David Ortiz, have to take the field. 

Interleague play for AL teams on the road in NL parks, therefore, can be somewhat challenging.  For the Red Sox so far this season, it’s been their undoing.  The Sox are six games into a nine-game interleague road trip.  They lost two out of three games to both the Pirates in Pittsburgh and the Phillies in Philadelphia.

Clearly the old Pennsylvania license plate motto, “You’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania” doesn’t apply to the Red Sox.

But I digress.  My point is that these interleague losses, and the fact that the damn Yankees somehow keep on winning, have resulted in the Sox falling from a half a game ahead of the Yankees in the AL East before this road trip began, to now 2½ games behind.  And that makes me very unhappy and sort of depressed.

I thought I was unusual and perhaps somewhat alone in the way my mood is affected by the fortunes of Boston Red Sox.  When they win, I am thrilled, excited, happy.  When they lose I am depressed, despondent, upset.  Seriously, how lame is that?

Then I came across a short article by William Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week magazine.  I can’t express it any better than Falk did, so for those of you who don’t subscribe to The Week, below is what HE said:

On any summer morning, it is one of the first thoughts to drift into my head, as I stumble downstairs to prep the coffee machine: We won last night. With my coffee, I savor a tribal glow of triumph and plow through various accounts of my boys’ heroism — the rehash in the newspaper and Metsblog.com, the highlights on radio and TV. Birds sing. The sun streams through the windows. When the Mets lose, which is more often than not, I wake with a vague feeling of deflation, and skip the highlights and the game stories. I do not wish to relive Bay striking out with the bases loaded, or K-Rod blowing a save, or yet another injury to a key player. Those bums!  My coffee, on these mornings, has the ashy taste of defeat. The birds are silent.

I am fully aware of how ridiculous this is. At times, I try to will myself to care less, but my professions of emotional distance are fraudulent — a coping technique. I’ve been this way since I was 8, when I began my summer mornings by pedaling my bike to the newspaper store to find out if the Mets had won, and if Koufax had beaten Marichal. For those of us with the baseball affliction — or, for that matter, intense loyalty to any team — there is no cure, nor do we want one. Once every decade or two, you win it all, and by God that championship is glorious, transcendent — redemptive. When you lose, it is a little taste of death. Yet that death deepens your bond with other members of your tribe, and you all go down together, loyal to the end. There’s some consolation in that. Or so I tell myself.

Substitute the Red Sox for the Mets, Ortiz for Bay, and Papelbon for K-Rod.  Falk’s confession about his Mets obsession mirrors my own Red Sox obsession...and the associated alternative sensations of elation and deflation.

As the old saying goes, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Just a touch more personal

As a general rule, my musings on this blog are not intensely personal or intimate.  My postings are mostly about my observations on things that I’ve read, heard, or seen that I think are humorous, different, or interesting...to me...and to express my particular point of view.  

I will occasional push out posts of a more personal nature, like when we had bats...not the baseball kind...flying around our bedroom and my wife had to get a series of rabies shots, my battle with fruit flies in our kitchen, or my travelogue from last summer when my son and I took our cross-country drive in a half-filled, 14-foot U-Haul truck from Worcester to San Francisco.

But yesterday was such an extraordinary day, I feel compelled to write about it and share my experience with my vast audience.

Yesterday was Father’s Day and my wife, who understands and appreciates (and shares) my love for the Boston Red Sox, bought tickets for the two of us, plus our daughter, to go to Fenway Park to see the Sox host the Milwaukee Brewers.  This was mostly a birthday present, but since we were in San Francisco on my birthday, my wife selected Father’s Day, when we would be back east, for the game.

I’m pretty sure that even our son, who is not a baseball fan, would have enjoyed this day.  But he’s still hanging out in San Francisco taking care of Colbert, our cat, and playing “King of the Condo” while we’re here in the east.

All things worked on beautifully on this day.  The weather was exemplary, with temperatures in the upper 70s and with uncharacteristically low humidity.  We drove into the city and parked at the “official” Red Sox parking garage and took the “T” to the Elephant Walk, a French/Cambodian restaurant on Beacon Street, where we enjoyed our Sunday brunch.  After brunch, we took the relatively short walk to Fenway Park, home of the beloved (and first place!) Boston Red Sox.

My wife managed to get terrific seats in a lower box to the first base side of home plate, giving us a great view of the field.  As an added bonus, there was a pre-game celebration for the Boston Bruins, winners of the 2011 Stanley Cup.  I’m not a hockey fan, but it was still a thrill to see the Red Sox fans wildly cheering the success of yet another Boston sports team.

The game between the Sox and the Brewers got off to a fantastic start...for the Sox.  They pretty much wrapped it up early, with a six-run barrage in the first inning, and went on to win 12-3 on this absolutely stunning afternoon.

After the game, the three of us headed to Natick for some sushi and such at a great little place called Oga’s.  Yum!

To sum it all up: beautiful weather, great food, Bruins celebration, and an outstanding Red Sox game.  What an amazing Father’s Day.

To my wife: a sincere, heart-felt thank you for the best Father's Day ever.