So I took me out to the ballgame

Yesterday, I was supposed to have lunch with a friend, but he had to postpone, so I decided to take myself out to the ballgame.

The Red Sox have been pretty awful this year, but despite their dismal performance, I still watch at least a couple of innings of each and every game. And I like to get out to Fenway for a few games, which hasn't happened this season.

My one and only game this year was the Patriots Day game in April. Unfortunately, Patriots Day was cold and rainy, and, having gotten soaked during a sudden-onset torrent, my sister Trish and I decided that we were never going to get warm, we were never going to get dry, and the rain delay wasn't going to be over anytime soon. So we ate our hotdogs under the stands and went home to watch the game in my den.

And that was it.

Usually by now I've been to three or four games, but this year's been nada/zip. The team. The weather. The team and the weather.

But today, if this can ever be said about a team battling it out for last place in their division, the stars aligned. My canceled lunch. A perfect late summer day: 70s, low humidity, nary a cloud in the lake-blue sky. A Red Sox-Yankees matchup, even if the matchup ain't what it used to be. (At game time, they were tied for last place in the AL East.) An afternoon game scheduled because of the night before's rainout. And good last-minute tickets available on Ace Ticket.

So I scored a $101 ticket for $32 and took myself out to the ballgame. 

One of my great city pleasures is walking out to Fenway Park. I always walk up the Comm. Ave Mall with its lovely canopy of shade trees - elms that survived Dutch Elm, lindens, maples, sweetgums...Then there's Kenmore Square, which is usually thronged for game time, but not yesterday. The stream flowing out of the Kenmore T-stop was more of a trickle. 

In line to get my sausage and peppers sandwich and Cracker Jacks, I chatted with the young couple in front of me. Yankees fans. We bemoaned the seasons that both our teams were having, and I told them that every Red Sox fan would be looking at their phones throughout the game to see if Chaim Bloom, the Red Sox GM and Chief Baseball Officer, has been fired. 

Oh, the Yankees fan guy told me, he was fired a few minutes ago - when I was still enjoying my shady walk up the Mall.

Huzzah!

Someone had to go, and that someone was Chaim Bloom. 

Admittedly, he had a tough job, but repeated last place finishes aren't going to fly with this fan base. Not with the highest priced tickets in baseball-dom, thank you.

No one expects a World Series every year. What fans do expect is a competitive team. And that Bloom has not delivered. I was semi-negative on him, but finding out a few weeks ago that, unlike what the Red Sox had kinda-sorta told us when Bloom traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers for nothing in return, Mookie, in fact, WANTED TO STAY IN BOSTON. Which he revealed when the Dodgers were in town a few weeks back. So my semi-negative on Bloom turned into a full-blown, his guy's gotta go.

Mookie was a generational player: all the tools, high character, great personality, a community guy. Everyone adored Mookie.

Yes, Bloom was pretty much forced by ownership - for whatever daft reason - to deal Mookie. But to get nothing in return? Yikes. That was on Bloom.

It will break my heart (if I live that long) when Mookie goes into the Hall of Fame as a Dodger. But that's baseball.

When the game started, the crowd was pretty sparse. I'm guessing maybe 5,000, which looked like a game of the rotten Red Sox teams of my childhood. The row in front of me had one person in it; the row behind me had two. There was no one on either side of me. Attendance picked up - there was a nearby water main break that had delayed some arrivals. But the park was never full. There were only about 100 folks scattered in the bleachers; and no one in the miserable right field grandstand. (I'm guessing the fans who bought tickets for those sections decamped to better seats.) Beautiful day, but a rain delay game, two loser-ama teams...

Too bad. The no-shows missed a good game.

Good pitching. A couple of dingers. A Red Sox 5-0 win.

Going into yesterday's afternoon game, the Sox were tied with the Yankees for last place in the division. With the win, the Sox pulled one ahead of the Evil Empire. (I'm writing this before the nightcap was played, so they're now either back in a tie or two-up on New York.)

When I left Fenway, the post-Chaim Bloom Red Sox had a perfect 1.0 record.

Pennant fever!

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I recently posted about the Cow Parade, artfully gotten-up statues of cows being auctioned off for the benefit for Dana-Farber. Here's the Red Sox/Fenway Park cow, which missed my earlier cattle call.