Willy-nilly Friday 5: Birthday Edition

1.  So yesterday was my birthday – which one is not really relevant.  It’s enough to say that I’m not getting any younger.  We had tickets for a day game at Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox.  In baseball, as in life, hope springs eternal and I was hoping for a win to add to my scorebook.  (Yes, I am a baseball nerd and I do keep score when I go to the games.  My scorebook is one of my favorite things in life.) Well, there was no luck at Fenway yesterday since the Sox lost 8-6, but it was a good day at the ballpark nonetheless.  And as the famous line goes, “There’s no crying in baseball,” which is a damn good thing, because otherwise we’d be crying a lot this year.

2.  The other day I saw on Facebook that the Boston Museum of Fine Arts had a photography exhibit that I really wanted to see.  The exhibit is called In the Wake:  Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11.  In case you can’t recall the date, it is the day, March 11, 2011, that the tsunami hit the coast of Japan leaving so much devastation behind.  I was interested in this because I recently did a bit of research on the subject for a talk I gave in April as part of a Sunday service at our church concerning radiation in our everyday lives.  The continuing damage resulting from the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is frightening and horrible, but that is beside my point here.  Going to see the exhibit, which was very touching and well worth a visit, encouraged us to park at the museum and walk to Fenway.  It’s a pleasant walk through a beautiful part of Boston.  On the way, I managed to snap this picture of The Prudential building reflected in one of the fens.

3.  After the game, while we were walking back to the car, I noticed this plaque embedded in the sidewalk next to tables with chess boards embedded in them:

A little research got me an explanation of why it is there.  David Woodman is a young man who died during the celebration of the Boston Celtics winning a championship.  They say that he was willing to give up his coat to the homeless he encountered and loved playing chess with them.  I think we would all benefit from remembering that, at the end of the day, we do all end up in the same box.

4.  Speaking of boxes, on the way out of Boston we passed by the House of the Harvard Club of Boston.  There’s a box I wouldn’t fit in either now or at the end of the day.

5.  Because of some pretty nasty Boston traffic, we got home much later than anticipated, so to cap off the night, Greg and I took the five minute drive over to our local Uno’s Pizzeria and I celebrated getting older with an Ultimate Margarita and half a flatbread pizza.  The good thing about that is that our friend and expert musician Jared Fiske was performing there that night.  That was the icing on my non-existent birthday cake.

Oh, by the way, here's me in a pretty bad selfie that I took while sitting in traffic in Boston yesterday.  I was pretty beat from all we did during the day so I look a little on the put-out side, but I wasn't unhappy -- just tired.  But today I am a very happy person thinking about the Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriage in this country.  Even though I've been around for a good long while, I still feel that life is too short to deny  all consenting adults the happiness of love and marriage if they want it.  Thanks, SCOTUS!

Linking up with Around Roanoke's Willy-nilly Friday 5!

Boston Stronger!

Indulge me while I enjoy the moment. Last night, the Boston Red Sox won the Fall Classic and are Major League Baseball's World Champs. What great guys! They worked hard and deserved to win. After the anguish of the Marathon Bombing, this is such a joy.

I missed the first inning of last night’s game because I had to go to a meeting.  But at the meeting, a neighbor and friend of ours who was there said that she and her husband watch every single game and were going to stay up until the end last night, win or lose.  We made an agreement that if the Sox won, we would go out and shout it out to the neighborhood.  That we did!  Sorry if you were asleep in bed and we woke you.  Well, I’m only kinda sorry.  You should have been up watching the Red Sox.

I have loved baseball all my life.  I grew up a Cincinnati Reds fan because we lived in southern Ohio.  I loved the Big Red Machine!  But I moved to Cleveland in the late seventies and spent a few hapless years going to the games in that behemoth of a ballpark Municipal Stadium.  Though the Indians were pretty bad at that time, we had some great times there and one cold and drizzly night in the middle of May, 1981, Greg and I were present when Indians pitcher Len Barker pitched a perfect game.  A baseball lover’s thrill!

 For the last 30 years or so, I have been a member of Red Sox Nation.  And these days, whether they are good or bad, I love the Red Sox, though I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Reds and the Indians.

But mostly, I just love baseball.  I love the symmetry of it.  I love ballparks and the fact that though the infield measurements are the same in every park, each park is unique and quirky and beautiful in its own way.   I should know.  I’ve been to twenty-six of them, not counting a few minor league parks.  I love the smell of ballparks and the thrill I get when I walk from the concourse into the burst of green of the field.  I love opening my scorebook and keeping track of every pitch when I’m at the ballpark and  I love turning on the TV, settling down at night and waiting for the first pitch when we watch the game at home.  I love talking about the game the next day.  I love that baseball is the only major American team sport that isn’t timed.

 I love that even though my team may be down by seven (or more) runs late in the game or coming off an abysmal year when they ended up in last place, there is always that hope that they might come back and win, because the game is never ever over until the last out.

I love that the Red Sox won the World Series in 2013.

Baseball and Friday Fences…

For many in baseball September is a month of stark contrast with April, when everyone had dared to hope. If baseball is a lot like life, as pundits declare, it is because life is more about losing than winning.

  ~John Thorn

What does this quote have to do with Friday Fences, you might ask.  Well, I sat here this morning thinking about baseball and wanting to put up some photos of fences here on my blog to link up to Friday Fences.

In baseball, of course, the fence is an important part of the game.  Some players desperately “swing for the fences” when their team is down.  There is even a play by August Wilson about baseball called Fences.  Fences are important in baseball. 

And I’m thinking about baseball today because today is the Boston Red Sox’s home opener.  They have gotten off to a pretty sorry start and I am hoping that today they decide to turn things around.  But regardless of how the Red Sox do, I will watch them all season because I am first and foremost a baseball fan and secondly a Red Sox fan.  In baseball, you take the bitter with the sweet.

And that is much like life. 

On our trip this week out to Deerfield, Massachusetts, Carrie and I drove around some beautiful countryside and saw some wonderful country homes.  I managed to take some pictures of a couple houses in Historic Deerfield.  These are really gorgeous, old, well kept houses behind these fences.  But we also saw a couple of properties that were not so well kept.  The contrast between April and September, I guess.

And for good luck, I am including one of my photos of Fenway Park's Green Monster...one of the world's most famous baseball fences.

  Good luck, Red Sox!

Linking up to Friday Fences.