It’s all my fault.
I’ll take the blame. Heap your scorn upon me. I deserve it.
For it was I who, after having sat in the humid heat for more than three hours of what was apparently the second-longest nine-inning major league game of all time, decided I just had, had to get up out of my seat and go to the bathroom.
I did this just as Hideki Okajima came out of the dugout.
So there. It was all me. Even one of my friends at the game later told me that as soon as I’d gotten up, she’d worried that I’d jinxed things.
There I was, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I would finally watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees in person. But no. The whole thing felt eerily like watching a pre-2004 Red Sox game.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because we had fantastic seats courtesy of my parents, who won them in a contest. And despite the loss, it was a battle to the end. Sloppy at times, too–how many points did we score in that game thanks to Jason Giambi’s butterfingers?
It would have been much more fun had there not been two young, surly Yankees fans sitting behind us, keeping up a running commentary of the game. There seemed to be an abundance of NY fans in the grandstands, actually. At one point, when Mariano Rivera got a good strike in the ninth inning, one of the two behind us kept clapping continuously until I turned around and glared at him. I kind of expected him to either clap louder or tell me to screw off; instead, he just stopped. I guess I acquired an air of authority somewhere. It’s worth mentioning that the second the game was over, they cheered and then bolted out of their seats and out of the stadium. Apparently they had no interest in celebrating while surrounded by disappointed, peeved Red Sox fans.
Peeved because of me.
Whew…and here I thought it was ME all the time!
At the end of the 5th inning, Ron decided that the testosterone build-up and the clicker in his right hand were too much for him, and promptly launched on a 300 channel search to see what ELSE was on. I challenge him to remember any of the 4 different extended stops he made to watch either A) something he has seen before, or B) something he knew nothing about…but by the time I said ” Go back to the game” the damage was being hurled upon the Red Sox. I immediately looked at my right wrist where I wear my treasured Red Sox watch, it was gone. There was a reason I was not wearing it-and fans will totally understand this- I put it on and take it off AS NEEDED by my team. On Wednesday night, I put it back on and BAM, 3 run homer from Papi, and we know how that one ended. Last night, after frantically looking for the unusual place I had left it, I got it strapped on, and 3 outs for the Sox quickly came. But it was too late to let the baseball gods know all was right, when it was 7-2, I realized my watch was not on and should have strapped that sucker back on…It’s really Ron’s fault, if he hadn’t let his clicker- driven mind wander, I would have known after the first HR…
And now, according to lore, I can’t put it back on again until the Red Sox need to rally…but then again, maybe it was Jason’s fault!!
And as an aside, 2 of my dogs suffer from anxiety issues when faced with certain situations, they are prescibed human xanex…I couldn’t crack that bottle open fast enough last night….for ME!