Red Sox vs Angels

7/30/08

Sox 2 Angels 9

In Attendance: Dan

One of the great things about baseball is that the season is so long, and over the course of 162 games, you get a huge range of experiences. Blowouts, shutouts, walk offs, maybe even a no hitter, to name a few. But that also means that you're bound to see some very boring games. The same applies to seeing games in person- if you go to enough, you're going to see all varieties. And after seeing some great games this season, number six fell driectly into the boring, even depressing, category. 

Listmaker managed to get some last minute seats online which put us in a brand new section for this season, directly under the new Coca-Cola sign in left field. We were basically in the last two seats of the top row in left field. These are upper deck seats, but being that it is Fenway, they are probably the equivilent of the mezzanine at most ballparks, and had an excellent view.

(Cell phone camera strikes again)

After a long walk around the entire ballpark trying to figure out just how to get to our seats, we settled in for what we hoped would be a good matchup between the Sox and Angels, who were at that point cementing their status as the hottest team in baseball. This quickly proved to not be the case, as Josh Beckett turned in a lackluster performance and the Red Sox played like little leaguers. By the time the fourth error was committed, the crowd was booing as loudly and angrily as any I've heard in 8 years of going to Fenway. 

Of course the big drama surrounding this game was Manny Ramirez's antics regarding his contract. This is old news now of course- Manny is happily settled in LA and pissing off a new manager. But at the time this was huge news in Boston and clearly had an effect on the team, and within 24 hours, he was gone. So while it may have been a lousy game, it was definitely notable to see Manny's last game in a Sox uniform. 

People who aren't from Boston are always shocked by the fact that we were all so ready to give up one of the best hitters in Sox history. But anyone who follows this team year to year had seen this whole charade before, and by the time he pulled himself out of a key Yankee game in July, we all knew it was time to go. But instead of dwelling on that, i'll post my favorite Manny moment in Boston- Manny's walkoff in Game 2 of the ALDS last year.