Fenway
Ok, so last year, when I came to Boston to check out BU's law school, I was lucky enough to find a ticket for the Red Sox second home game. My seat was 20 or so rows behind first base, and I half jokingly tell people that it was the magic of Fenway Park that I experienced that made me choose to attend BU. Strangely, I have always been a Red Sox fan even though I have always lived in Arkansas. Somehow Mike Greenwell became my favorite baseball player back in the mid/late eighties during my baseball card collecting years, and I have followed the Bosox ever since. So going to that game last April allowed me to check off one of my life goals--to go to a game at Fenway Park. Today, however, I was able to do a little better. Tomorrow is the Red Sox home opener against the Yankees. Before the game, they are having an hour long ceremony during which they are handing out the championship rings. Between all of the players, former players, and celebrities, there will be a few hundred people involved in the ceremony. Obviously they can't all be there beforehand to practice, but the camera operators and sound people still need to practice the order of events. So, they needed warm bodies to walk through the ceremony. Yes, I was one of those bodies. We met first behind third base in the seats to organize. Then, I went with a group of about 20 people out to the Green Monster, where we just hung out for a while until the practice began. One of the coolest things I noticed was that there are thousands of dings in the Green Monster from the thousands of balls that have hit it...and you can only notice them by getting up close. Pretty cool when you think of the people over the years who have hit those balls and made the little dents. My role was to play the part of a Red Sox legend. So, I lined up behind a big banner that ran the length of the Green Monster, running my hands across the manually operated scoreboard as I went past. There we waited until our cue. When the man playing Joe Pesky walked back to the banner, we came out two by two and walked over to the flagpole in deep center field. There we each gave two pulls on the flag rope, each helping to hoist the actual World Series champion flag over the field. After that we turned and faced home plate. It was incredible to stand there in deep center, out on the warning track, and see the expanse of Fenway Park's playing field in front of me. But, it was not over. We all then walked in a staggered single file line from deep center to the home team dugout, walking past second base, along the basepath past first base, and then over to the dugout. As we walked, the cameramen zoomed in on each of us--I was on the Jumbotron at Fenway! Only it didnt say Kevin Saunders under my walking, very non-baseball player looking body--it said Rico Petrocelli, who was an old Red Sox shortstop. But yes, it was cool to look up at the Fenway Jumbotron and to see myself. We, the oldtimers, lined up outside of the dugout, and all of the players(actors and actresses like myself, of course), came out of the dugout to be introduced, giving us all high fives as they passed through our human tunnel. That was the only weird part of the afternoon...everyone who gave us high fives had different feeling hands. Some were smooth and dry. Some were rough. But every 2nd or 3rd person had really sweaty palms that slimed across my hands as they went past. That wasnt very exciting. But, the experience was amazing. It was a wonderfully sunny and warm afternoon, and I spent it on the field at Fenway Park.
One other note. At the ceremony they are going to have a group of soldiers carry out the rings to the players. All of these soldiers were wounded in Iraq and currently live at the military hospital in DC. Some were in wheelchairs, some had canes, but all obviously had been injured pretty badly. And for me it was extremely sobering to stand next to guys my age or younger who wheeled themselves across the field because they were missing a leg, or who limped slowly but proudly across the field because a leg or back was so badly injured they would likely never regain full bodily function again. Regardless of your politics, whether you agree with the Iraq situation or not, I don't know if you can get a sense of the gravity or truth of what these soldiers are doing until you look at a man who could easily be you and realize that your body is sound while his is irreparably broken. And I say "sense" because as moved as I was by being around those guys, there is still no way I can truly know what they know.
One other note. At the ceremony they are going to have a group of soldiers carry out the rings to the players. All of these soldiers were wounded in Iraq and currently live at the military hospital in DC. Some were in wheelchairs, some had canes, but all obviously had been injured pretty badly. And for me it was extremely sobering to stand next to guys my age or younger who wheeled themselves across the field because they were missing a leg, or who limped slowly but proudly across the field because a leg or back was so badly injured they would likely never regain full bodily function again. Regardless of your politics, whether you agree with the Iraq situation or not, I don't know if you can get a sense of the gravity or truth of what these soldiers are doing until you look at a man who could easily be you and realize that your body is sound while his is irreparably broken. And I say "sense" because as moved as I was by being around those guys, there is still no way I can truly know what they know.