Gonna Be A Showdown

Thursday marks the start of the 12th annual SAAD trip, this year to Boston. Since my eighth birthday, Aunt Sue has treated me, my brother, and (once she turned six) my sister to a trip of some sort. If I remember correctly, we have travelled (starting in 1990) to DC, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Wyndham (NY, to ski), Los Angeles, DC (again), the Dominican Republic, San Francisco, and the Carribean for a cruise (without me).

Thanks to these trips, I've been exposed to some ballparks I would otherwise never have visited, such as Busch Stadium (before they installed actual grass), the Vet, Fenway, and Camden Yards. Thursday night we make our triumphant return to Fenway Park for the showdown between the AL East leaders and the Yanks (who would ever have thought that those descriptions wouldn't be synonymous?). Up until last night, the pitching matchup was scheduled to be Pedro vs. Lilly; exciting, surely, to see the great Pedro Martinez pitch, but it would have been something special to see a slightly more storied Yankee pitcher. Turns out that El Duque and Wells aren't in the greatest shape right now, and will miss their scheduled starts tonight and tomorrow. So, Moose pitches tonight and Lilly takes the ball tomorrow, both on three-days rest, setting up an epic matchup on Thursday between Martinez and Wells. Unless, of course, Wells is still incapacitated, in which case some poor Yankee farmhand gets thrown to the wolves.

It's hard to feel a kinship with fans of a team that was beaten so badly by my own back in 1986, but their hatred of Roger Clemens and All Things Yankees makes it possible. Let's Go Red Sox!

May 21, 2002 - 09:41 AM