There’s something that I never really got to experience before Skip became a friend: the straight-guy bonding of a sporting event. Most of my straight male friends up until that time weren’t really into that ~ and if they were they weren’t including me on any of the fun (and to be fair, I likely pooh-poohed the notion in image or downright dismissal). Skip pulled back the curtain on all of that, and though it was a strange and often confounding landscape of over-priced beer, oversized t-shirts, and over-used crocs, there were glimmers and hints of what made baseball so captivating for so many in our country. There was, to begin, its history. Sepia photos lined the interior of Fenway Park, drifting back decades. There was also the ongoing saga of the Red Sox and their mostly-underdog glories. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there was the feeling of community in a stadium full of fellow fans, the way we were all there to enjoy ourselves, no matter how different or strange we might otherwise have appeared to one another. When Skip would heckle the other team, he got applause and cheers and support, knowing nods and friendly smiles, and as embarrassing and irritating as it might have been in any other realm, here it tickled me.
At some point in all the games, I would pause and look around at all the people en masse together. Maybe I appreciate it more considering the current state of our socially-distant world. But even back then, when standing shoulder to shoulder was commonplace, I felt the warm kinship of rooting for the home-team, to be a part of something in a collective sense ~ something that so rarely happened to someone who so unintentionally fought to distance himself from others. I owe many things to Skip, and showing me how it felt to be part of the crowd, to be included, will always be one of the most important ones. Here’s the second part of our baseball recollections:
BroSox Adventures 2018
The detailed, in-depth multi-part blog posts for our annual Red Sox game pilgrimage was combined into a single end-of-summer post since I took the summer of 2018 completely off from blogging (on Skip’s sage advice). That said, our Red Sox trip went on as planned, without the bothersome intent to capture it all for posterity. We still managed to remember and recap. That was the year we went on the hunt for a serial killer by the Charles River, Skip went dumpster diving and planking, and we took our trip in August rather than June, switching things up a bit. It was also the year I thought we could pawn him off on the bear community, and it was a dismal failure. A bit of payback for the I-Wanna-Dance-With-Somebody-who’s-not-you encounter a few years back.
SKIP’S TAKE ON 2018:
I just told this story the other day. How you were taking me on a “serial killer” tour while we were 3 sheets to the wind and me realizing halfway through that there was no killer we were just walking on dark half alleyways WAY TOO close to the Charles River and were probably going to fall in the water and drown just like the “murder victims” did. You recall the Bear Community much differently than I do. It wasn’t payback. I didn’t feel slighted. Quite the opposite. As a straight man I always assumed a “bear” to be 6’4″ with a dark beard and probably wearing a leather vest. I was shocked to see a bar full of guys who look very much like I do. And that was the moment that me, a doughy, middle-aged, dad-bod white guy who holds very little appeal to straight women, realized “Holy shit… I’m actually someone’s fetish!” No one offered to buy me a drink… but still. If I’m not mistaken this is also the trip that I brought an edible gummy that my brother-in-law had procured for me in Colorado. You mistakenly tossed out the half that had gone uneaten on the first night which then made me do a goddammned dumpster dive the next morning in a fucking Back Bay playground trash-can. Which you filmed without my knowledge btw…. asshole.
SEATS/GAME: Another Saturday Night game. Loge Box not far behind home plate. Ray’s Pitcher walked three. Couldn’t throw a strike to save his life. I yelled so loud he could hear me. “You can’t fucking see the strike zone. It’s INVISIBLE!!! INVISIBLE!” He walked in a run. Got pulled. People high-fived me because I caused the run. Sox won.
SIDENOTE: Red Sox won the World Series this year.
ALAN’S FOLLOW-UP: Listen, if you’re going to leave a ratty plastic bag twisted into a foil ball on the credenza for longer than a minute, I’m going to throw it out. I set that video clip to ‘Bad Boys’ and it was fucking brilliant. For some reason the crowd always loves your inane screaming. I do recall the word ‘invisible’ being hollered maybe three more times than necessary and then laughing at that. It’s one of those mysterious intricacies of game life that I still don’t quite comprehend. Fellow fandom? Shared joy in the abuse of the opposing team? Can’t we just get matching hot dogs and have that be enough?
BroSox Adventures 2019
This brings us to last year’s shenanigans, where we planned a full-on Chinatown chow-fest, and set things off in typical rowdy form, tempered with a visit to the Charles River and some stoop-gazing that might see us transition into our middle-aged Boston exploits. Eventually, we found the fabled Peking duck and everything fell into place.
SKIP’S TAKE ON 2019:
I think that this was my favorite trip. They seem to have crazily gotten better every year which seems unlikely (and probably why the universe forced a year off). Soooooo many memories on this trip. For the first real time we had a “theme” aka “Chinatown.” Damn if it didn’t live up to it. Where to start and where to finish? Awesome sandwiches packed by you for the drive. Google Maps saving the day (and an hour and 20 minutes). Bleacher seats suck when you’re used to Loge Box or better. I did make friends with the “Set It Off” girls and we found them again downtown. Eating past close at a Chinese restaurant while the staff played cards waiting for us to finish. Amazing walk on Saturday. One of my favorite quiet and undersold memories: drinking on the stoop in the summer, just chatting and waving at passers-by whilst enjoying the remnants of a long awaited tradition. Unintended test run Chinese dinner where the waiter didn’t speak a lick of English. FINALLY getting my Peking Duck and it being so much more than I thought it could be.
SEATS/GAME: Friday night game. First time we did the game on a Friday. Center/Right Bleacher seats. They sucked. Felt like the game was happening without us participating. First time ever we witnessed a Sox loss.
SIDENOTE: We had to leave first thing because I needed to race back to get to Mia’s dance recital.
ALAN’S FOLLOW-UP:Who knew Peking duck would become such an ordeal? Glad it was worth it in the end ~ and it’s a pretty cool testament to our friendship that one of the best parts of all these trips was sitting on the front stoop of the brownstone and watching the world go by.
BroSox Adventures 2020… 2021?
Originally, we had a brand new set of plans for this year’s BroSox excursion with a fancy night at the Mandarin Oriental (thanks to the above-photo of Skip’s dog Cooper – another story for another time) and a totally-switched-up game plan. That is obviously on hold until further notice, and until such time that we can make them happen, I’ll hang onto the memories here. Bookmark it for when you need a laugh at our silliness. As for the final word on our trips thus far, I have to give that to Skip, who in typical fashion puts our momentary sorrow for losing out on this year’s trip in perfect perspective: after five years of successively-excellent trips, maybe the universe was giving us a year off for an off-year.
SKIP’S FINAL NOTES: Holy shit going back in time brings back so many amazing memories. Just a true and unbridled camaraderie with one of the best friends I’ve ever been fortunate enough to have. When you look back at this tradition in such a way, a clarity is shed upon its evolution. It makes me exceptionally sad for this year’s lost trip. Yet I remain hopeful for next year’s trip. I expect it to be the best yet and I think in honor of all that is lost in this world, in this nation, and in this lifetime… we kick it up a notch.
