Game 6: Fenway Park, Boston, MA
Cleveland Indians vs Boston Red Sox- Thursday, May 23, 2o13
We drove down to Portland and took the bus from there to Boston. Soon after checking into the hotel, we headed over to the home of John Goods ’10, a former member of the Thamattoor Lab, and his fiancé Brittany Thomas ’10, also a former Thamattoor student in organic chemistry. We were joined there for a delightful dinner by other alums of Team Thamattoor, Tom Sisto ’09 and Adelajda Zorba ’06. After catching up and reminiscing with everyone at the meal, we made our way to the ballpark.
We try to catch a game at Fenway at least once a year, usually when the Tribe is in town. So although coming here is not exactly a new experience, it is, as always, a real thrill. As the oldest stadium in the majors (it celebrated its centennial last year), Fenway has a special historic charm. It is also one of the smaller ballparks in the big leagues, so there is a cozy and intimate feel to the place as well.
With Cleveland making its only trip of the year to Boston this weekend, we decided to seize the opportunity to see the Indians play. To be sure, there was a lot of emotion in this game. For one, there was a moment of silence for the victims of the Oklahoma tornado. Then the first pitch was tossed by Peter DiMartino, a survivor of the recent Boston Marathon Bombings. Peter tore his Achilles tendon and suffered severe burns and shrapnel wounds from the blast while waiting for his mom at the finish line. He has spent a lot of time at the hospital lately but his defiant spirit came into full view when it was announced that he and his mom plan to run the marathon again next year! Boston Strong Indeed!!
There were some other emotions, too. Perhaps the most popular person at the game in all of Fenway was the manager of the Cleveland team. This marked Terry “Tito” Francona’s first trip back to Fenway as a manager of an opposing team since leaving as Boston’s manager in 2011. After eight years with the Red Sox, perennial appearances in the post-season, and two World Series Championships, Tito is an icon in Boston. There was a beautiful tribute to him during the game and the fans were up on their feet chanting Tito! Incidentally, the man managing Boston was John Farrell, a good friend of Tito, and his pitching coach during his Red Sox years. Beautiful!
Depending on your persuasion, the game itself could be described either as awesome, fantastic, incredible, wonderful, and amazingly fantabulous; or dreary, boring, depressing, horrible, terrible, and frustrating. As Tribe fans, we subscribed to the former description but the home faithfuls, no doubt, held a different view. As the adage goes, “it’s not who you play, but when you play ‘em that matters.” Earlier this season, when the Red Sox visited Cleveland, Farrell took it to his former boss as Boston swept the three-game set. The Indians were reeling then, but this is a very different team now. With potent offense, spectacular pitching, and sparkling defense, the Tribe rose from the cellar of the AL Central to first place in just a couple of weeks. It has stayed there for some time now. This is easily the most fun Indians team that we’ve seen in a number of years. They are firing on all cylinders right now.
The Tribe scratched out a run in the second frame on a weird play. Drew Stubbs hit a pop up behind first base that fell into no man’s land after deflecting off Dustin Pedroia’s glove to score Carlos Santana from second. The Indians then added three more in the third and were sitting pretty at 4 zip. As the lore goes, no lead is safe at Fenway and sure enough, David “Big Papi” Ortiz smacked a mammoth three-run homer to pull the Red Sox within a run at 4-3. This came just after Jacoby Ellsbury was cut down at the plate by center fielder Michael Bourn, who fired an accurate and strong throw to the catcher Yan Gomes. The Indians, however, were relentless. They scored a run in the fourth and another in the fifth. But the real onslaught came in the sixth. The first five hitters reached and by the end of the inning, The Tribe had put up a big, crooked six on the board to lead 12-3. That ended up being the final score. What a homecoming for Tito! Ironically, for a team that has shown surprising power this year, and is among the league leaders in home runs, Cleveland scored twelve runs without the benefit of any long balls! On the other side, all of Boston’s runs came from that Big Papi homer!!
Given the state of the game and a light rain that began to fall in the late innings, the fans headed toward the exits. They had very little to cheer about tonight. But not us. We enjoyed every moment of the game and also got to walk around and explore the ballpark. We even got to go atop the Green Monster and take pictures from there!
By the time we got back to our hotel, it was nearly midnight, so we turned in as we had to continue on our trip early in the morning.
See you in the next town!
