Notes On August 9th

Sean Ford (left) invited me to Fenway

Two items struck me today in the memory department.

First, I played softball on this day in 2013. It was there, after a hard-fought game (I know no other way to play) that I popped the question on HAN Radio (and the Network, etc). It would take three months to bring it to fruition and Paul Silverfarb was partner-in-crime for the whole thing.

Despite literally everything, I'm still awfully proud of it. The stories will live on and they'll only grow. I'd one day like to see all of us recall how special it was but I fear that's a pipe dream. Too much to work through.

And, yes, that includes me.

Then there's Aug 9, 2008. After working in the studio as the game analyst (yes, I really did), I wrapped up the broadcast, went home, got some sleep, picked up Harold, and drove to Boston.

I kept saying I'd believe it when it really happened but I walked into Fenway Park as a professional broadcaster. I kept waiting to be stopped. They wouldn't have my credential. We weren't allowed on the field. Something wasn't going to thwart us.

I deal with this crap of "#YankeeBoy" which is truly something you can't say if you really know me.

Susan, who was at that softball game but didn't talk to me, knows that I bleed baseball. Then comes the Yankees. I'm more about the game -- the sport.

And so, as a lover of history and the sport, I was overwhelmed at being a broadcaster at Fenway Park. ALL of my heroes worked there at one time or another. Seriously. Think about it. Vin Scully not only called games at Fenway but much of his career STARTED at Fenway, thanks to the Maryland/Boston College game that he was assigned in 1949.

Doc Emrick and Red Barber and Mel Allen and Dick Enberg and Scooter and White and Messer and...

Me.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams played there. Bobby Murcer played there. Don Mattingly. Paul O'Neill.

And I was broadcasting a game there. I was sitting in the dugout, doing an interview. I was inside the Green Monster. I just stood there and soaked it all in.

I've probably told all of these stories. It was a weekend of an enormous high, and a fairly dreadful low, when I found out why my son didn't hear his father on the air at Fenway Park. No, I'll never quite get over that.

When the game was over, Sean Ford (the true "Voice" of the Renegades) packed up and headed out to catch the bus. Harold and I sat and watched some of the next game before convincing ourselves to make the walk back to my car at the Prudential Center. We really didn't want to live but we went and had a good dinner before heading to Lowell for more baseball the next day.

It's a weekend and an experience I'll always treasure.

Back to baseball tomorrow, and hopefully not for the last time in 2020. (Robcasting, 5:30).