Opening day

National anthem

Mission accomplished! Photos uploaded in a timely manner. There are a lot of them. Seventy to be exact. Your best bet is to open this post and view the slide show. View it in full screen too. Please check these out. I took them for you.

So, I had to see for myself what the difference was between Opening Day and a regular game. I had the opportunity to grab a single ticket for the game when I was selected for the second chance lottery for Opening Day and Yankee tickets. Only single seats were available and it seemed like all of the Yankee games were obstructed view. I said screw it and opted to go it alone so I could finally experience an opener.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of the same pomp and circumstance before since I have gone to a 4th of July game. (Funny enough, also against the Rays and check out those photos — in full screen slide show — as they are probably the best I have taken at a ballgame.) They pull out the same stuff except for Senator Ted Kennedy. Seeing him driven on to the field by Jim Rice while smiling and waving to the crowd was genuinely a great moment. It got even better once he made his way to the mound. He played it up and so did Rice by giving Teddy a second chance to hit the mitt; which he did.

As for the game itself, it was was very good. Beckett really only got into one jam and with help from Varitek and Lowell got himself out of it. Threw up enough K’s (10) that the K-Men seemingly ran out. (They either ran out or lost track of the count.) Reigning AL MVP Dustin Pedroia hit a HR into the Monster on his second pitch (?) which I would have had a shot of if an inconsiderate ginormous woman not walked right in front of me to her seat just before I was going to snap it. (Slide show below, but the set is on Flickr.) Of course he smoked it out when she did, right? It was also nice to see Tek wrap one around the Pesky Pole and you have to hope he’ll have a better year than last if he plays less games.

The newest renovations to the park look like they have been there forever, which is to say, as usual. Everything they have added has blended in so well you’d swear it has been like this since you were a kid. Okay, you definitely notice the nicer restrooms without the tubs to pee in, although they are regressing a bit since one of the restrooms I used featured those waterless urinals that I despise. Anyway, my seat was in the last row of the second section in the Pavilion level next to the press box. It was one of those bar stool rows too, so it was sweet to have a table in front of you on which to lean and eat, etc.

Lastly, you can rest assured that the *new* Fenway Franks didn’t seem much different to me. They certainly taste the same the second time around. You know what I mean. Hmm… maybe not… I mean burping and not puking. I didn’t partake in any uber-expensive lagers today.

(View the slideshow in full-screen by clicking that button in the bottom right of the player after clicking play. Your Esc key exits full-screen.)

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