San Francisco Giants @ Boston Red Sox (game 1)

I spent half of the day asleep trying to get better, and then waited until about 6 before heading to Fenway Park for Tuesday's game.   This was first game of a rare 3-game series between the San Francisco Giants and the Boston Red Sox.  Since this is an inter-league matchup and not one of the 'natural rivalry' series, these teams only play every 4 years in the regular season.

I was sitting in the Green Monster seats - the seats on top of the giant green wall in left field, created so that the field could fit in the space available whilst making the difficulty of hitting a home run (over the monster) approximately as difficult as it is anywhere else.

I was sitting in section M10, which is the furthest away from the plate and in seat 1 of the second row, which has a somewhat obstructed view.  At first I thought I was going to be the only person in the whole section, but the front row had been taken by a business party of 10 who turned up late, and more people turned up as the game started.

I was glad I wore my coat, because it was quite chilly up on top of the wall.  In fact, I had my Giants top on and a polo shirt underneath that.  I shall have to do the same tomorrow night too.


Since I hadn't eaten anything all day, I decided to try a hot dog from the concession stand.  Fortunately the concession stand was between sections M9 and M10 so it took all of 5 seconds to get there!  It didn't make me cough, so I had a second one later in the game.

This game featured a homecoming of sorts of the Giants' lead-off hitter Mike Yastrzemski, whose family hails from the New England area.  In fact, his family name is a major part of Boston Red Sox's late 20th century history, as Mike's grandfather Carl played for Boston, in Left Field, for 23 years.  They were both out on the field together before the game.  And when Mike came up to bat to start the game, he received quite an ovation from the Boston crowd.  In the 4th inning, he hit a home run - and there was quite a lot of cheering even from the Boston supporters!

This game followed a familiar script to the games I saw in San Francisco.  The Giants opened up a nice lead (5-1) and then the bullpen gave it up to make it 5-5.

So the same struggled on at 5-5, and it was getting colder.  The 9th inning came and went, so it went into extras.  At the end of the 11th inning, I decided I could hang on until the end of the 12th inning to see if there was a result.  The 12th inning came and went, so I decided to leave, because it's a half hour train ride and 10 minute walk at the other end.  I caught the midnight train.  I was by no means the only person who had left - the train was full of others who had also left, and the stadium was already quite sparsely filled by the time I'd left.  Just after we set up, somebody called out "the Giants have scored, in the 13th!" and indeed we had scratched out a 6th run to lead 6-5.  I heard no more, so when I got back to the hotel, I went to bed as it was nearly 1am.

People on the concourses - (much) earlier on!

I set up my Roku streaming stick on the TV in my room this morning and, carefully to avoid finding out how many innings were actually played, started it at the top of the 13th inning, thus seeing how the 6th run was scored.  Unfortunately, Boston also managed to score a run in the bottom of the 13th, so it was on to the 14th.  And then the 15th inning.  San Francisco scored another run making it 7-6, as the stadium clock ticked over to 1am.  Yet again, Boston managed to put the tying run and winning run on base, but a line drive to Dubon finished the game and the victory was secured.

This was Bruce Bochy's 1999th career victory as a manager.  I would like to see the 2000th in one of the next two days, and we have Jeff Samardzija and Madison Bumgarner starting the next two, so there's a chance.