A Winning Night . . .

. . . even though the Sox lost.  We went to the game last night with a couple of my college friends and had a great time!  We sat in the Coca-Cola Pavilion, which was a first for us.  I've sat in the third base loge section, the bleachers, the right field roof box, the right field roof deck, and the homebase field box (that was amazing), but never the Coca-Cola pavilion.  Next up, Monster seats?

The Boys are Back in Town

Ahhhh. Welcome home, boys. :)

(Photo taken in June of '06, not today. I wish!)

Oh, and my boy & I will be going to the April 17th game against the Orioles. Not long now!

Go Team!

Congrats, boys! You earned it.

There's no way I could not share this . . .

If you haven't yet seen these videos, please, please go there immediately. You will not be disappointed.

I laughed so hard I knocked down one of the pictures on my wall. No joke.

Fenway Faithful is Right

Tonight makes 456 consecutive sellouts at Fenway. This number breaks the previous MLB record, held by Indians fans (455). So here's to the fans. It's no coincidence that the Sox have a much better home winning record than a lot of other MLB teams.

My favorite parts of the evening:

• Lester marking the occasion by throwing 7.2 scoreless innings and 9 strike-outs.
• Winning, of course. We are now a half game back from first place in the AL East.
• In the video they showed at the park (and on NESN), Tito says, tongue firmly in cheek, "Thanks for the all the advice." ;)

Today in New England Sports

Yesssssss:

Tampa Bay	85	56	.603	-
Boston	84	58	.592	1.5

But, noooooooooooooo!

Sox on Fire

Is anyone else seeing this? ;)

The Sox went into the 7th inning of today's game against the Twins with just a 2-run lead (7-5). Then, all hell broke loose. Here's the box score:

July 9, 2008

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Minnesota	3	0	0	0	0	2	0	0			5	13	1
Boston	0	0	4	0	2	1	7	3			18	23	2

I love being home from work early to be able to enjoy this. :)

Sox/Celts

So I should have done this sooner, but . . . congrats to the Celtics for winning the Eastern Conference Finals & advancing to the NBA finals for the first time in 21 years! :)

I'm definitely more of a Sox fan than I am a Celtics fan, but I do like the men in green. In imitation of Center Field, I'm posting a pic of a Sox player at a Celtics game to bridge the gap. The pic is of Lucky & David Ortiz, courtesy of Center Field.

In purely Sox news, Jacoby Ellsbury is a stealing MACHINE. The boy has stolen 27 bases this season, 7 of them in the last 3 games alone! I would love him no matter what, but he's doing especially good things for my fantasy team's "stolen bases" category this week. ;)

Countdown

This is my 396th post on Hodoeporicon. I've written more than 400 posts overall, if you count the 29 posts on Enigmatic Snippets, my old blog and the 23 posts on Museophilia, my professional blog. However, it's still pretty exciting to be this close to 400 posts on this, my most personal & creative of outlets.

Maybe I'll write my 400th post on the night Manny knocks in his 500th homer. ;)

UPDATE:
Haha, I love it! Twenty minutes after I posted this, Manny hit #500! Nice birthday gift to yourself, eh, Manuel? :)

The Real Title Town

Just two things to say on a night like tonight:

1. Go Sox! (game at 10:10pm)

2. Go Celts! (game time 8:30pm)

Gotta Hand it to the Kids

(Photo courtesy of Boston.com)

As if regaining our first place position in the AL East wasn't enough, Jon Lester pitched a no-hitter last night! I wasn't able to watch the game, unfortunately: I was at a bar with friends in Campus Town & there was just one TV. In the totem pole of sports, a regular season Sox game falls below both the NBA & NHL playoffs, apparently.

They did, however, flip to the end of the game & I looked up to see the score (7-0) and Lester's teammates mobbing him. "Oh, neat!," I said, "he pitched a shut-out." Another friend with a better view of the TV said, "No - a no hitter!!!"

So congratulations, Lester. And can we all just reflect on the wonderful job that our farm kids are doing? Ellsbury's diving catch last night helped keep the Royals hitless. And it's been less than seven months since Buccholz landed his own no-no last September. The future's so bright, we've all gotta wear shades. :)

The Universe has righted itself

For the moment, at least.

American League East

	W	L	PCT
Boston	27	19	.587
Tampa Bay	25	19	.568
Baltimore	23	20	.535
Toronto	23	23	.500
New York	20	24	.455

Oops

Well, like Cynthia, I hailed Moss' Friday night performance. However, as she points out, the poor boy had to have an emergency appendectomy today! :(

He's out of the hospital now, though, and will be resting for the next 10 days. Understandably, at the moment, the team isn't sure when he'll be back. I'm going to send my thoughts his way for a speedy recovery. You should do the same!

New Boyfriend?

Forgive me, Mike & Jacoby, but after the way he played this week, I think I'm developing a crush on Brandon Moss. ;)

I'll update this post later with a dream that I once had about Moss. In the meantime, just look at that goofy smile!

UPDATE: OK, so one night last fall, I clearly had the Sox on the brain. I drifted off to sleep & found myself in a dream where I was at Fenway with my parents. They were sitting in a fictional "player's parents" section, so I got to meet a lot of the players as they came by to say hi to their folks. (I think this odd idea hearkens back to my track days. My parents were great team parents & spent lots of time in the bleachers with my teammates' parents.)

At any rate, they got to talking to Moss' parents & the next thing my dream self knew, I was dating Brandon Moss! And you know how you wake up & really believe that your dream was true for a minute there? Yeah, I definitely woke up & was convinced I was dating Moss for a couple of minutes. My apologies to his wife! :)

Mr. Right vs. Mr. Right Now

(Warning - I got a little "1am rambly" and this post ended up much longer than I anticipated. Might want to get yourself a cup of coffee if you decide to stay for the duration.)

I've been thinking lately of what qualities "My Dream Man" might have. Much of this is because I wrote a paper last night & this morning about The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart. I read this book back in September and dredged it up again for this paper. And, truth be told, I'm really half in love with Stewart. Even my Facebook status says, "Stacey is really half in love with Rory Stewart," so you know I'm not lying to you now. ;)

The point is that I secretly (on the internet) half-love this man because he is many things that are important to me. He is thoughtful, intelligent, funny, well-spoken, and he also gets out there & does things. He walked across Iran, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Nepal, for goodness sake!

At the beginning of last summer, I blogged about my "summer boyfriends." The first "boyfriend" was the entire '07 Red Sox roster & we know how well that turned out. ;)

The second two were historians & TV show hosts, Dan Snow and Josh Bernstein. These two lads remind me a lot of Rory Stewart, actually. They are handsome, intelligent, self-possessed, and immersed in the study & interpretation of history as a career. Is it any wonder that I think they're the bee's knees?

Which brings me to my current dating life, where I like both of the contenders, but don't necessarily think either of them are the aforementioned bee's knees. D.B. (who still needs a better nickname) and Sports Center are both nice, funny, sweet guys. They are both clearly interested in me, despite obstacles like long distances between us.

However, I don't find myself thinking, daydreaming, smiling to myself about either of them. And I'm a goofy romantic at heart, kids. I like, want, need all of that thinking, daydreaming, smiling to myself about my mate.

Further, I keep thinking about something that a happily married friend of mine said recently: "Don't underestimate your market value. You're smart, pretty, and funny - you need to find someone who's a good match for all of that." And without being a total egomaniac, I know this. I know that I'm attractive, funny (at least to myself!), smart, and fun to be around. I'm the kind of girl that a guy can be proud to introduce to both his mother & his drinking buddies. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same in a boyfriend.

Am I being too picky? Maybe. Probably. All the same, though, who am I to decide at the tender age of 26 that my dream man isn't out there? Some Saturday night, I could turn around from ordering an oatmeal stout @ the Brewery or a cask-conditioned Old Thumper @ the Coat and there he'll be - tall, handsome, with mischief in his eyes & a pint of good beer in his hand. Hey, it could happen. ;)

Happy Red Sox Day!

So worth the 5:45am wake-up time.  :)

(Picture of Papi courtesy of Boston.com.  Doesn't it look like he's hitting the sun out of the park?)

So Close to Real Baseball

We're so close, you guys! For those of you not keeping countdowns, here are the stats. As of today, we have:

• 3 days until the first regular season game (Sox vs. A's @ the Tokyo Dome, first pitch @ 6:07am EST)
• 10 days until the first U.S. game (Sox vs. A's @ McAfee Coliseum, first pitch @ 10:07pm EST)
• 17 days until the home opener (Sox vs. Tigers @ Fenway, first pitch @ 2:05pm EST)

Plus, one of my fantasy leagues drafted last night & the other will draft tomorrow night, so I'm really tasting spring right now. :)

"Bad Men" at Bat, Good Men in Life

I am very proud of the Sox right now. Read this story: Stipend dispute appears resolved. Then, tell me how you could not be. :)

Dancing with the All-Stars

Lowell puts on dancing shoes for charity

This was amazing. :) I saw the re-cap during the spring training game today & I'm still giggling. You guys, Dustin Pedroia took off his shirt! And danced terribly. But as the GSBB said, "I'll still marry him, even though he has a fat belly." ;)

Singing in the Rain

OK, snow, but that's just a detail.

For some reason, I'm ebullient tonight. Actually, there are a number of reasons for it. Which I will now list. So there. (You guys don't come here expecting insightful social commentary or anything, do you?) ;)

• This weekend, I'm hosting a Leap Year party (at a bar, not my place) on Friday night & attending an Around the World party on Saturday. Who said you have to work hard in grad school? I kid, I kid.
  
• I ordered a new Red Sox sweatshirt for the '08 season & it came in the mail on Monday. I don't think I've spent a night home without it on & I wore to class on Tuesday.
  
• My nephews continue to be cute & wonderful & I love seeing them once a week.
  
• My dating life is too confusing to parse right now (plus, I only have nicknames for two of the five thus far), but it's generally good & I'm clearly doing something right this winter. ;)
  
• In my research seminar today, the professor chastised everyone for poor work on a recent essay. She then said the highest grade was an A-. Guess what I (and another friend) got? It was particularly great b/c I'm pretty intimidated by this professor & her notes said my writing was "excellent."
  
• It looks like I'll be spending spring break either relaxing & attending a few St. Patty's Day parties or . . . in Puerto Rico!
  
• My friend Kate made a mix CD a few years ago, called "Beautiful & Funny & Sad & True," after a line in The Girls' Guide to Hunting & Fishing. I've been listening to the last song, the love song medley from Moulin Rouge (the elephant scene), on repeat. As Kate points out in her liner notes, "this is love at its silliest, most dramatic, and most surreal." Yet, it makes me believe in love again. And considering my bad luck with it in the past, that's saying something. :)