No place exotic, just a simple city beach:

 

Most sporting events have two parts.  One is the fans, and the other is the game.

A baseball game, from my immense experience of attending baseball games, I think there are four or five parts to those games.  There is the audience, the food getting, the commotion around the food getting, the game and probably two guys wearing bowling pins.  But for brevity’s sake I will focus on the fans.

Now I grew up hating baseball.  Hating it and the fact that I now like it is nothing short of amazing.  Being in the deepest of deepest Yankees/Mets country and seeing those blue clad people all the time got under my skin in a way that I couldn’t explain.  One time I saw a billboard around Yankee Stadium and it said “its called the World Series but it mostly takes place here.”  I grew up in New York.  I love the Rangers.  I am indifferent to football, but I always hated the Yankees.

The Red Sox made a different impression on me from day one.  They were perennial also-rans.  I’m not going to say losers because this will get me attacked, but they did not win for a very long time and I think this made them develop a quirky, funny image that I find very appealing.  There is a guy dressed as a fat green Monstah during the games.  Everyone sings “Sweet Caroline” during the games.

I find the fans in general, very sweet.  The first time I went to a game a little kid sat next to me and explained the game to me.  Then he ran up to me with his green Monstah doll.  Also, during that game, balls came flying over our head and of course, my mom called her friend the baseball nut to find out the score.  We were too busy looking out for stray balls and if that ball had gone anywhere near me, I would have put it into the glove of the little kid.

This visit proved equally sweet with the fans.  Check these out:

See, these fans weren’t bad.  But there was one immense loud mouth sitting next to us that made my hair stand on end.  He claimed to be a Red Sox fan and then talked about how much he hated the individual players on the team.  He kept disparaging all the players.  To one player he actually yelled out “nice try girl!”  All the while his girlfriend sat next to him listening to all of this drivel.  I bet he got picked last for every sport.  Including dodge ball.

Onto happier topics.  The food sellers, who I always love because of their elaborate selling techniques.  Put item on head and sell sell sell:

A little art for those who like that:

 

And finally, two group shots:

Baseball is a numbers game, what with its RBIs and at bats and stolen bases and home runs and other stuff I can’t understand, so I decided to come up with my own set of baseball numbers:

Number of times I attended a baseball game prior to 2008: 1

Number of times I attended a baseball game after 2008: 3

Number of visits to Fenway Park prior to 2008: 0

Number of visits to Fenway Park after 2008: 5

Number of Red Sox Players I could name before 2008: 0

Number I can name now: 4 (on a good day)

Number of players my father can name: 0

Number of times he has won free tickets for a Red Sox game: 3

Number of time he’s actually attended the games: 0

Number of photos I took at today’s contest between the Kansas City Royals and the Boston Red Sox: 460

Number of photos that made the first, initial cut: 56

Number to be displayed here: lower than 56

Enough numbers, let’s look at some photos:

 

 

In 1527, Swiss Guards and militia sacked Rome.

In July 2011, Borders Books and Music started its liquidation process, closing a business that has existed since 1970.

History will judge which event was more important:

A sad beach in a rainstorm in black and white:

Updated, perhaps:

 

Beat the heat, young man:

I have a new effect on my computer that makes the photos look like this:

Crazy photoshopping?  I don’t know.  But they look like they are in front of a blue screen and outside of the image.  Of course I love it.