Musings from Mandy

I realized this morning while writing the ESPN entry, that I commented on my “list” of sporting events that I planned on going to. I’ve decided to make an actual list of places I’ve been and places I’m going for your viewing pleasure. Places I’ve been… Fenway Park, Boston, MA Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY Oriole Park @ Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD Tropicana Field, Tampa, FL Rogers Center, Toronto, ON Comerica Park, Detroit, MI The Ballpark at Arlington, Arlington, TX The Boston Marathon, Boston, MA Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, MA The Boston Garden, Boston, MA The TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, MA The Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY The Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto, ON Saratoga Horse Races, Saratoga, NY LeLacheur Park, Home of the Spinners (A), Lowell, MA McCoy Stadium, Home of the PawSox (AAA), Pawtucket, RI Volcanoes Stadium, Home of the Salem Keizer Volcanoes (A – San Fran), Salem, OR Places I’m going… Chase Field, Phoenix, AZ Turner Field, Atlanta, GA Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL U.S. ...

A little bit of bad-ass to start the second half. Tonight, it's Wake vs. Holliday. As for me, I'll be at the Spinners with the rest of the gang.

Sunday morning, we got up at 7:30, d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g and finally hit the road about 9. We got to the hotel in Toronto, the Holiday Inn on King Street about 1:30 after a wrong turn or two. If you ever go to Toronto, I highly recommend the HI on KSt. It’s nice, is right near both the Air Canada Center and Rogers Center, and has a sweet pool on the 16th floor. We went to Toronto for two reason, one, so Kerry and Colleen could cross the Rogers Center off their list of parks to go to, and two, TROT . We arrived at SkyDome / Rogers Center / Rogers Centre (those silly Canadians) a little before two. We bought 9 dollar tickets and promptly sat about 7 rows back from Mr. Nixon in RF. I had decided prior to the game that having no real vested interest in the game, that I would cheer for the Jays out of respect for the home team, and for Trot Nixon, out of undying love. It was the 5th when we arrived. I looked up at the scoreboard and told my cousin, “Hey look, Josh Towers has a no-no”. The next pi...

After leaving Niagra Falls at the crack of 11, we finally made it to our hotel in Detroit about 5 after stopping off to see some old friends, and me almost getting us arrested at the border for not remembering where we had been the night before. (Hey, it was a long trip). We stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Dearborn, after hearing that this is where the Red Sox stay. That was not our only reason, part of it was that we wanted to stay somewhere where wouldn’t get murdered, but, it did have something to do with it. We asked the bell boy when we checked in, and he told us the Sox stayed in downtown Detroit at the Atheneum Suite Hotel, which, is where our bell hop friend told us they stay. We never actually checked it out, because we aren’t those kind of girls. (Okay, we are, but we were scared to leave the area directly around the stadium, and directly around the hotel). I guess the Yankees and Twins stay with the Ritz, but the Sox and White Sox stay at the Antheneum. Just so you kno...

Kerry and I left our lake house in NH at 5:30 on Thursday morning, picked up Colleen and her 34 Vera Bradley bags at 7:45, we were off to Cooperstown. We got there in a little under four hours, thanks to my fantastic navigation skills and superb parking job, we entered the hall about 12. As soon as we entered we realized our first mistake. Going during the summer. Little kids EVERYWHERE. Now I love little kids, but only if we share DNA. These little rugrats where everywhere, getting in my way, stepping on my feet, and standing in front of my camera. So, we immediately decided that if we ever go to Cooperstown again, we are going during the day, during the school year. Anyway, besides that, there is obviously a ton of cool stuff there, my favorite two items were the Cy Young jersey and THE sock. I have the complete album on my facebook, but here are a few of my favorite pictures. One thing I don’t like about the H of F is that there is so much stuff, it’s hard to walk through ...

I know I slacked on Thursday and Friday, but who wants to talk about losses? or 32 year old guard? Not me. Anyway, the Sox came home yesterday and all was well in Red Sox Nation. Wake pitched great. Delcarmen got the job done. (How cute was it when Mikey went out to talk to him?). Then, Mr. Jonathan Papelbon came out to close things in the 9th in grand fashion. A K, a very long fly ball, then an extremely close play at first where it looked like got him on the replay, but, as we all know, ties go to the runner, Kenny Lofton in this case. Cinco-Ocho took exception, and had a few, er, many choice words for the umpire, until the little second baseman that could came over and pushed him away. (Thank God he didn't get tossed). He came back, hit Jerry Hairston on the hand. Regained his composure, and came back to get the K to end the game. I've watched the game twice, once in real time, once on the midnight replay, and now it's on again in the backround. One thing ...

*First off today, some very sad news out of Arizona. Former Red Sox pitcher Rod Beck was found dead in his Arizona home . He was just 38 years old. Foul play is not suspected. Some of the Red Sox remembered Beck yesterday . *Sportsguy compares Durant and Oden . Will he ever write about baseball or football again? Probably not. He also has a diary of the NHL draft . I know, I'm as surprised as you are. *The White Sox GM is unhappy with his teams play and is going to make some moves . Rumor has it that the Red Sox are first in line for Mark Buehrle right now . We trade Lester or Jacoby, Theo is going to have a very unhappy SoxGal on his doorstep. The big names that have come up so far are Clay Buchholz, Michael Bowden, Jacoby, and Jed Lowrie. I guess also in the trade the Sox will give Buehrle a 5 year contract extension. "I'm not a big Buerhle guy at all,” Eckersley said this morning in an interview on Boston sports radio station WEEI. “Talk about pitching to contact. Every...

First of all, no links today, I have spent all day looking at the Virginia Tech reports. Such a terrible tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with those poor kids and families today. Here are some pictures from me and Katelyn's Red Sox outing on Saturday for Curt's start against the Angels. We had standing room but found a pretty good spot and a very nice and cute boy named Kevin who sat in front of us. As for the Sox, for the record, I don't think you can sweep the series when a game is postponed. I think if they win on the makeup then it is a sweep. I think MLB should stop scheduling West Coast team's one trip to the East Coast in April. Seattle has a roof and Anaheim is alway nice, why not start there. I think that I'm not engraving Josh's Cy Young yet. But I'm giddy none the less. I'm glad we are heading to a dome so we have a somewhat return to normalcy schedule wise / I have some time to watch games on TV rather than in person (that was ...

Here is Kerry's rebuttle to mine and Katie's Texas Recaps... ok 1st things first it didn't matter what kind of car we had cuz as you remember we were with Colleen, and that suitcase wasn't gonna fit anywhere... 2. I tried getting out of the car but someone pushed me back into it (actually by my face) and I am pretty certain it was Katie! 3. You left out the fact that we are now gonna have to go to Laconia to kick some hill-billy ass 4. That even though Katie "made" herself throw up I am still the champ!!

As I said...I missed a few things...here are Katie's corrections: Considering you were comatose for a few days, I'm going to fill in the blanks for you/make some corrections: 1. Kerry and Colleen are the a-holes that wanted the PT Cruiser. Maybe if they had listened to us when we said the luggae wouldn't fit in the trunk, then Colleen wouldn't have been practically sitting on my lap on the way to the airport while she was vomiting. 2. I would gladly give up Youk for Mark. 3. When describing the scenary in TX you forgot to mention the Waffle House and Whattaburger. And the lack of cattle roaming free. 4. Humperdinks is the correct name. However, we took to calling it Tiddlywinks. 5. It might have been too cold to drink mixed drinks, but it was not too cold to drink beer. You should man up and try it. 6. You neglected to mention the sketchy friend who went to St Johns that we met at the Wyndham who swore that Peabody is a 10 minute drive from Boston. 7. We didn't ACCI...

from the last 5 games... *I think Dice-K was getting squeezed last night. I also think if I was the coach, I would have been tossed for arguing balls and strikes. You’re getting no hit anyway, may as well try to fire up the offense right. *(non-Red Sox related), but Bridgewater State beat Newbury College by 57-1. If I was the AD at Bridgewater I would fire the coach, and if I was the coach at Newbury I’d be in jail for 2nd degree murder by way of baseball bat today. *I don’t care if conventional wisdom tells you that it’s better to have a great pitcher pitch 200 in starting pitching rather than 80 in relief. After two annoying losses in Texas, it was a beautiful thing watching #58 run in from the bullpen. *During the little scrum on Opening Day, Papelbon hopped over the bullpen wall, threw off his jacket, and sprinted in. I feel like you should know that. *After Hernandez gave up the hit, he should have hit a Red Sox, especially after Dice-K hit Guillen. *I forgot to mention this ...

Okay, as promised, a Texas recap. Also as promised, giant bits of information are probably missing. Friday We started off Friday morning at 4:00, with Kerry’s alarm does not go off. Great way to start the day. Kerry and I had to get ready in 6 minutes. Clearly Colleen was not involved. We flew out of Manchester and arrived in Newark at 7:33 with exactly 33 minutes to go from Terminal C to Terminal A. Good work Expedia. (more on them and how I plane to take down their entire corporation in a little bit). Anyway, after nearly missing the shuttle bus, running up and down the terminals, we arrive at our gate. The Continental lady gives us a knowing look, “Manchester?”. We get onto the plane and the flight attendant greets us with a, “We didn’t think you would make it!”. We finally get to Dallas about 11:30, grab our bags (just kidding, Continental lost those. More on how I plan to take them down in just a bit). After filling out the freaking lost baggage claim, we grab our re...

Here are a few picks from Texas... The Ballpark At Arlington. Nice place, but I wouldn't want to live there. I guess their fans didn't know there was a game that day? Manny, David and Lugo love Sammy Sosa. Plenty of room for everyone... David.

Yeah, um, that's us, the losers with the bunny ears, L to R, Colleen, Katie, Me, and Kerry.

So far so good with Dice-K! I'll be back Tuesday with a monster post and hopefully some fun stories from Texas!

I was so happy to have real live Red Sox baseball back in my life yesterday. For the first 4 minutes of that game anyway. My dad was already in midseason form, hating Youkilis ("I hope he strikes out next time up so he doesn't run into another out...I have never liked Youk. Never"), being thankful that the Sox didn't resign Curt, pissed the Yankees won ("now we are already a game back in the East"), planning a hit on Julio Lugo ("I could strike him out today...Good work Theo") and all the other negativity that I have come to know and love. I got angry IM's and texts and panic filled phone calls. The Red Sox were back and even in a loss where we couldn't get a hit off of Gil Meche, ran ourselves into two outs, and just generally couldn't get anything started, it still felt good. The Red Sox are back. Anyways, all the refreshing and familiar pessimism yesterday reminded me of my favorite passage from Faithful , by Stewart O'Nan...

One week from right now I will be running through the Newark airport trying to catch my connecting flight to Dallas, TX with the hopes of arriving with time to go to the hotel, check in, change, chug a White Russian (or 8) and be on my way to the Ballpark at Arlington for my first in person Boston Red Sox Experience of the season. One week and one day from now, I hope to be lying by the hotel pool with a giant hangover talking about how great it was hanging out with David Ortiz after the game. Also, I bought two Mega Millions tickets today, so when I win my 80 million dollars tonight, all of my loyal blog readers can come to Texas with me. (I already paid for my room at the Holiday Inn Express and millionaires don't stay there). *From http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/ . "FSN announced today that they has signed Jonathan Papelbon to be Mohegan Sun Sports Tonight's weekly featured baseball interview for the 2007 season. Papelbon follows in the shoes of Kevin Millar (2004 ...