Play lots more ball!

Schilling on the hill. Game 1 of the American League Division Series. Angels vs. Red Sox. Tickets to all games at the Big A nee Edison Field nee Angel Stadium. First game yields a victory for the Red Sox (9-3). One down, two more to go before the ALCS.

Life is good, even though I'm wearing my Boston hat to the games...Here's why.

In what passes for clear logic for me, I have a pecking order of teams:

• Rangers (the team I grew up following)
• Red Sox (the team of my ancestors)
• Angels (the team I saw win a World Series and my current locale)

...way down below...

• New York Yankees (may they live in the inferno forever)

It seems silly, but that's the code I live by. My Rangers will always take precedence, but the Red Sox deserve my affiliation because it's the team my father and grandfather root(ed) for and, heck, the BoSox are usually better than my Rangers. Once a team with a higher priority is eliminated, I go for the team in the next list. Consider it a priority queue. Hah.

Since we have a mini-plan to the Angels (such that we can see the Red Sox and Rangers when they are in town), we have playoff tickets for all the Angels home games. And, hence, since they are playing Boston in the first round, my father and I are in the odd predicament of rooting for the Angels to lose. Which sort of sucks. But, refer to the pecking order above.

I'll be heading over to the Big A after my discussion tomorrow (shh, I'm going to try to cut it off early) in the vain hope that I'll make it there for the first pitch. We'll see...but I've got lots of things I need to cover in the discussion section tomorrow.

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Why I had plastic nacho cheese all over my clothes.

The Red Sox were in town for a four game series against the Angels. So, we took our yearly pilgrimage (as part of our 20-game pack) to see the Red Sox play. On Friday night, David Ortiz got thrown out for arguing the laughable third-strike call. He then went, well, bonkers. It ended up with Ortiz throwing bats from the dugout after he was thrown out. Woo, that was fun! But, took nothing on what happened on Sunday: the action got a bit closer...

So, there we were on Sunday: day game, last game in the series, fairly hot (but a nice breeze), booze flowing. As befits the Red Sox fans, there were indeed a bunch throughout Angel Stadium (entire sections were full of Sox fans). Note: unlike what will happen next Monday when the Rangers come in - it'll be like 10 people in the stadium wearing Rangers jerseys (of which I'll be one!) - during the Red Sox series, there were at least that many in our section.

This season we've been in Section 236 in Right Field: our section has only one exit column - to our left is the groundskeeper entrance in right - so there's only way in and out of our section, below us is the field which is patrolled by the Man from Vlad. And, we're on the aisle in Row V - this is roughly the first row you come across when you walk down into the section. (Our location is actually important to the story, so bear with me.)

About the fifth or sixth inning, a guy maybe eight or nine rows down from us all the way on the end (near the railing over the gap for the groundskeeper entrance) wearing a Patriots hat starts getting into a shouting, cursing match with a guy a few rows down from him. Yelling and screaming ensues. The usher (Peter as Frank, the regular usher in Sections 236/237, had the day off - Frank knows what happens on Sundays!) went over to quiet the guy down. That worked for about thirty seconds.

Then, two guys in wifebeaters (as eventually eloquently described by our pals one row down from us) a few rows up from the Patriots (BoSox) fan look at each other and say, "Let's have some fun." (Mistake #1) So, they wander the few rows down and get into the Patriot fan's face. The usher wasn't really paying attention at that point (Mistake #2). Then, punches start flying.

Now, the usher starts figuring out this is bad and goes down to try to separate them. All the other ushers from other sections start to pile in. Eventually, the beefy security guys come rushing in. They get them separated and start to walk the Pats fan up. However, they weren't restraining this guy - he wasn't a happy camper (Mistake #3).

As the Pats fan escorted by security is walking up the stairs towards us, a guy wearing a Dodgers jersey on the other side of the aisle in 237 maybe two rows down from us starts taunting the Pats guy. The Pats guy goes bonkers and punches the Dodgers fan - throwing the Dodgers fan's glasses off. More punches get thrown. (Remember, this is about two rows down from us.) Then, someone throws nacho cheese (determined by later smell evaluation of our clothers) at the Pats fan.

Boy, that cheese can fly. Every one in our row and behind us got splattered with 'plastic nacho cheese.' Some of the security guys had it all over their face - their eyes were even puffing up from it. Yikes.

More security comes flying in and pounces on both the Dodgers fan and the Pats fan. They eventually escort the guys away, but not before our clothes are nice and yellow. (The Dodgers fan returned a half-inning later. He didn't start the fight physically - he just taunted the guy.)

There was another fight about two innings later a few sections to our left. This time, the cops responded and immediately started handcuffing people. I think they started enforcing zero tolerance then. Oh, well.

(Scioscia also got tossed from the game about that time because he argued for Schilling to get tossed for throwing at someone. Lackey had earlier thrown at Nomar after Ortiz's home run - that caused warnings to both teams.)

Beer, heat, baseball. What fun. Time to bring out the spray 'n wash.

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