And the Tarp is on...again

I'm pretty certain that I couldn't have landed in Boston in a summer with any worse weather. As much as I like the city and my job, I'm really struggling with the consistent wet/chilly weather that has been lingering over us for about a month. I went into work at 9 today, and had to do a variety of usual jobs. The skin has been excessively wet recently, so I had to spend about 2 hours working on drying that out. We had a handful of other things to do, and then, in anticipation of overnight rain again, we laid the tarp on the infield at about 6 PM. I'm in tomorrow at 7 AM, and I assume we'll pull the tarp, fix the infield, and then wait for it to start raining again as that's what the forecast is calling for.

I'm still having a nice time in Boston, but now that I've got things in order to go to Pittsburgh with my family in 2 and a half weeks and also with my Dad and our friend Danny coming to visit the weekend after that I'm excited about seeing the people I'm close to.

Hope everyone is having a great night, maybe I'll have more to write about tomorrow. Goodnight.

And when thinking about sunny weather and also being with family or back at NCSU, it's nice to remember Romans 8:25. "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

I Love That Dirty Water

Hey! So, I had another day off today, and like most of the days I've had off, I did a lot of relaxing around the dorm and doing a little exploring downtown toward the Prudential center.

I spent the morning and afternoon just hanging out, watching the news, and catching up with friends from home. Oh, I watched the coolest car chase on Fox News around lunchtime, so, that was a good part of the day. Later in the afternoon I went downtown with my roommate and our friend Laura. Had a great time looking around in some of the stores and ate dinner in the Prudential center before heading back to the dorm for the night.

I'm having a really nice time in this city, and I'm psyched for the team being back in town on Friday. It's been great having the time off with the team gone, but this 10 day homestand I should get to see some good baseball and hopefully the July weather will be nicer than what it has been in June. I'm also excited that July is coming up as that means I'll be having some visitors soon and I'll also be heading to Pittsburgh for a weekend with my family for a wedding.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the title of this post refers to the song that is played following every Red Sox victory at Fenway Park. I've started to build a liking for this Red Sox team, and I guess I'm just feeling in the mood today. Haha, I'm off to bed, start work again in the morning. Have a great night guys, miss you all!

Nice Day for a White Wedding

So, as I updated you yesterday, I had to work this past night starting at 1 AM. I don't think in my past updates that I had included the reason for this late night of work, but now that the event is over, and because most of Boston already knew about the event anyway, it's alright for me to share what was going on at Fenway Park yesterday. While this may not seem like a big deal to many people, the owner of the Red Sox, John Henry, got married yesterday. He'll be turning 60 later this year and he married a 30 year old woman; pretty unbelievable. Anyway, considering he's one of the most well known people in New England, this wedding was highly publicized and considered by most to be unbelievable.

Anyway, the two were married on his yacht, and then after the wedding, the couple and around 400 guests were brought to Fenway Park for the reception. Like the concerts at the stadium, flooring was put down in right field, and a huge tent was constructed. The inside of the tent was unbelievable, with huge chandeliers, beautiful flower arrangements, and pretty much anything else you can imagine for a high class wedding. There were also plenty of famous people at the wedding, including Seinfeld writer Larry David, NASCAR driver Carl Edwards, and MLB commissioner Bud Selig, along with others. One of the neatest things though, along with the first band and a killer DJ, surprise entertainment for the guests was the popular band Maroon 5. Needless to say, Fenway Park was the place to be last night. We worked after the reception and just saw the tail end of the party and the initial breakdown of the party tent. After a few random jobs, I ended up leaving work at 6 AM and grabbed a quick breakfast wrap at Dunkin' Donuts before crashing for a few hours when I got back to the dorm.

I spent most of the rest of the day lounging around and watching baseball, whatever good movies we could find on TV. I'm off again tomorrow, so I'm gonna chill one more day before heading back to work for the week, and then we host a 10-day homestand starting Friday. Things should pick up again soon!

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday. I forgot to write it yesterday, but yesterday marked the halfway point of my time here in Boston. The first 7 weeks have flown by, and I'm excited about what the second half brings. Love you all.

Free Day(s)

Hey everyone, I've had yesterday and today off work, so I've been relaxing around Boston, trying to enjoy as much of the city as I can. Yesterday I slept in pretty late and then hung out around Fenway and the dorm with my roommate and some friends from the school. Later last night Phil and I headed toward Boston University to check out some of the area over there, and it was pretty nice. After that we headed downtown to Newbury street with friends from the dorm to hang out for a few hours.

Today has been much of the same. Phi and I went toward downtown again for a few hours. We're actually about to head to the ballpark for a few minutes to take the home plate and pitcher's mound tarps off before an event that is happening on the Fenway Park field. I don't imagine this work will take too long, and I'm going to try and get a little bit of rest along with seeing my friend Elizabeth from NCSU before I work again in a few hours. That's right, I'm doing another overnight shift, from 1 AM until roughly 7 or 8 AM. Hope I can stay awake!

I'll be checking in again soon, hope everyone is doing well. Go Sox in Atlanta!

End of the Week?

Hey! So, went into work this morning, and I was looking forward to today as the weather forecast called for maybe some sun in the Boston sky for the first time in a while! I got to work at 6 AM, and first I "nailed" the infield. This is the process of dragging a tool with many thick, heavy nails to help break up loose material on the surface of the skin. Then, excess turface on the skin was scraped and removed so that we could work on the soil component of the skin. The skin was tilled up, and new Nardone skin mix was applied to the surface. The surface of the infield was then leveled out using a laser grader and after this, a thin layer of red turface was applied back to the surface of the skin. Over the course of 10-11 hours at Fenway Park, we went from a skin that was full of wet, old turface and bad Nardone to a brand new infield, just in time for the second half of the season. The best news is, I'm off until Saturday night/Sunday morning at 1 AM, so it's time to enjoy the next 2 days off!

After work and eating dinner with my roommate, I rode the subway from Fenway out to Cambridge to meet up with my friend and future NC State roommate, Jim. Jim has been at a Harvard Business School MBA Seminar all week, and we had time to get together tonight to catch up and enjoy having a familiar friend in Boston. He showed me around the business school, which is beautiful, by the way, and then we walked through Harvard Square and that area of Cambridge. After hanging out for a little while I came back to my side of Boston, and ever since I've just been flipping through the channels, trying to follow the NBA draft while also following the news about Michael Jackson. I really liked his music, and as crazy as many people believe him to have become, he very well could be the best entertainer of all time. You da man MJ.

Alright, well, I'm off for the night, hope everyone is doing well. I'll be back tomorrow. GEAUX NEW ORLEANS HORNETS, nice trade for LSU's Thornton!

LSU Tigers: 2009 National Champions

The LSU Fighting Tigers are the 2009 National Champions of baseball! Congrats to all of my friends from LSU and in Baton Rouge who I know are just as excited as I am. My time at LSU is one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done, and I can't be more thrilled to see that school and its athletic teams do well. GEAUX TIGERS! LSU!

Ben Who-fleck?

Hey!

So, went into work today at 10 AM, and we had a few odd jobs to take care of in the areas of the park where equipment and materials are stored as it was raining in Boston today...again. I like being here, but I'm getting kind of tired of the cool, wet, and nasty weather we've been having the last few weeks. Hopefully after this week things will take a turn for the better for the rest of the summer. One of the toughest jobs today was poking hundreds of holes in the infield skin to help drain the pools of standing water that has accumulated over the last few days, but Phil and I took care of the task.

The coolest thing about work today, was at about 10:30 AM, as I was walking to work on something with Phil and Paul, I noticed a group of 6-8 people walking toward me. As we got closer, I realized one of the members of this group was none other than movie star Ben Affleck! I ended up walking/riding past him a few times this morning, and it was cool to see him acting as a regular person. Apparently a film starring him will be shooting scenes at the ballpark later this fall and him and the crew were scoping things out. He appeared to me about the same in person as he does on television, maybe a little bit shorter than I thought.

So, aside from ballplayers and sports broadcasters, I had my first celebrity sighting of the summer! I'm about to go to bed, I have work at 6 AM tomorrow.

Hopefully everyone out there is doing fine and enjoying this wonderful Wednesday night.

PS. At this very moment, LSU is leading Texas in the 7th inning of the clinching game of the National Championship series. I don't want to jinx anything, so I'll hold off on calling them the champions just yet, hopefully I can do that tomorrow. GEAUX LSU FIGHTING TIGERS.

End of the Homestand

Hey everyone.

Saturday night I went into work at 5 PM, and as soon as I got there we had to go outside and wait by the tarp in case it needed to be pulled. The weather ended up cooperating that night, and the Red Sox won game 2 of the series against the Braves. Once again I was on drag during the game, and after the game I worked in the bullpens before we pulled the tarp to cover the infield in anticipation for the heavy amount of rain we were expecting over Saturday night and throughout Sunday.

Sunday morning I arrived at the ballpark at 7 AM. The first thing we did at work was pull the tarp off of the field and worked on the infield, prepping it for gametime. After the field was set, we put the tarp back on as rain was coming for what we thought could be the rest of the day. During this time, two of my coworkers and I stocked the cubby in Canvas Alley, where we sit during games, with about 50-60 50 lb. bags of Turface so we'd have plenty for the afternoon. The game was scheduled for 1:35 PM, so at about 12:30, with the rain having turned into a full mist, we removed the tarp and spent the next hour readying the field for the game again. I really didn't think we were going to be able to get the game in given the expected weather conditions, but the rain never really picked up all afternoon, and the game was played, with the Red Sox winning in the bottom of the 9th on a walk-off home run by Nick Green. I grew up a Braves fan, so it was great seeing the team this week, but I'm glad Boston was able to finish the game in the 9th. I was on drag crew again, running the infield during the games, and had the game gone into extra innings we would have had to keep doing that, and I was getting pretty tired! After the game, we set up stanchions around the perimeter of the field, as the Red Sox on Mothers and Fathers Day allow fans to take a "Walk in the Park." Apparently during this walk, some guy wearing a NC State hat was asking people on the grounds crew for me, apparently I go to school with his son. If anyone knows who that guy was, let me know, sorry I couldn't see you! Most of the crew left, but a few of us stayed back for an extra hour or 2 and broke down the perimeter of the field. After an 11.5 hour day at the ballpark and a long, wet homestand, some time to rest was finally here! Oh, on Fathers Day MLB players wear blue Prostate Cancer Awareness ribbons with their uniforms, and since grounds crew is considered field personnel, we were also given the armbands to wear, so that's kind of cool.

Yesterday was my first day off, and I spent the day just hanging around the dorm and this area of Boston with my roommate until dinnertime. Then Phil and I went out with some girls that live on our floor and we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant on the North End of Boston. It was pretty delicious, I had gnocchi just for you Jordan Craig! I have the rest of the day off, and then it's back to work at the park for 2 days before taking Friday off.

Hope everyone is doing well and had a nice Fathers day. Hello to all my family, who seems to be all over the country today, Dad is in Alabama, Mom in California, Leanna in Texas, Chris and Jonie in Tennessee, and I'm up in Massachusetts. Wow. I'll be back soon, maybe even later tonight, haha, later!

Braves in Boston

Hey everyone! The last 2 days have been incredibly exhausting and I've been working a ton, but I finally got some time today to catch up and get some rest for work for the rest of the weekend. From pulling a 16 hour day on Thursday and a 15 hour day on Friday I was definitely ready for a quick rest. I go into work today at 5 PM, and as right now it's looking as if rainy weather may stay away for tonight, however, I'm certain tomorrow we won't be as lucky. I'll go ahead and give a recap of the past 2 days.

Thursday: I arrived at work at 7 AM, knowing that sometime during the day Thursday we were going to get some bad weather. We did the usual jobs prepping the field for the game, made it to lunchtime, and then as soon lunch ended we realized that bad weather was imminent. At about 12:30 PM we ended up putting out the tarp to cover the field during the rain. The radar looked pretty bad and we were wondering if we'd have a chance to get the game in, and then, around 5 or 6 PM there was a break in the weather, and we removed the tarp, and then worked to fix the field and make sure it was ready for a game. We knew that the league would try and get this game played, no matter how long it took because of the fact that this would be the last time the teams were to meet in the season because of interleague scheduling. We had the field ready for the game, and sure enough, early into the game the rain started again. However, the field was holding up pretty well, and we could tell the umpires wanted to get through at least 5 innings so the game could be official. At 9 o'clock, in the top of the 6th inning, the head umpire called a rain delay, and once again we pulled the tarp, put in the pipes, and headed to the dugouts to wait out the rain delay. I ended up sitting in the Marlins dugout. Most of the players had already headed to the clubhouse by the time we got there, but there were still a few hanging around. We ended up sitting in the dugout nearly 1.5-2 hours, until about 11 o'clock when the umpires officially called the game. At this time, we did a few things before leaving the park, but I made it home by about 11:30. I cleaned up and went to bed by midnight, knowing that Friday would probably be another rainy and long day at the ballpark. Oh, my roommate and I did see a little of "Baseball Tonight" on ESPN when we got back and before going to bed, and our buddy Drew who is on the grounds crew was shown by ESPN catching raindrops in his mouth and the commentators made a joke about it. After showing Drew in the rain they showed all of us hopping on the wall to move the tarp, so, once again I made an appearance on ESPN!

Friday: I arrived at work at 7 AM, and the rain was drizzling/misting on us, so we pulled back the edges of tarp along the baselines and home plate and went to work patching the clay and prepping these areas for play. All the weather forecasts we saw for Friday were predicting a variety of things, so we didn't have much of a clue as to how the rain would affect us that day. We pulled the tarp off at about 11 o'clock for the day, and we worked on the skin to prep for batting practice and the game. After we had all this worked on, we had to put the tarp on again to protect from pop up showers in the afternoon. We pulled the tarp off a second time and Boston began batting practice. Oh, right before Boston began to hit, Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox was sitting in the dugout smoking a cigar, when he proceeded to ask a question to us grounds crew guys about the weather. I was the closest, and he was looking at me, so I took the liberty of telling him I had no clue what was going on. So, yesterday I talked to Bobby Cox. In the middle of Boston batting practice the rain came again, so we cleared the field and applied the tarp again. The rain finally went away, we fixed the field a final time, and the game began. The weather stayed away for the rest of the night, so in all we had to take the tarp off 3 times yesterday, with massive repair to the field needed after each pull. I was on drag again yesterday, so I ran the drag on the infield after the 3rd, 5th, and 7th innings again. It was really awesome seeing one of my favorite players from growing up out there, such as Chipper Jones. I was walking behind him in one of the hallways under Fenway Park yesterday, and you don't realize how big and athletic these players are until you're right next to them. I got off work and got home about 11, and took care of some stuff before heading to bed.

Luckily, work doesn't start for me until 5 PM today, so I was able to knock out a lot of laundry, mainly of wet and nasty Fenway Park work clothes that were in need of cleaning. I'm not sure if the game tonight is televised outside of Atlanta or Boston, but I imagine I'll be on drag again or something considering I'm only going in at gametime. Once again, hopefully the rain will be gone! Tomorrow, I don't think we're going to be that lucky. Okay, time for a quick dinner and then another night at the ballpark. Hope everyone who is reading this is doing well and having a nice summer and saturday afternoon. I'll be back tomorrow!

Oh, and one more thing, congratulations to the Wise family with Sarah getting married today, wish I was there in Nashville with everyone. Congrats!

Update...tomorrow

So, I hate to be doing this again, but I spent another long day at the ballpark, 15 hours today, and I'm pretty exhausted. So, I'm going to update the blog on the past 2 days tomorrow sometime.

Luckily, I don't have to report to work until 5 PM tomorrow, so that should give me plenty of daytime to update this thing. Alright, this guy is out, later!

16 Hour Day

Hey everyone, just got back from a 16 hour day at Fenway Park. We were slammed with rain today and I'm exhausted. I have work at 7 AM tomorrow so I'm going to go ahead and get some rest. I'll update fully tomorrow, hopefully, if the weather cooperates. Have a great night everyone!

500 Consecutive Sellouts

Good evening everyone! As the title of this entry suggests, the game today against the Florida Marlins marks the 500th consecutive sold out game at Fenway Park, a Major League Baseball record, and extremely impressive, to say the least. This streak spans like 6 seasons, dating back to May 15, 2003. As I mentioned yesterday, my boss was planning for a special design to be put into the outfield today, as I later found out would be to coincide with the sellout today.

I got to work at 8 AM, and after doing most of the usual jobs around the ballpark, we got to work on the design for the day at about 10:30. This design in the outfield would be the number "500" spanning the width of the outfield. We flagged off the design, and then using walk-behind Toro mowers the pattern was initially put in the grass by allowing the roller on the mower to lay the grass blades in certain directions, causing for light to reflect off the grass a certain way. The mowers were used to "burn" the image into the turf by making multiple passes with the mower/roller. Along with mowers, we used heavy rollers that we pushed over the turf, and also our head groundskeeper, Dave, used water to help spray in the design. In all, I think the design turned out really well.



The picture above is the view of the "500" from the highest level of the stadium, near the press box.



And above is some detail on the "5" of the "500", so you may have a better idea of how the grass appears with the design in it.

If you click on the pictures above they will open up larger.

I ended up leaving work today at about 3 PM, and went toward downtown to run some errands before heading back to the dorm to relax and watch the game on television. I was supposed to go into work at 8 AM tomorrow, but we're expecting nasty weather this weekend, once again, and Griff called me this afternoon asking me to come in a little earlier to prepare for the rain. So, now I'll be heading to Fenway at 7 AM, in what may be the beginning of a long day and weekend at the ballpark. Oh, my boss is a representative for Scott's, the turf company, and he gave us all Boston Red Sox Scott's coozies today before we left. And, apparently he had an Atlanta Braves Scott's coozie for some random reason, and he, knowing they're the team I probably care the most about, gave me one of those too.

I think that's all I've got for today people. Hope everyone has a fabulous night, I'll be updating again tomorrow after what I hope is a nice, dry day at the ballpark! Adios!

Tennessee, January

Hey friends. Today was the first day of a 6-game homestand, with 2 series of Interleague play against the NL East. This midweek series is against the Florida Marlins with the weekend series being against one of my favorite teams from growing up, the Atlanta Braves.

I went into work at 5:30, and pretty much as soon as I got there we got busy taking down Batting Practice and prepping for the game. The game began, and once again, like the other day, I worked on the drag crew for the game. After the 3rd, 5th, and 7th inning I was part of the 5-man crew that drags and smooths out infield so play can continue without much, if any, interference. The Sox ended up winning tonight, and after the game I worked in the home bullpen with some other guys. I left the stadium around 10:30, and return to work tomorrow at 8 AM.

Tonight at work my boss mentioned to me about helping him put a logo/number/design into the outfield for tomorrow. I'm not sure what it is yet, but, if you happen to catch any of the game Wednesday night you'll see something I helped on in the outfield. I think I'm gonna hit the sack soon, hope everyone is doing well and having a great tuesday.

Looking forward to seeing everyone again, it's been a nice month in Boston but I'm excited about being back south. Goodnight everyone.

One Eye on the Clock, and One on the Phone

Hello everyone!

Had a nice day off again, my last full one before the homestand begins again tomorrow. I spent much of the day hanging out and relaxing in the dorm. My roommate had to go to work at the park for a few hours this afternoon, so I slept in, watched some television, and enjoyed my day. Went to dinner with Phil tonight out toward the park, and after dinner, came back to the dorm to watch the LSU TIGERS win their second game in the College World Series. WAY TO GEAUX TIGERS!

For the most part it was a pretty uneventful day. This week interleague play continues with consecutive home series against the Florida Marlins and the Atlanta Braves. Speaking of the Braves, I wanted to say congratulations to my buddy from when I was in high school, Cory Harrilchak, who was drafted the other day in the 14th round of the MLB draft by the Atlanta Braves. Cory just finished his senior season at Elon University, way to go dude!

Thanks again for reading, looking forward to seeing everyone again. I appreciate people keeping tabs on how I'm doing up here in Boston. Have a great night everyone, God bless!

Night on the Town

So, once again, I had the day off, and I had a great day hanging out around the city with my roommate and some other friends while relaxing before going back to work on Tuesday.

Slept in a little this morning, and then headed downtown to the Prudential Center for lunch and to do some shopping/looking around at a bunch of stores and shops downtown. Mainly, we just wanted to stay a little bit out of Fenway district and be out somewhere else. We came back to Emmanuel and hang out around the dorm, then after eating dinner in the dorm, met up with Laura and Nicole, two Emmanuel students we met a few weeks ago, and decided to go for a walk to get out of Fenway again and see a little bit of the city. The four of us left the school and headed toward the Charles River. We went through Boston University, got to the riverfront, and walked along the water towards the city. It was cool seeing the city from this view, and I'm pretty shocked it's taken me a month to get over to the river. We stayed along the river, and then crossed the Smoots bridge to cross to MIT. We hung out and took some pictures on the MIT campus in front of the Great Dome, before walking back to the campus. We all had a good time being out away from Fenway, and Phil and I got to learn a little bit more of our surroundings.

I'm about to hit the sack for the night, ready to enjoy my last day off before going back to work on Tuesday. Thanks again for reading this, and thanks to Cheryn for making Phil and I brownies tonight, they were so good! Hope everyone is doing well, please keep my friend and her family in your prayers. I put up some pictures of the last few weeks on facebook, I'll post a link at the end of this blog entry. Goodnight everyone! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2361234&id=2728421&l=7182c79b1c

I'm back..again.

So, I dropped the ball, again, and fell behind on updating this thing. Granted, I have been pretty busy the last few days, but still, that shouldn't be an excuse. So, I'll go ahead and do a recap again.

Wednesday: I went into work at 7 AM, and with clearer weather expectations and plenty of other guys to work that day, I was able to leave work at noon. It was really nice to get out of there at that time, as I knew things would be crazy preparing for the Wednesday Night ESPN game, and after a long Tuesday and what seemed to be a long Thursday it was nice to get the afternoon off. I hung out around the Fenway district, watched some of the game on ESPN with a few friends in the dorm and also watched a movie in a dorm room with some more friends. Had an early night as I had an early next day at the ballpark with a weather forecast that looked pretty bad.

Thursday: Once again, I went into work at 7 AM. The worst part about going into work that morning was the expectation of rainy weather. All the weather forecasts we had seen up until Thursday called for rain off and on all day, which would have made for a terrible and exhausting day of continuously pulling the tarp on and off and fixing the field. I guess we all got lucky Thursday morning, the rain that was supposed to hit us all day ended up being called as afternoon/night showers, so we had the morning to work and prep the field before a potential cover. The weather ended up holding off for most of the day, with light drizzle and mist off and on after about 4:30 PM. I ended up getting put on Drag duty for the game, meaning I was one of the 5 guys who went out with the coco-mats and drag the infield following the 3rd, 5th, and 7th inning. Once again it was awesome being on the field during gametime, being near the players with fans fixed on you and cheering for you as your run on and off the field. Oh, another cool thing that happened Thursday, as I was taking some wet turface to the dumpster in Fenway Park, I walked right past CC Sabathia, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada, got within about a foot or 2 of them. Then, when we were waiting to take down batting practice, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter were really close to me. Jeter actually let a past ball go by him, didn't make much of an effort, and it bounced off the ground and hit one of the crew guys. Jeter apologized, but we heckled him a little bit for missing a simple throw. This game was exceptionally long. I think most NY-Boston games tend to run a little longer than normal games, but wow, this one took forever. About 2 hours into the game, in the 5th inning, we were informed that the bad weather could start at any time. It started to rain pretty lightly in the 6th inning, and picked up in the 7th. Luckily, the infield and skin was handling the precipitation and wear quite well, so the umpires made the call to keep playing through the weather. New York took a 3-1 lead in the top of the 7th, but Boston had a 3-run bottom of the 8th to retake the lead, and then Papelbon came in and closed out the win in the top of the 9th. Another win over the Yankees, making the Sox 8-0 against NY on the season, and another night where we didn't have to pull tarp! Post game duties were kind of light, and I ended up leaving work right at 11 PM, so, I had a nice and long 16 hour workday Thursday!

One great thing about the Yankees series ending and the Sox heading to Philadelphia for the weekend meant that most of us grounds guys would be able to have some time off work! I was off work all day yesterday, I'm off this weekend, and monday, and I report at 5:30 PM for the game against the Florida Marlins on Tuesday!

It was great having yesterday off, Phil and I hung out around downtown Boston, then went to the Cask and watched Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals with one of our bosses, Griff. Congrats to the Penguins and their fans on winning that series! I can think of a lot of Pittsburgh fans who I'm certain are quite happy today. I hung out around the dorm today, took care of some housekeeping, and I think after grabbing dinner tonight I may go see the new movie "Pelham 123" with my roommate and maybe some other people from the crew.

It's now been 2 days over a month since I came up to Boston, and I'm having a pretty great time and learning a whole lot. I'm not sure if this is a city or area of the country that I'd like to live in later in my life, but for the summer it's a pretty nice place. Thanks to everyone who is reading this blog, I really hope I don't fall short again on updating it anymore. But like a lot of things, I get busy with something and forget about it, and the next thing I know it's been 2-3, maybe 4 days. Hope everyone is doing well, I look forward to seeing my buddies in NC again, and hope everyone elsewhere is doing fine. Off to dinner, have a great night!

I'm back. Tell your friends.

Hey everyone, sorry I've been out of the loop lately, but I'm back now and hopefully I won't get behind again like this for the rest of the summer. I'll start with some quick recaps!

Saturday: Had the morning off, ended up going downtown for a little bit. Went into work about 5:30, helped take down Batting Practice, watered the infield, and after the game vs. the Rangers I helped patch the mounds in the visitor bullpen.

Sunday: Early morning at the park, once again worked with Batting Practice, I also patched the baselines, and then also helped water the infield again. I stayed for the beginning of the afternoon game and headed home around the 5th inning.

Monday: Had most of the day off. Went into work at 7:30 PM to help place the tarp on the field in anticipation for nasty weather that night. After getting the tarp on, went out with some guys on the crew and also saw the movie "The Hangover." Oh, I also saw the movie "Up" the other day. I highly recommend both of them, for different audiences, haha.

Today: Went into work at 7 AM. It was drizzly rain off and on throughout the day, so this made work difficult on certain things with the field. We ended up taking off the tarp from the night before after lunch, and worked a little on the playing surface in getting it ready for batting practice, we rolled the tarp up and put it away. In the middle of batting practice, after dinner, we were instructed by the boss that we needed to put the tarp back out, just in case the weather picked up. We did this, and then removed it about an hour before game time. Like most times pulling the tarp, we worked like crazy for 20-45 minutes after pulling the tarp, but we did it and we did it right! The game started and then I went to the alley to sit/watch the game until I came back home in the 5th inning. I ended up working 13 hours today, so definitely a nice way to collect some hours.

As you may know, this week the Red Sox are playing the Yankees. This rivalry is considered by most people to be one of the best in sports. There was a different atmosphere at the park today, with a little more hate toward the opposing team, louder music to pump up fans, and a sense of history with the two teams on the field together. The coolest thing for me was seeing players like Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon; some of the biggest players in the came all at the same time, and being so close to them at times. I'm looking forward to doing it again for the next 2 days!

I think I'm about to go to sleep, I'll be back at work at 7 AM tomorrow to do it all over again, hopefully the weather will cooperate! Hope everyone is doing well, have a great night!

Also, just wanted to add something. One of my closest friends let me know yesterday about her grandfather being sick, please keep this friend of mine, her grandfather, and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Full Day at Fenway

Hello friends and family! I had a great, yet busy, day at work today. I woke up and reported to work by 7:30 AM, and this morning took care of a variety of jobs with some other guys on the crew. We had to set up an early batting practice set-up for a few prospects who were working out with the team. One of the prospects being scouted today is from High Point, North Carolina, and his coach, while I was working on the field, called out to me saying, "Are you a State guy?" I told him yes and that I was still in undergrad and currently interning with the Sox. Turns out he played baseball at NC State in the 80's under Coach Esposito. So today there were 2 Wolfpackers busy on the field at Fenway! Oh, you may be wondering how he knew to ask me if I was a State guy. While we're working, interns are allowed only to wear either a Boston Red Sox hat or the hat of their university if they choose to wear one. So, I always wear a State hat while I'm on the field at Fenway, try and represent and showcase the school as much as possible. This session ended and I went ahead and ate lunch before the Rangers took their afternoon BP and workout.

During the Rangers workout, a trainer for the Rangers asked me, "Are you a Wolfpacker?" Haha, 2 State questions in 1 day! Well, I went on to tell him my situation, and turns out he went to school at ECU. While him and I were talking I looked in the dugout and Josh Hamilton was sitting there, staring at me and my State hat. I didn't even think he'd be in town because he's on the DL, but yeah, there he was. I wanted to say something to him but I had to go work on something at the moment, so I left him alone for the time. As I was walking away though I heard him say, "Where's that guy from?" and the coach told him "Cary!" I didn't have another opportunity today to talk to Josh, but hopefully sometime this weekend I'll be able to speak to him, I really like him as a player and I respect the way he has turned his life around.

We had a lot of guys on hand today, as a large storm system spent a lot of time on the Massachusetts radar today. We ended up not having to pull the tarp, thank the Lord, but it did get kind of chilly with the low temp and misty weather. Oh, besides pulling the tarp a few weeks ago, I had my first in-game action today. As you're probably aware if you've ever been to a game at any level of a professional baseball, the infield is dragged at certain times throughout the game in order to smooth out the surface. With the Red Sox we drag the infield 3 times per game, 1 more than the required 2 by Major League Baseball. Anyway, because of the dampness the bosses decided for us to use scrape the infield instead of drag, basically use another tool to get a like effect, and I was put on the crew for the 3rd inning scrape. After the bottom of the 3rd inning, 5 of us ran onto the field with our scraper and ran the infield, smoothing out the playing surface. It was definitely a rush to be running on the infield with a sold-out Fenway Park focused on you, and once again there were cheers from the crowd and sayings such as "Good job guys!" and "Way to go bud!" as we went back into the alley where we sit during the games.

I ended up leaving work in the 6th inning, and at 9 PM, after a 13 hour workday, I was free to come home and relax! I came back, took a much needed shower and watched the ending of the LSU-Rice Super Regional game from Baton Rouge. Even though the Sox lost, it was great to see LSU take game 1 of the series, GEAUX TIGERS!

In all, it was a great, busy day of work. I've got much of the day tomorrow off, show up at work at 5:30 PM for the night game. Time to relax a little bit! Thanks a lot for reading, I hope everyone is doing well. To my family who is out vacationing in San Diego, wish I was there, I'm sure the California weather is way better than New England at the time! Love y'all. Have a great night!

Hello West Coast!

What's up everyone?

Quick update for the day. Went into work at 7:30 this morning, and we first spent some time laying sod in left field in Jason Bay's spot. Bay, the left-fielder for the Sox, destroys the turf in his position and we frequently have to work with it. Anyways, I got off work at Noon and then went out shopping for the afternoon.

Tonight for dinner I went out with Matt and his mom, and after a nice dinner north of Boston I headed back to the dorm.

I think I'm about to go to bed, long day tomorrow. We're expecting bad weather, should be pulling the tarp again. Woohoo! Have a great night everyone. Glad my family made it safely to San Diego, wish I was there with you!

I'll add more later, goodnight!

Looks like rain....

Hey everyone. Today was another less eventful day at the ballpark. I arrived at work at 7:30 this morning, and today we had a bunch of random jobs to do. I worked on organizing and cleaning the room where we store the grass seed, along with organizing in the warehouse and grounds crew room. After lunch I did do some hand-watering on the infield grass and some hand-trimming of grass blades along the back of the infield dirt, AKA the skin. We had a lot of guys on hand at work today, so work that was usually handled by a few guys was spread out across 2 or 3 times the number of workers. The reason so many of us were at the ballpark is because we were, and still are, expecting afternoon/nighttime rainstorms in Boston, and I think we were considering pulling the tarp to cover the infield if necessary. At the end of the day, the decision was made to not cover the infield, and at 4 PM I headed home.

I think tonight I'm just going to hang out around the room, maybe grab some dinner somewhere or just cook something up here. Hopefully the rain will hold off, that'll definitely make work easier in the coming days in preparing for the homestand. I'm excited about having the team back in town, it's nice, and a lot more fun to work on something and have your work directly played on by the team instead of waiting a while. Also, there's a certain atmosphere around the ballpark and city when the team is in town, it makes things a lot more fun as well.

Thanks for checking in with me, I'll be back at work at 7:30 AM tomorrow, got to work in getting the field ready for the Red Sox and Rangers to play on Friday night. Have a great night!

3 Weeks Since Raleigh

Hello!

Today was a pretty short day at the ballpark. I arrived at work about noon, and worked on a few projects on the field and in the warehouse/shop before leaving at 4 PM. I was able to talk to my boss a little bit today about the chemical regiment and management techniques that were put in place for the concerts and ballgames, trying to get an understanding of why he chose to apply certain chemicals at what rates and everything, hopefully so I could learn the rationale behind the practices. I really did learn a lot from talking with him about it for a short bit.

After work I came back to the dorm and Phil and I hung out around here before grabbing dinner. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day. Both Phil and I go to work at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so, should be a lot of work to do before prepping the field for the series this weekend against the Texas Rangers. Oh, I saw today that Josh Hamilton was placed on the Disabled List today. I kind of hate that he won't be here this weekend, I love watching him play.

It's been 3 weeks since I left Raleigh for Boston, and so far I'm having a great time and I'm learning a lot with the team. Thanks a lot for reading, look forward to hearing from you all and seeing you again whenever that is! Go Red Sox!

Recovery Day

Hello readers! Well, last night was the Phish concert at Fenway Park, and following the show, it was time for crews to remove the barricades, chairs, flooring, lighting, equipment, and stage that was used for the weekend shows. I arrived at work at 9 PM, right during intermission of the Phish concert. Phish brings a pretty eclectic crowd, I thought last summer when I went to the Radiohead concert in Charlotte I was around a lot of weed, but wow, this Phish crowd was blazing everywhere. Anyways, besides the interesting people with their crazy dancing and the tons of glowsticks, Phish played a good second set and encore that I didn't mind standing there listening to. Oh, one thing that was hilarious at the show, about 30-45 minutes after the concert ended and the fans were leaving the stadium, us grounds crew guys were allowed to leave our posts, and as we were headed back to our locker room, we saw Fenway Park security guards and medical staff standing around this guy in the stands who had passed out drunk/high, and it appeared as if all his friends had left him. He was sitting there, long gone, and we were all yelling at him, staff tapping him, and he wasn't responding at all. The medical guys ended up carrying him to a gurney by grabbing whatever they could get a handle of on the guy.

The workers first got there and cleaned up the flooring and started stacking the chairs, and unattaching the floor. During this time, the grounds crew had different things to do, including mowing and watering of the infield and foul territory since it had been neglected since this past Thursday. We worked throughout the night doing different tasks like towing the carts with the pallets of flooring or helping line up the carts for the forklift. It was pretty easy work, but working through the chilly night at times made it a little difficult. Some of the guys who work with the Union that does the concert set-up and breakdown were really nice, and the Terraplas people were also a lot of fun to work with. Definitely glad I had the experience of working with all of them. Oh, the Union guys also had a knack for giving everyone nicknames, my name for the night was "Tiny" and my roommate, Phil, was given the name of "Zippy". Haha, no clue how they came up with those, but we dealt with it.

The replacements came in at 6 AM, and it was a great sight to see those 6 grounds crew guys emerge from the tunnel after a long night of work. Phil and I left the park and stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way back to the dorm, grabbed a quick breakfast before catching some sleep. I fell asleep about 6:30 and didn't wake up until 3 PM, so, I've had a pretty lazy day after a very productive night. Phil and I ran some errands in the neighborhood, ate a late lunch/early dinner and hung out around the dorm, watched television, and I think we're about to go catch a movie at a theater in between where we're staying and Fenway Park.

I'll end with this last thing, I just want to say how cool it was to come into work at Fenway Park with it being light out, turn to night, and leave in the morning with it being light again. Seeing the sunrise in Boston off the skyscrapers and different aspects of the ballpark, and although it was a long, chilly night, it was one I won't forget. Thanks for reading, happy June!