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!