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!