So, I've been gone for about a week now and I have a lot to catch up on. Let's get started.
Last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday my dad and a family friend, Danny, came to visit me. It was a quick trip, so we mainly tried to check out the main tourist attractions in Boston, along with me showing them around the ballpark and they also were able to take in a game. We had a really great time, doing everything from going to Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall near the harbor and also getting to walk the field and check out the playing surface of Fenway Park. One of the best things we did before they left was going on a duck tour of Boston on Saturday morning. It was a really cool way to see the city, driving us around downtown and some hot tourist spots along with taking a quick ride through the Charles River. If you don't know, duck tours are city tours in duck boats from WW2, if you're ever in a city where they do one, I highly recommend it. I was able to get Dad and Danny tickets to the Friday night game against the Orioles, one in which the Sox won, Papelbon closed, and I was on drag, so they could see me work! I'm sure there is a lot more I could write about their visit and what we did, but I'm gonna keep it brief. We had a blast, and I'm really thankful and glad that they decided to take time away from work to come visit.
We've had a 7 game homestand that ends today, so Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and yesterday I've been spending a good bit of time at the ballpark. I'm actually already at 45 hours on the week, and I haven't even clocked in for work today yet, and I'm on the schedule for Friday and Saturday too, this could be a very nice paycheck!
Really quickly, this past weekend, Red Sox legendary left fielder Jim Rice was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In honor of his induction to Cooperstown the Sox decided it was appropriate to retire his #14 for the club. So, for this honor, me, along with 3 other guys from the crew and Griff worked on mowing a huge 14 in left field. I worked mainly on the mapping out of the numbers with Griff. The toughest part of mapping out the numbers is making them look exactly like the Red Sox number font, as it's pretty unique. But we measured it using a certain scale and just blew it up, it turned out well. Overall, I think the 5 of us did a really great job. Dave, the head boss, gave us all nice, big pictures of the number in left field. Hopefully Jim Rice appreciated it, I was proud to work on it.
Here are some pictures of the #14, hopefully they look great to you all!
Other than that, I'm off to work for the day. Luckily we have an afternoon game today, so work should be ending about 5 or 6. After the game most of the grounds crew is getting together at one of the MIT frat houses where some of the guys live for the annual Boston Red Sox Grounds Crew party. Summer interns like me start leaving next week, so this I guess if the first of the last hurrah's before we're all gone.
Have a great day everyone, love you all, thanks for reading. Sorry for my absence, just a busy dude I suppose. Go Red Sox!
Hey, so I've been at the park a whole lot the last 2 days, and I have another pretty early morning tomorrow, so the update from the last few days will be coming more than likely tomorrow night, I have a feeling I'll have time to do it then.
Y'all are the best for keeping up with me, I'll fill you in soon. Go Sox!
So, the last 2 days I've had my Dad and Danny in town from Raleigh and Nashville to visit me and Boston, and as of about a hour and a half ago the two of them are headed home.
I'm about to head to the ballpark for work for the game tonight, so I have to go, but I'll update the blog fully later. Not sure if that's today or tomorrow, but definitely sometime later!
Thanks for visiting though Dad and Danny, it was awesome.
So, I arrived at work at 7 AM today, and we spent much of the day at working laying sod in left field and in front of and behind the mound. Like I've written before, Left Fielder Jason Bay destroys the turf he stands on so we have to replace it pretty frequently, and areas in front of the mound were pretty worn. After getting home from work around 4 PM I took a nice 3 hour nap and then went out for dinner in the neighborhood.
I'm keeping it short tonight as I'm about to head to bed. I'm pretty excited about tomorrow, as in the morning my Dad and our friend Danny will be arriving here in the city for 2 nights. I'm pumped about this, can't wait to show them around the city a little bit and also take them out to the ballpark.
I'll be updating soon with events from their time here. Pray for safe flights! Hope everyone reading this is doing well, goodnight!
Today was a nice, short day at work. I arrived at 7 AM, and shortly after getting there I learned that we would be gone between 11 and 12. We had 2 rolls of Kentucky Bluegrass sod being delivered to us today from Tuckahoe, NJ and we basically spent most of the morning moving this sod around and arranging it in our work areas so that we could lay the sod tomorrow. After arranging the sod and cleaning up in the warning track where we worked measuring and cutting the sod, we all clocked out and headed home to enjoy the rest of the day. I forgot to mention, the first thing I did when I got on the field was doing a full drag of the skin with Phil. This is a lot like the drag for games, but instead of 5 of us going from 1st to 3rd horizontally, we each start at one of the 2 bases and work vertically until we meet at 2nd.
After leaving work I went home and ate lunch, and because work was just so strenuous today I decide that I deserved a nice 3-3.5 hour nap. Haha. It was really nice to rest and catch up after what has been a busy but awesome week away from the ballpark. Tonight for dinner I headed out to Brighton with my roommate and met up with some other guys from te grounds crew where we indulged in all the buffalo wings we could eat for $3.99 and burgers for $2.50. As you can guess, I had a great night. Haha.
Oh, the Sox lost tonight, which sucks, as they have now fallen to second in the AL East. I'm not ready to proclaim "the sky is falling", but the division is too tough to slack off now, we've gotta hold the Yankees off! Wow, never really thought I'd be saying that! ;)
I'm just now getting home from Brighton, I decided to blog from the iPhone tonight. Time fe bed, back at the park at 7 AM. Goodnight everyone, go Sox!
So, as many of you know from either talking to me, reading the blog, or seeing my facebook status, you're aware that I have been out of Boston for the last few days. After visiting New York City last Wednesday and Thursday, I spent Friday, Saturday, and most of yesterday in the Pittsburgh, PA area for a wedding. The weekend out of town was awesome. Most of all it was great to spend the weekend with my family, but everything from the wedding to working a few minutes at the Dairy Queen store in Mt. Pleasant was a lot of fun.
The wedding was beautiful, congrats to Chris and Erin. Thanks again to all of my family in western PA who were so great to me this past weekend, I definitely feel great when I'm around all of you.
I'm about to finish folding some clothes and watch a little more Red Sox baseball tonight before heading to bed. We're expecting rain tomorrow at the ballpark, so I'm sure work will be interesting as usual. Work at 7 AM, early night tonight! I'll be updating the blog with Boston stuff soon enough.
Dad and Danny will be here Thursday, I can't wait!
Yes, the title of this entry is a line from an old Pace salsa commercial, but it seems like half the time I hear the words "New York City" this slogan is one of the first things to pop into my mind. The reason I've used that for the title of this entry is because I am about to fill everyone in on the awesome 2 days I had in the Big Apple.
So, my roommate and I left our dorm room in Fenway at about 6:00 AM Wednesday morning, the 15th, heading toward South Station Boston where we would catch our bus to NYC. We rode the 7:30 Boltbus (boltbus.com) to the city, and I must say I was thoroughly happy with the bus system. The buses had leather seats, electrical outlets, and wi-fi for us to use. We made a quick stop in Connecticut at a Travel Center, and after a little bit of traffic after we got to the Bronx, we arrived in the city, at the intersection of 34th Street and 8th Avenue. We were set loose, and free to roam the city.
The first thing we did after getting off of the bus was going to check out the Empire State Building, as it was pretty close to we were. It was neat seeing the tall building up close and in person, really don't understand how huge the skyscrapers are until being in their shadow. We spent a little bit of time here, and then we went to Bryant Park and met up with my friend Chelsea, a girl I met at Carolina during my freshman year of college. The 3 of us ate lunch in the park, and Chelsea gave us some sense of where we were in the city, so Phil and I started embarking on seeing a few things. We first went to Times Square. It was cool seeing all the huge billboards and famous advertisements and signage in the city, and also seeing the ball that drops every new year. We also went to the M&M's and Hershey's stores in Times Square, well, because we could! After going to Times Square we headed to Rockefeller Plaza and checked out the scene over there. The neatest thing about all of this was finally seeing person places that I have seen on television and in movies my entire life. We decided to sit around and hang out for a few minutes at a bench near the Rockefeller Center at this time, and while we were heading to the bench we happened to cross Jesse Jackson. Yes, we saw the Reverend. Apparently the NAACP was having a convention this week, and he was in route to speak or something like that.
About 3:30 or so we decided we wanted to see the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Late Show with David Letterman is taped. We headed that way, walking to 54th and Broadway, where we noticed a large number of people had gathered behind a police barricade. On top of the marquee to the theater was a black curtain draping the standing area, and we heard that a band was going to be practicing soon and later performing. Turns out the singer that was on the roof of the marquee was none other than the legendary Paul McCartney. We heard him practice "Eleanor Rigby" before we found out that at 5 PM they would be doing the actual filming for the broadcast of the show later that evening. We decided we would stick around and see this, as it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. We set up shop at the corner of 53rd and Broadway against the railing and waited. Sure enough, right after 5 Paul and his band came out to much fanfare, talked up the crowd, and performed 2 songs for the show. After this, Dave came onto the roof thanking Paul, so we also got to see Mr. Letterman! Paul went on to perform 4 or 5 more songs before leaving the roof, and Chelsea and her roommate, Sarah, who also is a friend of mine from Carolina, were able to make it to the corner in time to see the Beatle perform. Oh, and Paul will be playing 2 shows at Fenway Park in August, so I'll be getting to see him again before I head back to NCSU for school! After this, the 4 of us hopped on the subway to go to the East Village, where the girls live, to eat dinner and hang out for the rest of the night.
We ended up going to dinner at this little pizzeria on Bleecker Street, which was delicious, and ended up getting dessert at this great place near the pizza place called Yogurtland. You pay for your food by the ounce, so you can load up on toppings and frozen yogurt, at 39 cents per ounce. It can be tricky to actually know how much you're buying, but a pretty solid sized dessert ran me about 4 bucks, and it was delicious! We then walked down to the waterfront, where we could see downtown and uptown, across the water to Jersey City, NJ and also the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. It was a really pretty night, and definitely a nice time to wind down. We then went to Washington Square at the end of 5th avenue to enjoy the rest of the night before heading back to the apartment.
We went to Stuytown, where the girls live, and hung out a little while before catching some rest. In all, we had a great first day in the city, but there were a few more things to do before heading home.
We woke up this morning, and after getting ready and leaving the apartment we rode the subway down to Battery Park to check out Ground Zero. It's not a fun place to see in NYC, by any means, but it definitely makes you reflect and think about what happened there in the fall of 2001. We walked around this area, taking some pictures and enjoying the great weather before heading back uptown to meet up with Chelsea for lunch. I forgot to add, another girl from Carolina, Katherine, spent a lot of time with us and was a great guide in the city. She also joined us for lunch downtown, we looked around Grand Central Station, and then it was time to catch the bus back to Boston. We left NYC at about 3 PM, and after really bad traffic in the city and on the way home, we arrived in South Station at about 8:30 PM, and headed back to Fenway.
I've been uploading pictures and movies to my computer and youtube while also trying to make sure I have everything in order for my weekend trip to Pittsburgh. I'm sure there are some things about the city I forgot to mention as I wanted to get this done, and I'll be sure to add stuff later as I remember it. Basically, New York was amazing. It's a lot to handle, but it truly is an awesome place. I don't know if I could live there, but it makes me realize I think I could handle living in a city like Boston, which before I thought was way too big for me! It was a quick trip, but definitely one worth taking.
I'm going to head to bed for the night, early wake up for my flight out of Logan. I am going to add the video I took from 53rd and Broadway of Paul McCartney, along with a better video of what the rock legend was doing up there. I think in the first video you can hear me talking to my Dad on the phone, hahaha. Alright, love you all, have a great Friday, I'll be back soon to add more about my summer. Oh, and real quick, I now have less than 1 month until I return to North Carolina. This summer has flown by, and I've realized over the last few weeks just how awesome an opportunity this is for me and how much I'm enjoying this whole experience. I'm one blessed kid.
Hey friends and family! I'm sitting here watching the All-Star game in St. Louis, and I'm having an awesome time thinking back on the first 2 months of my time here in Boston. So many of the players on the AL roster I've been around in the short time I've been here. And when I say I've been around them I mean I have practically stood within a few feet of them, nodded and said hello to some, and also dragged on the infield as they were leaving following the bottom of an inning. I'm really hoping the American League can pull out a victory tonight, as the winner of the game will have home field advantage in the World Series, and there's always the opportunity of the Sox being able to utilize that advantage come October. However, at the same time I tend to be more of a fan of National League baseball, where the pitchers actually hit and play baseball instead of taking a seat and letting someone else hit in their spot. Anyways, that's another discussion for another day.
There were 6 Red Sox players selected for the game, with 5 of them reporting as Pedroia decided to turn down the game because of some family issues. It'd be nice to see all 5 guys make a positive impact on the game in St. Louis.
I've had the last 2 days off, and yesterday I hung out around Boston with 2 of my friends from LSU, Matt and JP, and also Matt's little sister Lindsey. It was fun hanging out with some old friends again, and definitely nice to see JP as I hadn't seen him since I left Baton Rouge in December. The rest of the night was pretty low-key. Today I hung out around Fenway area before meeting up with 3 guys from the grounds crew at a beach north of Boston. The beach we went to, Revere Beach, was nice enough, but it's also the first public beach in America. So along with relaxing a little bit, I guess you can say I took in some history. Came back to the dorm and have been in this part of town, ate dinner and am now enjoying the game.
The big news for this blog post though, is tomorrow, my roommate and I will be going to New York City for the day, staying with 2 of my friends from Carolina overnight in Manhattan, and then enjoying the city a little bit more on Thursday before returning to Boston. I'm really excited, as this will be my first trip to the city, and I'll get to enjoy it with my roommate and 2 really cool girls from Carolina. And it's so cheap and easy to get out there. We're riding through a company called BoltBus, they're a really legit busline that offers transportation to NYC from Boston for only 14 bucks each way. We leave from South Station, Boston, at 7:30 AM tomorrow, looking to arrive in the city at 11:45 AM. I'm pretty pumped about these next 2 days, and I'm about to finish folding some laundry to make sure I have everything I need for the night away. I doubt I'll update tomorrow night, but I'll give a full recap of the trip once I return on Thursday.
Pray for a safe and fun trip for us! I'll be back soon, New York here I come!
GO AMERICAN LEAGUE!
Oh, and by the way, I absolutely love the Holiday Inn grounds crew commercial they've been showing all night. It's perfect, and completely ties in a lot of the jobs that are done by a baseball grounds crew. Here, check it out if you haven't seen it!
So, it's been a wild few days. I spent a lot of Friday and Saturday at the ballpark, doing many of the jobs that I usually do. The last few days I had spent a little more time working in the bullpens, and there's a new addition to the home bullpen, as the Sox players put a skull and crossbones flag on the front of the bench on which they sit. Like I think I wrote before in the blog, the Sox bullpen pitchers refer to each other by pirates names, have a fake parrot in the bullpen, march to the bullpen with pirate music, and having pirate codes and stickers all over the bullpen. It's pretty hilarious to see, but it's also pretty cool, I think.
I was lucky enough yesterday to spend some time with my friend Sarah from UNC who was in town visiting friends. I had a great time catching up with her and hanging out with a familiar face in Boston.
Rain began in the 8th inning of last night's game, so we immediately tarped following the final out. I had to report to work at 6:30 AM this morning to remove the tarp and begin game preparations. However, I was able to leave work at 10:30, so I spent a good portion of the day taking care of laundry and relaxing around the dorm before eating dinner with another friend of mine from Carolina.
The good news my friends, is that because of the All-Star break and a family function I have to attend at the end of the week, I don't have to return to Fenway Park to work until 7 AM on Tuesday, July 21st! I'm so excited about having the time off to enjoy Boston and hang out with friends. I'll hopefully have some other things to blog about besides Red Sox baseball. I'm out for tonight though, hope everyone has a great night. Go American League on Tuesday night, secure home field in the World Series again, the Sox will be needing it! ;) Goodnight!
So, sorry for not posting anything yesterday, I went into work yesterday morning at 6:30 AM, and had a really full day at the ballpark, not leaving until after the game against the Athletics at about 11 PM. Long days at the ballpark are nice when the paycheck comes the following week, but they can sure wear you out! Yesterday was especially tiring as we were once again plagued with rain throughout the morning and early afternoon. We ended up putting the tarp on 4 times before the game started, and after the game we put it on again.
After a long day yesterday, I had to go to work again at 6:30 this morning, but luckily the weather was perfect today, and after taking off the tarp, working in the bullpens for a few hours, and a few other random jobs, I was able to leave work for the day at about 10:30 AM. I enjoyed having the day off by napping a little bit and just hanging out, also took care of a lot of laundry I needed to get done.
Phil's family arrived in Boston yesterday from the midwest, and I know he's happy to have them here. They all got tickets to see the game tonight at Fenway Park against the Royals and go to enjoy a game and see Phil work on the field! I'm looking forward to the same thing in 2 weeks when my Dad and my friend Danny will be in town. 3 more days at the ballpark this weekend and then I'm off for a week! It's going to be a nice few days to fully enjoy Boston and also go out to Pittsburgh for a wedding!
I'm going to go, need to fold some laundry before going to sleep tonight. I have the morning off tomorrow, I'll head into work at noon, might get to sleep in a little bit! Goodnight everyone, go Sox!
I was supposed to go into work at noon today, however Weston called me in at about 9:30, so I had a little bit of a longer day than I was expecting. The rain was poor once again, and when I arrived to work the tarp was already on the field. We removed it to prep the field a little bit, put it back on, took it off, and then Team USA took batting practice. During this BP I heard one of the players tell another player that "He's not in Durham anymore!" This of course referring to Team USA playing a number of games at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park during the summer as the team is based in Cary. We had to cover the field again, and the tarp stayed on until gametime. We took the tarp off, prepped the field for the game, and luckily the game was completed before the rain set in again. However, we tarped immediately following the final out and I'm sure we'll have a lot to do tomorrow in completely repairing the field.
I have to be in at work tomorrow at 6:30 AM, so I'm about to hop in bed and catch some Zzzzz's. Haha, have a great night everyone, Go Red Sox!
So, I had an extremely busy but also very fun 4th of July weekend.
It started with a full day of work on Friday, one in which I was at the ballpark for about 16 hours. I had a pretty standard day of work, one that involved recovering from past rain and anticipating more rain. One cool thing about the day though was Mariners pitcher Garrett Olsen approached me during the afternoon asking me about going into the Green Monster. We ended up talking for about 10-15 minutes, just shooting the breeze, and he was a really nice guy. About 2-3 hours after I first talked to him I was walking down the 3rd baseline in front of the dugout, and he saw me from about 30-40 feet away and yelled out "Wes! What's up?" So, that was pretty neat. Another thing about having the Mariners in town was getting to see Ken Griffey, Jr. in person. He's a legend, definitely a first ballot hall of famer, and there were times when I was standing just a few inches from him. Also, the Mariners batting practice pitcher and I talked for a while as we were waiting to see if the rain would hit us or pass and I was standing near him, and he was telling me some funny stories about playing minor league baseball in the Indians organization, including when he was in Kinston and was playing Durham. If you want to hear one, let me know. Later that night, after the game, we were about to tarp the infield and before we started, Griffey walked out of the dugout, and started heading toward where we were. He was dressed awesome, wearing some designer jeans, shoes, and shirt, and as he passed I said to him "So you're here to help with the tarp?" and he looked at me, chuckled and said "Shoot, I can't even help my damn team right now!" Haha, it was pretty funny.
Saturday, July 4th was a day game and Olsen, the pitcher I met on Friday started for Seattle. He pitched very well, and the Mariners went on to win. Before the game the American flag that covers the entire Green Monster was unfurled and it was awesome to see, and there was also an amazing flyover with 2 F-16 jets. It was an amazing way to spend the 4th, that's for certain. After the game, and coming home for a quick shower and rest, I went with Phil, Laura, and Kara to the Charles River and watched the incredible Boston fireworks. The show was huge and awesome, no wonder they're nationally televised. I had a great night for the 4th, I loved spending it in this historic American city. And this ended the week, one in which I worked 65 hours at Fenway Park, what a week! By the way, the best part of the 4th of July was that the weather, for once, was perfect!
Sunday was also a nice day with great weather. Before the game, as I was standing along the field while Sox batting practice was going on, a hit ball landed near me. I picked it up, and Jonathan Papelbon, the closer for the Sox, yelled at me to throw it to him. So I did. Well, I was off by a few feet, not too bad I suppose. The game was enjoyable, and aside from the BP incident I just wrote about, it was pretty uneventful. I did get to see some celebrities Sunday, including actors Mike O'Malley and Jeffrey Donovan, from Yes, Dear and Burn Notice respectively, and actor Mark Wahlberg. Yes, I saw Marky Mark at Fenway Park. We actually have his song Good Vibrations as one of the songs we pull tarp to, so seeing him was cool and hilarious at the same time.
Today was a really nice day for me. I didn't have to work until gametime, so I spent some of the day out in Cambridge relaxing around Harvard, and I also got a haircut, one I badly needed. The game tonight was interesting as it was Nomar Garciaparra's first game back at Fenway after having been traded in 2004. He has been with NL teams the last 4 seasons, and is just now making a trip here. The fans loved him, and he was really thrilled to be back I believe.
I think I'm going to go to bed, I have work tomorrow at noon, which although isn't early, we're potentially expecting rain, so it could be an exhausting day. Sorry about the novel I just wrote for you to read, the busy weekend had kept me from updating. Have a great Tuesday everyone, I'll be back tonight!
So, I went into work at 7 AM, and like yesterday, one of the first things we did was pull the tarp off the field. We worked on the field again, and then the rain came again, so we covered the field back up. We probably would have left the tarp on all day had we not had a special event, but today was a scrimmage called the Fenway Classic for drafted prospects of the Red Sox, so we had to keep the field in game conditions for these prospective players. We ended up taking the tarp off so they could play their game, and then after the game we repaired the field, and in anticipation of some more wet weather, the tarp was put back on the field. I'll be in tomorrow at 6:30 AM to help take it off and start prep for the first game of our series against the Mariners which will take place tomorrow night. There is potential for a nice, long 15 hour day tomorrow granted I stay through gametime. Oh well, hopefully after tomorrow the weather should be nicer for the 4th and maybe a few days after that.
I'm having a nice time still, and I'm pretty excited about spending July 4th in this historic and awesome city. And with seeing my family in 2 weeks and then my dad and Danny coming in 3 weeks I have a lot to look forward to.
Hope everyone is doing well, I'm going to try and be asleep within the next hour so I'll be well rested for tomorrow. Have a great night everyone, if you watch Sportscenter on ESPN this weekend you very well could see highlights of me and the rest of the crew working on our wet field! Go Red Sox!
So, it's a new month, and hopefully July will be more enjoyable with the weather than June. I hate to keep complaining about the weather, but all this rain and cold is starting to get to me.
Anyways, I went into work today at 7 AM, and spent most of the day with random tasks, mostly working on the skin. We leveled the skin the other day, and a lot of what had been tilled had pebbles and small rocks in it, so we spent a fair part of the morning picking these objects off of the field. Oh, this was all after we took the tarp off the first time. We proceeded to tarp the field again, it was later removed and we worked on the field again. About 1 PM the rain set in for the afternoon and it stopped about 6 PM. Once again, we pulled back the tarp, worked on the infield for the last part of the day, and placed the tarp back on. In short, it was a long and tiring day.
I'll be back at work in a few hours, starting at 7 AM again tomorrow. Guess what? We're expecting rain again, so it should be a long day at Fenway. Oh well, it's all worth it at the end of the day. Have a great night everyone, I miss you all.
