Wes in Boston

Shippin' home from Boston!

2009-08-14T15:49:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone, sorry I haven’t add any entries these last 2 days, work at the ballpark has been very busy, and I finished this week with 60 hours over the last 4 days at Fenway, which can make blogging tough. However, as of yesterday afternoon, my stint as a member of the Boston Red Sox grounds crew has come to an end, and I’ll be leaving Boston at 5 PM today to fly back to Raleigh and start my fall semester at NC State this upcoming Wednesday.

I’m going to try and recap to the best of my ability the last few days, there’s been so much that has gone on but we’ll give it a shot.

Monday was the first day of our 4-game series with the Detroit Tigers, and aside from being a long day at the ballpark, for the most part it was rather uneventful. We did many of the same jobs that we usually do, and the day ended with the Red Sox pulling off a win to start the series.

Tuesday was the most eventful and fun day of the homestand. I arrived at the park at 7 AM and had a full day doing random jobs before the game started. However, that’s when the fun really began. Tuesday we had a fight in the infield between Kevin Youkilis and Detroit pitcher Porcello after Porcello gave Victor Martinez a pitch near his ear and then pegged Youkilis square in the back. Youk, after being hit with the pitch bolted toward the mound, threw his helmet at Porcello, and then the two of them got into it as the benches and bullpens cleared along with the fielders rushing in to get in the mix. Being in the alley during the games, us on the grounds crew had a front row view of the matchup, and it was so fun to watch. Too bad we couldn’t get in on the action! After the fight and the ejections of Youk and Porcello, the game proceeded. But, being New England, we had rain later in the game and we were forced to pull tarp for a rain delay. This rain delay was a lot of fun though, as fans were pumped about the fight and they were cheering hard for us to get it out as we do it so efficiently. After tarping we went and sat in the Red Sox dugout to wait out the delay, and after about 45 minutes the game was to be resumed. It is so much fun sitting out delays in the dugout though. Not only are you sitting where the players are, but the cameras are focused on you waiting for the grounds crew to make any moves toward the field, the players are around in the dugout talking to you sometime, and the fans really treat you well as you’re in the dugout of the team! The most exhilarating part of the whole thing was when Griff gave us the word to “line up” to remove the tarp. As soon as we ran out of the dugout all of the fans in the stands cheered for us, “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark started playing (as that is our tarp-pulling song), and the rush and adrenaline of being out there began to kick in. It was my last gametime tarping of the field, and it was a lot of fun.

Wednesday was another very long day, but I hit a point in the middle of that day of realizing I was going home today, and work not only got so much easier, but even more fun than usual! Like Monday, it was a pretty average day, but fun nonetheless.

Yesterday, Thursday, was my last day at work. I arrived at Fenway Park at 7 AM, and due to wet weather we had the tarp on the field overnight the night before. We pulled back the tarp to work on the skin, lines, plate, and mound before having to tarp again for more rain. It rained one last time for a little while, and after that we removed the tarp, folded her up, and rolled her to the wall. This was my last time having to tarp this summer, and it was a great feeling to knock it out! Also because of the weather we didn’t have BP, so it was a pretty easy pregame day. The game started at 1:35 PM, and before the game my boss, Dave, came over to where I was on the infield to thank me for my work this summer and say goodbye. I also told Dave how much working for him, Griff, and Weston has meant to me, and I appreciate having this opportunity more than I can even tell them. The best news of the day though is that Dave told me once again that he’d love to have me back to work games during the playoffs if my schedule will allow it and also I’m welcome to return to the crew next summer if I’d like. I’m unsure of how everything will work out regarding future plans, but it’s so nice to know I am leaving my summer at Fenway Park on good terms my bosses and I may be able to return later. Anyways, the game was pretty uneventful, and the Sox lost. I was on drag again during the game, something I had become a regular on this summer, and something I love to do. It is a rush and so much fun to be out running on the field in between innings, looking up and seeing such great baseball players standing a few feet away from you, sometimes talking to you, and utilizing the work you’re doing out there immediately. After working in the bullpens following the loss and taking down the tour stanchions I went back to the locker room and clocked out, said my goodbyes to guys on the crew, and left friendly Fenway Park for the final time this summer.

I spent last night and this morning making sure I had everything in order for my trip home. I did get a chance to go down to the Prudential Center for dinner a last time, and last night and this morning I said my goodbyes to all of my friends I lived around at Emmanuel. Everyone I worked with and lived with this summer was awesome, and I can’t thank them enough for their hospitality and kindness to me during my time in Boston.

I’m currently sitting in the terminal at Boston Logan airport waiting for my flight to Washington, DC, where I’ll hop a connection to Raleigh-Durham. I’m so excited about being home, but over the last few days and weeks I have really come to love this city and the friends I’ve made. I can’t wait to be back here again for the playoffs in October, and also for any other trip I’ll be around for.

This won’t be my last blog entry, I plan to update once or twice more in the coming days. But for now, thanks to everyone who has been reading my writing, I know I can be quite verbose but I do have a lot to say! So, expect another update in a day or two. Until then, GO RED SOX! :-)

17 Hours!

2009-08-12T01:30:00.003-04:00

So, just got back and cleaned up from a nice 17 hour day at Fenway Park today, and I'm exhausted. Not only that, I'm scheduled for work at 8 AM, so, it's off to bed for me.

I hate not being able to do a full update, but as soon as I get an opportunity I'm going to do it!

Goodnight, and Good win for the Sox!

Oh, and Phil, you've been a great roommate, best of luck heading home to Missouri tomorrow, I'll write more about you later!

Long Monday

2009-08-10T23:49:00.003-04:00

Hey, this is going to be really quick.

I went to work this morning at 8 AM and stayed all the way through the end of the game tonight. I clocked out at 11:15 PM, so I had a solid 15.25 hour day, which puts me right at 20.5 hours 2 days into my 5 day week, so definitely a nice start for me.

However, the tarp was put on the field after the game in anticipation of potential rain tonight, so instead of me going into work tomorrow afternoon at 1 PM, I'll be at Fenway Park removing the tarp at 7 AM. Oh well, one of the many responsibilities of the job.

Tomorrow is Phil's last full day here in Boston, he'll be leaving Wednesday, so maybe we'll do something tomorrow night after the game, who knows!

But, I just got back from work, and I really need to shower before crashing tonight! Have a great night everyone, and congrats to the Sox on pulling out a win tonight! GO RED SOX! LOVE THAT DIRTY WATER!

Sunday Funday

2009-08-09T21:56:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone!

I'm sitting in a movie theater waiting for a movie to start, so this entry may end pretty quickly, but I'll try my best to get everything in here.

I went to work at 11 and worked some random jobs before being able to leave at 4:15. It was a nice and quick day, and I nailed the skin, and then mainly worked in the bullpen before watering in some fungicides at the end of the day.

After leaving work and coming home and getting cleaned up I met up with Kevin, Drew, and Griff at the Cask before eating dinner with Phil, Kevin, and Drew at The Cheesecake Factory at the Prudential Center. We are now here waiting for the new GI Joe movie to start and finish up our night. I have work at 8 in the morning so it's straight to bed for me after the movie.

Oh, and we are taking our chances not watching the Red Sox tonight, hopefully they can escape NY with at least 1 win. And also, GO TITANS tonight! So ready for football season! Goodnight everyone!

Futures at Fenway

2009-08-08T23:12:00.003-04:00

So, today was the minor league doubleheader at Fenway Park featuring the AA and AAA affiliates of the Boston Red Sox facing off against the affiliates of the Baltimore Orioles. I went into work at 7 AM, and had a fairly quick morning, as we had jobs to take care of before batting practice began at 9:30 AM. We ended up breaking down BP at 11:15, and the AA game started off without a hitch at Noon. Per the game sheet that is posted by our boss every game I was assigned to be on drag again this afternoon, meaning I would be dragging the infield at least 6 times during the day. I imagine this doesn't sound like much, but it can get pretty tiring after a few times, especially when so much other work is going on that day. However, the AA Boston team ended up winning, and as soon as the game was over we had 42 minutes to prep the field for the AAA game. I worked patching the visitor bullpen mound, and then went to sweep off the batters box at home plate. It was a busy 42 minutes, but because we're definitely the best grounds crew in all of baseball, we got it done without a problem. Too bad the AAA Boston team couldn't manage to win, but, I guess 1 out of 2 isn't terrible. After work I worked in the visitor bullpen again before helping take down the batter's eye in center field and leaving the ballpark for the night. In all, it was a 12 hour day, and it was pretty tiring, but fun to participate in.

After work I went out for a little bit with Phil before going to the girls' room here at Emmanuel and saying goodbye to one of my friends who I won't see again before I go home Friday. I'm gonna miss her and the rest of my Boston friends, but it's going to be great to be home.

Speaking of which, it's only 6 days until I'm back, can't wait. But, it's back to work at 11 AM for me, so I'm off the commputer for a while! Have a great night everyone.

1 More Week

2009-08-07T22:39:00.002-04:00

Hello!

So, I went into work this morning at 7 AM, and today was the day that crews disassembled the stage and flooring that was installed for the Paul McCartney concerts this week. By the way, I don't think I emphasized enough in the last blog post how much of a treat it was to see Paul McCartney perform live, the dude has it going on. However, the end of his concert features more confetti than is used at the Super Bowl celebration, and it seems like most of it made it's way from the flooring to the grass during the breakdown of the floor. We had a long day today, spending much of the day trying to get the grass to stand back up that had been under the Terraplas and under the stage, using backpack blowers and fan rakes to bring it back up. We also tried to consolidate the confetti pieces, which was near impossible, along with other trash and debris on the field, along with removing it. I spent some of the afternoon filling in a washout on the warning track where beer had been sold for the past 2 nights, which wasn't too bad, just tried to make it as level as possible.

I ended up not leaving work until about 7:30 PM, so I had a nice, long day at the ballpark, but it didn't leave much time for me to hang out with my friend Elizabeth. Oh well, hopefully something can work out before I leave town.

Speaking of leaving town, at this time next week (11 PM, Friday) I'll be back home in Cary. It's been an awesome summer, but with every day that passes I get more and more excited about being home and I'm definitely looking forward to my fall semester at NCSU.

I'm off to bed for the night, we're hosting a doubleheader tomorrow at the ballpark called "Futures at Fenway", featuring the AAA and AA affiliates of the Red Sox playing the same level affiliates of the Baltimore Orioles. Should be a pretty interesting showcase, and I love minor league baseball, so I'm excited about the games. I'm actually pretty familiar with both Pawtucket and Norfolk (AAA-Boston and AAA-Baltimore) as they play in the International League with the Durham Bulls (AAA-Tampa Bay), so that just adds to my interest in the game. I'm sure the AA teams, Portland and Bowie, will also be fun to watch.

So, that's it, goodnight everyone! Oh, and the Sox are tied with the Yankees in the bottom of the 11th at the moment, hopefully Papelbon can hold off the Yanks and the Sox can manufacture a run here soon, need to win this one Boston!

Day Off

2009-08-07T06:25:00.003-04:00

So, I had yesterday off as I worked the concert 2 nights ago. I just hung around Fenway most of the day, not really doing anything too cool. I ended up meeting my UK buddies from work who will be going home today, and I also went out to the Cask with some guys from the crew after they were let out from working the concert.

I'm actually about to head in for my 7 AM start. I imagine today will be a pretty full day as we're going to have to try and see what the damage is from the concert stress over the last 4 days. I hope it's not too bad, but Kentucky Bluegrass in August is tough to manage, no matter where you are.

Hope everyone has a great day, I've decided I'm definitely going to be updated at least once daily for the last week I'm here, go out with a bang!

Tonight I may get to hang out with my close friend Elizabeth from NCSU which will be awesome. So excited to see a friend again up here! Oh, and hopefully the Sox can remember how to win tonight against the Yankees, last night was uglyyyyyyyyyy.

Sir Paul in Concert

2009-08-06T10:47:00.001-04:00

Good morning everyone!

So yesterday I had most of the day off, as I didn't have to go into work until 4:30 PM to work during the MGMT and Paul McCartney show at the ballpark.

I hung out around the Fenway district much of the day, walking around and running somme errands before heading to work. I got to Fenway at report time, and after feeding us dinner I took my post for the night. Unlike the Dave Matthews concert I didn't have a prime concert watching spot this time, but I was still able to see the stage and enjoy the show and music from where I was. Seeing MGMT was pretty cool, as they haven't been playing that many cities, but seeing Paul McCartney was definitely a treat. I was talking to his site coordinator the other day at the ballpark, and he was telling me how long Paul would play and how chatty and fun he would be with the crowd, and sure enough Paul lived up to the expectations I had. He was all over the board on what he played, including songs from the Beatles, Wings, and his solo career, along with covering a song or 2. In all, it was a lot of fun.

I have all of today off, and I think I'm going to hang around Boston with 2 of the guys I work with who fly home tomorrow. I'll let you know how that goes. This time next week I'll be at the ballpark for my last game and day of work this summer, and in 8 days I'll be headed home. Wow, it's gone by quickly.

Hope everyone has a great day, I'll be back soon!

10 More Days

2009-08-04T22:47:00.004-04:00

Hello everyone!

So today marks 1 year since I left for my semester at LSU, but it also marks 10 days until I return home from Boston to Raleigh.

Today was a rather uneventful day. I went into work at 7:30 AM, and did security along with working on the outfield grass a bit before flooding/watering the bullpens and heading home at 11:30 AM. Nice, quick, 4 hour day. The weather was beautiful today, so I enjoyed being at the ballpark, but it was also a nice afternoon to have off. I came home and hung out in this part of town for the afternoon before heading to Brighton to eat dinner and catch the first few innings of the Red Sox game in Tampa. Right now the Sox are in the bottom of the 10th, hopefully they'll be able to get some runs soon and put this thing away. With the Yankees beating the Blue Jays tonight the Sox really could use at least one win in Florida before a 4 game series in New York this weekend.

There was one funny thing that happened tonight at the sports bar we were at watching the game. My coworker Josh is a big country music fan, just like me, and in the middle of the second inning I decided to take a walk over to the jukebox to see if there was anything country we should listen to. The jukebox and television speakers are the same, and when the jukebox is going the broadcast from the tv is interrupted, and when no song is selected the game audio is played over the speakers. I found it an appropriate time though to turn this Boston sports bar into a honky tonk and we listened to Keith Whitley's "Don't Close Your Eyes". Hahaha, it was pretty funny to see some dedicated Sox fans wonder what had happened to the game audio so they could hear this old and somewhat obscure country song. Anyways, Josh and I loved it.

Tomorrow is the first of the two days of Paul McCartney/MGMT concerts at Fenway Park, and I'm actually working the first show. I go in tomorrow at 4:30 PM, and I'm really excited. Seeing both acts will be a treat, and to think I already saw Paul this summer is pretty cool.

I'm off to bed for now though, the Red Sox have put themselves in a hole pretty quickly in the bottom of this inning, wouldn't be shocked if this doesn't do it for the boys tonight. Oh well, we'll see.

In honor of my time in Louisiana, GEAUX SOX!

Fins Up for Shark Week

2009-08-03T21:54:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone!

I went into work today at 7:30 AM, and with 3 other guys on the crew I worked edging the infield grass in front of the second and third basepaths, making them a uniform 2 feet 1 inch off the center of the line that runs between the bases. You would think that this task may be something that is done once and never done again, yet edging techniques, wear, and growth can all have effects on the actual shape of the infield grass layout. After working on this for a few hours I worked as Grounds Crew security during stage construction in center field. Basically, when I say I worked security I mean that I just monitored the build to make sure that workers weren't doing anything that could harm the outfield turf. Did this for a few more hours, ate lunch, and then worked another quick job or two before clocking out for the afternoon.

I'll be back in tomorrow at 7:30 AM again, and since the installation of the Terraplas flooring starts tomorrow, I imagine I'll be doing more monitoring along with some work watering the outfield and prepping it for the stress it's about to receive over the next few days.

After a quick 7 hour workday I came back to the dorm and relaxed for a little while, napped for a few hours, and then went to dinner with the roommate and the girls from the dorm. Today marks 11 days until I return home, as I fly out on Friday the 14th. I imagine I'll have some sort of count on every post until then, just like before I came up here.

One other thing before I head to bed for the night, tomorrow marks 1 year since my move to Baton Rouge, LA for my semester at LSU. It's been a wild, busy, and interesting year, but I really have grown a lot and learned a lot more about who I am and what I'm looking and hoping for in my life. I think about my time in Louisiana everyday, and I can't wait until I'm back there to be with my close friends that I miss so much.

12 Down, 2 To Go

2009-08-02T21:19:00.003-04:00

So, it's been a few days since I last posted, and believe it or not, the title refers to the fact that I have now spent 12 weeks here in Boston, with this week and next being my final 2!

The Sox ended the homestand against Oakland with a win on Thursday, and the team went to Baltimore this weekend and completed a sweep of the Orioles. The Red Sox are playing great baseball right now, and with the acquisition of Victor Martinez at the trade deadline, the team really added a great boost of offense to the lineup, hopefully helping us down the stretch against the Yankees and the Rays.

Although the team has been out of town, we've still been pretty busy at the ballpark. This upcoming Wednesday and Thursday Fenway Park will be hosting Paul McCartney and MGMT in a 2 day concert series. I'm really excited about working the show on wednesday night, as I really like MGMT, and seeing Paul McCartney in concert will be very memorable. It's funny to think that just 3 weeks ago I saw him in New York City!

Like the concerts in May, union crews have been working long hours constructing the massive stage and will soon be putting down the temporary Terraplas flooring in the outfield. On Friday night I was at the ballpark from 4 PM until 2:15 AM when crews quit for the night, and last night I was at Fenway from 4 PM until 8:30 and other guys from the crew stayed later until about 10 PM. These hours are fairly easy from a work standpoint, as we just do a lot of small and random jobs while just making sure the playing surface is protected from union workers and equipment.

There was one pretty cool thing that happened Friday night at work. At about 12:30 AM with just my boss Weston and I working the grounds of the park, a security officer approached us telling us that Adam Laroche, a first baseman, had just arrived at the ballpark and was wanting to get into the clubhouse to get his belongings. Adam was traded earlier that day to the Atlanta Braves, and after immediately leaving the Red Sox in Baltimore at the time of the trade, he had just arrived back in Boston and I guess wanted to get a quick start on heading to Atlanta. Unfortunately there wasn't anything we could do for him, as very few people in the ballpark have their own access into the clubhouse. The worst part of it all, he had just been traded from the Pirates right after the All-Star break, and after moving down here, they had just delivered his truck and some other items from Pittsburgh earlier Friday morning to Boston. Poor guy now has to worry with that all over again.

I was able to hang out with some friends from North Carolina this weekend, which was awesome, and as the days get closer to my return home I'm getting more and more excited about being back with friends and family and NC State. However, I've also become pretty fond of Boston over the last 3 months, and leaving this great city won't be incredibly easy.

I'll be back at work in the ballpark at 7:30 AM tomorrow, along with Tuesday, so I am going to head out for the night. Next 2 days shouldn't be too difficult, I imagine it'll be much of the same as in May and the last few days of concert construction.

And one more thing, I wanted to say thank you to Patty for the awesome cookies that you sent me this week. Not only were the cookies delicious (my roommate and I loved them), but it was great to receive a package and know that people are reading the blog and keeping up with me up here. I appreciate it more than you know.

Have a great night everyone, go Red Sox!

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

2009-07-28T21:40:00.004-04:00

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!

2 Long Days

2009-07-27T22:16:00.002-04:00

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!

Visitors!

2009-07-25T16:32:00.003-04:00

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.

Later!

Laying Sod

2009-07-22T22:29:00.002-04:00

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!

Night in Brighton

2009-07-21T23:04:00.003-04:00

Hey!

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!

Back in Boston

2009-07-20T20:38:00.002-04:00

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!

New York City.....get a rope!

2009-07-16T23:25:00.004-04:00

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.

Here are the videos, goodnight!

All-Star Festivities

2009-07-14T22:01:00.005-04:00

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!

What a Weekend!

2009-07-12T23:26:00.002-04:00

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!

A Nice Day!

2009-07-09T22:43:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone!

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!

RIP King of Pop

2009-07-07T23:52:00.003-04:00

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!

And yes, RIP Michael Jackson, you da man.

Busy and Fun Weekend

2009-07-06T15:43:00.003-04:00

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!

Happy Independence Day

2009-07-04T23:59:00.000-04:00

Happy 4th of July everyone, full update coming tomorrow!

Off to Bed

2009-07-04T00:07:00.001-04:00

16 hour day at the ballpark. Pretty tired. Back at work at 6:30 AM, time for sleep!

Had some cool stuff happen today though, I'll fill ya in soon.

Maybe I'll see the sun tomorrow

2009-07-02T20:43:00.002-04:00

Hey!

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!

July came I thought I had it all together

2009-07-01T22:32:00.002-04:00

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.

And the Tarp is on...again

2009-06-30T22:45:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-29T22:46:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-28T22:25:00.002-04:00

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)

2009-06-27T17:33:00.002-04:00

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?

2009-06-25T23:38:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-25T05:25:00.002-04:00

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?

2009-06-24T21:48:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-23T01:01:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-20T14:33:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-20T00:54:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-19T00:17:00.000-04:00

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

2009-06-17T19:24:00.006-04:00

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

2009-06-16T23:49:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-15T23:52:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-14T23:59:00.003-04:00

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.

2009-06-13T16:52:00.003-04:00

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.

2009-06-09T22:57:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-05T23:31:00.002-04:00

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!

2009-06-04T23:12:00.002-04:00

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....

2009-06-03T18:07:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-02T21:25:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-01T20:23:00.001-04:00

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!

Fenway for the Night

2009-05-31T20:08:00.002-04:00

Just leaving a quick note to let everyone know I'm off to Fenway Park for work tonight. Following the end of the Phish concert soon, workers will be uninstalling the floor covering the grass and the stage will be removed, so us grounds crew guys will be on hand to help oversee and work with the uninstallation. I'll be back home probably early in the morning, so I'll do another full update tomorrow. Thanks for reading, have a great night.

Crash Into Me

2009-05-31T00:10:00.002-04:00

With another team of grounds crew guys working the concert tonight, I had a nice day off in the city. Phil and I hung out around the dorm until noon, when we headed downtown to the Prudential Center to grab lunch and do some shopping for some things. After lunch and some shopping downtown we headed back toward Fenway district. The weather was great today up here, about 75 degrees, no humidity, nice and clear. It was pretty much perfect. We came back here to the dorm, and I watched the Alabama softball game on television while working on some laundry. I ate dinner here at the dorm, then went grocery shopping to pick up some more necessities. The rest of the night we've just been hanging out, watched some more Alabama softball, and reminisced a little about the great concert we saw last night. Like I said yesterday, I'm not really a Dave Matthews Band fan, but some of his songs I really enjoy, and hearing them live was a lot of fun. I think I'm about to head to bed for the night, another full day and night of work tomorrow! Thanks for reading, happy Sunday everyone!

Concert Night in Boston

2009-05-30T12:05:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone! Last night was the first Dave Matthews Band concert at Fenway Park for the weekend, and being a member of the grounds crew, I worked the show. Now, you're probably wondering, what could the grounds crew possibly do during a concert that is taking place on the entire outfield? Well, we were there to be an extra presence along with the hired security and event staff, but mainly our job was to help protect the infield skin and playing turf from any fans who may try and get to close. There was a guardrail barrier set up around the infield, and there were grounds crew guys stationed about 5-10 yards apart along the perimeter. I feel like I was placed at the best station, as I was standing right on behind second base, so I was standing center stage and the acoustics were great. I've never been much of a Dave Matthews fan, but the guy really did put on a great show, and some songs were played that I like and am pretty familiar with, so in all, working this concert was a win-win situation. Oh, and DMB's opening act tonight was Willie Nelson, so he came out and played a great set with some familiar songs. He's definitely a good entertainer.

One of the best parts of the night was interacting with the random fans, drunk or sober, who would come up to me to talk about the field. They'd tell me how great the field looked, asking if the grass and dirt was real or fake, and of course, ask me to grab a blade of grass or handful of dirt for them. Doing this is prohibited, so, I said no every time. I was also asked to be in a few pictures with random fans, this one group of girls came over to me and offered me a drink, and another girl would tell me to smile every time she'd walk by. It's not like I was frowning or anything, but I was standing there working while enjoying the show, hahaha. It was also cool talking to some people who were genuinely interested in the job I have of being on the grounds crew. Some wanted to know if I was formally educated in the career field or what my career goals were, it was a lot of fun.

The show ended around 10:30, and after about a half hour of fans standing around taking pictures of the park and each other, they were asked to leave and then I was able to leave work for the night. There was a change in plans with the Red Sox organization, and I'm not sure if as many of us will be working the concert tonight, I know that most of us, including me, were given tonight off after a long night yesterday. We'll see how this day goes, if not tonight I'll be back at the Park tomorrow for the Phish concert.

Hope everyone is doing well, thanks for reading!

Cold and Rainy Beantown

2009-05-29T12:05:00.003-04:00

Sorry for just now updating the blog from last night. I had to work at the ballpark yesterday night from 4 PM until about 1:30 AM, so when I got home last night I went straight to bed. As you may be aware, we're having concerts at the ballpark this weekend, so last night there was about 6 of us Grounds Crew guys on hand to be around while the crews installed the on-field flooring for the on-field seating. The flooring is called Terraplas, and it's a pretty interesting product. Anyways, we had random jobs dealing with the installation, but for the most part work was pretty uneventful. I got a call from the Griff, the assistant Groundskeeper, this morning asking if I wanted to work during the concert tonight in addition to Saturday and Sunday, so, at 5 PM tonight I'll be heading back to Fenway Park for the first Dave Matthews Band concert. Should be a pretty sweet show, and a nice way to collect some hours for work! Until then, just hanging out around Fenway district, enjoying my summer in Boston. Hopefully this weather will clear up though, it's been misty, rainy, and cold lately. Hope everyone is having a great day, I'll be updating soon. This concert should be fun!

Day Off in the City

2009-05-27T20:43:00.002-04:00

So, after being at the ballpark for 9 consecutive days of work I had today off and I decided to relax and take in a little bit of the city. I slept in this morning, until 9, and watched a little bit of television before getting ready for the day. I also spent the morning catching up with my friend Jennifer back in Raleigh and then my friend and co-worker at the Red Sox, AJ, and I decided we'd spend our day off checking out the Samuel Adams Brewery here in Boston. We each ate lunch where we live and then met up at the Back Bay Fens to head toward Massachusetts Avenue where we would catch the Orange line of the subway to take us to the Brewery. We ended up taking the 1:30 tour, and let me just say, the Sam Adams Brewery is tiny! When I was younger I took a tour of an Anheuser-Busch facility in St. Louis, and while that company is way larger and produces a wider variety and quantity of product, I was shocked at how small this particular brewery was. As it turns out, the Boston brewery produces less than 1% of the product from this particular company, as breweries in Ohio and Pennsylvania make up the other 99%. We had a nice time on the tour, I learned more about the production process for the products and saw the vessels, vats, and tanks where the company does research and development for new or seasonal products. The tour ended and they gave us all a nice 7 oz. drinking glass as a souvenir, so, now I have something else to use at the dorm, haha. I came back to where I'm staying and watched the end of the Manchester United-Barcelona soccer game from Rome on ESPN, and then, when Phil got back from work, we went to dinner at some burrito shop near Harvard Medical School, which is about a block from where we live. We just got back a little while ago and we're currently watching some of the early action from the Boston Red Sox game against the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis, but I think we're going to head toward old downtown Boston for a little bit tonight and see what's happening in the city this Wednesday night. Thanks again for reading, I'll be back soon! Oh, and if you haven't seen them yet, watch the videos in the post below, they're pretty cool!

Sunday Rain Videos

2009-05-27T00:59:00.003-04:00

So, I spent some time tonight looking online for videos posted by fans at Fenway Park on Sunday who recorded our awesome Grounds Crew rolling out the tarp during the bad weather. These 4 videos were some of the best I could come across. I think it's awesome to have been a part of what went on at the park that afternoon, looking back it was all a lot of fun.

The first video is the initial call of the delay, with crew members running to cover the mound and also seeing crew members start to rock the tarp off the wall before the camera cuts away.

The second video is the crew covering the infield and one member working in the bullpen. The song "Love, Reign O'er Me" by The Who is playing while we pull out the tarp.

The third video is the uncovering of the infield and the work that begins to prep the infield for play again. You can hear "Thunderstruck" being pumped over the speakers.

And the final video is just showing work building up the sides of the tarp with the song "Blame it on the Rain" playing over the public address system.

In the first video I'm in dead center, which will be hard to identify me, while the tarp is being rocked to roll out. In both the second and third videos I'm in the right-of-center part of the tarp pulling the tarp. In the 4th video, I could be anywhere, we were running around like crazy!

Oh, and as I mentioned the other day, the coolest part, which you can sort of tell in these videos is the crowd reaction to our hard work. The fans, teams, and umpires really appreciated what we were doing, and you can hear the crowd volume pick up as the tarp is being fully applied and removed. What a rush.

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did! Go Red Sox! Oh, and an entry from the last 2 days was just posted below, thanks again for reading!

The Last 2 Days

2009-05-27T00:47:00.002-04:00

Hey, so the last 2 days at the ballpark have been fairly uneventful for me as far as working on the playing surface goes. Fenway Park is hosting 3 concerts this weekend, Dave Matthews Band on Fri. and Sat. and Phish on Sun., so we've spent a lot of time overseeing and monitoring the construction of the concert stage and working in making the turf and skin as viable as possible during this week long interruption from normal management practices. I went in at 2 the past 2 days, and did many odd jobs around the ballpark, dealing with a few different things. This afternoon I helped "Nail" the baselines, in which we loosen the surface of the clay and rework the soil around, smooth it out, and apply fresh material to the surface. Other jobs included working with fieldboards and padding, and also monitoring the construction team. The stage they're building for these shows is massive, and spans from near the center of the left field wall all the way into deep center. I'm looking forward to working this weekend with the concerts, and also in working with the field in the days/weeks following the concerts, as I'm certain the playing surface will be affected by having such a stage built on it. I'm off work tomorrow, think I may spend the day with some other interns and possibly take in some sights of Boston. Hope everyone is doing well, wherever you may be. Go Sox!

Quick Update!

2009-05-26T13:16:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone, just wanted to check in real quick with the blog. I'm about to head to work at the Park at 2 PM, so no time for an update at the moment. Later tonight I'll try and recap the last 2 days of work. Don't worry, it won't be a huge entry like yesterdays, that will probably be a rarity. There is great news today though, Phil and I now have a television for the room. A girl who lives on our floor had an extra TV being stored in her room, so she's letting us borrow it for the summer. Like I said, great news. Have a great afternoon, I'll be checking in again soon!

What a day at Fenway!

2009-05-24T22:49:00.003-04:00

Hey! Hope everyone is having a great day. Today was a very exciting, hectic, and busy day for me and the rest of the grounds crew for the Boston Red Sox. We had rain overnight in Boston, so the tarp was put on the infield last night in anticipation for the weather. I arrived at work this morning at 6:30 AM, and the first thing we did was uncover the infield by removing the tarp. At this time there were 10 or 15 of us guys to do this job, which is so exhausting, by the way. To remove the tarp we pick up one end, sprint the length of the field to flip the tarp over and remove the standing water on top and to give us the opportunity to clean the bottom to the best of our ability using blowers. We then had a series of sprints holiding on to different sides and edges of the tarp to get it to the correct size for rolling it up, and then we went about putting it back on the roller and moving it to the side of the field where it usually stays. This initial removal of the tarp was pretty tiring in itself, but we were all anticipating potentially having to move it again later in the day.

After this we went about separate tasks trying to get the playing field in order for the game, and then a few of us new interns met with our bosses to get a tutorial on how to apply the tarp if necessary in a game situation. Knowing that bad weather was headed our way, I paid very close attention as to how this was done as I didn't want to be caught in the tarp in the middle of an important pull. After hearing these instructions we set up batting practice and did other things necessary for the game. The next thing we knew, 1:30 rolled around, and the game was about to begin.

Right before first pitch we were told by our boss that we were about to "get slammed with some weather" and that we needed to be ready for a tarp pull. Fairly shortly after that the rain started trickling on us, and then the raindrops became huge, it felt like water balloons, and we were certain the game was about to be delayed. And the next thing we knew, the umpire called a delay and I recalled Griff yelling "Go! Go! Go! Go!" All of us sprinted out of the alley near the first base dugout and hopped the wall on the other side of the tarp, and started to rock it back in forth to get it off the wall. After moving it we rallied behind it, and collectively 25 of us pushed the tarp across the outfield in preparation of covering the infield. It may have taken us 30-45 seconds to do this part of the pull. Then came the hard part. We all immediately spread out among the tarp and grabbed edges of it to pull it. We'd sprint and pull, sprint back into position, sprint and pull, sprint back again, and then finally, the long run across the entire infield, a sprint into placement, rotation, and tightening of the tarp. Mind you, the whole time this is going on 40,000 fans were either cheering us on or booing the delay, cameras were fixed on us, and music to pump up the crew was blasting over the speakers at the stadium. After placing down the tarp we each ran around the tarp with tarp pins to secure it to the ground. Along with this we had to run to the warehouse and grab supplies for the rain delay. This, while exhausting alone, was just the beginning. We had the tarp secured to the field in about 2 minutes. This was the most intense work experience of my life. We then went and sat in the Red Sox dugout to wait out the delay. I sat down at the end of the bench, where I sat shoulder to shoulder with Rocco Baldelli and Josh Beckett, by the way. Within 3-5 minutes of being in the dugout the rain had stopped and it was time to prep the field for play again.

Everything you've read so far is just a precursor to the most intense and exhausting experience of the afternoon. The removal of the tarp. All 25 of us guys are so winded after getting everything in place, and now we must do the rest of the process within a few minutes so play can resume. We grabbed the tarp at the side closest to the third base dugout, and within an instant we began a sprint across the infield all the way to the far right outfield wall to spread out the tarp to be rolled back up. We left the tarp, and immediately we began sprinting to the alley to grab bags of Turface to apply to the infield. These bags weigh 50 pounds each, and after all the rushing around we had done they might as well have weighed 500 pounds. I grabbed 4 bags and applied them to different areas of the infield. In total, 60 bags of the product was applied in order to absorb the standing moisture on the field. We then each grabbed scrapers to level the surface, and after this we ran into position to fold and roll the tarp. Once again, 3 consecutive sprint and sprint backs were necessary in doing this. We got it done, rolled it up, and placed the tarp back on the wall. In all, this was by far the most intense 20-30 minutes of my life.

The coolest thing about all this was the fact that so much adrenaline is running through you during something like that. I was exhausted from the work we were doing, so was everyone else, but we all knew that 40,000 fans plus countless television viewers were fixed on us, and the adrenaline pumping through us kept us going. The cheers, applause, and adoration from the crowd during it was incredible. I really felt like I was a celebrity out there instead of the athletes. Oh, another thing that was pretty cool, I got several calls and texts from people saying they saw me on television. Apparently I was visible during the tarp pulls and in laying piping for the tarp, and a TBS camera even zoomed in on me while I was spreading Turface. Definitely pretty cool.

After this, the game went on and finished pretty normal. I came home and relaxed, ready to show up at the park again tomorrow at 2 PM, should be another great week ahead. Thanks so much for reading, I know this was pretty long, I just had a lot to say! Have a great night!

Early Morning...

2009-05-23T21:56:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone, I reported to work at Fenway Park this morning at 6:30 AM, and after a full morning of work I was off at Noon. Had a pretty nice afternoon and evening hanging out after work. I'll be adding more tomorrow after this homestand ends. Hope everyone is doing well. Miss everyone back in Cary, Raleigh, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Nashville. Oh, and any other city where you may be reading this from. Goodnight!

Full Friday at Fenway

2009-05-22T21:44:00.004-04:00

Hey everyone, this update should be pretty quick tonight. Had a great but long day at the ballpark today. I arrived at work at 8 AM, and after some usual jobs, I was told to work on patching the mound for the game tonight. It was definitely a pretty tough job, but rebuilding the mound at Fenway Park was also pretty incredible. After I had been working on it a little while it kind of hit me that that particular mound has had so many great pitchers throw from it, and that my work in the morning would be important for a Major League Baseball game at night. I loved it. Along with that, Weston, in telling me to work this particular task said, "Wes, help me with this and then finish up working on your mound." So yes, this makes it official, as long as I'm alive I'll be referring to the pitching mound at Fenway Park as my mound. Maybe there's some official way for the Red Sox to declare it "Wes Eppele Mound", hmm, I'll have to look into that. After lunch I helped set up Batting Practice, went to MLB/Boston Red Sox Skin Cancer Screening, and then after eating dinner in the team Dining Hall helped set up during pregame. This was my first game actually working on the field before first pitch, and it's really exciting to work in front of 40,000 excited fans. One of them being a guy named Ty that I know from living in the Quad at NC State, pretty crazy seeing him at the ballpark tonight. Oh, there was one funny thing that happened during pregame. I was helping Griff spread some turface in the infield, and as some advertisement for an airline was playing on the videoboard in center field, Griff said "Welcome Aboard!" I understood him saying that as him welcoming me to working my first game, so I replied "Thanks a lot!" Apparently Griff was just imitating what is said in the commercial, and after he told me that he said, "Hahaha, yeah Wes, welcome aboard." Anyway,I left work right before the game began, and came back to the room. I'll probably be going to bed soon, have to be back at the park at 6:30 AM. So, it's a short night for me tonight, but I'm not sure if I'd have it any other way after a great day at work.

Two Non-Stop Days

2009-05-21T22:08:00.002-04:00

Hello again. I'm back for a quick update after being pretty busy with work and other things the last two days. Anyways, yesterday was a pretty hectic day at the ballpark. I went into work at 8 AM, and had tasks of setting up stanchions in the warning track in front of the Green Monster, cleaning up some debris around the warning track, sweeping baselines, and helping our head groundskeeper water the infield. Although this may not seem like too much, it took pretty much all morning until my lunch break. After lunch, I, along with some other crew members, set up batting practice for the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays decided to have an early batting practice yesterday, so we had all the screens in place and the cage ready for hitting by 2 PM. While batting practice was going on I worked on cleaning the Simplicity mower we have and also some other simple maintenance things around the grounds crew area. At 4 PM I clocked out for the day, but because I had been there all day I was invited to stay for dinner at 4:30 in the media/team dining hall at the top of Fenway Park. Phil, my roommate, and I decided to wait for dinner, and we went up to the dining room at the appropriate time. The guy working the team sign-in desk had a little trouble understanding me when I told him my last name "Eppele", said I had a little too much drawl in it, hahaha. Eating dinner up there was pretty cool. Dennis Eckersley, a former MLB pitcher who starred with the Athletics in the 80's was seated a few tables away from me. Oh, another thing that was cool about eating up there, all the placeware had the Red Sox logos on them. Anyways, after dinner and getting back to the dorm I went back to Fenway Park and met up with a family friend from Raleigh to catch the game for the night. We had a great time watching the game, the Sox were dominant with many home runs, and I even got video of David Ortiz's first home run of the season. Jason then went back to his hotel after the game, I headed back to Emmanuel and caught some sleep. Today my routine was pretty much the same as yesterday. I had a few assignments today that were different than yesterday, but many things were the same. Batting practice was neat to be around today as the Boston Red Sox have Interleague play this weekend against the New York Mets. The Sox pitchers were in the batting cage, learning how to hit again. Dennis Eckersley was around the ballpark again, and I also was about 2 or 3 feet away from Scott Rolen and Vernon Wells this afternoon out in the hallway near the Visitor Clubhouse. After work and dinner tonight at Fenway Park I came back to the room and cleaned up and I just recently got finished watching the Hurricanes-Penguins game. Now, time to sleep again and do it again tomorrow! Thanks for reading, I know this was pretty verbose, hopefully there won't be many more days where I can't share something. Catch ya later!

Scorcher in New England

2009-05-21T07:30:00.003-04:00

This is just a quick update, I didn't have time to update last night, and I'm about to leave for work this morning, but hopefully tonight I will be able to write in the blog about today and yesterday. Work is going well, looks like today could be pretty hot here in Boston. The forecast is calling for a high of 89 today. Guess I better stay hydrated, haha. Have a great day, I'll be back soon.

Gameday in Boston

2009-05-19T21:04:00.002-04:00

Today was a pretty hectic day at Fenway Park. Today was the first day of a 6-day, 6-game homestand with the first half of the week against AL East foe Toronto and the weekend series against the New York Mets of the NL East in Interleague Play. I arrived to work at 11 AM today, and my day consisted of a variety of different jobs. I had to spend part of my day readying the camera pits next to the dugouts, making sure they were suitable for use, and I also spent some time in the morning readying the Visitor dugout, making sure it was up to Blue Jays standards. Along with working in the turf warehouse where I cleaned some equipment and the work area, I worked in the infield, readied the bases for batting practice, and set up the screens for batting practice. Other work on the field included some edging and manicuring of the turf around the Coaches box on both the first and third baselines. I got off work a little after 3 PM, and came back to Emmanuel, relaxed, took a shower, and ran some errands before the game. I had the game off tonight, so I met up with Phil, Kevin, and AJ, three of the other interns on the crew, at a restaurant located right behind Fenway Park to relax and watch some of the game. It was pretty cool watching the game on television and looking out the window and seeing Fenway Park. It's still nice having my roommate here as he's someone to adjust to the job and the city with. Phil and I actually both go into work at 8 AM tomorrow morning, so I imagine we'll both be off before gametime. A family friend of mine from Raleigh is supposed to be in town tomorrow night, so hopefully we'll be able to meet up and watch the Sox game together. I think that's all for tonight though, thanks a lot for reading. Go Red Sox!

First Game Today!

2009-05-19T10:03:00.003-04:00

As the title for this post suggests, today will be the first Red Sox home game since my arrival to Boston 8 days ago. We have 6-game homestand this week, hosting the Toronto Blue Jays during the week and the New York Mets this weekend. I'm excited about seeing the Red Sox buzz around Boston with the team being in town, I hear it's a pretty cool environment. Yesterday was a pretty quick day at the ballpark, worked on a variety of random jobs preparing for the homestand. The guys who worked on the mowing pattern for this week did an incredible job, it should look great on television. I think we're on local TV through the week, but if I'm not mistaken we'll be on national telecast on TBS Sunday at 1:35 PM. I'm sure I'll find out more about that later. After a nice day of work yesterday, I came back to Emmanuel College where my roommate for the summer, Phil, had just arrived. We had a nice afternoon and evening of getting him settled into the room and I did my best to a quick guided tour of our side of Boston, meaning from our dorm to the stadium. It's good to have him here, things are definitely more lively with two people in the room. Oh, one other thing, hope you had a great 21st birthday Scott Bearden, I'm glad you made it this far, haha. Okay, I better go, I'm supposed to be at work in 52 minutes, and should be a pretty busy day ahead. Thanks again for reading, I appreciate it. And since it's gameday in Boston, Go Red Sox!

Back in Boston

2009-05-17T22:33:00.004-04:00

Well, I'm back in Boston after a very nice weekend with my friends in Western Massachusetts. We had a change in plans on Saturday night, after checking the weather for Boston we decided that we'd avoid the rain at the lacrosse game and stay in Westfield for another night. We hung out, played lacrosse in the backyard for a little while, and then went out and saw the new movie "Angels & Demons." In all, we had a great night. Sunday morning we woke up and went to church in Westfield and after church Matt's family, Tim, and I packed up to bring me back to Boston. We grabbed lunch together and then I was dropped back off at Emmanuel College. I just kind of hung out last night, caught up with some friends online and relaxed before what will probably be a pretty busy week with six home games. I'm looking forward to later today when my roommate for the summer will be arriving from Springfield, Missouri. It'll be nice to have someone else around who is adjusting to the city and interested in seeing all that Boston has to offer. So, welcome Phil! I'm glad you're almost here! I think that's about it for now, I have to be at Fenway Park at noon to start work for the day, so, I guess I better get everything in order for work. Oh, and Mom, Dad, I got the packages this morning, thanks so much for sending that stuff, and Leanna, thanks for the card! Thanks for reading, should be an exciting week! Oh, and one more thing, I uploaded some pictures from my first few days in Boston into a facebook album. If you're a friend of mine on facebook feel free to go to my page and check them out if you'd like, and if you're not on facebook, you can follow this link to see the pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2352233&id=2728421&l=c75218d4b5

Weekend in Westfield

2009-05-16T15:20:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, two of my friends from LSU, Matt and Tim, came into Boston yesterday to visit. We spent the day taking in some of the sights, as I'm still trying to learn the city and Tim had never visited the city before. One of the places we went was the TD Banknorth Garden again, as Tim wanted to get his brother a Celtics Glen "Big Baby" Davis jersey, since Davis played at LSU. Well, the Celtics and Bruins share the arena store, so I saw some items from the Bruins-Hurricanes series that just ended. Turns out, all the items from that series were marked down to 99 cents, so I picked up 2 lapel pins and 2 hockey pucks with the series logo on it. Not a bad find for a 'Canes fan, and I'm sure no Bruins fan would want them. We did a few other things around the city, and after riding the T back to my part of town, we left the city and drove out to Westfield, MA, where Matt lives with his family. We had a fun night playing pool and watching the movie "Taken", and I also enjoyed getting out of the city for a little while. After breakfast this morning we decided to go to Six Flags New England for a few hours where we rode a few roller coasters and other rides. In all it's been a good day so far. I think we're going to eat lunch/dinner here pretty soon and then head back to Boston this evening, where we'll be going to the Boston Cannons-Long Island Lizards lacrosse game at Harvard University. Should be a fun night. I guess that's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Let's Go 'Canes!

2009-05-15T11:03:00.004-04:00

Hello! Yesterday was a pretty great day for me here in the city of Boston. I started work at 8 AM, and after a morning shift at the ballpark, I got off work at 12:30 PM. I was a tad tired after my first few days and came back to my room and napped for a few hours after taking care of some quick errands. Last night I went out to the TD Banknorth Garden, home of the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics, in hopes of maybe finding a ticket for game 7 last night against my Hurricanes. I didn't have much luck in finding one, so around puck-drop I headed back toward my side of town, grabbed dinner, and watched through the second period at Cask 'N Flagon, the sports pub right behind Fenway Park. As I walked into the restaurant and the bouncer checked my ID, he made a remark about the Hurricanes scoring, and I made a sarcastic comment in response, playing along with him. He then saw my ID, shook his head, gave me a smirk, and waved me through. I came back to my room to watch the final period with 2 guys who live on my floor, Aaron and Gavin. They're both Bruins fans, but we had a good time watching the game together. Well, I had a good time, considering the Hurricanes won. I'm not so sure they were exactly thrilled with the outcome. Anyway, the first 3 days at the ballpark were great, and now I have today, Saturday, and Sunday off before returning to work on Monday at noon. I'm really excited about the free weekend, hopefully giving me an opportunity to do a little more exploring around the city and check out some of my surroundings. One of my good friends from LSU, Matt, lives about 45 minutes south of Boston on the Massachusetts/Connecticut border, and today he's coming into town with another friend from LSU, Tim. It'll be nice again to see a familiar face, especially since I haven't hung out with the guy since last December in Baton Rouge. I think we're going to check out some stuff around the city, maybe even a Boston Cannons lacrosse game, and then head back to Westfield, his hometown, until Sunday. I met Matt's dad when he visited Baton Rouge back in the fall, so it'll be nice to see him again as well. The Red Sox host the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets this upcoming week, so I'm sure once I get back to work on Monday I'll have plenty of work to do preparing for and with the homestand. I'm going to try and post pictures on my Facebook profile from my first few days in Boston sometime this weekend, and I think there is a way for me to post some in my blog entries. Oh well, I'll figure all that out. Thanks for reading, I'll be updating again soon. Let's go 'Canes! Woo!

Second Day of Work

2009-05-13T23:20:00.003-04:00

Well, this has been a pretty full and exhausting day, so this entry probably won't be nearly as long as recent days. I got to work this morning at 8 AM, and for the first time in person I met my boss and the Red Sox head groundskeeper, Dave Mellor. Dave is one of the best in the business, is very well respected, and has written many books and done consultant work with and for many well known companies. Working for him this summer should be an awesome opportunity for me and I'm looking forward to learning a lot from him. Anyways, today was really busy at the park. Today the field was aerated and topdressed, so much of the day was spent removing cores from the playing surface. This process, while not necessarily painstaking, was definitely time consuming, but at the end of the day it was great to see the final product and have a playing field that is well manicured and in great condition. After the removal of the cores was completed, there were some other odd jobs that had to be completed before I could head on out, but I ended up leaving the park around 5:15 PM. On the way home I went to a local supermarket and loaded up on some essentials for the room and also for packing my lunch in the upcoming days. After getting cleaned up and grabbing dinner I spent some time talking to a friend here at Emmanuel College, getting to know some of the people I'll be living with for the next 3 months. And after this quick update, I'll be heading to bed, got to do it all over again tomorrow at 8 AM. However, after tomorrow I think I'll have the weekend off, which could be a great time to explore the city a little more and taken in some of the things that Boston has to offer. Maybe even a trip to the arena tomorrow night for the 'Canes-Bruins game? Hmm, I'd love nothing more than to see the boys from Raleigh steal game 7 here in Boston! Thanks for reading, goodnight!

First Day at Fenway

2009-05-12T22:58:00.004-04:00

Well, as the title of this entry suggests, today was my first day of work with the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. I arrived at the ballpark about 7:45 AM, and met up with the other assistant groundskeeper, Jason, and two other grounds crew members, Jack and Jedi. Shortly after my arrival, another intern showed up at the park. This guy, AJ, is a turf student from one of the Univ. of Minnesota branches and grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jason split us into two groups of two, and while Jack and AJ went to work in the visitor bullpen, Jedi and I worked on the 1st and 3rd basepath. After finishing up with these tasks and a quick break, the four of us worked in setting up a platform for delivery of the sand that would arrive later in the afternoon for the aerating and topdressing which will occur at another time. After that, Jason, AJ, Jack, and I went to lunch at Cask 'n Flagon, a sports pub located behind the Green Monster. The four of us shot the breeze about sports and whatever, and Jason (an avid Bruins fan) and I (an avid Hurricanes fan) jabbed each other about the current playoff series. Following lunch we went back to the park and worked on some other random tasks. By the way, I definitely had another "I work for the Red Sox" moment today. I was helping Jason and AJ water around home plate, and I was holding the hose on the pitching mound while the other guys were standing in different areas. A few seconds after standing there I realized, "I'm on the mound at Fenway!", and I looked up around the stadium, and up in the Press Box was a group of people touring the ballpark staring at the field, watching us work. It was a pretty surreal and incredible moment. Anyways, before AJ and I could leave the park though we had to get some materials required for our employment. Along with a really sweet team ID badge with our name and "Grounds Crew' on it, we were given rainwear, shorts, work shirts, a sweatshirt, and a jacket for use on the job. Getting these pretty cool Red Sox items was a lot of fun, and it's definitely pretty cool to have some items that are only available to employees of the team and members of the grounds crew. I got back from work about 3:30, and after cleaning up, I went back out about the neighborhood I'm in to get some items for the room. This meant another trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, who I'm practically advertising for by mentioning so often, a quick trip to Staples, and also down to CVS. After getting some things squared away for the day, I was ready for dinner and excited about watching game 6 of the 'Canes-Bruins series. Elizabeth, one of closest friends at NCSU, is from Boston, and although she will be in Raleigh this summer, she happened to be back home for a few days, so her and I decided to hang out tonight. She came over to my dorm room, and from there the two of us headed toward downtown to find a bite to eat and a place to watch the game. We walked from Emmanuel to the Kenmore train station, and we rode the Eastbound train to the Park Street station. We got off at Park Street, and Elizabeth started to show me some cool parts of that area of downtown. We walked through Boston Gardens, down to the Frog Pond, and up in front of the Massachusetts State House. Two huge banners, one for the Celtics and one for the Bruins were hanging from the State House, and I took a picture in front of the two, in hopes that the Bruins one would be taken down tomorrow morning. We continued walking through downtown, and went to Quincy Market. While walking into Quincy Market we noticed partitions and what appeared to be a film crew setting up to film or filming something while we were there. Turns out it was the television game show "Wheel of Fortune" that was setting up to film a promotional commercial for an upcoming trip to the city. Elizabeth and I decided we'd eat and watch the game at "Cheers", you know, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name", but apparently we were getting there as they were closing and we had to change plans. With this change in plans we went to the Hard Rock Cafe where we settled into a back room where all the televisions were turned to the game. We enjoyed a nice dinner, and I ended up talking to some Bruins fans who were watching the game at the bar, and proceeded to tell them, that no, not everyone in North Carolina is hockey illiterate, and Raleigh, while definitely a southern city, does love the Hurricanes hockey team. These guys were real ice and although the 'Canes ended up losing, they were fun to watch the game with. Following dinner, and the 'Canes loss, we left the restaurant and headed back through Quincy Market to where we needed to be. Oh, and remember that film crew I metioned earlier? Well, the "Wheel of Fortune" guys weren't done, and at this point in time, 2 hours from when we first saw them, there was a familiar face in the shoot. Vanna White was standing in the commons and the crew was filming the commercial! Elizabeth and I were maybe 10 yards away from her, and wow, she's still got it. I don't know what "it" is, but yeah, she's got it. Anyways, Elizabeth and I headed back to the Park Street station, where I got on the Green line back to Fenway while Elizabeth caught the Red line back to her part of town. It was really nice having a close friend and such a familiar face with me in the city. She'll be back in Raleigh tomorrow until late June, but whenever she gets back here will be awesome, she is a great guide! I just got back to the dorm a while ago, and after catching the tail end of the Celtics game in the lobby with some Bostonians, and updating this blog, I am pretty exhausted. I guess it's about time for me to go to bed tonight, do it all over again tomorrow! I had a great first day of work, and I'm really excited about the rest of the summer. Thanks for checking in with me. By the way, the Red Sox are tied at 1 with the LA Angels in the bottom of the 4th on the west coast, let's see if they/we can't pull out a win tonight! Hahaha, goodnight!

First Day in Boston

2009-05-11T20:50:00.002-04:00

After months of school and waiting for this summer so I could finally start my internship with the Red Sox, the day has arrived and I am in Boston! I woke up this morning about 6 o'clock and headed to RDU International Airport at around 7:45 AM, with my flight leaving the airport for Boston, MA at 9:30 AM. I was very exhausted from the night before and having woken up early, and pretty much fell asleep as soon as I sat down on the airplane. However, I was lucky enough to wake up just in time to see New York City as we flew over/past. I woke up as we were flying over NYC and we were at a pretty good distance so I had a hard time making out some of the buildings, but seeing the huge city from the air was definitely a treat. I arrived in Boston at 11:30 AM and took a shuttle from Logan Airport to Emmanuel College. After getting my Emmanuel ID card I checked into my room in St. Joseph's Hall, and decided to go grab lunch and see what is in the vicinity of where I'll be living. I walked down to a very nice food court near the school and bought lunch, and headed back to my room to eat and settle in. Right after I finished eating I got a phone call from Kevin, another grounds crew intern, from Atlanta, saying that he was out and about Boston with two of his roommates, Drew, from Washington State, and Josh, from U. of Arkansas, and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up. We decided to meet up at the huge 3-story Apple store and after meeting, the 4 of us spent a little while just hanging out downtown. After we left the Apple store, we decided today was a great day to go to the observatory at the top of the Prudential Center. We spent a while up at the top of this skyscraper taking in the sights, seeing some pretty awesome Boston landmarks, including my place of work for the next 3 months, Fenway Park. After leaving the Prudential Center, Drew and Josh decided to head back to their townhome while Kevin and I headed over to Fenway Park. This was it, my first time going to the ballpark. As we approached the ballpark I started to notice things I had seen before on television and in movies about the historic ballpark. Large banners and flags lining Yawkey Way, the brick and green facade to the old stadium, the enormous CITGO sign that is so easily seen above the Green Monster, it was amazing. Kevin and I walked into the ballpark, and after walking through the concourse, we went past a gated area with a sign that read "Employees Only". I suppose this was another moment where I was reminded that I was an intern for the Boston Red Sox. We went into the Grounds Crew office, where there I met Assistant Groundskeeper Weston, and after talking in the office for a few minutes, he decided to show me around the park. Weston showed me the Grounds Crew locker room and the areas where the turf equpment and materials are stored. He then asked me if I had "gone to field level" yet, and after telling him I hadn't, Weston took me out to the playing surface. We walked out of the concourse to the seating area, and then we went down to the field. As we were heading that way, my thoughts were put into words by Weston who said, "Looks a lot bigger on TV, doesn't it?". I laughed a little bit, but it's so true, Fenway Park is so much smaller in person than it is on ESPN. We walked out onto the field, where some group was playing a softball game as a fundraiser, and we talked about the job and Boston for a little while. Weston then left to take care of some business, while Kevin showed me around the field. We walked into the home dugout, around the warning track in front of the home and visitor bullpens, and then crossed in front of the Green Monster. That whole experience of initially walking the field where so many great ballplayers had played was pretty amazing, and I'm sure I won't ever forget it. Kevin and I left shortly after this, and we split ways for the night. I came back to Emmanuel to settle into my dorm and make my bedroom up a little bit. I had a late dinner and made a quick run to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and now, I'm sitting in the lobby of the residence hall on a lobby computer as I don't yet have internet access in my room. In all, it's been a great first day. So far everyone I met has been very nice and welcoming. I'm looking forward to having Phil, my roommate, arrive next Monday as maybe that will make dorm life a little more interesting. So far, simply put about Boston, I LOVE IT. This should be a great summer. And although it's early, only 9:20ish, I think it's about time for me to settle in for the night, first day of work is tomorrow, gotta be there by 8 AM. That's right, Tuesday, 8 AM, FENWAY PARK. Goodnight!

Final Night In Raleigh

2009-05-11T00:37:00.003-04:00

Well, this post is coming a little after midnight on Monday, May 11, and I've just finished hanging out with my closest friends at my house in Cary. Earlier this evening, toward the end of the Carolina Hurricanes game, Scott Reintgen and Laney Bolick came over, followed by Scott Bearden, Grant Kennedy, and Dan Fox. My sister, Leanna, and my parents were also here. We all just kind of hung out and had a fun night together, oh, and Leanna and my Mom made beignets for us to eat. Beignets, for those who are unaware, are french doughnuts covered in powdered sugar. The Eppele 5 thoroughly enjoyed these delicious treats on our last night together for the summer. Thanks guys for coming over, it means a lot to me, and Leanna and my folks for everything too. Hard to believe the time to go on up there has finally arrived, it seems like yesterday I was in my dorm room in Blake Hall at LSU conducting a phone interview with the Red Sox in hopes of landing this internship. This entire summer should be great for me, and also for my friends who I spent time with tonight. I guess I'm going to go ahead and get some sleep with the early morning ahead of me. Hopefully my next post will be from Boston! Thanks again for everything , I look forward to sharing this experience with you all.

4...

2009-05-07T23:14:00.006-04:00

Well, I had a pretty great day today spending my last Thursday in North Carolina before heading to Beantown for the summer. I spent the day down at Wrightsville Beach, NC with 3 of my friends, playing beach football, swimming, and having some nice downtime relaxing before the bulk of packing begins. Nice day at the beach, the weather was great. It was a little overcast for the first hour of the day, but from 1 until 5 the shun was out and things were great. After grabbing dinner at Red Robin in Wilmington, Scott, Scott, Dan, and I headed home. Oh, and the best part of the day, I finally got to catch up with my best friend in Louisiana after a few long weeks of being out of touch. However, the best news of the day is that I received my summer housing confirmation from Emmanuel College today, and I'm set to move in on Monday. I'll be living in St. Joseph's Hall on the campus and in case you're wondering, I will be able to receive mail over the summer. I'll list my mailing address at the end of this entry, and apparently for mail to be properly distributed in the College, packages and letters MUST be addressed as follows:

Wesley Eppele
Summer Resident
Emmanuel College
400 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115

So, please, feel free to send me notes, letters, or packages, anything, I would love to get mail this summer! Thanks so much for reading, 3 more nights and I'll have an entry from Boston! Goodnight.

Final 5 Nights

2009-05-06T23:10:00.002-04:00

So, final exams for my spring semester classes at NC State have ended, I've moved out of my room in Bagwell Hall back to my house in Cary, and I'm entering my final weekend in Raleigh before heading up to Boston for the summer. Five nights, including tonight, left before I get to get started on this great opportunity and experience with the Red Sox. The last few days I had been feeling anxious about everything dealing with leaving NC again and being in Massachusetts for the summer, but with school over and my departure date so soon, my anxiety has started to go away and the level of excitement is definitely picking up. I'm looking forward to tomorrow with some of my friends, spend a day down at the North Carolina coast and celebrate the end of Junior year and the start of what should be a great summer for everyone. I guess that's all for tonight, thanks a lot if you're reading this. Hopefully these posts will become more interesting in the next week or so. Oh, and GO CAROLINA HURRICANES! Great win tonight over the Bruins. Hmm, maybe I should get that out of my system before next week, I don't need to make any enemies so early into the summer. Haha, goodnight.

17 days...CONFIRMED!

2009-04-24T20:33:00.001-04:00

Well, it's official! My plane tickets have been purchased and summer housing confirmed and I will be in Boston, MA on May 11th until August 14th. Which means, including today, I have 17 more days in the south before heading to Beantown. The closer it gets, the more excited I become. Going to be a great summer. By the way, today is Leanna's 20th birthday. Happy Birthday sis!

19 Days!

2009-04-22T00:10:00.004-04:00

Well, I suppose this is the first real update to the blog since my initial post. I just wanted to add to the blog that I think I now have my start date finalized and my plans for the summer are falling into place. As of right now, and this could change in the next day or so, I am planning on leaving Raleigh on Monday, May 11th, and spending my summer with the Red Sox until Friday, August 14th. Also, I'm working on finishing my plans for housing and plan to be staying in a dormitory a few blocks from Fenway Park with another member of the grounds crew. So, this was just a quick addition to the blog, but I'm thrilled about these next 19 days and being in Boston!

Boston: Coming soon!

2009-04-16T02:17:00.004-04:00

As most of you probably know, I will be interning this summer with the Boston Red Sox baseball club as a member of the grounds crew at Fenway Park. I'm really excited about this opportunity, it should be a great experience for me and give me an opportunity to learn more about working with high-performance athletic turf. I've never blogged before, but I hope to use this as an avenue to keep friends and family updated as to what and how I'm doing in Bean Town. Hopefully I'll post on here every day or so once I get up there and start working. Until then, posts will probably be pretty sporadic. So, thanks for checking in, I look forward to sharing with everyone about my internship.