I watched a good portion of Boston’s Game 1 win last night, despite the fact that it lasted seven-and-a-half hours like most Red Sox games. And I realized I hadn’t blogged in a while. So here we are.

I did see the Dodgers play this summer, and I’ve seen Fenway before, about 15, maybe 20 years ago, I think. That probably doesn’t qualify me to provide some thoughts but I’ll do it anyway.

Fenway was brimming with inferiority complex the only time I was there; the team hadn’t yet broken the curse and gone on to win three World Series titles. We were on a pre-kids vacation with another couple in Cape Cod and decided to see if we could find tickets to see Fenway. Dan and I were both big Tigers fans and didn’t particular care much for the Sox or the Blue Jays, but we figured if we could knock Fenway off our bucket lists, it’d be worth it.

We were able to find a couple of scalped tickets about 30 minutes before game time, and joined the throng waiting to get into the park. The skies were pretty ominous and, in fact, it started pouring around the fourth or fifth inning. It was cold enough that we both bought Red Sox sweatshirts at the game, which I recently realized is a classic San Francisco Giants’ marketing ploy: it’s summer in California and if you don’t know better, you assume that means it’ll be super pleasant. [Note: the odds of it being super pleasant at a Giants’ night game are close to zero, so bring a hoodie even if it’s 95 degrees when you leave your house]. Anyway, it was pretty chilly, so we went to check out a merchandise stand on our way to grab a beer. And since not only was it cold, but it was also about to rain, we decided to purchase overpriced Red Sox sweatshirts.

Matching ones, it turned out.

Not surprisingly, this isn’t really a fashion look that you and another person can pull off, unless you’re twins from a creepy horror movie, and even then it’s borderline. For the record, I bought mine first. And no, I don’t believe there are any photos of us. If there were, my wife would have posted them on Facebook by now, justifiably mocking us. I clearly remember it took her a really, really long time to stop laughing at us after we got back from the game.

At any rate, I have no idea who won that night, and I don’t know for sure that they actually finished it. What I remember most is the chant. During the delay, we hustled for cover with a few thousand other people, heading toward the concourse under the left field stands. Almost immediately, a ‘YANKEES SUCK!’ chant broke out, and the noise was deafening. Of course, the Sox were playing the Blue Jays at the time. There were no Yankees within a hundred miles of Boston, I’m guessing. It was an impressive display of pure rivalry hatred, the likes of which I’ve rarely seen. I say this even as a Michigan State grad, toiling in the shadow of the University of Michigan for most of my life; U-M/MSU is a good rivalry full of a healthy level of hatred. But seeing people in the throes of a ‘Yankees Suck!’ thing is kind of next-level.

So do I root for the Red Sox or the Dodgers? The Sox, with their team full of stars who used to play in Detroit. Or the Dodgers, who I’m probably supposed to hate because of the Giants but I haven’t lived in the Bay Area long enough for that to take hold? Bonus point for the Dodgers: Paly grad Joc Pederson is on the team, so at the very least I’d be pulling for him to do well. But do you have to root? Is it sort of like when you and your wife are expecting a baby and people say “do you hope it’s a boy or a girl?”, and you just say “I want it to be healthy”? Is it bad to compare having a baby to a baseball game? Still, a good series would be good for baseball, and it probably doesn’t matter much who wins.

Go Dodgers!

Go Sox!

Can’t wait for Spring!