My Adventure with the Boston Red Sox

7.01.2007

Plugs.
There is a new piece of fiction from Ben Byrd, entitled Evanescent. It has nothing to do with the band, thank God. Also you need to read Malach special expose' on Pro Wrestling over at the WoW. Me and my buddy Otis Serunigs uncovered a 50 year conspiracy . .. Oh yeah, speaking of Pro Wrestling:

Don't make me GO BENOIT on your ass.
by
Malach

Get this custom shirt at Zazzle

Yeah, I am a bit of a internet whore

Some Clarification.
OK, Blogger was acting up a couple of days ago, but I managed to fix everthing and 6/29's blog is now up, and dated and timed correctly. That has several updates, info on this Beatles song, and a funny Sarah Silverman video as highlights.

I did a little digging to see what the issue was. Evidently, Blogger has been having issues like with FTP loaded blogs since the complete switch to Google. It will affect a number of these blogs for a few days then correct itself. The FTP Blogger community is pretty pissed about it because it is an obvious issue with Blogger, and should be a known issue, but Google keeps reffering people to talk to their host providers. Someone like me who has been using the FTP platform since 2004, it seemed weird that my FTP protocols would suddenly be screwed up. Well it fixed itself in about 42 hours, but like many FTP blogger, I seriously thought of switching services, we will see.

Also, in terms of yesterday's blog, well there is a story behind that . . .

My Adventure.
So, Malach has been playing on a Unified Special Olympics Softball team for about 10 years. I have told you stories about this before, but those of you new to the blog, I will explain.

Unified Softball consists of a team of half Special Olympians (who are disabled adults with cognititve functioning issues: MR, Borderline Intellect, Autism etc.) and half "normal" partners. The team is 15 with 8 Olympians and 7 partners. On the field you have 5 partners (at most) and 5 Olympians. Same with batting, but you can bat 11 with a Olympian batting in the extra spot. They then try to match physical skills of partners with the physical skills of Olympians, and division the team based on that. The lower level divisions have more severely disabled Olympians and partners with worse skills. Malach's team, Rick's Rangers, is in the top division, a step or two below a regular men's softball team (in fact we have beaten a few regular softball teams in scrimmages), and in the past 5 years we have won the Gold three times, the Silver once, and the Bronze once. MA Special Olympics (SOMA) uses us as a model team, while competitive, we display some awesome sportmanship, and have fun partners and athletes.

So, a couple of weeks ago SOMA asked us to represent them at last nights Red Sox game, they did not give us much info beyond that we would see the game, get on the field for batting practice (BP), be involved in opening ceremonies, and maybe toss out the first pitch. The Sox were putting on a Disability Awareness Night and honoring persons with disabilities.

OK, cool, Malach has always wanted to toss a ball out at a pro game, and perhaps, I could finally blow out elbow and get John Henry to pay for it. So we get to Fenway, we are lead into a waiting area, and we get to go out on the field for BP. They has this roped off section from dugout to dugout; got to watch the Rangers do BP (Yeah kind of Ironic we are Rick's Rangers), walk around the warning track, edge of the grass, see Sammy Sosa up close and blast some balls.

Ok, some impression, I have been to Fenway tons of times, never on the field. So, being right behind homeplate, and playing a lot of Baseball, I never really realized how close the Green Monster is, and the right field corner with Pesky Pole. I think with a Aluminum bat, I could probably reach the wall, ff I can could catch up to a fastball. The second thing I realized in the grass is so spongy, it really slows the ball down on grounders, and by the time they get to the fielder, they aren't going any faster than in my Men's Softball League. Interesting. So we are hanging out there, taking pictures, meeting Tina Cervasio, getting occasional glimpse of Francona, Ortiz, Beckett and such. Cool. There are also a couple of other disability organization out there, Miss America Wheelchair, and such too. We find out we are not throwing out the first pitch; a deaf girl a monkey are (the monkey was a capuchin monkey, trained to help quadripeligics). Kind of dissappoiting but what the Hell, still cool to be on the field.

So then a Red Sox official comes down, and tells us there has been a change of plans. They are going to annouce our names and positions and we need to head out onto the field in those postions, and then wait for the respective Red Sox player to join us out there (WHAT?); and then quickly meet them, stay out for the National Anthem, and then run back in. So needless to say we were a bit dumbfounded. Oh, and by the way, the whole thing was going to be carried live on NESN in front of maybe 10 million people.

So, Malach, who is the only pitcher on the team has to run out onto the pitcher's mound, and wait for Josh Beckett. Cool, you know Malach, he loves the spotlight, no problem. So, we run out onto the field, they announce all our names, Malach poses in his best stretch on the mound in front of 40,000 people. Some quick thoughts . .. yeah, I can do this for a living (pitching), and yes, the Green Monster is very short. Suddenly the Red Sox burst out of the Dugout, and after a quick hello, I show Beckett my elbow destroyed from years of pitching, asked for some advice, he tells me I am screwed. A few impressions. Besides Beckett, baseball players aren't too big. Manny was about my size, Dustin Pedroia is about 5'8", and Youkillis is the exact same size as Otis Serungis. So we get off the mound for the National Anthem, which is being sung by a kid who is deaf. He gets about halfway through it, and start giggling uncontrollably (remember this is live), Beckett and I start to half laugh, I quickly state, "if we can get the crowd to help" . .. suddenly as this kid is stumbling, the crowd burst into the remainder of the anthem. Great crowd it was awesome. Shook Beckett's hand, wished him good luck, we were wisked off the field to our Bleacher seats where we were stars for the rest of the evening. I looked on YouTube for a video of this, none up yet. I have a recording, so do a few others, so one should be up soon. Malach also has several pics of him on the mound (there is a cool one with my back to camera in a convincing stretch), but they are in Otis Serungis's camera, he has e-mail them to me. . . I will post them as soon as I get them.

I apologize for shaking Beckett's hand, I think I gave him a blister.

The Mood of Red Sox Nation.
So let me get this straight, the lose 2 in a row to the worst team in baseball, but the rest of the Division hasn't gained ground? Mood: I the AL East the worst division in baseball?

Look at me.
I'm CNN, I have a new website . . . BLAHBLAHBLAH.

OK, look.
If you are going to try to kill a vampire, stomping on it won't kill him.

Malach's Quote/Video of the Day

I am Malach, oh man, Bas Rutten rocks.