The baseball season has begun! And the Sox are in first place!! They have the best record in the league and are a half-game up on the Yankees!! Yeah I know, no one else has played yet (except the A’s) but still I am always happy when we are in first place and especially when we are ahead of the Yankees.
The first game of the season started at 12:11 am this morning my time. I only lasted an hour and then fell asleep. I watched the rest of the game this morning. Final score: 6-5 Red Sox with the game going into extra innings. There were a few blunders on both sides, but in the end, luck was on our side. A win is a win and we will take it.
A blogger who no longer blogs described the beginning of the baseball season like the feeling you get on Christmas Eve. It is the same excitement I feel each year.
Ok…enough about my boys and the beginning of a new baseball season. Have I mentioned I love baseball?? and I love the Red Sox??
Both Annie and Sandra asked about my favorite baseball movie. I don’t think there has been a baseball movie I have not liked, even a Yankees baseball movie. I love the game and enjoy any movie about baseball. A few movies that I would rank as my favorites include Field of Dreams, The Natural, A League of Their Own, and Bull Durham, but my all time favorite would have to be Fever Pitch.
Fever Pitch is about a die hard Red Sox fan, Ben (played by Jimmy Fallon), who is torn between the woman he loves, Lindsey (played by Drew Barrymore), and the baseball team he worships. Yes, I know it is a sappy love story, but what makes this movie my favorite is the way they portray the life of Ben as a passionate out of control Red Sox fan. Ben lives in apartment, which is decorated in a Red Sox gift shop theme. He even has a green monster wall in his living room. I love how Ben reacts when his season tickets are delivered, how he decides which friends get which tickets, and how he gives Lindsey a little black ring box with a ticket for opening day inside.
There are so many classic lines in this movie, including when Ben tells Lindsey that he attends spring training every year to figure out which players they should keep and which players they should get rid of and Lindsey asks, “And the Red Sox ask your opinion?”. Another one of my favorite scenes is when Ben is depressed after Lindsey breaks up with him and his friends find him sitting in front of the TV watching the moment in the 86 World Series when the ball goes through Buckner’s legs over and over again and one of his friends says, “Oh, my God. The Buckner game? I thought you took that away from him!”
But the best part is the end of the movie. When the Farrelly brothers, life long Red Sox fans, wrote this movie, they did not want to jinx the Red Sox. They wrote an ending where the Red Sox lost, figuring they would do just that. Once the Red Sox came back to beat the Yankees, and the thought that the Red Sox could actually win this time after 86 years, they had to scramble to write a new ending.
My favorite line in the entire movie, the actual WEEI radio announcement of the final out of the game, which gives me goose bumps and brings me to tears every time I watch this movie, is: “Back to Foulke. Red Sox fans have longed to hear it. The Boston Red Sox are world champions.”
And that is why Fever Pitch is my all time favorite movie. Of course if you are talking real life, my Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series Collector’s Edition DVD box set which includes the all 7 ALCS games and the 4 World Series games ranks right up there.
Here’s a preview of the movie Fever Pitch.
shave ice & gelato 
Ooo, thanks to your post, I can surprise my sister with a few tidbits! Her husband makes fun of me something wicked for my utter lack of knowledge about sports, especially baseball, which is one of my sister’s real passions in life.
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Very interesting! Now that I think about it, there HAVE been a lot of good baseball movies. Films that would appeal to men, women and,I think, across most age groups.
Yet, as a football fan, I have to say that there haven’t been a lot of good movies about football. They’re usually kinda crude. And I count both “The Longest Yard” version among those that are crude and cliched.
There must be something about baseball and its place in the North American psyche that inspires good films!
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Anne, glad to help but not sure if I really put many baseball facts into this post. I do have some great Red Sox blogs and other sites listed on my sidebar.
Sandra, I agree. I was thinking about other types of sport movies while writing this and could not really think of that many good ones for any sport. There was a great hockey movie that Kurt Russell was in recently but there definitely are many more good baseball movies.
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Thanks! I haven’t seen Fever Pitch but I know I’d love it – will have to put it in my Netflix queue.
I think Bull Durham is my favorite, mainly because it was filmed here and also because Kevin Costner is SO handsome in that movie! I also really loved that Ken Burns documentary.
Speaking of handsome…. I bought the recent Sports Illustrated that has my Tar Heels on the cover and inside, there’s a photo of a Red Sox player. I can’t remember his name but he looks so cute and it said that he’s the first Navaho player in baseball. Do you know him?
I’ll have to take my camera to work one day and take some photos of the Bull Durham places. They actually filmed the locker room scenes in my office building and there’s still some of the movie stuff there…..where they painted “The Greatest Show On Dirt” on the wall.
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Annie, thanks for the idea. I would love to read a post about Bull Durham and the places the movie was filmed. The Red Sox player in the photo would be Jacoby Ellsbury. He is a rookie, well loved in Boston, and a very talented player – cute too!
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You make me laugh! But on Monday, since my friend Rain, just had a baby, we’re missing opening day (we usually go every year), so instead, I’m driving to her place so we can watch it together on TV.
The best comment about the Red Sox winning the World Series had to be on lost, when the Others were trying to prove to Jack they had communication with the outside world and they told him the Sox won, and he laughed in their faces. :D
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Jacoby Ellsbury – thanks! Great name too. He’s a cutie. It really surprised me that he was the first Navaho, considering how long baseball has been around, but good for him!
For years the Durham Bulls were a Single A team for the Atlanta Braves but then they built a new and bigger ballpark (they no longer play in the old ballpark where the movie was filmed). Now the Bulls are a Triple A team for Tampa. I go to several games every summer – it’s a lot of fun.
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Kim, always happy to make you laugh :-) You are lucky to get to see them at least on TV, our home opener won’t be televised (except in the Boston area)…and I can’t even listen to it on MLB audio since it is a day game which means it will be on in the morning when I am at work… I do see though that there are some Sox/Yankees games coming up early in the season and 2 will be televised. I also loved that line on Lost! I probably would have said the same thing.
Annie, I never knew the Durham Bulls were a real team. Interesting. I wonder why they changed teams (Atlanta to Tampa)?
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www dot durhambulls dot com/team/history.html?1902-1939
Yes, Durham has had a minor league team since 1902 and the ballpark used in the movie was built in 1940. I think they switched teams because of the upgrade from Single A to Triple A. The new ballpark is really nice but I kind of miss the old historic one.
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I grew up in New England and have always been loyal to the Red Sox! I only wish my father had lived long enough to see them win the world series. He would have been over the moon!
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Annie, interesting history. I see the Red Sox played at the Bull’s stadium in 1940 and there was a 2nd Red Sox reference in 1948. I wonder if the film Bull Durham influenced the construction of the new ballpark?
Kathy, I really do understand how you feel about wishing your father could have seen them win. There were people all over New England putting Red Sox memorabilia on the graves of family members after they finally won. The win really was for all the parents and grandparents who waited so long. I was very lucky to be able to watch the Red Sox win with my dad. My mom passed away before they won however. She was more a Celtics fan but I am sure she would have still been thrilled to finally see the Red Sox win. And my Grandfather, well if he was still alive, he probably would have had a heart attack seeing them win. I grew up listening to many games with my grandfather over the radio while playing cards with my grandother.
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Oh yeah. The Durham Bulls always had a pretty good crowd come out for the games but after the movie, it was a mob scene. They needed a bigger park, for sure.
I love that so much about people putting memorabilia on the graves!
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