There are a few things you can count on in this life: death, taxes, and me posting this same exact story every year on Fenway Opening Day. Any why not? It’s a tradition that runs deep, like trying to ride a bicycle into the sun, filling your car with mannequins so you can use the Expressway’s HOV lane, and tossing fresh-grilled Fenway Franks into the Charles to appease the Gods of Baseball. We can’t fight it. Instead, we must give in to its gentle pull. And enjoy, once again, this story of what I consider the greatest Fenway Opening Day of my lifetime, which was originally posted on this here blog thing back in 2011.

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My dad and I never missed an Opening Day. Sometimes we were in the stands — Manny’s first-pitch-at-Fenway-as-a-Red-Sox home run and the Mo Vaughn Ninth Inning Comeback Special the most notable Fenway ODs we attended — and other times we were hunkered down at the old house in West Roxbury, setting up chairs to look like rows of ballpark seats and rolling out hot dogs and beer. It was a Holy Day of Obligation — you were obligated to blow off work, sit your ass down, and scream for the hometown boys ’til your throat hurt.

One Opening Day stands out in my mind. Me and Dad were headed into Fenway and, for some inexplicable reason, I convinced him to forsake the T for my car. Dumb idea. So with a few minutes to go before first pitch, we found ourselves gridlocked on Longwood Ave, rolling past parking lot after parking lot filled to capacity.

So I figured — and it’s important to point out that I’d lived in Boston my whole life to that point and hadn’t had one drop of alcohol to impair my thinking — that there had to be some side street metered spots that no one’s thought to look for. Dumber idea. And thus began a painfully slow backstreet tour of Boston, from one end to another, weaving and bobbing while listening to the first few strands of the game on EEI.

A more rational father might have strangled me, leaving my lifeless body by the side of the road while he high-tailed it to the Fens. But dad, God rest his soul, just soaked it in, talking about how back in the day, he could just walk over to the Park on a whim after classes at Northeastern and get a bleacher seat. And telling me once again about the summer he spent housebound as a young’un, obsessively playing his Strat-O-Matic baseball game. And reminding me that I need to hold on to that Jim Rice-Fred Lynn pin he bought me when I was barely crawling, because it was bound to be worth something.

And the car rolled on. And the first and second innings played out. And dad and I just sat there. Driving aimlessly. Sometimes not moving at all. Enjoying that thing that happens when dads and sons get together and talk baseball. The stuff we don’t get back in the NESN recaps and Globe articles.

Eventually, I gave up on the free or cheap parking dream and landed at the garage by the Hynes (conveniently next door to Bukowskis). And by the time we trudged our asses to the Park, it was the top of the fourth. And though I couldn’t even begin to remember who we were playing or the final score or even the year, I can replay every goddam minute of that car ride.

“Best Opening Day ever,” Dad said after the game as we walked back to the car.

And he was right.

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Thanks for indulging me again. While you’re here, do check out our redesigned T-shirt store, Sox Addicts. Gear for the slightly deranged Sox fan.

The post Again, Like Clockwork: My Favorite Fenway Opening Day appeared first on Surviving Grady.

The boys of summer, the sun came out today, blah blah blah. Give me October baseball any day or night. A sharp chill in the air. Gloves on and a flask full of Jameson to keep me warm. Everyone standing, screaming and praying, knowing the season could be over by the ninth inning. No fear of heatstroke or sunburn or sweating my balls off as my twenty dollar Bud Light boils in the sun. Just that exhilarating feeling of a packed Fenway house losing their shit simultaneously as the winning run crosses the plate and the first hint of hypothermia creeps in.

Playoff baseball at Fenway? I’m ready to feel it again.

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Don’t get me wrong: I love the new Monster-inspired Red Sox City Connect jerseys and my wallet’s about 400 bucks lighter after buying a few of them.

But as we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of that 1975 Red Sox team, I was hoping the Sox might embrace the look of the polyester V-neck pullovers of that era for at least part of this season. The few times they’ve done the throwbacks, they’ve looked great IMO.

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Below are five such episodes, each one proving that even when baseball gets serious, there’s still room for the offbeat and the hilarious.

Manny Ramirez Vanishes into the Green Monster
Manny Ramirez was never short of headline-grabbing behavior, but one of his most puzzling stunts came mid-game at Fenway Park. While stationed in left field, he strolled over to the iconic Green Monster, opened a scoreboard door, and simply disappeared inside. It wasn’t an official break, and he hadn’t signalled to his teammates—he just decided, apparently on a whim, to vanish for a moment. It was a classic example of Manny being Manny.

When Manny finally emerged, the crowd erupted in a mixture of cheers and astonishment. To this day, nobody really knows what he was doing in there. Maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment escape from the spotlight, or he just needed a quick minute to himself. Legend has it that he needed to answer an urgent call of nature, but that’s never officially been confirmed. Fans and commentators were left scratching their heads, but in Manny’s mind, it must have made perfect sense.

Manny’s Mid-Play High Five
Manny’s knack for the unexpected continued on another day when he chased down a deep fly ball, made a leaping catch at the wall, and then immediately turned around to high-five a fan before firing the ball back into the infield. Incredibly, the play ended with an out at home plate, proving Manny had the presence of mind to complete his defensive responsibilities in spite of the spontaneous celebration.

From a coaching standpoint, the high five was pure madness—how many times are players told to maintain focus from the moment the pitch is thrown until the play is over? Manny didn’t seem too worried. He acted as if a quick hand slap was just part of his routine. While teammates probably winced, fans loved it. This one play perfectly captured Manny’s carefree approach: combining jaw-dropping skill with an equally jaw-dropping disregard for convention.

Chris Sale’s Scissor Snip
Long before Chris Sale became a mainstay of the Red Sox pitching staff, he famously took issue with a set of 1976-style throwback jerseys scheduled to be worn by his then-team, the Chicago White Sox. Disgusted by their look and feel, Sale grabbed a pair of scissors and cut them to ribbons, forcing the team to switch jerseys hours before the first pitch. There are ways of expressing your distaste for such a garment, but Sale’s approach felt like a high-stakes gamble, and a one-off gamble at that – once you’ve put everything on a single spin, there’s no going back, and you have to live with the consequences. That’s a bad approach at top casinos, and it turned out to be a bad approach for Sale, too. He didn’t hit the jackpot that day.

Some labelled him a perfectionist; others thought he had thrown a childish tantrum. Whatever your perspective, it’s not every day you see a top-level athlete literally destroy team gear just because he doesn’t like it. The incident led to a suspension and a flurry of questions about Sale’s temperament. When he joined the Red Sox, fans couldn’t help joking about whether Boston’s own uniform designs were safe from his scissors. Though Sale remains an outstanding pitcher, that rebellious moment sticks in people’s minds almost as much as his pitching stats.

Wade Boggs and the Beer Myth
Wade Boggs was a hitting machine, stacking up batting titles and memorable seasons for the Red Sox in the 1980s. For many baseball fans, he’s also associated with one of the sport’s most notorious legends: his ability to consume staggering quantities of beer on flights. According to popular lore, Boggs could down 20, 30, or even 50 cans during a cross-country trip, which sounds enough to make most people keel over.

To this day, no one’s entirely sure where truth ends and exaggeration begins. Boggs himself has never gone into great detail (save for a single claim about drinking over 100 beers on a single trip), and stories about his beer consumption seem to grow with each retelling. Whether he actually drank the amounts claimed or not, the myth has become a permanent part of his lore—so much so that people discuss it almost as often as they do his Hall of Fame batting numbers. For a serious competitor with an impressive career, it’s hilarious that he’s also tied to one of the biggest beer-related tall tales in Major League Baseball.

Bill “Spaceman” Lee’s Cosmic Habits
If there was ever one Red Sox figure who practically invited oddball stories, it was Bill “Spaceman” Lee. During the 1970s, Lee carved out a reputation as a free-spirited pitcher who blended top-tier talent with outlandish ideas. He claimed to sprinkle marijuana on his breakfast cereal, publicly questioned conventional training routines, and relished giving irreverent quotes to the press.

“Spaceman” wasn’t just a nickname; it encapsulated everything about Lee’s public persona. He’d challenge coaches on strategy, poke fun at baseball traditions, and insist on doing things his own way. Fans loved him for his offbeat charm as much as his skill on the mound. While other players were content with routine bullpen sessions, Lee appeared to live in his own universe, hovering between comedic mischief and serious competitiveness. He may not have reached Hall of Fame status, but he’ll forever be remembered as one of the game’s most distinctive characters.

From Manny’s quirks to Sale’s uniform shredding, the Red Sox have supplied some of baseball’s most eyebrow-raising tales. For a team that’s enjoyed historic triumphs, it’s almost refreshing to remember they can provide an endless supply of weird moments, too. All these absurd moments, though unconventional, are a reminder of baseball’s human side. Sure, you’ll find rigorous training, meticulous statistics, and mental focus, but you’ll also find moments that look more like they came from a comedy sketch than a professional sporting event. Whether you view them as silly mistakes or amusing folklore, these incidents have become as much a part of the Red Sox story as any pennant or trophy.

The post The Most Absurd Red Sox Moments You Probably Forgot About appeared first on Surviving Grady.

Well, we wanted to see Red Sox ownership shake things up as we head into spring training, and they delivered. Alex Bregman will be our second baseman in 2025, signed for 3 years and $120m. It was announced yesterday that he will wear number 2 for the Red Sox.

That’s a number that most of us associate with the late, great Jerry Remy, the de facto head of Red Sox Nation and one of the most beloved broadcasters of our time. However, a few other folks have worn it through the years as well. In fact, by accepting this uniform number, Bregman becomes part of the elite TWO SQUAD, and now must answer the call to join his brethren in battle whenever Earth needs defending.

This elite team includes:

Carl Everett.

Xander Bogaerts.

Justin Turner.

Dom Smith.

And, perhaps begrudgingly, Jacoby Ellsbury.

That’s a crew. And Bregman is a great signing. All of a sudden, the 2025 Red Sox are looking like — dare we think it — solid contenders.

Stay tuned.

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Watching Juan Soto have a truck filled with cash dumped all over him reminded of that time — December 13, 2000 to be precise — the Red Sox cranked up the money-printing machine to sign the best free agent bat on the market that winter: Manny Ramirez.

I remember the night we signed him. I flipped on boston.com and the headline read, “Sox Sign Ramirez.” And I did what I typically did when Red Sox news hit the wires. I called Dad.

“This’ll be a killer line-up,” I remember saying. “Bichette, Trot, Everett, and now Manny? Who will stop us?”

Well, Murderer’s Row they weren’t; Manny was the only guy on the team to bat over .300 during the 2001 season. But I was there for his first Fenway at-bat. The Sox were already down by three when he stepped up with two men on and promptly deposited the first pitch he saw into the screens above the Monster. Finally, we thought, a free agent signing who’s doing exactly what we paid him for! Shit went nuts, and just like that, the Manny Era was upon us.

Do we owe the Yankees a bit of thanks for Manny? Maybe. Mussina was the most highly-prized free agent on the market that winter, and with quality starters often rarer than three-dollar bills, it’s not surprising the Red Sox were in the mix. When the Yankees eventually got him, with the sting of that 1999 ALCS loss to New York still hanging in the air, Sox ownership seemed determined to land Manny as their counter-punch (and had to fend off Cleveland to do it). It’s sometimes creepy to think that if the Sox had been successful in their pursuit of Mussina, we might have never signed Manny. So we’d have postgame quotes like, “Did you know I went to Stanford?” and “If Daubach had gotten down on that ball, I would have had a no-hitter,” and, “Sure, I know the square root of 74,653,986,294, but I’m not telling your withered ass,” instead of witnessing the unstoppable awesomeness that is Manny taking bat in hand to emasculate whoever is unfortunate enough to be on the mound.

Since then, he went on to be one of the most productive players of this century. After a string of players with “a swing MADE for Fenway” (including Jack Clark, Andre Dawson, Rob Deer, Nick Esasky, Dante Bichette, et al) Manny was a legitimate menace — the type of batter who could change the course of mighty rivers with one swat of the bat.

Yes, for folks like me who enjoy players with character, there were those “Manny Being Manny” moments in which his behavior ran from curious to baffling. But the production spoke volumes. We paid the man to hit the crap out of the ball and he did, belting 274 home runs and 1232 hits in his seven-and-a-half seasons with us and playing a critical role in two World Series championships — something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime.

Pound for pound, he’s one of the great examples of a high-priced, high-profile free agent signing that actually gave us everything we wanted.

Not bad for a guy who was our plan B after missing out on Mike Mussina.

The post The High-Priced Slugger Who Actually Slugged (and May Be Our Best-Ever FA Signing) appeared first on Surviving Grady.

I’m old enough to remember when the area around Fenway Park was pretty barren. There were a few nightclubs on Lansdowne. A McDonald’s and BK on Boylston. Lots of warehouse and office space.

Now it’s all changed. High rise condos. A bazillion restaurants. A concert hall tacked on the ass-end of the Park. A freakin’ Target.

Hey, it’s all good. I’m all about progress and making that area more fun to be around when the Sox are in winter slumber mode.

But I’m glad to see that this souvenir sign is still there, greeting me every time I hit Lansdowne.

This was the first store my dad took me into the first time he took me to Fenway Park. I don’t even remember what he bought me. I just know that the second I saw all those caps, posters, pennants, t-shirts and autographed baseballs, I felt my soul leave my body. And this was *before* I’d even set foot inside Fenway.

The world changes, sometimes overnight, and that’s usually good. But I’m glad to see that for all the change around Fenway, this sign still stands. I hope they keep it around forever.

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It’s October. Which is awesome. Because October Baseball is happening. And everyone knows that October Baseball (always capitalized) is the best baseball. And Red Sox Baseball in October? There’s nothing like that. When the Red Sox make the playoffs, that’s like your birthday, Christmas, unlimited sunshine and free bikes all rolled into one.

Maybe it’s me, but I *like* wearing gloves to a baseball game. And a hoodie. And a big fuckin’ comfy coat. Boots too? Damn straight. Maybe it’s my natural Irish fear of the sun or my aversion to being too close to other sweaty people, but there’s just something about being in a ballpark, freezing your nuts off, and finding warmth in a flask of Jameson’s and the communal vibe of the bleachers that elevates the game.

Of course, this year, I don’t have to worry about any of that. The Red Sox didn’t make the playoffs. So I’m gonna have to miss all this magical stuff that comes with October Baseball.

You know what I mean. The stuff you only feel when your team is playing October Baseball.

Stuff like pacing and punching walls and rubbing temples and shouting at the television.

Wearing the lucky jersey every day.

High-fiving strangers in the street and seeing Red Sox T-shirt vendors on every corner.

Waking up at 5am on game day and carb-loading for an 8pm start.

Losing focus in meetings, letting your relationships slide, leaving that big project for another day, cutting out of work early, and driving through Kenmore and the Fens, even though you know you’ll be stuck in miles of traffic, just to soak in that crisp, sausage-tainted air.

Lying in bed but never quite finding sleep, your stomach knotting as it replays a particularly horrific inning or contemplates the next day’s match-up.

Accepting that it can end at any time, that any given game can be the season finale.

Knowing that, like any good love affair, the heart you’ve opened up and given away so willingly may end up speared, torn into two throbbing pieces and left on the frozen ground.

I have always said that I have never felt more alive and yet more jam-packed with dread than during the 2004 postseason. Those were some of the best days of my life, yet probably the unhealthiest stretch of my existence, both physically and mentally. I’ve well-documented the spiral of my post-2003 ALCS days. After game four of the 2004 edition, as the Red Sox began to show signs of life and the world starting becoming a better place, I was a wreck. And I mean that in the best possible way. I slept an average of two hours a night. Avoided human interaction. The lucky Pedro jersey which I kept affixed to my body became more toxic than a plutonium mine. I barely ate, and anything I did consume was made by either Hostess or Budweiser. I crept through my house like a man waiting for the FBI to break in at any time, fearing I was on borrowed time and that another October collapse was imminent. I was literally living like Chuck Heston in The Omega Man, shuffling around with a sense of dread in the daylight, and scurrying back home for first pitch by nightfall. It was exhilarating and horrifying and magical and at times it just didn’t seem real. But it was.

It’s also important to point out that I’m old. Not quite AARP old, but old enough to have grown up in a time where the Red Sox barely sniffed October, and when they did, it didn’t end well. I was there when the ball rolled under Buckner’s glove, when Clemens was ejected in the goddam second inning of game four of the 1990 ALCS, and when Roger returned to Fenway as a Yankee in the 1999 ALCS to start the only game of that Series we’d win. I was old enough to drink when I was convinced that my Dad and grandfather were telling me the truth when they said that the Red Sox would always break my heart.

But 2004 changed everything. The sleepless nights, the bloody knuckles, the fresh-punched holes in the wall, the years of life shorn off my body from weeks of neglect, the pile of broken TV sets I’d chucked out the window, all of it was rewarded. And then to think it happened again just three years later. And again after that. And again even after that. At latest tally I’ve seen four more Red Sox World Series parades than I expected to see in my lifetime. Yet the idea that October Baseball can fill me with unstoppable joy and not make me want to drive over my own nuts with a monster truck still feels odd. Since 2003, the Red Sox have played October baseball eleven times. That’s more postseason appearances than they made in the stretch of time from 2003 back to 1946. I can be nothing but grateful. But I still appreciate the occasional jolt of fear and loathing that October Baseball can inject into me, the realization that the guy who has to cover his ears and hide behind the sofa when the Red Sox season is on the line still exists. Oddly, it keeps me sane.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned at the start, we don’t get any of the good stuff this year, because the Red Sox won’t be playing October baseball in 2024. And that saddens me deeply.

But we’ll be back. These days, we always are.

The post Me and October Baseball: A Love Story appeared first on Surviving Grady.

Joe Castiglione’s voice was a gift.

It was the sound of summer pouring out of your radio. It was hot dogs and sunshine and the smell of fresh cut grass.

It was as comfortable as your favorite pair of sneakers and as easy as the chair you’d sink into every night to tune in.

It was interrupting that game of catch with Dad to turn up the volume because something great was happening. It was a reminder that even after the most miserable of days, a small bit of salvation came at 7:05pm.

It was that first sip of ice cold beer on an unforgivingly hot summer day.

I wish Joe nothing but the best in retirement. But, selfishly, I never want the ride to end.

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