"Check" Your History

First of all, I have to give some serious props to anyone who has a copy of "The Impossible Dream: The Story of the 1967 Boston Red Sox" on vinyl. That's keeping it real. This record was in my top three LP’s growing up right behind my Dad's copy of Sgt. Peppers and my brother's copy of Raising Hell (I'm not even kidding on this). Listening to Ken Coleman gave me a chance to re-live something I was too young to experience. What fun it was for a 9 year old kid to sit there holding the album art in hand, looking at all the players on the back and discovering one of the greatest Red Sox teams ever with those over sized headphones around my tiny head. I swear to god if I ever was to DJ at a night at the Pill or Common Ground or any where else in Boston you'd hear the Carl Yastrzemski song no doubt. Anyways, I was always pretty proud of this record since it was a first pressing and was in MINT condition.

I felt like the record was an important part of my Red Sox upbringing, especially since I was the only one in my family who was raised outside of Boston. Needless to say Red Sox fans can be…well, a tad crazy to say the least. I for one know for a fact that how poor or well the team performs can completely decide the outcome of my week. MY WEEK. It’s not something I’m proud of, but like an alcoholic, it’s something I try to live with. The point I’m slowly working towards with this entry is that all of my actions may not be my fault. I may have some type of psycho super fan DNA embedded in me from my parents. Let me explain.

My parents are retired up in Rochester, NY now, and I was last there to visit from Boston during the holiday season. As always talk with my family can quickly and easily turn towards the Red Sox, and at this time we still were fresh in our mourning phase for Johnny Damon turning over to the dark side. Somehow during these talks my mother says to me, “Derek, I have something I’d like to show you.” My Mom’s probably like any other mother out there, loving as can be, but at times a little unpredictable. She pulls out of a fire proof safe box (I’ll repeat…A fire proof safe box) an old check.

I take the check in my hands and see that it’s the returned check she received from the bank after buying the “Impossible Dream” record. I couldn’t believe it. The first words out of my mouth were, “Can I have this!?!” and the next were, “I have to get this framed…” November 25, 1967 was the day my mother wrote this check. It would be another 36 years, 1 month, and 2 days until her and my father would be able to see the Red Sox win the World Series. Yet she saved this check all of these years. Amazing. That’s how much that season meant to my family, and that’s how much the Red Sox mean to New England. No offense to the Patriots and all the amazing things they’ve done the past 5 years…but they can’t hold a candle the Red Sox as far as how deep this goes. (What does “Can’t hold a candle to” me anyways!?!)

So upon seeing this it made me feel so good. So good that my parents were able to see the Sox win it all, and so good that it wasn’t just me that could become borderline serial killer because of the Sox. It seriously is a thing that you’re born into, and I feel lucky as all hell that I was.

Speaking of hell, anyone actually land any tickets online yesterday? What a joke. I was on for two hours and have exactly 0 tickets thus far for next year. Craigs List here I come.

R.I.P. Uncle Mike

My Great Uncle Mike passed away last week and I want to pass along my thoughts and prayers to his family. Uncle Mike was the best man to my father and mother in their wedding and a good guy to them. Here’s to hoping he’s in a better place.

Uncle Mike’s Obituary

Comments

[Brian]

Re: Your brief comment on purchasing Sox tickets online

This is a problem of enormous proportions and one the front office, regardless of their symbolic efforts, seems to not care about. Sure they change the rules from year to year, reducing the # of tickets people can purchase at one time, separating the Yanks games from other games etc. But they aren't addressing the actual problems - which involves the scalpers. For the record, I hate those assholes (scalpers not the front office - I even wrote a column about my hatred for a local free weekly. The front office pratically acts in cohoots with these people. About 1/2 of the stadium is sold out to season ticket holders, many of whom are season ticket holders. As a season ticket holder the Red Sox allow you to buy extra tickets to games BEFORE they go on sale to the general public.

That, to me, is the biggest crock of sh*t I have ever heard, and I am a season ticket holder. It is already tough enough to get tickets because the stadium is 2/3's the size of every other stadium out there and half the tickets are sold already. They actually allow us to buy MORE tickets. We already have tickets to every single game and the playoffs and they allow us to buy more? I don't understand that. It makes no sense unless you think about how a good % of the season ticket holders are scalpers. So the Red Sox are putting more tickets in their filthy hands every season. So by the time the tickets go on sale to you and the rest of the general public, there are maybe a few thousand tickets for sale and a few million people vying for them.

Each year in the spring the Boston Herald writes a story about the scalpers and how awful they are and how the cops are in cohoots with them. The Sox always say they are working hard to combat these problems. But are they really? Evidence proves otherwise.

[Zephrin Hall]

I was looking around the other day and came across my lp's.Low and behold i found my redsox album in great condition.Now to try and find a record player to play it on is the thing.I would love to go back and listen to it all over again..