Photos from Fenway Park: July 20th 2007

This was my first in-person look at Matsuzaka-san. He was in some ways very sharp (striking out six batters) but also walked six batter, which led to him giving up three runs. Given the Red Sox recent inability to hit, that was too many and they lost 4-2.

The game was also delayed two hours because of rain so we did not get home until 1am or so.

All that said, here are some shots from our original seats in the grandstand near first base and from the seats we moved to as the game went on, which were right behind home plate.

Julio Lugo, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz warming up.















Daisuke makes his way in from his warmups in the bullpen
















Pitch is on the way















Dustin Pedroia takes a big swing as Ortiz looks on















Manny moments before ripping a single into right field















That's all she wrote for Daisuke. Terry Francona comes out to take him out.















And we move seats....Jim Thome faces Javier Lopez















The new White Sox pitcher throws his first pitch uncomfortably close to Manny Ramirez's head. Manny responded by crushing a ball to the only portion of Fenway that prevented it from being a home run. The center field triangle.















Manny's smash, the pitcher watching it sail and the center fielder taking off on his way towards catching it.















The next batter was Kevin Youkilis. Recall what the pitcher did with his first throw against Manny. Where does this ball look like it's headed?















If your answer was "at Youk's head" then you are correct















Hideki Okajima watches Paul Konerko's smash go into the Monster Seats for a home run that gave us the final margin of 4-2. His ERA is still under one.















The guy with the beard was a major league scout. There were at least four or five of them in the section we were sitting in. They took lots of notes and used their radar guns to rate the pitchers quite often.















Some random notes and thank yous.

Thanks to Tim for the ticket. I was fortunate to be near my computer right after his "I have a ticket, first response gets it" email came through.

Thanks to the father of Tim's girlfriend Heather for picking up dinner. Jordan's Furniture is the greatest store on the planet.

Thanks to the Fenway Park staff for cutting off beer sales at the guy in front of me in the line. That sucked. I have been the guy who was the last guy to get beer a couple of times, but never the guy behind that guy. I guess my karma is back in balance now.

New and exciting ice cream flavors from Japan

• Salad Ice Cream.
• Ox Tongue Ice Cream.
• Sweet Potato Ice Cream.
• Fried Eggplant Ice Cream.
• Cactus Ice Cream.
• Nagoya Noodle Ice Cream.
• Chicken Wing Ice Cream.
• Wasabi Ice Cream.
• Pit Viper Ice Cream.
• Natural Viagra Ice Cream.

I'll leave it to all of you to decide whether these are good or not. I will say that I've had sweet potato ice cream and it is very, very good.