Yes, Opening Day at Fenway Park officially took place yesterday and what a game it was! Boston takes advantage of a rusty Seattle ball club that had not played since the previous Thursday due to snow in Cleveland and lays down the hammer, building a big lead early and eventually winning, 14-3. Josh Beckett went seven strong, allowing just one run on two hits while striking out eight and J.D. Drew hits a two-run home run to dead center to give Fenway fanatics reason to cheer from the opening ceremony until the last out lands in Wily Mo Pena’s glove in deep right in front of the bullpen.

But now, tonight, we witness the next coming of the legendary Pedro Martinez, who by coincidence also made his Fenway Park debut in Boston’s second home game of the 1998 season. Daisuke Matsuzaka, who dazzled in his debut last Thursday in Kansas City, is expected to draw the attention of not only the American baseball community but the entire world. While we here on the Eastern seaboard will be tuning in at 7:05 PM this evening, the eyes of Japanese baseball fans will simultaneously be turning on their sets at 8:05AM local time. The Japanese media have been camped outside Fenway Park since Monday and they, along with 35,000 strong in the stands, will light the diamond with flashbulbs as Matsuzaka throws his first pitch to Ichiro Suzuki, a former Japanese star in his own right who made a splash himself with the Mariners in 2001, when he won Rookie of the Year and MVP honors with a .350 batting average.

Break out the Asahi Super Dry – tonight, the show officially begins.

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Categories: Jakob
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For some reason, my current version of Wordpress won’t allow me to embed YouTube videos so just click on the photo of James Earl Jones to view it.

Today is Opening Day for the 2007 Major League Baseball season, if you ignore the fact that the action opened last night with the New York Mets beating the defending world champion St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium, 6-1. Boston is in Kansas City and the first pitch is scheduled for 4:10 this afternoon on NESN and ESPN. I happened to swing by one of my favorite sites this morning, Surviving Grady, and one of the authors had posted this video sequence from Field of Dreams, perhaps the best movie for the money centered around baseball. Listening to Mr. Jones wax poetic about the beauty of this game is enough to make anyone long for the feel of a warm spring day, the smell of freshly-cut green grass, and the sound that a bat makes when it comes in perfect contact with a pitch.

Categories: Red Sox
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