Kara and I took a road trip in June of 2007. First to Oakland, then to Phoenix. On the plane from Oakland to Phoenix I was chatting with a couple of Red Sox fans and I said something about how many Sox fans were at the game in Oakland. The guy said to me, “That’s nothing – wait till you see Phoenix!”
They were right. When I was pulling out of the car rental garage at Sky Harbor Airport the attendant saw my Red Sox hat and asked if there’s a convention or something. Almost everyone getting a car is wearing Boston hat and shirts. When we went into the Hilton lobby it was the same thing. Red and blue everywhere. Not Sedona red, Red Sox red.
The front entrance. The last time I saw this it was called “Bob” (Bank One Ballpark).
It was 116 degrees when we went inside. The roof was closed during warm-ups.
It had cooled off to only 110 degrees, so they opened it just before the first pitch.
Walking around the concourse there were Red Sox fans everywhere
JD Drew had 3 hits both nights. The Red Sox won the World Series that year. In 2013 they won it again, and JD’s brother Stephen was the Red Sox shortstop, wearing the same #7 JD wore. In an unusual play in the Saturday night game, Stephen homered to second. I’m guessing the person running the scoreboard was having a rough night.
Jason Varitek heads back top the dugout. He had 3 RBI in the Saturday game.
Seats are angled so everyone faces second base.
Kara’s favorite, Mike Lowell, had the winning RBI on Saturday.
There’s actually a swimming pool in center field. It was booked for a Red Sox party for the Friday night game.
David Ortiz at bat at Chase Field.
View down the right field line.
Great seats. Were we in about the 4th row behind the Red Sox dugout.
The cheer girls shot t-shirts into the crowd between innings.
We had planned to see an afternoon game at McAfee Coliseum, Oakland on Thursday, then a night game in Phoenix on Friday. Which did happen. On Saturday we were booked for a 10PM jetBlue redeye out of Sky Harbor Airport to Logan. During the day we drove up to the middle of Arizona on I-17, which has a speed limit of 75. It’s actually hard to go that fast when you’re used to 70 being 15 MPH over the local highway limit. It also has several runaway truck turnouts where you can pull off and go up a ramp and try to stop if your truck goes out of control.
Nothing looks like it does in New England. Different trees, different rocks, different dirt, different buildings, different cars and trucks. People wear different clothes. Different businesses. Different signs. We went through Prescott National Forest and I said to Kara…do you notice anything about this National Forest? No, what? It has no trees. Just huge rocks like you’d see in a TV ad with Jeeps parked on top. The ad would say, “Jeep. There’s only one.” But they’d show three different Jeeps up there. There was an exit on I-17 that said Horse Thief Gulch. You’d never see anything like that on the Mass Pike. Arizona wasn’t bad in any way. Just…different. We got off the highway in Jerome and saw “This way to Montezuma’s Castle” signs so we decided to take that in.
Montezuma’s Castle is a five-story complex in the mountains of Camp Verde, Arizona built into the side of a huge ledge. It dates back to about 1100 and was built by indigenous Sinagua people who lived in the southwest part of what’s now the USA. Aztek leader Montezuma actually had nothing to do with it, but when it was named a National Monument in 1906 evidently no one fact-checked that. Maybe that was the real Montezuma’s revenge.
As we headed into the entrance of the castle my cell phone went off and I got a recorded message from jetBlue. Our 10PM flight has been canceled due to weather. Weather? It’s 110 degrees with a completely blue sky. How could they know about a weather issue down in Phoenix 14 hours from now? Oh, well. When’s the next flight we can take? The same time tomorrow, but it’s sold out. They can book us on the 10PM Monday flight. Will you pay for the two extra nights at the hotel I wasn’t expecting? No? We headed back to Phoenix while I tried to call other airlines. Cell service is horrible up in the mountains in the middle of Arizona. I did get us a midnight flight on Delta…through Atlanta…so we went back to Chase Field for the Saturday night game, which more of a “seat squirmer” than the Friday blowout.
It was 116 degrees when we went in for a 6PM game, and 103 when we came out. If you told me it was 85 I’d have believed you. Dry heat, as they say. Not bad at all if you’re walking on the shady side of the street. Some fans near us joked that in other cities they close the roof when it’s raining, but in Phoenix they close it when it’s sunny. Which is like 362 days a year. Both nights they opened the roof during warm-ups. The crowd was huge both nights, and loaded with Red Sox fans. It was astounding how many were there. It was only the second time Boston had played a series in Phoenix.
First game: Friday, June 8, 2007. I thought the picture on the box seat ticket was odd. Like a bad shot you’d delete from your new iPhone 1. No DH in a National League park, so the lineup was a little screwy. Julio Lugo, who’s 6th inning error in the game in Oakland we had gone to the day before ruined a perfect game for Curt Schilling. Lugo hit a leadoff home run that turned out to be unnecessary as JD Drew went 3 for 5 with two 3-run homers and 7 RBI. Josh Beckett was the starter and went 8 innings, giving up 3 runs on 5 hits with 8 Ks. Boston won easily, 10-3.
Second game: Saturday, June 9, 2007. The Saturday ticket did not have the picture. It was a last-minute purchase at a sold-out game. I learned later that it was the biggest crowd ever at Chase Field…surpassing the crowd at Game 7 of the 2001 World Series when the Diamondbacks, an expansion team only four years old, beat the back-to-back-to-back champion Yankees. Go D’Backs.
Julian Tavarez was the Red Sox starter. Julian, who hailed from the Dominican, claimed his family was so poor that their house had a dirt floor and he had to go around naked until his 14th birthday. Anyway, he went 6, giving up 3 runs on 6 hits. JD Drew went 3 for 5 again, but this time with no RBIs. Boston was losing 3-0 until the 6th when Jason Varitek hit a 2-run homer, then knocked in another run in the 8th to tie the game. It went to extra innings and Mike Lowell hit a sac fly to plate the lead run. Hidecki Okajima pitched the 8th and 9th and got the W, but Jonathan Papelbon made it exciting in the 10th when he gave up a hit and then hit a batter to put the winning runs on base with no one out. One ground ball later the runners were in scoring position. But he did blow it past two guys and got the save. Sox win, 4-3.
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