Khalil’s Blog

I am here in Boston on business and ever since I heard I am coming to Boston I wanted to get tickets to go to Fenway and watch the game. Just for the historic aspect of it and the fact that I probably won’t be back in Boston for a while and why not check out a game when I didn’t have to pay for any of the trip.

I was looking everywhere for tickets leading up to Tuesday but didn’t pull the trigger becuase the weather was getting bad and it had rained the past two days and didn’t feel like paying the going price for tickets and have it rained out and not be able to get my money back or attend the make up game since I leave today.

So I am at the convention we are there for and one of our clients comes up and starts small talking with us and mentions how another client we send a lot of business too gave him a ticket and he is going to the game. So my boss and I quickly go over there to talk to them and they tell us they only had 28 tickets and they gave them away and they had no clue that I would have gone and apologized. I told her that if by the off chance someone dropped out I would love to go.

She told me there is probably slim to no chance she can but she will try because everyone confirmed for the most part. She called me about an hour and a half later telling me she hasn’t had anyone drop out and she is really sorry. At the same time one new client we worked with came by and said I have an extra ticket if you want to go and i jumped at it and said “HELL YEAH”

So I call her back and say thanks for trying but I found a ticket. I start walking back to my hotel to get ready and I get a call from her saying that a spot opened up and I could come alone. I got excited and said I’ll be right there and ran back to their hotel because the shuttle was leaving. The reason I took their ticket is because they are one of the biggest companies in the industry and they know how to take out their clients. Today was no exception.

So we get to the field and I’m expecting maybe a happy hour or something before the game with food but we walk into Fenway, they hand us our passes and then a blue band. We start following an employee of the RedSox and he takes us to the stands and then down the stairs onto the field for Batting Practice. I was in shock at this point. So I took a few pictures there and watched batting practice. Towards the end of batting practice one of the other people with us kept calling Papi’s name and he ended up rolling a ball to her. I didn’t notice that part because I saw the ball rolling and just picked it up. She started telling me how she asked for it and it was hers and I had no problem giving the ball right back to her since i just didn’t know that had happened. She was really grateful and I was already enjoying myself at this game being the sports nut that I am. (This part of the story comes back at the end.) We take a group picture at the park and we are on our way from there.

From there we take a tour of Fenway park and stop off for a Happy hour in a specific area of the park. Then go towards our seats. We end up having seats on the Famous green monster in dead center field. The view of the game was amazing. Not only did we sit there but they had a 5 course meal setup that they brought out every few innings. They also had all you can eat hot dogs, etc, etc. Not to mention anything we wanted to drink as well.

So we are watching what ended up being in amazing game to begin with and Im just soaking it all up when they come around and hand us Authentic game jerseys and the picture that we took on the field. I got Josh Beckett for the jersey.

So It’s the bottom of the fifth inning some of the guys in our row have gone to the bar and are drinking and I’m just chilling there with a couple of other guys talking and checking out my fantasy team on my phone when I hear the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd. I look up and see Youkalis has hit a mamoth shot into dead center and it is coming our way. I did not think anyone could have it that far. I follow the path of the ball as it comes closer to us and hits in the corner of our section on top of the wall as one of the other guys reaches to catch it with his hat. The ball hits the top of the wall through his hat and bounces at like a 45 degree angle right back towards me and literally comes straight into my left has as I was still holding my phone with my left. For a section I was in shock and was like what the hell? Then I did the normal holy crap I caught a ball and held it up and everyone was going crazy.

20 years of going to baseball games in Houston I have never caught a ball in my life and the 1 game in Boston that I luckily got into I caught not only a ball but a home run ball. That just topped off an already amazing day for me at Fenway.

The lady that I had given the ball back to turned to me and said that is Karma, you gave up the other ball and got returned an even better one and I was like “I guess so!” Everyone was telling me how they don’t know how I even caught it cause I didn’t look until the last minute and the ball seemed to just come straight in my hands and stick there.

Came back to the hotel later that night and got a chance to see the replay of the game on NESN and saw the homerum and I clearly saw myself catch the ball as well they showed me on TV for a while as i was showing off the ball to the rest of the section.

All in all this had to be one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had as a sports fan. Something I will never forget. It just seemed everything happened like it was supposed to.

Now I have to see if I can find a place to download a copy of the game or contact NESN so I can have a copy of it for safe keeping because I doubt this will ever happen the way it did again.

I’ll post some pictures when I get back to Houston, but i just had to share with my friends.

PS. The game was amazing…19-17 Boston comes back ….

The Video of My Catch and Replays showing me

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.