Welcome back Jon Lester.

I had been in a little slump at the plate the past for past couple of games, which is pretty hard to do when your playing slow pitch softball in a coed league. I kept dropping my right shoulder when swinging the back, which mean a lot of weak contact and pop-ups (ie: I was doing my best imitation of a golf swing, even on pitches that are chest level).

After a two week break due to the 4th of July, we had our first game on Tuesday and I absolutely stunk. Batting practice was horrific since my timing was off and I kept dropping my shoulder. The actual game was even worse. Three weak ground balls for outs and a lazy fly ball to left field.

So I wasn’t feeling too hot going into today, since it would be our second game in three days. However, I guess the fact of seeing live pitches twice in three days really helped me. After a couple of practice swings, I took batting practice and magically stopped dropping my shoulder (it is actually much harder to do then it sounds). A slight adjustment forward in the batter’s box and I was hitting hard line drives to left field like I had been in the batting cage for a week straight.

Fast forwarding to the game, I had a spectacular day at the plate. 2-2 with a single, double, and a fielder’s choice. Each hit was a very hard drive to left field. Several people said I had a perfect swing both times. My team was tied 6-6 going into extra innings before we lost, but it was a spectacular game that kept going back and forth.

Just like baseball, when you break out of a slump in softball, you cannot help but smile. Now we just gotta start winning again.

So I am watching the home run derby on TV (well, the pre-derby show if that makes sense). The Counting Crows are doing a little 1 song performance. One thing you notice having a HDTV is that it is really easy to figure out when there is no energy in a live music performance.

It probably has to do with there isn’t a single fan within a couple hundred feet of the stage, the very unnecessary micro fireworks, and a band that was doing their best to charge up the crowd, but clearly had no energy to feed off of.

This is baseball, we don’t want live music performances, especially ones that are very staged and artificial.

If there was a cathedral for baseball, Fenway Park would be it. According to my mom, the first time I visited Fenway Park (around 1992), I walked up those steps from one of the gates into the park and was greeting with the Green Monster directly in front of me. Probably the longest deep breath of my life to take it all in (my mom claims it was the cutest thing she has ever seen me do) and I was off to find my seat.

There is nothing like going to Fenway, on a beautiful day, and watching a ball game. Sure it isn’t the most modern park (95-years-old) and sometimes it can drive you insane, but there is no better place to enjoy a game. It makes you feel like a kid again.

I had a first yesterday and got to watch a Red Sox game from a luxury box, for free (thanks to a vendor I order from often for my job). The food was fantastic, it was an absolutely gorgeous evening, we had a great group of people we sat with, and it was a really good, sit on your edge of your seat type game.

A couple great things about us Red Sox fans. The person singing the national anthem was having some trouble getting through it, so the entire crowd at once (almost like it was planned) just started belting out the last half of the national anthem together, as if 36,000 people had been singing together forever. It gave all of us goosebumps and was really awesome.

Then of course, there was the 8th inning rendition of “Sweet Caroline”. Another bunch of goose bumps, this time from a now drunk 36,000 person crowd attempting to be in the ballpark of the same key. Even though we all sang horrible, it was insane to listen to. The umpire just waited for the song to end before starting the game up, it was so much fun.

The Sox lost, but Katie and I had a blast. Nothing like Fenway.

My softball team had its first game in two weeks and it showed. We got absolutely destroyed (I don’t even know what the score was). Way too many errors.

On how I did, I went 1-2 with a hard single to left and a hard line drive to center field that resulted in a spectacular diving catch by the center fielder. I also got on base via a fielder’s choice.

Didn’t feel particular comfortable at the plate, even though I had good contact on two pitches. That’s what happens when you don’t play for two weeks.