We had a teriffic night in the Monster Seats last nigh. In fact, everything was great except the game itself, which the Sox lost 9-3. Tim Wakefield had a rough night, as a flat knuckleball led to home runs by Miguel Tejada, Sammy Sosa and Geronimo Gil. Terry Fancona took some heat as well. He removed Jason Varitek from the game after the 6th inning and brought in rookie Kelly Shoppach with the Sox down 7-0. Bismo commented that, "He's giving up." We all agreed that if Shoppach came up in a critical situation later in the game instead of Varitek, Tito would get killed by the Fellowship of the Miserable on WEEI the next day. Well, wouldn't you know it: the Sox score 3 runs in the bottom of the 7th and the kid comes up with the bases loaded and two out with all of 5 major league at-bats under his belt. Predictibly, he grounded out to 2nd and ended the rally. Francona's substiution was the first topic I heard on the radio this morning.

Aside from the game we had a wonderful time. The atmosphere in the Monster Seats is so great. They've got to be the best seats in baseball. And the company, with Bismo, Sue and The Hey was great.

The evening was enhanced by a couple of, um, interesting experiences. The first one occurred just after I had arrived at the ballpark. I met up with Bismo and The Hey on Yawkey Way, and we went up to meet Sue at the seats. As we went up the stairs, Dave discovered that he had misplaced his ticket, and they don't let you up in the Monster Seats without your ticket. We thought we'd retrace their steps, starting with a Red Sox ring lottery table that they had stopped at to check out the ring. Bismo and I cut through the Monster Seats down to the right field concourse, while Dave took the long way around.

We asked the young ladies at the table if they had seen the ticket, and they hadn't. Bismo and I were talking about what to do next when The Hey came walking up. We told him the ticket wasn't at the table, but he said nothing and walked right by us. He then stopped at a trash can, stuck his hand in, and pulled out his ticket! Our jaws just hit the ground. It was like a magic trick. The Hey explained that while he was walking over he remembered that he had meant to throw out the envelope the ticket had come in, but had thrown out the ticket instead. Still, it was amazing. I think that if I had seen a no-hitter or a 4 home run game that evening, I couldn't have been more impressed.

Not nearly as impressive, the second odd thing happened just seconds before the first pitch. A girl sitting in the section next to us managed to drop her cell phone off the Green Monster onto the warning track in left-center field. We started shouting at Johnny Damon, "Johnny! There's a phone on the field!" Johnny heard us, retrieved the phone and tossed it to Manny, who gave it to the ball girl. No idea whether the girl got her phone back, though.

I had a really great experience earlier in the day as well. The Hey and I attended the inaugural event of The Great Fenway Park Writers Series. It was held at lunch time in the Hall of Fame Club at Fenway, and featured a presentation by Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy on his book, Reversing the Curse. The lunch was very nice, and included salads, hot dogs, chicken fingers, sausages soda and desert. After lunch and an introduction by Sox P.R. head Dr. Charles Steinberg, Shaughnessy gave a short presentation about the book and then took questions. The whole thing was very entertaining and the atmosphere in the Hall of Fame Club was great. I even ended up with an autographed copy of the book. As a huge baseball book fan, I really enjoyed the event and I'm looking forward to more.