Thanks for the great piece, Alex.

Yeah, the parks aren’t the same these days. Reminds me of Mark Lamster’s Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory about Melle Mel, Busy Bee and the old bleacher creatures: http://bit.ly/rqrFej

In the 1980′s I’d dress up in an old baseball uniform and read baseball poetry thru a Pignose amp outside Fenway Park on every Opening Day while drinking a liter of Bloody Marys with a bunch of friends. I’d send out press releases and one year George did a whole column on me – that was the first time I met him. Anyway I do recall that one year I happened to end up sitting in the bleachers right behind Terry Kahn, a Boston Editor, who I wrote for in a magazine known as SportBoston. He noticed me, and said he wanted to introduce me to someone one, Bill James. I knew James work from the early Abstracts and was actually pretty excited – but then after drinking a liter of Bloody Marys, it didn’t take much to get me excited. Anyway I stood up and stuck out my hand. I remember James turning around, hand out, and freezing when he saw me. He gave me the up and down look and the dead fish shake as I shook his hand and said something like “I enjoy your work.” I don’t blame him – it must’ve been the combination of the uniform, the hair down to my ass, and the cigarette and booze breath. Anyway, he just turned around and I don’t recall that he ever turned back. It might have been the same game that Bill Lee ended up sitting next to me, and spent the whole game giving the backward fist to the Red Sox. So maybe George was with Bill, and maybe I did introduce him to James, but, understandably, I don’t remember much and I’m not even sure of this much.

Those were the days. Fenwasy Park isn’t like that anymore.