Red Sox shut out the Twins

Posted by John McHale

Now I know how the other half lives. On Monday I watched Jonathan Papelbon and the Red Sox close out the Minnesota Twins 1-0 in the ninth from a corporate box at Fenway Park.

I was there as a guest of GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. GE put together the event for business journalists.

Corporate boxes are just as nice as you think they are. The view was fantastic and if the early July humidity got to be too much, I just went inside to the air-conditioned part of the box.

The best part is that the Sox won, Manny had the game winning hit, Daisuke pitched a great game, and the non-baseball fans – well, they watched the finale of the Bachelorette reality TV show inside and apparently it was a nail-biter too.

It was the first Fenway game I've seen this year, which is pretty sad considering I live in New England.

Yeah, I grew up a Philadelphia Phillies fan, but 15 years up and here and I can't even tell you who's on the Phillies aside from their home-run hitter Chase Utley.

It all hit home for me during Curt Schilling's first season with Boston. I was listening on my car radio to a Red Sox game where Schilling was pitching and he just ran the count to full with a third ball. I got frustrated and started shouting at the radio for him to throw some strikes -- when it hit me, they were playing the Phillies.

That was the turning point -- Boston had sucked me in. Then the next year they won the World Series. Very cool.

Yet... I still don't like the Patriots. I'll be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan forever.

Anyway... thank you GE for a nice night at the park and congrats to the Sox -- who ended up sweeping the Twins. Congrats as well to the curly-haired snow-boarder who won the hand of the bachelorette -- an Eva Longoria look-a-like. Or was it the curly-haired cocky guy...?