Opening Day

I went to one Red Sox home opener. It was in the late 1980's, bleacher seats and I was there with someone from school. We get to the sixth inning and a guy about three rows in front of us gets up and drops trou. She shrieked; I'm like 'full moon, baby!'

That sort of thing doesn't happen nowadays, but after an awful first set of games, the Red Sox kicked off the start of the home games on the right foot:

A new season at Fenway, as it always does, conjures up the memories

Booed yesterday. Cheered today.

You’re never as good as you look when you win or as bad as you look when you lose. The only certainty in the Boston Baseball Experience is that in one form or another, it’s always about the past.

You can embrace 2026 with its robotic umps, player empowerment, in-game celebrations, and starting pitchers who get a parade if they last six innings.

But at the end of every Fenway opener, it’s winning or losing and how a particular game compares with stuff that happened 20, 40, maybe 100 years ago in this same sacred space.

The last-place Red Sox — tied for worst record in baseball with the lowly A’s and ChiSox at the start of the day — defeated the Padres, 5-2, at Fenway Park in the 126th home opener for the team originally known at the Boston Americans.