Thursday, September 16, Fenway Park, Section 40Red Sox 11, Devil Rays 4
My last game had been the first time the Sox had lost back-to-back games in over a month, and it didn't take long to reverse the trend. They beat the Devil Rays on Wednesday, and I was back for Thursday night's game. It had been raining all day, but it was down to just a drizzle as I left the T station to walk up to Fenway Park. I went down Lansdowne Street to the bleacher entrance, Gate C, when a huge rainbow appeared. It formed a perfect arc, starting just behind the large "Keep the Faith" billboard over the parking lot, stretching over the street, and appearing to lead directly into Fenway Park. Keeping the faith is what rainbows are all about! It was the perfect symbol for a Red Sox game.
This game certainly went much more according to plan than the one I had been to earlier in the week. Kevin Millar's double and Jason Varitek's groundout knocked in three runs in the first. Curt Schilling was pitching, and he was his usual dominant self. Rocco Baldelli's solo homer in the sixth was the first run the Devil Rays got. Meanwhile the Red Sox got one more run in the fifth on Mark Bellhorn's second double of the game, and chased Tampa Bay starter Mark Hendrickson with two more runs in the sixth. In the seventh, Millar's two-run homer and Johnny Damon's three-run homer gave the Sox an 11-1 lead. Curt was over 100 pitches when he gave up a run-scoring groundout and a two-run double in the eighth. Terry Adams was called in to get out of the inning and finished them off in the ninth for the win.
The Red Sox announced that everyone was invited to stay after the game and watch the filming of a scene from the upcoming movie Fever Pitch, starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon. It was being produced by the Farrelly brothers, who have also done such films as Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary, and are avid Red Sox fans. This film is the story of a guy who loves the Red Sox and the girl who loves him. The actors had been shown during TV broadcasts of games for the past couple of nights, filming different scenes from the movie. The friend who I attend most of my games with had gone to the open casting call and was chosen as an extra. She had to report back to Fenway at 9:00 in the morning the next day to start filming her scenes. (She's part of the crowd in the stands behind the actors in a couple of scenes.) Tonight they told us they'd be filming the final scene from the movie, in which Fallon's character is at the game behind the dugout, and Barrymore's character
decides she does want to be with him after all. She would jump onto the field in center and sprint across, chased by security, and into his arms. All we had to do was be the cheering crowd. ("Just be yourselves, and act like a bunch of crazy Red Sox fans," they told us, at which some people started a "Yankees suck" chant.)
As soon as the game ended the camera crews rolled onto the field on carts. Drew Barrymore came out to center field and a bunch of actors dressed as baseball players took their places on the field. There was even a Johnny Damon lookalike in center field. After a couple of minutes, the real Johnny Damon came out of the dugout and took his place to much applause, and the lookalike had to go back under the stands. When they started filming, Barrymore ran across center field pursued by security, who kept slipping and falling into each other. She circled around the real Johnny Damon and then across to the Red Sox dugout while we in the crowd cheered. They repeated the scene two more times, but the whole thing took only about fifteen minutes. Fever Pitch is set to open in theaters in the spring of 2005, but I don't know if that scene will even be in it. (In October, Fallon and Barrymore were seen on the field with the team celebrating in St. Louis. They said they had had to rewrite the ending when the real-life season ended with its unexpected twist.)
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