Red Sox Nation..in Syracuse?

Saturday, 5:30pm:  I grabbed the new Jacoby Ellsbury T-shirt my aunt gave me before leaving to Syracuse, and thought, should I really wear this out into New York? 

6:40pm:                    My friend Shawn and I arrive at Alliance Bank Stadium, home of the Syracuse Chiefs.  What do I see?  A sea of red.

On a breezy summer's night, hundreds of Sox Fans showed up to see Josh Beckett make a rehab start with the PawSox against the Syracuse Chiefs, the triple-A affiliate for the Washington Nationals.  The game was relatively calm, Beckett pitched four innings, giving up three.  The PawSox ultimately lost 9-5.

But the real treasure was the atmosphere of the intimate Syracuse ballpark.  It was a stadium with no bad seats, and filled with families.  Some older and younger folks were there as well, but from my guess, the majority of visitors last night were families spending an evening at the park.  It's a lot easier to go to the ball game in Syracuse as a family of four, than to Fenway which remains the most expensive ball park in the country.  The price of a ticket anywhere in the stadium at Syracuse -- 11 bucks.

On entry to the park, Scooch, one of the mascots for the team, gave out big hugs to all the visitors.  The ballpark smelled of nachos, hamburgers, and melted cheese, like any self respecting ball park should.  At our seats along the first base side, cheering Red Sox fans, young and old, watched Josh Beckett warm up, some calling out for a ball to be tossed their way.

Sitting in comfortable plastic seats (I forget most ball parks haven't lovingly held on to their tiny, iron seats like Fenway), I chatted with the Sox fans to my left, right, and front.  A few friendly Chief's fans sat just behind me.

During the entire game, there were no incidents of bad behavior among fans.  People took in the game, enjoyed it, whether or not their team one.  Besides the Sox jerseys, you could see a fair amount of Yankee shirts, but the Mets, Blue Jays, and the Chief's MLB team, the Nationals were represented.

It was a great night for baseball, but an even better one for families.  It was a refreshingly cool night, with just a brief shower during the 4th inning.

It was baseball the way it should be, the way America's been watching it for the last hundred years.