Future baseball historians will not rhapsodize over this mid-June Toronto Blue Jays–Boston Red Sox game. The Sox at this moment are hapless — in late April, management purged their coaching staff and they’re still in smoothing-out mode. The Jays, after nearly winning the World Series last year, are below .500. Boston fans have seemingly agreed to enjoy a beautiful day in a classic ballpark. Save the rancor for the Yankees.
It is a good day — and a safe one — to be a Blue Jays fan. Hours before the first pitch, Brent Moorcroft of London, Ontario, Canada, and his wife, Ednalyn, stroll outside Fenway Park. Moorcroft, who wears a baby blue George Springer jersey, loves Springer’s old-school approach. Stats, fame, and flash take a back seat to winning. “He’s always enthusiastic,” says Moorcroft, a Blue Jays fan for nearly 50 years.
Ashley Mercuri, 36, of Mississauga, Ontario, wears a “Springer 4” jersey like Moorcroft’s. “He’s got a ton of heart, a ton of energy, and he’s clutch in big moments,” says Mercuri, who’s here with her mom, Andrea. “You can see how much he cares.”
Springer, the Blue Jays designated hitter and the most successful baseball player to come out of UConn, hit his 300th career home run last night as part of this series. Currently, he sits in the visitors’ dugout half-dressed, a green glass bottle of water at his side, enjoying the pause.
Still hours before the shouts of “peanuts” and the laughing young women in shorts and the intense preppies with dim chances and the chants of “So good! So good! So good!,” Fenway Park is almost meditative, punctuated by PA music and the steady rhythm of a ballpark: that lullabying thud of a ball hitting well-oiled leather.
