I'm going to school in Boston, and last night I made my first trip to Fenway (wearing my Rockies cap, of course) and saw the Red Sox beat the Angels 4-0. However, I was very disappointed by the quality of the crowd. Sure, Fenway was full, and sure, they were excited...but I live right across from Fenway and I can tell you it's always like that.

There was no playoff atmosphere at Fenway last night. The fans were not hanging on every pitch, there were very few signs, not a lot of sustained cheering and very little time spent standing. Not what I expected at all. It paled in comparison to what I heard from Philly fans on TV, even when they were losing. I asked my cousin, who I went with and was nice enough to supply the tickets, if anything but a World Series victory would make the season a success, and he said he didn't think so. I think that says it all. The fans expect to win, especially in the first round, and they're definitely taking the playoff experience for granted.

Contrast that with what we're going through right now. I'm experiencing complete euphoria, and I have been told by my parents that Denver is going crazy. Rox fans are living the dream, and I expect Coors will be absolutely rocking on Saturday. We always say that we despise Yankees fans because they don't realize how evil it is that they can pay any price to win. Well after going to last night's game, I can tell you that we've been right all along. They're not having fun like we are because they don't ever expect any less. I can now say, without any hesitation, that even though we'd like to win every year, even though we dream of being the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, etc., being in a small market is definitely where the fun is.

On a side note, I took a few pictures at the game. The only one that matters is that I got lucky and somehow got a decent shot of the Ortiz home run. It's a little blurry because Fenway is one of those old parks with bad lighting and I couldn't set the shutter speed as high as I wanted. Still, it's pretty cool and you can see the ball (a shiny white disk at that speed) and everything. I'm posting it after the jump.

The full shot (scaled down for the internet)

Cropped and Resized