Well played

Monday 15 July 2019

“What a primo day,” my astrological twin Jack Dumpert proclaims as we reach our room on the eighth floor of the Hilton Back Bay Boston a little before midnight. “We filled it up nicely.”

Given plenty of open hours before the Boston Red Sox-Toronto Blue Jays night game in Fenway Park and no particular places to go, we find a few.

First, some place for a morning meal, which this pricey hotel does not provide. No problem. We can practically fall out the front door into Flour Bakery & Café, a tiny corner shop with a high rating on yelp.com. I opt for lunch – the house smoked salmon and summer bean salad with black quinoa – and feel like a health nut.

On Sunday, I spotted a big Barnes & Noble store on the second floor of the Prudential Center a couple blocks away and I reckon it has the new Santana CD. And so it does. Jack checks to see if a certain book, “Liminal Dreaming” by Jennifer Dumpert, is in stock. It’s not in the store, the clerk says, but we can order it.

We walk the length of a glitzy shopping mall in the Prudential Center that has stores that never dream of coming to Buffalo. Like Eataly, which makes Whole Foods look like a dollar store. The produce section is so perfectly arranged it seems curated. Not surprisingly, cherries that cost $5 a pound in the Lexington Co-op are $8.95 at Eataly.

Exiting onto Boylston Street, we have needs. I need to track down a pharmacy – I ran out of the toiletry that nobody thinks they’ll ever run out of until they suddenly do – dental floss. And Jack needs to tap a Bank of America ATM for cash, a need complicated by the fact that access to the BofA branch opposite the Prudential Center is blocked by an active backhoe.

But BofA branches are as abundant as Dunkin Donut shops in this town. Another one is just three blocks away. Walking there in the noontime sun (86 degrees and humid) convinces us to retreat back to the conditioned air of the Prudential Center, where one of the street-level storefronts houses a Tesla salesroom.

We do a sit-down in the Model X, Tesla’s new SUV. Awesome control screen. A swept-back windshield apparently inspired by Elon Musk’s receding hairline. A price tag of $99K. We tell the sales guy we’ll invest in Elon’s solar roof shingles first.

When we emerge again at mid-afternoon, it’s to position ourselves near our evening destination. A likely staging area is Sweet Cheeks, a smoke-scented barbecue joint just past the ballpark on Boylston which I spotted on a foodie website that raved about its biscuits.

The biscuit (we share just one) exceeds its reviews – huge, fluffy and served with ever-so-lightly honeyed butter. That, and an irresistibly sweet barmaid named Alyssa who says she has come from New Jersey to Boston to study so she can do good things for the world, inspire us to hang at the bar for a second round of local craft beers and more to eat.

We split a lunch platter of pulled pork, pulled chicken, one barbecue rib and collard greens, splashed with sauces that put Dinosaur BBQ’s to shame. One shared serving turns out to be plenty. Once we hit the ballpark, I have no appetite left for a Fenway Frank.

Our seats in America’s Most Beloved Ballpark, which seems cavernous after McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, are in the lower loges on the first-base side. From maybe 20 rows behind the Red Sox dugout, we feel intimate with the guys on the field.

As the first pitch is thrown, however, our marvelous view is blocked by a swarm of vendors carrying their wares on their heads in trays and boxes. Peanuts, half a dozen kinds of beer, soda, water, pizza, burgers, ice cream, Fenway Franks, there’s no end to them. They return again and again all through the game.

And what a wild game it is, at least to start. It takes more than an hour and a half to play the first three innings, after which the score is Red Sox 10, Blue Jays 4. At that rate, they’ll still be batting at midnight, like the Sox did when they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 12 innings on Sunday.

But a lot of pitching changes have a way of settling things down and speeding up the pace of play, at least until the Jays erupt for four runs in the top of the eighth inning.

The Sox don’t want to let this one slip away, so they bring in their terminator, their ace reliever, Brandon Workman, for the ninth. The Jays are snuffed, 10-8, and 35,616 fans are outta there.

It’s a joyous throng that boils out onto Boylston. We flow with it all the way past the Fens and the Berklee College of Music, where students are still walking the streets with instruments slung over their shoulders, and a couple blocks further to our hotel, where our fine day gets a final toast in the bar. Well played all around.

The real McCoy

Sunday 14 July 2019

How could anyone not fall in love with McCoy Stadium? Tucked into a neighborhood in Pawtucket just north of the Providence city line, it’s cozy (just 7,500 seats), convenient and iconic, dripping with history.

Do you know McCoy Stadium was the scene of the longest professional baseball game ever played (33 innings)? We know now. It’s also festooned with photos of players in Pawtucket baseball caps who went on to become stars with the parent Boston Red Sox.

Jack and Big Papi

We’re among the first 4,000 through the gates, so we get bright red Pawtucket caps, too. They’re keepsakes. After this season, no more Paw Sox. No more Red Sox logo with bear paws sticking through the toes. Next year they’re in Worcester, Mass., and a new 10,000-seat stadium. The Woo Sox.

But will Woo Sox stadium have a grassy area above the outfield wall – the Berm – where fans can sit and picnic? Will its concession area seem like a farmer’s market, open air on one side? Will its fans cheer as loudly for a hit to save the day in the bottom of the ninth inning?  

Like everything else around here, however, we yield to the gravitational pull of Boston. The main inbound expressway from the south is stop-and-go, even on a Sunday. Then there’s Massachusetts Avenue, a war zone after a bombing, trash everywhere, crowds milling around abandoned buildings.

And then we’re surrounded by the glitz of downtown, our home for the next two nights. In the Hilton Back Bay Boston, we’re greeted by another ever-so-helpful clerk – a pleasingly plus-sized, mocha-skinned woman named Samantha whose birthday is July 19, right between mine and Jack’s. We commune as Cancerians and she gives us presents – cold bottles of water and tickets for a free drink at the hotel bar.

Once again we’re on the eighth floor, but this time the room (twice the price of our Providence accommodations) gives us what we want – two queen-sized beds. Office towers dominate our view.

Our view in Boston 

One block up Dalton Street outside our hotel is the Summer Shack. For its restroom door images, the men are crabs and the ladies are lobsters. We pull up to the bar and watch the Red Sox struggle on ESPN against the high-flying Los Angeles Dodgers over town in Fenway Park. That’s where we’ll be when the Toronto Blue Jays arrive Monday night.

Is the Summer Shack crab cake better than the one Jack got in Providence? I order one, Jack samples it and declares, yes, it is. But it’s still not up to Baltimore standards.

Meanwhile, his lobster roll has the perfect halo of mayo. Miraculous! His steamed clams are the stuff of heaven, too, thanks to a little crock of buttery sauce. That sauce also transubstantiates my other appetizer – lobster pot stickers – and I tell the bartender it should be their universal condiment.

As for beverages, I’m true to local brew, in this case Lord Hobo Brewery from Woburn, Mass. An OK IPA called Angelica, followed by a delicious double IPA called Boomsauce.

Now if the Red Sox can make good on their come-from-behind effort in tonight’s game – it’s going way into extra innings – there could be joy in Boston after all.    

Providential!

Saturday 13 July 2019

       All gassed up, packed and ready to roll to Rhode Island Saturday morning, if only I could finish all the stuff – primarily watering in advance of a long dry weekend – that needs to be done at home.

       What’s supposed to be an 11 a.m. exit is a whole lot closer to noon. Nevertheless, my astrological twin and co-pilot Jack Dumpert is forgiving. Once we hit the I-290, it starts to feel like an adventure.

       As adventures go, it’s sunny, way faster than the speed limit and remarkably without incident. The itinerary is hard to mess up – a straight shot down I-90 to Worcester, Mass., then a right turn and an hour later the towers of downtown Providence, such as they are, rise before us. Three stops, one change of drivers back and forth, 7½ hours, 450 miles or so, not even a whole tank of gas.

       I remember my phone charger and my meds and other supplies, but I always forget something. Around Batavia, I suddenly realize what it is – the tickets! I left behind the print-outs of the receipts for this baseball excursion – the Buffalo Bisons vs. the Pawtucket Red Sox on Sunday afternoon in beloved McCoy Stadium, to be abandoned next year when the team moves to Worcester, followed Monday night by the parent teams, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park in Boston. But not to worry. The tickets came via e-mail. At the hotel, I can print them again.

       Ah, the hotel! A lacrosse tournament has fully engaged the Hampton Inn and Suites and every other lodging in downtown Providence. The room we expected to get with two beds has been “upgraded.” Spiffier, yes, with a great view from the eighth floor, but only one bed. We may be astrological twins, but we’re not Siamese twins. Our super-helpful desk clerk, Aaron, can’t help us here. He suggests, apologetically, using the pull-out couch. He also gives us $25 off.

       When it comes to restaurants, however, Aaron is flawless. We want a seafood place and he directs us to a dandy one – Hemenway’s, a short stroll via pedestrian bridge across the Providence River (gondolas!).

This being sort of the coast of New England, the seafood is fresh at Hemenway’s. So is the local craft beer. So is our barmaid, Holly. 

We tuck in at the bar for ceviche in a spicy sauce of the Puerto Rican chef’s creation, local oysters and a chilled seafood medley salad, which I order when I see the magic word “lobster.” All excellent. Only disappointment – the crab cakes, a far cry from what you get in Baltimore, says Jack.

We hear live music on our walk back to the hotel and detour slightly to discover a quartet of gray-haired guys playing old standards on the sidewalk. They’re outside a restaurant which has filled the street curb to curb with white-tablecloth-covered tables, most of which are occupied. We arrive just in time for the last number. Providential!