So I got to catch a game at Fenway this past Saturday. Charming place. If I was supposed to feel magic in the air, though, then something went wrong. But that just may be because I'm a humorless bastard.

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So I have to be in Boston the weekend of Aug 1-3 (Fri/Sat/Sun). I haven't been to the East Coast in about 15 years, and I figure I should take the opportunity to visit Fenway. Boston happens to be at home that weekend (hosting the A's, but the visiting team doesn't matter to me).

I went to the Red Sox's website but it appears you can't buy tickets to home games there. I suspect that, Boston being Boston, they were all sold out before the season began, or perhaps you can only buy one if your family has been in New England for 800 years or you're a Kennedy or something along those lines.

Does anyone know I might go about purchasing tickets in advance? Or do I just have to wing it and deal with scalpers? Since it's a weekend I imagine it would be even more difficult to get a ticket. But any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Anyone know something about the mechanics of hitting? If Bonds' swing is mostly or all upper body now, I'm wondering if it's actually easier for him to go opposite field rather than pull, for homerun power. I know nothing about the mechanics of hitting unless Krukow is explaining things, but it seems to me that turning on an inside pitch requires healthier legs, whereas going opposite field is more just a natural "uncoiling" of the body that isn't so demanding on bad knees.

Of course, I'm just talking about HR's here. Even if there's a shred of truth to this that doesn't necessarily mean that opposing pitchers shouldn't continue to pitch him primarily away or play the shift against him. Obviously, if you're the other team you want to get him out, not just prevent the homerun. But when Barry has pulled, he's hit mostly grounders or low line drives. I can only recall one fly ball that might have gone out in a different park.

According to a little articlette on ESPN, Bonds intends to play for the US in the Baseball Classic. He was supposedly recruited to do so by Bobby Bonilla. That Bonilla is just a bad influence on our poor impressionable left fielder. I'd rather Bonds just lie on a beach somewhere until Spring Training.

Is there a DH in the Baseball Classic? If so, can Sabean work out some guarantee that whoever manages the US team won't Bonds in the field?

In both the FSN and KNBR post-game interviews, Omar identified the pitch he homered off of as a change-up. But according to the FSN radar gun it was a 92-mph pitch, which has to be a fastball to anyone other than the A.J. Burnett's or Billy Wagner's of the world. Now, obviously Omar hit the damn thing himself, so he couldn't really have misidentified it, but how does one reconcile this discrepancy? Is it just a matter of terminology? Is Omar just messing with us?