Ten Observations from Fenway

Internship? Meet fire. My first week with the Globe sports department concluded with the Sox’s three-game series at Fenway against the Nationals. They got swept, and I wrote some articles [...]

Internship? Meet fire.

My first week with the Globe sports department concluded with the Sox’s three-game series at Fenway against the Nationals. They got swept, and I wrote some articles about some players, which you can read on Boston.com, if you really want. In one of them, I rhymed. Try to find where.

Byrce Harper. David Ortiz. Stephen Strasburg. Gio Gonzalez. Mark Melancon.

Presented without comment, 10 hardly baseball-related observations from Fenway this weekend:

Sitting in black leather chair in a press box facing the rising sun at 9 a.m. is roughly akin to BEING ON FIRE. And trust me. I’ve been on fire before. The two are very similar.
Twitter followers are sheep. The great Pete Abraham tossed me a couple shoutouts, and I nearly doubled my follower account. Way to think for yourselves, guys. Wait…please don’t leave me? I just want to be loved.
The instrumental call-and-response section of “Sweet Caroline” would take on a different meaning if Fenway Park was located in Great Britain. Because then we would be singing about Caroline’s “bum bum bum.”
Who is Caroline, and what makes her so sweet?
I followed ballhawk Zack Hample for a story. He is an absolute baseball-catching deity. He also catches a sizable portion of vitriol for what he’s done for the past 20 years. More will be available in my article, planned for early July. Short story slightly shorter, some Bostonian teenagers tossed a couple homosexual slurs his way because a couple Nationals players, exercising their ability to decide for themselves, gave Hample a couple baseballs.
Speaking of the Nationals players, that clubhouse has such a young feel. Might have something to do with the three-game sweep, but there was interview photo-bombing, LeBron baby-powdering and general tomfoolery galore. They’re winning, so it doesn’t matter.
Special thanks to the Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore and the Washington Times’ Amanda Comak for helping me out in the Nats clubhouse and beyond. Meeting wonderful reporters like them evaporates the growing pains. They’re like journalistic Icy-Hot.
Speaking of Kilgore, read his deadline gamer on Strasburg’s 13-strikeout gem.
David Ortiz faked me out. I asked him about a double he hit. He deadpanned, “What do you want to know about it?” I panicked, a few things vaguely resembling syllables dribbled out of my word-hole. He put on a smile. “It was a rocket,” he said. Breaths of relief ensued.
Make sure your live, in-game blog publishes.