Tales of a Red Sox Ball Girl

So I’d like to begin my blog with a piece of advice: Always read your emails.

Let me tell you why.

In February of last year I received a string of emails between the Boston College softball team and one of my teammates on the Boston University Softball team. Now, to say this email changed my life is a bit extreme. But, in a way, it did. I’m not saying I underwent a life revelation or anything, but at the same time, this email took my life down a much different course than I had expected it to be heading in 2013.

But, you know what? This story doesn’t begin with an email. It begins way before that. It begins with me, roughly 10 years back, in the year 2004.

Let me set the stage a little.

Me, My Dad, our front yard, a whiffle ball bat, and the 2004 Red Sox lineup.

For months on end I ran through the lineup, acting out the batting stances of David Ortiz to Kevin Millar, pelting the front of our house pretending I had just nailed the Green Monster. That’s where the fever began. The Red Sox go on to win the World Series, Jimmy Fallon stars in Fever Pitch, and so on.

I became obsessed with the Boston Red Sox.

Now fast forward 10 years and I’m sitting in Warren Dining Hall on BU’s campus—the shittiest dining hall we have—having a God awful Monday. It was one of those days where everything that could possibly go wrong, does. Until of course, I received this email. The Red Sox were looking to hire ball girls for the 2013 season.

Now I feel like an idiot thinking that I would never in a million years get this job.

But of course, I did.

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Being a ball girl for a team with some of the most manic driven fans in the nation, you get hounded with questions the most common:

How does one become a Red Sox ball girl?

Well, the first thing is you had to have played collegiate softball to apply for the position. Division one, division two, division 3, doesn’t matter, you just had to have some collegiate softball background. (This way the MLB cuts down on hiring Hooter’s girls, indirectly cutting down the number of ball girl interferences throughout the season.)

So, for all those softball players out there, we then had to submit a skills video (of us taking ground balls) paired with your typical resume, at which point you then have to wait to hear if you’re invited back to partake in a series of one-on-one interviews.

So what you were hired to just sit here, field the occasional ground ball and get paid to watch baseball?

With this I laugh, I mean come on. We have to deal with fans all game don’t we?

Plus we do a little more than just sit there. First of all, we help out with pregame ceremonies, picking out honorary bat kids, lining up groups being recognized, as well as handling ceremonial first pitches.

So we have to entertain to people such as Jack Parker—former BU hockey legend—and Nomar Garciapara—arguably the greatest Red Sox short stop—does that solidify why we should get paid?

And then yes, I guess the remainder of the game we basically sit there, socialize, and watch baseball.

Then there are the common have you stood on the mound? Have you sat in the dugout? Have you hit in the batting cage? Have you squatted in the catcher’s box? Did you walk in the Rolling Rally? Have you held the World Series trophy?

And the answer to all of those questions is simply, yes. Talk about some surreal moments for a girl born into the fanaticism of Red Sox Nation.

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Some things I learned while being a ball girl…

1. Rain is never your friend.

If any of you are familiar with the MLB, you know that it takes quite a bit of precipitation to call a game. So when it starts down pouring and all the fans take cover, the ball girls get to sit there and endure it. Well no, we don’t have rain jackets, thanks for noticing.

2. Always avoid making eye contact with players when walking by the dugout.

Say I start the game on the first base foul line. During the middle of the fifth inning I have to collect my helmet and glove and begin the long walk around the foul ground to the third foul line to switch things up a bit. And I have learned, when doing this, you should avoid making eye contact with anyone sitting in the dugout.

Otherwise, you WILL get catcalled. Sometimes its whistles, sometimes its “hey baby,” sometimes it’s a blank stare.

The consistent factor being, every time it’s uncomfortable.

Unless of course Robinson Cano asks you “how’s it going?” Because that one is pretty cool to admit.

3. Engage with the fans.

Even I—being an avid baseball fan—will admit baseball can be boring.

Sometimes you get stuck working 15 inning Yankee Red Sox games that get done around 1 in the morning.

And if you don’t talk to fans—during extra-inning games especially—you will find yourself nearly dozing off, and as a ball girl, that can be pretty dangerous...

Imagine being woken up by a screamer down the third baseline while trying to catch a little shut eye.

When you carry on conversations with a number of fans, 17 plus five minute transitions in between innings go by awfully quick.

4. Umpires aren't all evil.

For the longest time I thought that Umps were out to ruin baseball games in any way they could.

However, working at Fenway has brought me to realize some umps are great!

The first time I realized this was during a night game late in the season when it was biting cold. I was sitting shaking on my bucket, trying to warm my hands in between innings, when an umpire walked over to me and handed me a packet of hand warmers.

That umpire was not evil.

5. Fenway employees are like family.

As Jimmy Fallon's character explains in Fever Pitch, Fenway is his "summer family."

Which is exactly how I felt all season.

Even though one my first games I caught a line drive, and saved members of the grounds crew from potential concussions, and they repayed me by piling dirt on my bucket while I’m interacting with fans in between innings, I still feel the love from the employees when I’m there.

Fenway ambassadors bring me water or hot chocolate in between innings, or simple sit there and talk to me for a little while, the security guards always stop me and ask me how I’m doing, and one of the camera men sends me some awesome snapshots of my favorite players during the games.

Fenway feels like a family.

6. Baseball players like to have fun.

So when I sit over on the third baseline, I’m pretty close to the visiting teams’ dugout. And when I’m sitting there, sometimes the players do things that catch my attention.

My favorite instance involved the Toronto Blue Jays.

Every time one of the Jays reached base, Jose Reyes, Jose Batista, Esmil Rogers and Moises Sierra decided to do some obnoxious hand motions that I cannot explain without demonstrating.

I decided to start mimicking this hand motion. This caught their attention.

For the remainder of the game they messed with me as we exchanged some loose sign language from across the foul ground.

Another guy who loves to have fun is David Ortiz, who once shimmied between me and the other ball girl in between innings saying “oh excuse me ladies” with a grin.

Everyone should have as much fun as these guys while playing baseball. 7. Fans can be ... what’s the word?

What I will say about working at Fenway, is you meet tons of interesting people.

Other than the obvious task of fielding foul balls, my job entails interacting with the fans, answering personal questions about myself while trying not to give out too much information so they can’t track me down, agreeing to take pictures with well, everyone, as well as getting hounded by both kids and adults alike for foul balls.

Some fans are great. They share French fries, buy me water, one even bought me a sweatshirt once.

Then there are other fans that, although hilariously entertaining, can be frustrating, pestering me for my phone number, asking to take me on a date, asking me to get them dates with Jenny Dell, asking me to get Jacoby Ellsbury’s attention, you name it.

Sometimes you get a crowd of obnoxious Phillies fans who think it’s funny to chant “CAMERON DIAZ” at you, over and over for four consecutive innings, because you apparently look “just like her.” This could have been the alcohol’s doing—though I hear it a lot.

Sometimes you get a group of guys in their twenties that think it’s funny to convince little kids that I’m sitting on a bucket that is full of baseballs—when in reality the bucket is completely empty.

And then sometimes when I’m leaving the ballpark, I would of course fun into the group of Dominicans that were begging me to take picture after picture with them for the entire second half of the game, and then they make me take more pictures with them afterwards when I’m out of uniform and get tied up for 15 minutes. Perks of the job I suppose.

8. When you mess up, people will in fact notice.

So early on I had some good air time. I was first caught on camera saving the gorunds crew from a scorching line drive, in the frame when a mother dropped her child to catch a foul ball, and then I’d have a few nice stops here and there, nothing too crazy.

My track record was pretty upstanding for the regular season.

Then the ALCS came.

And I took a line drive that ricocheted off the tarp on the first baseline, took a bad hop, and hit me in the chin on national television.

This one—of course—would obviously be replayed on Fox Funnies, Intentional Talk, and put into GIF form so that I could never forget it.

After the game my texts, phone calls, and emails regarding this fiasco were all in the double digits.

I think it’s safe to say I’ll never live that one down.

9. No year will match the 2013 season.

My entire life I’ve loved baseball, and above that the Boston Red Sox. The first year I started working for them they win the World Series.

And they win the World Series for their city, after it underwent turmoil in April, after Will Middlebrooks sparked the Boston Strong movement.

After being predicted to finish last in the American League East, the Sox played for Boston and won it all.

The 2013 trophy was all for us.

10. I landed the greatest gig a Red Sox fan could ask for.

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