Thanks to Chris Morse’s insistence that sitting through a rainy baseball game is torture and my feeling that a rain delay is still kind of a novelty, I scored another pair of tickets to today’s game. All in all, it wasn’t the best game to be at for a Sox fan. It was rainy, it was cold, and the Sox had no offense. On the other hand, for half of the game, I was cheering for Matt Garza to have the first Tampa Bay no-hitter (the day after the Rockies got their first). Even after Adrian Beltre broke it up with single in the 5th, his attempt to stretch that single into a double allowed Garza to face just the minimum 21 batters in the first 7 innings.

But still, a day at the ballpark in the rain is still better than sitting home watching TV. And there is no better entertainment than a little kid sitting behind you enjoying the game. Because the game was less than exciting, I bring you quotes from a little boy, maybe five years old:

• Being a kid, his attention occasionally wandered. One of these times, his mother instructed him to watch the next pitch, assuring him that something would happen — and something did. Ben Zobrist singled in two runs, giving the Rays a 4-0 lead. The kid retorted to his mom: Why did you make me watch that?
• Shortly after Zobrist’s hit, the kid was talking to his dad, who had been assuring him the whole game that the Sox would come back and win. Dad, how are we going to win? It’s zero to four!
• He had a tendency to cheer for individual Sox batters with his own repetitive song/cheer. Dustin Pedroia’s was the most dynamic, starting with a rhyme: Hit it in, Dustin! Hit it in, Dustin! His father corrected him and the lyrics changed, but the tune stayed the same: Hit it out, Dustin! Hit it out, Dustin! … and then Pedroia hit into a double play and without breaking rhythm, it changed again: What the heck, Dustin?! What the heck, Dustin?!
• His parents explained to him that if a batter hit the Jordan’s Furniture sign in centerfield, Jordan’s would give away a bunch of free furniture. This prompted the kid’s brilliant idea: We should put that sign in our backyard and then I can hit it and then we can get the free furniture!

He also had a snazzy rendition of Sweet Caroline. And as a kid after my own heart, he refused to let his family leave after the 8th inning when the rain came back (as so many did). And he was rewarded in the bottom of the 9th when the Red Sox finally scored their first and only run — and oh, did he let out the most jubilant squeal!