Tokyo Opener Forces U.S. Baseball Fans Rise Before Dawn
pening day came well before daybreak for baseball fans watching the Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics start the season in Japan.
Bars around Fenway Park and elsewhere catered to big breakfast crowds as the season officially began Tuesday shortly after 6 a.m. Eastern time. In California, where the first pitch was shortly after 3 a.m., some Oakland fans were pleased to have Tivo.
''Coffee and breakfast instead of beer, kind of unusual,'' observed Tony Massarotti, 48, of Watertown, who joined a large crowd of Red Sox fans at Game On, a sports bar attached to Fenway Park. Massarotti, whose cousin is a Boston sports writer who covers the team, planned to catch the first few innings on one of the bar's 90 TV screens before heading off to his job at a nearby hospital.
The bar opened earlier than usual for the game, but was not serving alcohol.
Mark Gillis, 41, an attorney from Reading, Mass., said he thought he was going to be in court first thing in the morning, but the judge moved the case.
''I was like, 'Yes!''' said Gillis, who packed his three children, two boys and a girl, into the car and headed for Fenway. ''I figured, what the heck, the opportunity to watch the Red Sox on opening day and still make it to school on time doesn't come around very much.''
Many children were treated to a few innings of the game on TV before being shooed off to school buses. Some educators fretted that baseball fever would detract students' attention from standardized exams being administered to 4th, 7th and 10th graders beginning Tuesday.
Oakland fans were forced to rise in the middle of the night if they wanted to see the start of the game live. Christy Hofmann, an editor of the fan Web site AthleticsNation.com, said she planned to visit a friend who owns a big screen television and watch with game with popcorn and pizza.
''At 3 a.m., I am going to turn on the TV and open my computer, and 'chat' with people online just as if I was watching a game in the same room. I took a preliminary poll, and at least 392 people will be up at the same time, watching the games,'' Hofmann wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
03/25/2008 09:02 AM
By JAY LINDSAY Associated Press Writer
BOSTON
"Awaodori," a Japanese traditional dance, is performed in spectators seats during an opening ceremony before the Major League Baseball regular season opener between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, Tuesday, March 25, 2008.
(AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
pening day came well before daybreak for baseball fans watching the Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics start the season in Japan.
