Three days. Three Red Sox games at Fenway, one PawSox game at McCoy. Three victories, one very sucky Canadian. Two Papyboo appearances, one save, at least 8 or 9 swoons. One Beckett outing, at least 6 more swoons. One shitty Youk call, two ejections. Two Jacoby appearances- one for big boy Sox, one for little brother Sox. One very big debut win by Clay Buchholz. Unending Manny & Papi hugs, one injured Dougie Fresh, and a freakin' grand slam. BIRTHDAY ON THE MONSTER, complete with Sam Horn, CHB, Doug Flutie & Bobby Doerr meetings, and as many pictures with the World Series trophy as I could take without getting arrested.

Yeah- it was a little bit fun.

I've got to sort through the thousands (no really) of photos I took from Friday through Sunday, and I'll be sure and post the best of those when I'm done -- but for now, here's my Top 5 Random Observations, plus a few photos to serve as placeholders.

1. Kyle Snyder has ADHD. I'm almost sure of it. He is physically incapable of sitting still. The Monster seats afforded me a bird's eye view of the bullpen, and every single time I looked over, Kyle was moving around or fidgeting in some manner. He had a stick he would roll around on his legs and/or use to paddle his legs (very lightly, I hope). He would pace back and forth from one length of the bullpen to the other. He would hang on the lip of the bullpen roof by his arms, with his long ol' legs tucked up behind him. Someone needs to get him a ball of yarn or other playtoy to occupy himself with.

2. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz are addicted to hugs. On Saturday, we were one of the few lucky folks to get into the ballpark earlier than normal, 3 hours before the game, and so got to see all of the Sox pregame warmups and BP... and about 100 Manny/Papi sandwich hugs. Manny would grab someone (usually an Angels player), and Papi would sandwich him. Papi would grab someone, and then Manny would join in on the sandwich. One time, Papi grabbed ahold of someone (I'm 99% sure it was Izturis) and was trying to get Manny's attention to come over and hug with them, but Manny was standing a little bit aways talking and didn't notice... so Papi just picked Izturis up off the ground and hopped over to Manny with Izturis still in his big old bear hug.

3. Kevin Youkilis ain't nothing to mess with. I thought he was going to take the ump's head off at that bad call on Friday night- we were sitting about 10 feet away from that exchange, and it was not pretty.

4. Manny Delcarmen is Irish. That is the only logical explanation for what I witnessed Saturday night- when Papelbon went in to be awesome (like always), and his closer's music "Shipping Up To Boston" started playing, Manny stood up from the bullpen bench and did a full-on Irish jig. That went on for almost a minute. And even when he sat back down again, he kept kicking his legs out in front of him in a little jig. It was so very awesome- I just wish NESN would have gotten it on film (I'm not even sure the people sitting in the bleachers could see it, because he was standing up underneath the pen roof).

5. Jonathan Papelbon has a new job- bodyguard. When Papyboo made his normal stroll out to the pen in the middle of Saturday night's game, Eric "I Suck Ass, Canadian-Style" Gagne tagged along beside him, possibly in hopes of blending in to the background next to the blinding glow of Papyboo's awesomeness. It didn't work- Gagne got loudly booed.

View from my seat for Friday day game


Friday night seats- Joshie Beckett artfully blurry in the background


Moon over Fenway for my birthday on the Monster on Saturday


Rhode Island in the house


Ain't that just the purtiest thing?

Edited: Someone a lot more disciplined than me has some more in-depth firsthand thoughts from Friday night as well.