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forget solstices, longest days, and wearing white pants after memorial day. summer officially starts for me every year on the first day that i underestimate the power of the sun and get burned. sunburned. it never fails, every year i get selective amnesia and forget that pasty white skin + hours of warm sunshine = bright red epidermal pain.

i don’t know how far back this tradition actually goes, but i vividly remember a weeklong trip to myrtle beach following my college graduation. i got scorched so bad one day that every called me the Lobster King. A few years ago, i spent a warm April day putting together a new basketball hoop…shirtless. 3 hours later i realized my mistake. That night was painful. The following night was one of the worst of my life as the itching was so bad i literally slept about 2 hours total. This is how we should be interrogating Iraqi POWs: itchy sunburns.

This year’s version? Well, our first outdoor softball practice went off without a hitch yesterday. A gorgeous 70-degree day in Pennsylvania, spent shagging flies, fielding grounders, and taking some cuts. The sleeveless T seemed like a good idea in the morning, and would have been had practice gone 2 hours instead of 3. but alas, i once again forgot what happens when your white winter skin goes unprotected for 3 hours in the warmth of the afternoon April sun.

So i sit here at work, shoulders on fire, arms scorching, ears ablaze. The back of my neck feels as if someone coated it in napalm and set fire to it a few hours ago. good times.

You’d think i’d have learned my lesson, but i can guarantee you that next year, right around this time, it will happen again. And with the bright red skin i will once again welcome in summer.

and here’s a bonus tip, from me to you. i don’t care what month you’re in, don’t ever wear white pants.

a few notes from last night’s loss to the Yankers:

1. I really hope Renteria gets off to a good start in Boston. All of us are a little skeptical of the move to let O-Cab go after his clutch hitting and unreal defense helped us win a title. I do feel that Edgar’s bat will put up some decent numbers this year (.282, 22 HRs, 77 RBI) but he’s going o have to earn his way into our hearts. shoudlnt be tough though.

2. Despite a shaky outing last night, i think Wells will work out alright for the Sox. Especially as the #2 behind Schill.

3. I was glad that ESPN talked so much about Dave Robert’s steal from Game 4 of the ALCS last year. Clearly it was the turning point of the series. It deserves all the pub it got. I also found it interesting that Roberts was a protege of Maury Wills. good stuff…

4. I’m trying to hate “Fever Pitch” because all good Red Sox fans are supposed to, but honestly I am indifferent to it. Its probably not a good movie, and will probably bomb at the box office (replace Fallon with Adam Sandler though, and it would probably kill). I’ll see it, and enjoy it, and remain a little perturbed that those two bozos were on the field 10 minutes after the Red Sox fulfilled the dreams of thousands of actual red sox fans. But I’ll move on. 10 years from now i won’t remember fever pitch and neither will you. But the memories of the Yankees choke job and the St. Louis sweep will be as sweet as buttermilk. (and i’ve never had buttermilk)

5. games against the yankees have lost some of their oomph for me, i’ll admit it. when you are the perennial second fiddle, you look for every sign of hope you can find. every win over the yanks felt like validation, every loss was another dagger. But now that we are defending champs it really is different. Last night’s loss was just one game out of 162. The cackling yankees’ fans were just a bunch of jerks who havent celebrated a title in 5 years. Frankly, it feels good. We lost, i turned the TV off and i didnt say “oh well, maybe this isnt the year” or ” here we go again”. I just turned it off and went to bed. So thank you, 2004 Red Sox, for putting baseball games in their rightful place.

(let’s see if I’m still saying this in 6 months)