{"id":118,"date":"2015-02-14T18:36:13","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T18:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/?p=118"},"modified":"2016-12-12T14:04:52","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T14:04:52","slug":"an-ode-to-carlos-quintana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"An Ode to Carlos Quintana"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"130-95Fr\"<\/a>Apropos of\u00a0yet another biblical winter tempest headed our way, scheduled to create further havoc and MBTA cancellations soon, and with a hopeful eye toward Spring- whenever it may arrive- here is part 1 of my\u00a0ode to the ultimate boys of summer, the most fascinating characters to ever don the Sox garb.<\/p>\n

Carlos Quintana
\n<\/strong>I’ll never forget my first game at Fenway. I was six years-old and my family and I were cast\u00a0down the right field line, in that\u00a0lovely area where your options are either to slowly break\u00a0your neck over\u00a0nine innings or to get a real good feel for the right fielder. I gave up on the diamond action early and gave Quintana, the Sox right-fielder during\u00a0the early 90’s, my undivided attention. Carlos didn’t disappoint, unless you consider an absence of baseball wherewithal\u00a0disappointing.<\/p>\n

Quintana was a varsity fidgeter. When he wasn’t hocking loogies or picking his spikes he was “adjusting” himself with the apparent zest of a bull kick to the gonads. Occasional fly balls\u00a0gave\u00a0Carlos a brief seizure and then catapulted him on a magical escapade of circumventive pirouettes through the outfield. \u00a0This was all fascinating stuff to watch, especially as\u00a0a six-year-old who was just caught up in the ambiance. Think of Bryce Harper casually gliding to a fly ball and making a one handed catch, and then think of the opposite, and that was Quintana.<\/p>\n

What really solidified Quintana’s status as ubermensch in my eyes, though, stemmed from a single event that occurred during the later innings of that same game. After a particularly round-about route to a can of corn caused Carlos’ cap to fly off, I bellowed\/chirped, “Hey, Carlos! Keep your hat on!” I thought this a terribly droll thing to shout at the time, and I remember feeling\u00a0pleased with my spontaneity and nerve.\u00a0But then I noticed some folks in the vicinity chuckling in my direction and my brother smacked me aside the head and called me a doofus, and I started to second-guess my supposed\u00a0brilliance.\u00a0Carlos, however, after retrieving his hat, glanced sheepishly in my direction (Fenway was half-filled in these days, and so it was easy to spot an errant little shit with a flippant attitude), and, in an apparent display of sympathy or shame, gave me what can best be described as a passive thumbs-up.<\/p>\n

What a gesture! And a valuable lesson for six-year old me: Sometimes when everyone thinks you’re a numbskull and you probably are, in fact, a numbskull, there’s often someone in the vicinity who’s numbskull factor trumps yours, and who can relate and possibly extend a helping hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apropos of\u00a0yet another biblical winter tempest headed our way, scheduled to create further havoc and MBTA cancellations soon, and with a hopeful eye toward Spring- whenever it may arrive- here is part 1 of my\u00a0ode to the ultimate boys of summer, the most fascinating characters to ever don the Sox garb. Carlos Quintana I’ll never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,159,158],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bryce-harper","tag-carlos-quintana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.charliebisbee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}