Brockton ROX!

Ok I will be the first to admit that until about two weeks ago I was like "Brockton? Blegh!"

Brockton has this kind of grody reputation that is only half deserved. Parts of it are sort of grody, but other parts are actually pretty cool and funky.

And I am irrationally biased against the word "Brockton" which is often pronounced "Brawk-tin". Ugh. "Brawk-tin Rawks" Gah.

My Evil Twin's friend Andy manages the Brockton Rox.

A few weeks back he invited us to a Patriots Charity Softball match hosted by Kevin Faulk and not only did we get to shake hands with the likes of Laurence Maroney (friendly!), Rosevelt Colvin (charming), Ben Watson (shy!), and Ellis Hobbs (party boy!) but we also got to meet the militia who fire the muskets for the home game touchdowns - very exciting!

Since we had a great time at that event, saw that Campanelli Stadium was an actual stadium and not some dusty concrete sun trap, and were basically treated really well by staff that actually seems to enjoy what they do, we figured why the heck not go to the Brockton Rox home opener.

Well for one thing the game was on a Friday night at 7pm.

Ok, it's the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend and for one thing traffic was AWFUL and matters were not helped when Evil Twin said "this traffic's not so bad" just before we came around the bend into bumper to bumper traffic about 3 miles up from the Braintree split. If yer from heah, you know exactly what I am talking about. If not, well there are no words to adequately express that kind of frustration.

So instead of trying to get down to Brockton via 93 to 95 to 24 to 123, we cut through Weymouth and took 18 to 123. Sounded simple enough huh.

And we were making ok time until an unfortunate left turn was further compounded by a erroneous right and we ended up in the sh*ttiest part of Brockton.

So we stopped at a crappy little gas station, which smelled alarmingly overpoweringly like gasoline, and where the attendant gave my boobs directions and where PeanutButterJellAmy bought a banana to further confound the attendant.

Then just as we thought we were on the right road, the road was suddenly closed by the fire department because suddenly something was on fire...

Just when we were deciding to head back to Boston, or to anywhere else but Brockton, we magically stumbled across Campanelli Stadium.

Why press on you ask? Just to give you an idea of why this is worth it:

Parking - $5
Tickets behind homeplate - $12
Concessions - ~$15 per person, we were hungry.

And the game was actually exciting - there was a heckler behind me who kept me in stitches, bases were just barely stolen, a couple of thrilling slides into home, a sequined Neil Diamond impersonator to lead the crowd through Sweet Caroline at the seventh inning and fireworks after the game.

I would definitely go again.

And if you get a chance you should too. At the most you are going to be out like $20. And if you don't drive, there is public transportation down from Boston and back.

Go Rox!