Red Sox Party -14yr- Red Sox Relay

Play Ball!  My son is a major Red Sox fan so he requested a Red Sox theme for his birthday party. 

INVITATION: First, I downloaded a picture of Fenway Park and a Bosox font from the Internet.  Using these and a combination of simple auto shapes rectangles, I designed a 3 x 7 Red Sox Game Ticket to use as the invitation. I don't remember how large a real ticket is but this size worked for me! The top narrow red rectangle said, You're Invited.  The second larger white rectangle had Boston Red Sox in the Bosox font. The third & largest section was the photo of Fenway with Matt's 14th Birthday Party across the skyline. The next narrow red section had VIP Seating. The next narrow white section had the date.  Next was a red section with the time (6:00-10:00) and then a white section with the RSVP info and finally a larger red section with some special instructions about bringing a bathing suit and towel. I printed them off on matte photo paper and they looked like real tickets! Since they're all teenagers, I had planned to do just a pool party and let them entertain themselves but they kept asking about what activities we were going to do so I used many activities from this site and some of my own to plan a Red Sox party.

DECORATIONS: Decorating was fairly easy as I used some Red Sox player photos, homemade paper pennants, baseball lights ($9.95) and baseball garland ($3.95) from Oriental Trading Company and red & blue balloons.  I used red disposable tablecloths for both inside and out on the deck table.  I bought plain white paper plates that I made to look like baseballs with a red permanent marker (draw two crescents and add v shapes for stitching).  The white cups and napkins I decorated with Red Sox stickers that I made using the Red Sox logo and sticker paper.  I just cut them out and popped them on.  Next time I wouldn't bother with this since some of the ink came off onto the kids hands.  When the crowd started to arrive, they autographed a baseball for the birthday guy and picked a Red Sox hat out of a sports bag to see which team they would be on.  There were red hats and blue hats.  Matt was the captain of the red team and already had his hat with a C sticker on it for Captain.  The other C hat was blue and was picked at random.  Captains were responsible for keeping track of the runs that were accumulated by their team over the course of the evening. The hats were $5 each at Wal-Mart and they got to keep them as a party favor.  Once the teams were chosen, we had pizza,

CAKE (baseball cake cooked in an ovenproof bowl, frosted with white frosting and laced with red gel) and soda. 

PARTY SNACKS: I redid the soda labels using pictures of Red Sox players and the Bosox font.  We had Ortiz Orange, Lowell Lemon Lime, Ramirez Root Beer, and Coco Crisp Cola.  I also had big bowls of popcorn, peanuts, sunflower seeds, & Doritos both inside & out for the kids to snack on. After the cake, we did presents and headed outside! 

ACTIVITIES: The first activity was PAPELBON'S PITCHING CONTEST.  I downloaded photos of Yankees players, printed and laminated them and taped them to my son's pitching board.  Each player had to pitch a water bomb (baseball-like sponge  package of 2 from the dollar store) at the pitching board from regulation distance.  If they hit a Yankee, they got 1 run for their team (I know, I know, Geez, it's just a game folks).  They each got 2 tries. 

Next was the WATER BALLOON TOSS.  Each team paired off and had to toss a water balloon to their partner who had to catch it in his or her baseball cap.  If successful, they had to take a step back and repeat.  The pair to toss successfully the longest got a run for their team.  This, of course, was followed by a general water balloon fight between the teams until all the water balloons were gone! 

Then it was time for the RED SOX RELAY RACE! Team players lined up and when I yelled, Play Ball, the first player in each team put on an oversized Red Sox T-shirt (blue for the blue team and red for the red team), batting gloves and their cap, ran to a bat at the end of the course, put their forehead on the bat handle and went around it 4 times while we yelled, First, Second, Third, Home and then they wobbled back to the line, removed their stuff and passed it to the next player in line.  This was a riot! 

After that we retreated to the deck for a SUNFLOWER SEED SPITTING CONTEST. All of the members of the red team stood against the deck railing and spit sunflower seeds as far as they could.   The player who spit the farthest was thrilled until he found out that he had to stand to mark his spot while the blue team tried to outdistance him! 

Then it was time to bring out the water guns (dollar store) for SCHILLING'S SHOOT-OFF.  I filled 2 soda bottles part way with water to weight them down and covered the labels (one with red paper and the other with blue paper and placed a Red Sox sticker on each).  The bottles (caps removed) were placed on the deck railing.  I decorated a dozen ping-pong balls with red permanent marker to look like baseballs and balanced one on the top of each team's bottle.  Each player had to shoot the ping-pong ball off the bottle with the water gun.  Then the ping pong ball was immediately replaced and the next player repeated.  The first team done got a run for their team.  I was surprised at how quickly this game went!  They were very accurate with the water guns!  Then, of course, it was water gun fight time, followed by a swim in the pool.  While they were swimming, I set out an ice cream sundae buffet with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream; chocolate, strawberry, peanut butter and caramel sauce; crushed Oreos and Nutter Butter cookies (wouldn't do this again because they hardly touched them); cut-up candy bars, nuts, sprinkles, cherries, and lots of quirt cream! 

By that time it was getting dark so we lit the deck torches and did the LOWELL'S LIMBO CONTEST.  I had a little trophy for the winner.  I had other activities planned but they were really into the whole night-swim thing so that worked out great.  About 9:30 I got them out of the pool for the baseball shaped pinata (we've always had a pinata at parties since the guys were little). I bought baseball bags ($14.95 per dozen) from OTC to hold their stuff and bought the baseball 50-piece assortment ($9.95) to stuff the pinata ($15.95) with as well as a bag of assorted mini chocolate bars.  In this baseball assortment there were 2 little trophies.  Instead of putting them in the pinata, I put labels on for the winner of the limbo contest and had made one for PAPELBON'S DANCE CONTEST but we never got to do it. 

Also, I had made up a game I called DICE K'S DICE GAME but we didn't get to do that either.  I made a die by covering a large square gift box with green felt and hot-gluing red dots to it.  I decorated a green disposable tablecloth to look like a ball diamond using brownish-tan Contact paper.  I had to Tacky glue the contact paper in place once I got the pieces in position since it didn't stick well to the plastic tablecloth. The eat-bat team was to line up at home plate, toss the die onto the green ball diamond and then use the code to determine what to do.  One dot meant take 1 base; 2 dots, 2 bases; 3 dots, 3 bases; four dots, homerun!  Five and six dots were strikes because Dice K doesn't throw any balls!  In the meantime, the other team would be positioned in the outfield  each equipped with 1 water balloon (and only 1 per player per inning).  If they hit the runner with a water balloon before they got on base, the runner would be out!  It sounded like a fun game and was something we could do in our garage in case it rained but we had great weather and didn't get to it. 

I also intended to include an activity called FRANCONA'S FUNNIES.  I was going to print off Red Sox jokes and roll them up like baseball bats and tuck them into spots near each activity station.  The team to find the joke would get to read it and score a run for their team but most of the jokes that I found weren't ones that I wanted to share with young teens so I abandoned this one! 

FAVORS: I had purchased some baseball sport necklaces ($6.96 from OTC) and made candy bar covers that fit over large Hershey bars (package of 6 for $2 at Wal-Mart) that had the Fenway photo and the words Matt's 14th Birthday on them. I also bought some Baby Ruth bars only because they were on sale, 4 for $1! I put this stuff on the table for them to put in their drawstring baseball bags (hanging from each chair) when they first arrived. The soggy teams went home with their hats, super soakers and their baseball bags full of the pinata goodies, baseball necklaces and candy.  It still surprises me that even at 13 & 14, they loved getting stuff (especially chocolate) and really enjoyed the games. Overall, this Red Sox party was a hit!