A week ago this past Sunday, and nearly ten years to the hour that kid number two emerged into this world, we left our downtown Beantown hotel under the gray skies of a threatening thunderstorm. We’d seriously overpaid for a set of unrefundable tickets to see the the hometown Red Sox challenge the MF’n Yankees at Fenway Park, in part to celebrate the kid’s first decade, and in larger part to appease her Dad’s 35 year obsession with all things baseball, and the Sox in particular.
From the tinted window of a nondescript PF Chang’s, we watched as the New England skies darkened, inner city trees bent sideways, and artsy urban fountains carelessly sprayed the sidewalks in ominously foreshadowning winds. Then the Gods, who we reckoned at the time are not true baseball fans, unleashed a torrent of raindrops the size of buffalo nickels. Rush-hour walkers ducked for cover into the nearest shop, bar, or eatery, while our hearts sank. There was no way, even if the rain stopped, no way they could play a game after this kind of downpour.
Now I’m no great believer in fortune, especially those dispensed in stale factory wrapped cookies, but as the deluge continued, and our bithday girl blew out the lone candle on her complimentary scoop of ginger coconut ice cream, I cracked open my fortune cookie. It read:
“Good news of a long-awaited event will arrive soon.”
I put on my finest phony fortune happy face and announced it was time to break free of Chang’s chains and embark on the short, wet hike to Fenway. Rain or no, we're on the road to the Promised Land, kids.
We walked through the showers, heavy at times, joined on each passing block by other soggy yet hopeful pilgrims. Rounding the corner of Boylston and Massachusetts Avenues, the bright lights of the ballpark glimmered through the drizzle above Boston's brownstones. And at the precise moment we handed our tickets to the little old man draped with a cheap Red Sox poncho at Gate E, the rain stopped.
I’m convinced that a large part of the magic of Fenway Park eminates from the experience of walking through the archaic and chaotic stadium bowels, emerging through through the narrow breezeway into the magical world of America's baseball cathedral, with the greenest grass, the whitest uniforms, and the happiest fans. The one hour rain delay gave us time to enjoy an amazing sunset rising over the Green Monster and left field. Paraphrasing Kevin Costner, if there's a heaven, it has to look an awful lot like FenwayPark in late July.
The game did not disappoint. Our valiant Red Sox, mired in disappointing 3-10 post-All Star funk, and losers of the last two to the MF’n Yankees, took control of the game in the early innings. Jacoby Ellsbury's 1st inning running climb up the center field wall to steal a hit from Jeter; a pair of RBI doubles from Manny (the newest Dodger) Ramirez – my now-heartbroken daughter's favorite player; and an Ortiz home run hit on a line directly to us. If only we’d sat in row Q not row QQ we’d have brought that ball home!
9-4 Sox Win!, sending the boys from the Bronx slithering back to NYC.
And, as we returned to the hotel through the dark Boston streets, surrounded by hundreds of exuberant Fenway faithful, the rain began to fall once again. I don’t think anyone cared about gettin' wet at that point. And the Gods were forgiven for their earlier outburst.
Postcript: There’s a curious tradition at FenwayPark, dating all the way back to the late '90s. In the middle of the 8th inning, the chords to Neil Diamond’s 1969 almost number one hit, "Sweet Caroline", pour from the stadium loudspeakers, quickly drowned out by 37,000 voices singing along in unison and hopelessly out of key. It is in some regards the most joyous part of the evening. Please sing along with us, albeit a few days later,as a damp summer Sunday night crowd of Fenway's faithful croon themselves and their team to victory over the MF’n Yankees. I know you know the words......
Essentially wire to wire, this moment was inevitable as far back as mid-May.
It's not the angst-filled Sox of yesteryear. We're not waiting for the inevitable catastrophe to add another chapter to the lore of losing gloriously. It's page 2 of a new chapter of dominance. Some may worry that the Sox will become the Yankees, the new team to hate, but I'll enjoy this ride while it lasts. And with the young guys - Papelbon, Pedroia, Ellsbury, Beckett - they'll be back.
Certainly wasn't in our house. Well, except for Mrs Glass-is-half-empty moanin' through a mostly tense game, "They're gonna blow it. Here it comes. I can't watch this anymore."
For me, when everyone else was moanin' 'bout being down 3 games to 1, and how the Sox were one game away from going home, I was yakkin' to any who would listen (and there aren't that many out here who give a rat's ass) that the Injuns were just 3 games from their inevitable elimination.
Bring on the Rocks and the snow. Been my contention for a while that anyone the NL puts through this season is gonna lose to anyone in the AL. The Injuns provided the Sox with a worthy Championship series. The Rockies are simply the post-game mop-up work that must be done before the flag is hung on the Fenway flagpole.
This pose was my pose (and I sup-pose a host of others in the extended Red Sox nation) about 9:12 pm last night:
Katie Casey was baseball mad, Had the fever and had it bad. Just to root for the hometown crew Ev'ry sou, Katie blew. On a Saturday her young beau Called to see if she'd like to go To see a show, but Miss Katie said "No, I'll tell you what you can do;"
Take me out to the ball game Take me out to the crowd. By me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root for the home team, If they don't win it's a shame. For it's one, two, three strikes you're out At the old ball game.
Katie Casey saw all the games. Knew the players by their first names, Told the umpire he was wrong, All along, good and strong. When the score was just two to two, Katie Casey knew what to do, Just to cheer up the boys she knew, She made the gang sing this song:
Take me out to the ball game. Take me out to the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root for the home team. If they don't win it's a shame. For it's one, two, three strikes you're out At the old ball game.
There's no better time of year than the opening of baseball's playoffs, unless of course we're talking 'bout the week that players report to the training camps in Florida and Arizona and the first slap of ball on glove or crack on a wood bat is heard 'round the land. Today's opening day all over again. Eight teams insteand of 30. Five series and whole boatload of games that matter. So it's root, root, root for the home team. The question becomes: Who's my home town team?
The Cubs are in the playoffs for the first time in years. My very first ball games were at Wrigley Field. My mom took me out of 1st and 2nd grade classrooms early a couple of times to watch Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Don Kessinger, Fergie Jenkins...the fabled 1969 team that collapsed in the final week allowing the Miracle Mets their run at history.
From Chicago, we moved north of Boston for Carlton Fisk's rookie year. Yaz, George Scott, rookies Fred Lynn and Jim Rice, Rico Petrocelli - my all time favorite baseball player name - and El Tiante played the greatest World Series ever against my mom's hometown Big Red Machine - Rose, Foster, Bench, Concepcion - in 1975. That series, along with the 1978 one game playoff disaster with Bucky F'n Dent and the Yankees, cemented my lifelong allegiance to Red Sox nation, and tied me indelibly to the long history of suffering Soxdom. Later, the Mrs and I lived in Boston and could see the lights of Fenway through the apartment windows when Bill Buckner's glove failed us in the 1986 World Series. Though we now have 2004 to crow about, the legacy of inevitable frustration and disaster remain strong.
And yes, these Red Sox hung on to snatch the East Division title from the damn Yankees' 12 year stranglehold on the pennant.
After a short two year stay in Jersey from where I attended my only World Series game (1976 Game 4 Yankees win over Mom's Reds) and my only opening day (1977 Yankees with Catfish Hunter as the free-agent starting pitcher), the family moved over to the Philly 'burbs for my high school years. The Phillies of the late '70s with Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski and Larry Bowa made their runs at a World Series title, their first coming the year I graduated high school...1980. And this year, thanks to a monumental late-season collapse by them very same Miracle Mets, the Phillies took over first place with 2 days left in the season, and now stand as the NL East Division champs!
So a dream post-season for me. The Phillies. The Cubs. The Sox. I'll be riding with the Sox for my championship dreams, but I've got all three hats in the closet depending on who's playing on any given night. I'm concerned about another Sox-Yankees AL championship series...the Sox have not played well against the MF Yankees the last half of this season, and Manny, Schilling, Wake and Youk all are banged up. Here's hoping the Injuns can take the Yankees out in the first round to clear the Sox' path to the Series.
