Fair warning: It’s another long one!
- So I get to my seat in time for the pre-game festivities.  To start the game, Kelly and I are in singles on opposite sides.  She’s on the first base side and I’m on the third base line.  Just before I’m about to walk the mile of stairs to my seat, a couple try to sneak by me.  I turn, along with my bag, and knock the beer right out of the guy’s hand. His girl yells, “that was an eight-dollar beer!” and I sheepishly smile and continue to my seat. (Were this a regular-season game, I’d have bought the guy another beer. But this is the playoffs. For all I know, they worked for Fox.) I’m sitting at the top of an aisle.  You walk up this aisle and halfway it stops and you come to my seat.   “Hello!” Prior to the start of the game, at least five people walk all the way up the aisle, thinking they can get to their seats, only to be greeted by me, sitting in my seat, smiling. I sit next to a lovely, friendly couple who have season tickets and like to talk about baseball.  Things are looking up since the near-brawl in the beer line.
- Another odd Rockies fan encounter:  While I’m talking to the perfectly nice man next to me, two Rockies fans turn to us and start waving their signs at us.  Their signs read:  “We love our Rockiesâ€.  We can’t figure out why they would feel the need to wave these AT Red Sox fans.  Perfectly nice man deadpans to them, “Good for you†and gives them a golf clap.
- For some inexplicable reason, they don’t announce the team rosters individually.  Everyone comes milling out onto the field.  Rockies in front of me, Sox in front of Kelly.  They then introduce the starting lineups.  I feel a little cheated, or at least disappointed. I wanted Kyle Snyder to get ‘announced’ at Fenway.  I suspect they made the decision to forgo the entire team announcements in the event Red Sox fans planned on letting the Front Office know exactly how they felt about Eric Gagne being on the roster.
- John Williams and the Boston Pops do a stirring rendition of the National Anthem.  (Although someone hits some bad-ass note to start things off.  AUGH MY EARS!)  While they are all leaving the field, PA announcer Carl Beane tells us to watch the scoreboard and we get to see Red Sox highlights set to the music of Mr. Williams.  I see my team and I hear the Jurassic Park theme and I cry.
- The Sox have trotted out the big old American Flag and have it hanging on the Green Monster. Admittedly, they do this a lot.  And I’ve been at Fenway in person to see it many, many times.  Regardless, it never gets old.  Hell, I even know what awaits behind the flag, yet I STILL get excited when I see members of the ’67 Red Sox come out and walk across the field.  The game hasn’t begun yet, and I think I’ve already screamed and cheered more than I did all season long. Yaz throws out the ceremonial first pitch and then high-fives his old teammates. All the while, still looking a bit cranky.
- Johnny Pesky places the game ball on the rubber on the mound…and there are more tears.
- For the love of God, when the hell is this game going to start?
- Hey, it’s time to start the game, HOORAY!
- First Inning – Beckett strikes out the side and the guy from the friendly couple next to me gently high fives me. (I love when guys do that. As if my dainty hands are too delicate to take on a real high-five!) Oh and not too soon after Pedroia smacks Jeff Francis’ second pitch out of the park. At this moment, I scream “MUNCHKIN!!!!!!!!” and friendly guy high fives me so hard I fall back into my seat.
- Sox score three runs before the first inning is over and I look around for a Rockies fan. Any Rockies fan. Can’t see any. Well, I did see one and he was taking OFF his Rockies cap. Way to show support fella!
- Second Inning – Sox score another run thanks to Youk and Papi. I like this scoring every inning stuff.
- Third Inning – JD Drew grounds out to make the second out of the inning. Idiot woman behind me screams for him to “start earning his money!!”.  I control myself enough that I don’t slap her around, but I do glare at her. I’m so intimidating.
- All the while, during these innings, the crowd is chanting “Fran-cis”. A small part of me feels sorry for him. Another part of me thinks it’s funny. Yet another part of me starts thinking about “The Simpsons” episode with all the baseball players as ringers for Mr. Burns:
Bart & Lisa:Â Â Daarrryl! Daarrryl!
Marge: Children, that’s not very nice!
Lisa:  Mom, they’re professional athletes; they’re used to this sort of thing. It rolls right off their backs.Â
Marge: Children, that’s not very nice!
Lisa:  Mom, they’re professional athletes; they’re used to this sort of thing. It rolls right off their backs.Â
*Strawberry silently wipes away a tear
I’m slightly sadistic that way.
- Fourth Inning – With every two-strike count (beginning in the first inning) we’re standing with Josh. The ten/eleven year old kid behind me is getting pissed and keeps complaining to his mother. A woman who tells him to, basically, suck it up. Also, Sox score after Francis loads the bases by intentionally walking Mike Lowell to pitch to Jason Varitek (who proceeds to hit a ground-rule double. Smart move, Clint!). JD ends the inning by striking out. Stupid woman yells about his salary again. I, amazingly, don’t kill her.
-  Fifth Inning – Julio Lugo gets things started with a single and when Franklin Morales (now in for the hapless Mr. Francis) keeps throwing to first, some guys behind me start yelling “Don’t deny us our tacos!!!!!!!!” Sadly, he does. But only because Jacoby Ellsbury bunts into a fielder’s choice and Lugo is out at second. Oh well. There will be tacos soon!  Morales balks (something I completely miss because the guy in the row ahead of us decides now is a good time to go get a beer) Jacoby to second and Youk doubles him home. This is followed by many singles, doubles and a walk which net us 3 more runs. But wait! The fun isn’t over yet. Morales is replaced by Ryan Speier. Now they’ll show us!  3 more walks, 3 more runs. Goodbye, Ryan. Thanks for coming. Matt Herges comes in and gets Youk out to end the inning. A seven-run, fifth inning. During the first game of the World Series. The guy next to me is practically hugging me at this point.
- Sixth Inning – It is at this point, that I get a text message from Kelly telling me that the couple next to her have left the game so I can go over and sit with her. Yes, you read that correctly. Going into the sixth inning of a World Series game, they left. Turns out they knew the owner of the Rockies and had a party to get to. Well, thank you, I now get to spend the rest of the game with my friend, and experience the World Series from two different views!
I’ve neglected to mention that, during the entire game, I was texting with many of my friends. The majority of the messages were incoming and most had to do with how good it was that I was at the game and not having to listen to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. I absolutely love the texting function on my cell phone. It always makes me feel like my friends are with me at the game even when they aren’t!
-  Seventh Inning – Jeez this is a long game! Carl Beane announces that Coco Crisp is in, replacing Manny, and Coco gets quite the ovation. Oh how we long for a world where Coco and Jacoby can co-exist without us having to pick a favorite.  Ashanti sings “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch and I long for John Williams.
- Eighth Inning – Kelly had seen Manny Delcarmen warming up, so with my back to the field, I am stunned to hear the beginning strains of “Black Betty”. Anyone who has ever sat at a game with me when that song comes on, knows what happens next. I scream my patented ‘woo’ scream (that, apparently, needs to be heard to be truly appreciated) and I scare the hell out of the two, twenty-something Rockies fans I’m now sitting next to. Seem like nice enough kids, though, and they keep asking the guys behind us questions about Fenway, the Sox and Boston sports in general. We get to see Eric Hinkse and Coco Crisp bat in a World Series game, and even though they both make outs, we cheer them and show them the love. The Rockies fans get to experience “Sweet Caroline” and look a bit…stunned. My man Mike, incidentally, pitches a 1-2-3 inning – striking out Willy Tavares and the weight-lifting, Matt Holliday.
- Holy cow it’s the ninth inning! Did I really think this game was taking a long time? It can’t be over yet!!
- I’m probably right about that since Eric Gagne is coming into the game. One of the guys behind me taps one of the Rockies fans on the shoulder and says, “Don’t worry, your team still has a really good chance to come back!”. Not getting the significance of what he’s being told, the Rockies fan responds with, “I just want it to be OVER!”.
- Depending on your point of view, Gagne either disappoints or he doesn’t. Dude pitches a clean inning and, like that, the game is over. We scream, we yell, we high five and we sing “Dirty Water”, “Tessie” and “Joy to the World”. We then high-tail it out of there and actually snag SEATS on the train. Tonight, God loves the Red Sox and their fans. Take that, Rockies!
- On the train, I turn to Kelly and tell her I have the urge to…hell I just go ahead and let out a ‘woo-hoo’! What a friggin’ fabulous night! We part ways, I get a cab driver who wants to talk about baseball, and I’m home around before 1am. (I then, of course, stay up until 2am watching Comcast Sports Net, NESN and ESPN!)
As I said in part one, this was a dream come true for me. One of my bosses remarked the next day that this is something I can ‘check off’ my list. It hadn’t occurred to me that way until he said it. How amazing that, thanks to the generosity of a friend and the talents of the Boston Red Sox, I get to do something I really only had dreamed of?
I keep telling people what a wonderful time I would have had, even if they had lost. And that’s true. But, dammit, being there for such a convincing win, that just made it all the more special.
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