FINALLY!!

I wanted to wait a few hours before I wrote this blog about my team, The Boston Red Sox, finally winning a World Series in my lifetime. I wanted to try to gain some perspective instead of writing on pure adrenaline. But here it is, roughly 17 hours after Game 4 and it's still all adrenaline. I'm still as excited as I was at the moment when Keith Foulke flipped the ball to Dougie M. at 1st base to clinch the championship. But I need to write because I feel so proud of my team at this moment. For once, it's not about the Yankees and Red Sox. But rather, it's about the Red Sox and Red Sox Nation, of which I am a loyal member.

At 34, I have followed baseball since I was 8. I am a Red Sox fan because Fenway Park is where my father and grandfather took me for my first baseball game in 1978. My father is a Giants fan; my grandfather, who passed away in 2002, a dreaded Yankee fan. So last night's win was all about me and my baseball past. I have no older family members with Red Sox lineage that waited for last night forever. But I waited 26 years. My first year as a fan, ironically, was the year of Bucky "Bleepin" Dent. Back then, I was too young to have any idea how much torment I would face in the ensuing years as a Red Sox fan. As I grew up I had to face '86 and Bill Buckner; '88 and '90 playoff failures vs the powerful Oakland A's; '95 vs the Indians when Tom Gordon, who was perfect in saves all season, blew his first of the season to deflate us in the ALDS; the '99 ALCS vs the Yankees where we had no chance, and of, course, last year and Aaron Boone. That 's when it almost became too much for me. After that mid-October night I swore I wasn't coming back. I even threw away all my memorabilia. They really crushed me last October and I vowed never to be taken in again. But little by little in the off season the Sox slowly wore me down. First they got Curt Schilling, then Keith Foulke. Then the Yankees got A-Rod. And my fellow members of Red Sox Nation convinced me to come back for one more run. I was hesitant at first, but as soon as pitchers and catchers showed up in February, the Yankee arrogance started to flow and I thought about A-Rod in pinstripes, I declared this season as being armageddon war and I just had to come back. I just couldn't let Aaron Boone be my final moment as a Red Sox fan. There just had to be more. Then the season started and it was still tough. 41-41 after 82 games and thinking, "what has happened here?" This was supposed to be the year. Big Curt promised the Nation that in spring training. Then July 24th came. Ironically I was in Philadelphia that weekend to check out the Phillies' brand new stadium. But I was scoreboard watching and I saw the Sox getting creamed at Fenway by the hated Yankees. But when I got back from the Phillies game, I turned on ESPN News and saw that the Sox came back on the Yanks on a game winning homer by Bill Mueller off "Mr. Untouchable" Mariano Rivera, and that a certain former shortstop (A-Rod) decided to wake up the sleeping Red Sox giant and give it life by challenging our Captain, Jason Varitek, to a fight because he thought he was thrown at. At that moment, I knew the season would go only one way and that was up. I just knew the ensuing brawl would be the spark for this group and I know now I was right, despite what the players themselves say.

That's what makes last night so special. The biggest reason I almost left the Nation after Aaron Boone was because I thought that Red Sox team was the perfect one to bring home a World Series title and they missed their chance. I didn't believe the 2004 team could approach the heights of last year's group. July 24 changed all that. It's like that moment transformed this group into last year's group with a significant difference- great starting pitching. Since that July summer day it's been an unbelievable joy ride. Watching the final out last night I sat calmly still but unbelievably nervous in my chair, as I did the entire game, not wanting to disrupt the karma. But when Foulke stabbed that ground ball and flipped it to first I leapt out of my chair like a ten-year-old and screamed "THEY'RE GONNA WIN THE WORLD SERIES, OH MY GOD!!!" I always wondered what I would do if the Sox actually won it all and now I can't remember what I thought I'd do because now, FINALLY, reality has replaced the dream.

I'm so proud to be a Red Sox fan today and I have shed my tears of joy today in secret and I am so grateful to know this feeling. I'll be at the parade Saturday so I can thank this team in person for all they've done. But for now, I can only say thanks Derek, for showing the guts some people thought you lacked; thanks Big Papi and Manny and Millar, for making baseball a kids' game again if only for one glorious month; thanks Theo, for putting this all together. You have cemented your legacy. Thanks, Tito, for finally showing that you could manage with the best when it came to crunch time. Thanks, Johnny Jesus for hanging in there during your lowest moments at the plate to lift us in the end; thanks Bellhorn for the timely hits off the foul pole; thanks Wake, for your versatility to help us make history vs. the Yankees. Thanks Keith, for choosing to come to us because you wanted to be part of this when it happened; and most of all thank you Big Curt for showing us what winning and courage is all about. You knew the Yankee and World Series ghosts could be had. You lived through it once and won. You simply put the team on your back and said hey, "Why Not Us??" I, along with Red Sox fans everywhere will forever be thankful and grateful for the decision you made to come here. We couldn't have done it without you because you inspired and led the other 24 players. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! THE RED SOX WIN!!!