I was headed down to Kenmore Square as a freshman at Boston University during Game 6 in 1986. I've never seen a public area so animated-crawling with news vans and excited fans, all ready to explode. I was ready to join in the madness, but it all ended so quickly. It was as if someone had dropped a bomb of silence: everyone slunk back indoors, into bars, dorms, cars, the T stations, anywhere but out in the open. I couldn't fathom that what we were seeing was real, and I carried that sense of impossible silence with me as a Sox fan going forward. I read everything published in the papers over the following few days, and when the lead was inevitably blown in Game 7, I remember feeling a palpable kinship with the lifers down at the Holiday Inn bar on Comm Ave-a Sox scout hangout at that time-of an opportunity missed that might never come again.
17 years later, in 2003, it happened again. The improbable rally against Pedro the invincible in Game 7 in NY. I was married, with 2 young kids by then, and they couldn't understand why it was so difficult to get past that loss.
In 2004, my wife was in India, doing humanitarian work during the ALCS. We lived in Minnesota by this point in our lives. I only got to speak with her via phone (they had zero internet access) after game 3 of the ALCS, and told her the Sox were down 3-0 after getting blitzed. She shared the news with the people she was traveling with, all of whom were pulling for the Sox to make the Series. I remember it being a particularly difficult time for me personally, mainly because of the strain on our family as my wife was traveling internationally to do good work. I fully supported her efforts, and was proud to see her taking on such amazing challenges, so it wasn't anything I would have discouraged her from doing, but it was hard to be at home with our young kids, 5 and 7, holding down the fort. She had gone on a similar humanitarian trip to Africa in February of 2004, and this trip to India later that same year was daunting for financial and safety reasons. I missed her desperately while she was gone (2 weeks at a time, usually, sometimes longer), and was fearful of the areas she traveled to. There were no posh hotels or sightseeing excursions. They were helping the most needy people in these areas, and were very vulnerable to lots of negative outcomes. By the time the Red Sox lost Game 3, all I hoped for was one more game, just to have something to get me through the long days without her, something to plan our evenings around-an activity that the kids could share with me. After they rallied to win Game 4 I was so grateful to have another contest to anticipate, and the kids started making drawings of ballfields and writing the names of the players on signs to hold up during the telecasts. It was beautiful to see, and I still have those signs. Because the games ended so late at night, they asked me to write the final scores on a piece of paper and tape it to the bathroom mirror for them to see first thing in the morning. I remember writing those scores with a shaking hand after yet another enervating victory, smiling ear to ear at the thought of their reactions when they got up to learn that there would be another game that night or the next. I'll never forget it.
ON the afternoon of Game 7 against the Yankees, we made a pilgrimage to Chipotle, which was relatively new to our area at that time. From that point on, during any critical sporting contest, trips to Chipotle before the game has become a tradition we still try to observe. After the Sox won that game to make the World Series, my wife finally returned to Minnesota, exhausted but safe. When we met her at the airport, the kids couldn't stop telling her about the amazing comeback the Sox had made to make it to the World Series. At first, she truly didn't believe it, nor did her traveling companions, but eventually they were convinced of the veracity of our claims. We rode home joyously, sharing stories of India and Papi the whole time.
My wife (and kids) did get to witness the final out of Game 4 of that World Series, and I don't know that I've ever been happier at the outcome of a sporting event. So much shared pain and disappointment seemed to be cathartically released when Foulke jumped into the air, and I just collapsed and cried. My wife took a picture of me (and the kids) during that immediate post-game celebration, and that picture hangs in the office of our missions pastor at church. He points to it as evidence of rapturous joy being possible in human beings, not the least bit ironically.
The Red Sox carried me through that challenging time in my life. They gave me the hope of one more game, one more event to anticipate to push out the fear and worry about my wife in a foreign country, and one more bond formed between my kids and I over the power of sports to inspire and enthrall-if only you believe.
Thank you Red Sox. Forever.
