Crowned Red Sox share joy with all, even classy rivals
BOSTON -- Know what was most noticeable Monday afternoon on the streets outside of Fenway Park as the Boston Red Sox unveiled a brand new season and raised the world champions flag during a classy pregame ceremony?
No horses and buggies.
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| New England icon Johnny Pesky, now 85, is the day's biggest star. (AP) |
Simple fact is, unless you are at least 86 years old, you have never lived through anything like Monday at Fenway Park as the Red Sox picked up their World Series rings and stepped into their encore season.
It was a home opener unique to anybody who wasn't around in 1919, and when the Red Sox went out and kicked the New York Yankees around 8-1 -- just hours after getting manager Terry Francona back from the scary chest-pains episode that took him out of action last week -- it capped off what, for New Englanders, was a photo-album day.
"Oh yeah," designated hitter/team jewelry expert David Ortiz raved. "Everything went perfect."
Unique? Oh, yeah. One other thing made this day thoroughly different from anything we have ever seen here before: While the passion of this Red Sox-Yankees rivalry remains in force, bitterness took the afternoon off. Instead of Don Zimmer chugging across the field intent on taking a pound of Pedro Martinez's flesh, the Yankees, almost to a man, respectfully remained in their dugout and watched the entire pregame ceremony.
As the Red Sox were presented their rings while musicians from the world famous Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops played the background music from their makeshift stage in center field, the visiting dugout remained noticeably full, from manager Joe Torre and general manager Brian Cashman right on down through the players.
"They certainly deserved everything they got today," Torre said. "They won the championship last year, and even though you certainly envy what's going on and you're a little jealous of it doesn't mean that you can ignore it. You can't ignore it, you know, and I think everybody was curious just to see what the Red Sox would do on the day that they got their World Series rings."
It wasn't an orchestrated gesture on the Yankees' part. Torre and Cashman planned to watch, but with game time roughly 45 minutes away, some of the players had indicated that they would probably be in the clubhouse preparing to play. When the time came, though, if any were, their absence wasn't notable.
And it didn't go unnoticed by the Red Sox in their moment of triumph.
"It's not surprising," said Francona. "But a lot of people are making a lot about this rivalry. It's never going to be diminished because there are too many good players and these are two great baseball cities. But I thought what they did was very classy."
Like Francona, Boston leadoff man Johnny Damon acknowledged the Yankees dugout after accepting his ring, too.
"I think the world of that franchise," Damon said. "They're the franchise at the absolute top, with 26 world championships. That's what everybody admires. People admire us for what we've done and for what we've accomplished, but that franchise is looked at as the model.
"That's a pretty good accomplishment they have, and for them to respect what we did, it means a lot."
Damon stopped himself, almost embarrassed.
"It kind of sounds like we're all buddy-buddy," he said. "But it's going to continue to be a great rivalry."
The buddy-buddy aspect started way earlier in the day -- sort of. During pregame introductions, the 33,702 packing Fenway Park accorded Yankees closer Mariano Rivera a raucous -- if sarcastic -- ovation. Rivera blew two save opportunities against the Red Sox last week in New York and blew save chances in Games 4 and 5 of last fall's American League Championship Series.
That's four in a row to Boston, and Red Sox fans obviously appreciate it. In another Yankee moment to remember on this day, Rivera, standing on the third-base foul line, doffed his cap and grinned broadly as the cheers rained down on him.
"I thought he was a good sport about it, too," Torre said. "You know, it's what they do here. And, of course, Yankee Stadium is no different."
Said third baseman Alex Rodriguez: "That was classic. Classic. I never thought I'd see people in Boston cheer Mo Rivera."
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| Mariano Rivera turns a thunderous sarcastic ovation into a winning moment with style. (AP) |
They also chanted his name derisively -- "A-Rod! A-Rod!" -- bringing to mind the taunting chants of "Darr-yl! Darr-yl!" during the 1986 World Series here.
"I think I've become a cult hero in Boston," A-Rod said. "I don't want that. I really don't want that."
Mostly, though, the afternoon was about smiles, laughter and lumps in the throat. Francona, who was rushed to a New York hospital last week and did not accompany the team to Toronto over the weekend per doctor's orders, received one of the loudest ovations when he came out to receive his ring. Ex-Red Sox pitcher Derek Lowe, now pitching for Los Angeles, flew in on a Dodgers off day and also received a rousing ovation.
Lowe was visibly touched. Standing in line on the field next to Jason Varitek, Lowe leaned over and told his former catcher, "You're lucky. You're going to play here for the next four years."
Later, Lowe talked about how this day was good for the organization, not only because it capped off 86 years that were often torturous, but because "it's a great way to finalize last year" and now "the focus can be on this year."
Lowe would do well to take his own advice. He did express some bitterness at the Sox's decision not to bring him back for 2005 -- "They obviously made the decision to go with (Matt) Clement and (David) Wells over Pedro and myself" -- but that, too, is part of the banner-raising and ring-getting: In today's business-oriented baseball world, not everybody gets invited back for another ride.
In the dugout, when they unspooled a Green Monster-sized banner touting the Red Sox as 2004 world champs -- literally, the thing covered nearly the entire Green Monster, but it was only a temporary banner until the raising of the actual championship flag about 30 minutes later -- Damon said "grown men were ready to cry."
One of them was legendary former infielder Johnny Pesky, still in uniform to this day during batting practice before home games.
What kind of emotions swirled through the soul of this former teammate of Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr and Dominic DiMaggio?
"I can't tell you," Pesky said. "Unbelievable.
"I never dreamed anything like this would ever happen to me. I really didn't."
And then, after all of the rings were handed out -- yes, Pesky got one -- and the entire team went out to the flag pole out beyond the center field fence to raise the championship flag ... and when a couple dozen former Red Sox joined them out there to help (DiMaggio, Doerr, Jim Lonborg, Luis Tiant, Dwight Evans, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice and Fred Lynn, among others) ....
"Oooh, boy, I'll tell you what, I had tears in my eyes when I saw that," said Pesky, born on Sept. 27, 1919. "It was a very emotional day."
And, now, it is a completely different world. The Great Molasses Flood that brought the city to its knees following a factory explosion sounds kind of comical now from afar, but back in January 1919, it was a terrible, terrible thing.
According to the Boston Evening Globe, people tried to outrun the molasses as it gushed down the city streets, but the torrent was so rapid -- legend has it that the molasses was traveling up to 35 miles an hour -- that many people either drowned when they fell or were "hurled against solid objects." A total of 21 people were killed and more than 150 were injured.
If you closed your eyes hard enough at Fenway Park on Monday ... well, no, really, you still couldn't imagine what life must have been like on that April day in 1919 when the Red Sox last started a home season as world champions.
"I found the pregame ceremony really emotional," said commissioner Bud Selig, who made sure to arrive early so he could see it all. "I couldn't help but think of what Yaz and Johnny Pesky and Dominic must have been thinking. It was very well done.
"And I give the Yankees a lot of credit. They never left their dugout. They were very classy. I'm not the least bit surprised, knowing them as I do. I've known Joe for a long time, and you can always count on him to do the right thing."
