World Champs

The Boston Red Sox did something last night they haven't done since 1918.

They clinched a World Series at home.

Ninety-five years ago, Babe Ruth was a Boston pitcher. Woodrow Wilson was president. The Great War was coming to a close.

Above, you will see a photo of me at the Fens in 2009. Please note that I was sporting a Red Sox beard four years before the Red Sox did. You have me to thank (or blame) for that trend.

Goodnight, Beantown. Party hard.

24 hours in Boston

BOSTON, July 25 -- John Updike once called Fenway Park "a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.

"Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg."

So it is. The Fens is the oldest park in the majors. It is shoved into an old part of Beantown, on Yawkey Way, complete with its funky triangle, the Pesky Pole and that hypnotic Green Monster.

This is a cathedral. This is the greatest place to watch the greatest game.

Oh, and what a perfect night. The Sox win 7-2. Big Papi and Adam LaRoche hit dingers, the latter over that beautiful wall.

An hour before game time, I was sitting in "You've got to be kidding me" seats behind the Sox dugout, throwing back a hot dog dabbed with mustard and ketchup, when I gazed toward first base.

Then I see her.

Yes, Heidi Watney, New England Sports Network reporter. My crush. I could have gone home right then and there.

Sigh.

But, I stayed, and we sang "Sweet Caroline" in the eighth, and Jon Lester threw seven solid innings, and Daniel Bard threw 100 mph heat, and Ramon Ramirez got Adam Jones to fly out to right field. "Dirty Water" and dancing in the streets.

Perfect.

Earlier, we walked to Boston Harbor, passing the meeting house in which Samuel Adams gave the signal to begin the Boston Tea Party. And Boston Massacre sites. And John Hancock's house. And more Sam Adams.

It's enough to stir the soul. USA! USA!

We walked from Quincy Street past the Boston Common to Cheers -- where everybody knows your name. Of course, they didn't. But I stood in front of that famous facade and downed a Sam Adams (the other kind) in Norm Peterson's seat, Norm being everybody's favorite barfly, our lovable CPA known in real life as actor George Wendt. ("NORM!")

In case you missed it, "Cheers" was a classy and well-written sitcom from the 1980s set in a Boston bar. It is a real place formerly called the Bull and Finch. The inside does not look like the TV Cheers, other than the set bar built upstairs. Hence Norm's corner stool. Complete with a brass plaque.

After we left the cathedral, once the "Yankees Suck!" cheers subsided, we walked the streets of this seductive city, past brownstones and beautiful people dressed in coats, ties and dresses, past newspapers tossed onto stoops, past cabbies honking their horns. A hint of saltwater wafted in from the harbor.

Like all things we cherish, the dream had to end. But, not before a perfect 24 hours in Boston, with Cheers and Sam Adams and fresh shrimp and Heidi Watney and the lyric little bandbox of a ballpark mixed into a summer sojourn to remember.

Perfect.

Rainy night in Boston

It's raining tonight in Beantown.

Nope, I'm not there. Just watching on the tube thanks to the fine folks at FOX. The Red Sox are beating the Rockies 4-1 in the bottom of the fourth as I type this.

Couldn't help but think about the late, great A. Bartlett Giamatti. If Bart were still alive, he'd no doubt be at Fenway tonight. Or at least watching from Martha's Vineyard, rooting on his beloved Sox.

Thought about his fine little piece, "The Green Fields of the Mind," about the end of a long ago season. It started raining that game, too, as Giamatti made his way out of the park.

"It breaks your heart," Bart said of this great game. And, of course, it does.

Former UT quarterback Todd Helton is the longtime Rockies first baseman. This is his first World Series. Guess that's why I'm rooting for the Mile High boys this fall.

I'll fly up to Boston one of these days, though. Take in a weekend game at Fenway before they shut this grand old park town. Then, I'll rent a car and drive up to Maine, maybe say howdy to Halls High grad Jim Marine and his wife.

I need to get to Maine anyway. That state, along with Minnesota and North Dakota, are the only three in the contiguous 48 I've yet to visit.

I would complain about thoughts of being without the game for the next five months. But we've got basketball to play in Big Orange Country, y'all.

OK, gotta go. Francis is in trouble again. Bases loaded, 2-1 count to Tek.

Gotta enjoy this while it lasts.