I love a parade

I've said it before but...wow.

Tessie has been running through my head for the past twenty four hours. I'm overtired but smiling constantly and every once in a while wonder how everything fell into place. Then I picture Varitek leaping into Papelbon's arms and Tessie starts playing again.

It was great watching the games at a local bar here in Seattle that the Boston fans have taken over. The back room had about thirty or forty Red Sox fans by first pitch and there were about seventy in the room when the game ended. People even brought iPod/Zune/whatevers and plugged them into the sound system to play Take Me Out To The Ballgame and Sweet Caroline between innings of the game. After the game, we were treated to Dirty Water and Tessie.

A couple minutes after the game ended, I sat in one of the comfy couch seats, watching the players celebrate on the field while people who may or may not have met before high fived each other and bought celebratory champagne and shots.

I still wonder how the ball Jamey Carroll hit stayed in the park, or how Timlin continues to get people out or how the Red Sox bullpen down the stretch of the last two games continued to give the Colorado fans hope but Papelbon simply would not let the Rockies come back all the way. I sent countless text messages to a friend believing that Francona was overusing Okajima and Papelbon in the last two games, actually expecting those home runs before they happened, that Timlin was running on fumes and should not be allowed to come out to start the seventh inning in Game 3. I had conversations with other people near me at the bar between innings where we threw out ideas as to who should pitch which inning. Forgive me, but after Game 3, I even started thinking the Red Sox should bolster their bullpen like the Yankees did in the ALDS by putting Dice-K on the DL and replacing him with Tavarez just to have another reliever available.

And yet...the bullpen held on when it had to. We got an insurance run here or there. If Kielty isn't the only player to homer on the only pitch he's seen in the World Series, he's at the very least in select company. One pitch. 5.000 OPS. Nicely done. Papelbon started looking a little gassed, especially on Carroll's deep drive, but he held on.

Speaking of Papelbon, it's time for me to wrap up this post. I need to finish packing and head to the airport to get back to Boston in time for the parade. I'm taking United red eye with a connection in Chicago, just like I did in 2004. I remember having a two and a half hour layover, and getting to the terminal in Chicago two hours before the flight. Two other fans wearing Sox hats and/or shirts there already. Every few minutes, more people, some individuals, some couples, some families. We all had that "I still can't believe it" look in our eyes. By the time they started boarding, it was obvious that more than half the people on the plane were headed for the parade.

Of course it's different this time. This isn't as cathartic. There's no "They finally won in my lifetime. All this devotion wasn't simply a waste." But it's fresh enough that winning in 2007 stirs a lot of the emotions from 2004. And more importantly...

I keep remembering how it felt to sit in that comfy leather chair, watch the celebration on the field and the celebration around me, smile and think to myself "This never gets old."