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  1. #31181
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueTeuf View Post
    My story revolves around Game 4 of the League Championship series in 2004. And is told from the perspective of a Yankee fan who had never stepped foot into Fenway Park.

    As a military officer, I was granted a one-year fellowship at the Kennedy School and dutifully moved our family of 6 into the upper unit of an up/down duplex in the Boston suburbs. Our downstairs neighbors were a young couple and "of the city" in every sense. As BU grads they were devout hockey fans - but their attachment to the Red Sox was on another level altogether. Think Fever Pitch - and I mean the movie, not the book.

    Youth and our family's hopscotch domiciles had forestalled the development of any serious rooting interests in our kids (other than Dear ol' Duke). And our neighbors quite innocently started shaping them into Red Sox fans through their passion and energy. Truthfully, I had no objection. I enjoy and respect invested fandom as long as it isn't mean-spirited and confrontational. So, that season was full of baseball chatter with my kids and neighbors arrayed against me - and my wife on the sidelines.

    The LCS was going poorly for the Red Sox - and that may be an understatement. The Yankees had scored 32(!) runs in striding out to a 3-0 series lead. And no team in history had ever come back from 0-3 to win an LCS.

    That afternoon Mike (my neighbor) and I were playing some public court tennis. I started needling my friend about the desperation that had seeped into Bostonian discourse. I intoned it might be time for me to visit hallowed Yawkey Way, gracing Fenway Park with my presence. As I gently put it, “Surely Red Sox fans would be dumping tickets in this lost cause.”

    To Mike's credit, he did the opposite of chasing my troll. Instead, he became enthused at the idea of catching the game live, dialed up his wife and locked me in to my own unserious proposal.

    And off we went. We did score tickets at about 80% of face, settled into seats well back of the right field wall and commenced to enjoy a terrific, taut game. Although a close-fought affair, by the bottom of the ninth inning there was a tilt toward the Yankees with Mariano Rivera striding toward the mound needing three more outs to secure a one-run victory. And if the greatest closer in the history of the game could avoid a blown save, the Yankees would be through to the Word Series.

    The Red Sox had other ideas, scratching out a tying run. Extra innings. In the 12th inning Big Papi plunks a 2-run walk-off about 15 rows in front of me and the stadium explodes. EXPLODES. It was something else. Delirious, raucous, sustained ...and uplifting. Mike was in full emote, pogo-ing up and down, waving his phone in semi-circles, apparently "live-streaming" the moment to his brother in Florida - on his tiny, 2004-era Motorola flip phone, mind you. His wife is sobbing, crying, wailing – hugging indiscriminately; even me, the enemy.

    I’m like, “geez folks, it’s one game”. The Yanks are up 3-1 and any path includes a trip back through the Bronx. But of course, it wasn’t just one game. It was the start of something. The Sox would win the next three and sweep the Cards. They never lost again.

    How could this happen? Well in my usual, insightful, self-aggrandizing manner I decided the key difference was me and my somewhat casual decision to grace Fenway with my presence. And unwittingly reverse the curse.

    You’re welcome. Respect.
    Were you lightning in a bottle or are there similar events in your past?

  2. #31182
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Off for a hike in a nearby national park. Mid-60’s here right now. Awesome!
    Was it a dry coolness?

  3. #31183
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by YmoBeThere View Post
    Was it a dry coolness?
    Humidity around 60%, which for here and now is dry.

  4. #31184
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueTeuf View Post
    My story revolves around Game 4 of the League Championship series in 2004. And is told from the perspective of a Yankee fan who had never stepped foot into Fenway Park.

    As a military officer, I was granted a one-year fellowship at the Kennedy School and dutifully moved our family of 6 into the upper unit of an up/down duplex in the Boston suburbs. Our downstairs neighbors were a young couple and "of the city" in every sense. As BU grads they were devout hockey fans - but their attachment to the Red Sox was on another level altogether. Think Fever Pitch - and I mean the movie, not the book.

    Youth and our family's hopscotch domiciles had forestalled the development of any serious rooting interests in our kids (other than Dear ol' Duke). And our neighbors quite innocently started shaping them into Red Sox fans through their passion and energy. Truthfully, I had no objection. I enjoy and respect invested fandom as long as it isn't mean-spirited and confrontational. So, that season was full of baseball chatter with my kids and neighbors arrayed against me - and my wife on the sidelines.

    The LCS was going poorly for the Red Sox - and that may be an understatement. The Yankees had scored 32(!) runs in striding out to a 3-0 series lead. And no team in history had ever come back from 0-3 to win an LCS.

    That afternoon Mike (my neighbor) and I were playing some public court tennis. I started needling my friend about the desperation that had seeped into Bostonian discourse. I intoned it might be time for me to visit hallowed Yawkey Way, gracing Fenway Park with my presence. As I gently put it, “Surely Red Sox fans would be dumping tickets in this lost cause.”

    To Mike's credit, he did the opposite of chasing my troll. Instead, he became enthused at the idea of catching the game live, dialed up his wife and locked me in to my own unserious proposal.

    And off we went. We did score tickets at about 80% of face, settled into seats well back of the right field wall and commenced to enjoy a terrific, taut game. Although a close-fought affair, by the bottom of the ninth inning there was a tilt toward the Yankees with Mariano Rivera striding toward the mound needing three more outs to secure a one-run victory. And if the greatest closer in the history of the game could avoid a blown save, the Yankees would be through to the Word Series.

    The Red Sox had other ideas, scratching out a tying run. Extra innings. In the 12th inning Big Papi plunks a 2-run walk-off about 15 rows in front of me and the stadium explodes. EXPLODES. It was something else. Delirious, raucous, sustained ...and uplifting. Mike was in full emote, pogo-ing up and down, waving his phone in semi-circles, apparently "live-streaming" the moment to his brother in Florida - on his tiny, 2004-era Motorola flip phone, mind you. His wife is sobbing, crying, wailing – hugging indiscriminately; even me, the enemy.

    I’m like, “geez folks, it’s one game”. The Yanks are up 3-1 and any path includes a trip back through the Bronx. But of course, it wasn’t just one game. It was the start of something. The Sox would win the next three and sweep the Cards. They never lost again.

    How could this happen? Well in my usual, insightful, self-aggrandizing manner I decided the key difference was me and my somewhat casual decision to grace Fenway with my presence. And unwittingly reverse the curse.

    You’re welcome. Respect.
    And I just noticed the MAJOR mistake in my previous post. The Good Luck Butt Rub was first used during Game 4, not Game 3. I'm a depressed 9 months pregnant woman who has just rubbed her belly against the tv (OK, I did it in the 9th inning), feeling that familiar feeling that if the Red Sox are going to break my heart again, just do it so I can go to sleep! I was in a state of near delirium from exhaustion when I made a deal that I couldn't go on and that if the Red Sox didn't do something this inning (the 12th), I was going to sleep without knowing.

    Yes, Ortiz deserves all the accolades, but none of it happens without Dave Roberts - number 1 on the list of athletes who will never have to pay for a beer in Boston again.

  5. #31185
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    North Country, New York State
    Quote Originally Posted by YmoBeThere View Post
    Were you lightning in a bottle or are there similar events in your past?
    Hmmm, upon my arrival as a freshman in the fall of '80 Duke had achieved exactly zero national championships in any team sport. Look what the intervening years have brought? Now some would point to other key personnel changes that same year, or perhaps mention Brooks, Danowski, etc.

    But no, just an event that I'm appreciative to have experienced in person - and still fondly recall.

  6. #31186
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueTeuf View Post
    Hmmm, upon my arrival as a freshman in the fall of '80 Duke had achieved exactly zero national championships in any team sport. Look what the intervening years have brought? Now some would point to other key personnel changes that same year, or perhaps mention Brooks, Danowski, etc.

    But no, just an event that I'm appreciative to have experienced in person - and still fondly recall.
    You're the same year as my husband.

  7. #31187
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    North Country, New York State
    Quote Originally Posted by Bostondevil View Post
    You're the same year as my husband.
    G-A,G-A,G-A, House CC

  8. #31188
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    House I, Wilson, off campus.

  9. #31189
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueTeuf View Post
    G-A,G-A,G-A, House CC
    Did you throw peanuts at me when I was helping the Women of Aycock win the last ever spirit keg?

    I was Aycock, House G, House G, Cleland.

  10. #31190
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Quote Originally Posted by Bostondevil View Post
    House I, Wilson, off campus.
    Truly the pinnacle of dormitory living.

  11. #31191
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by wilson View Post
    Truly the pinnacle of dormitory living.
    Mos def.

  12. #31192
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Hanes
    Wilson
    Wilson (suite)
    Somewhere behind Baldwin off campus

  13. #31193
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    North Country, New York State
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueTeuf View Post
    G-A,G-A,G-A, House CC
    Trivia time! What is 100% singular about the sequence G-A, G-A, G-A?

    I'd offer a prize but DBR always gets to the right answer.

    Hint in white font below...

    Years were 80/81, 81/82 and 82/83

  14. #31194
    The thing I like about This Old House is the predominantly Boston area focus.

  15. #31195
    G-A was freshman only by the time I got there.

    I was Pegram, Central, House H, House H.

  16. #31196
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    North Country, New York State
    Quote Originally Posted by YmoBeThere View Post
    G-A was freshman only by the time I got there.

    I was Pegram, Central, House H, House H.
    Our daughter was a freshman in Pegram - but East Campus had been all-freshman for eighteen years by then.

  17. #31197
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueTeuf View Post
    Hmmm, upon my arrival as a freshman in the fall of '80 Duke had achieved exactly zero national championships in any team sport. Look what the intervening years have brought? Now some would point to other key personnel changes that same year, or perhaps mention Brooks, Danowski, etc.

    But no, just an event that I'm appreciative to have experienced in person - and still fondly recall.

    We're going to have to work on the marketing pitch a bit. Any connections to Chicago and the Cubs?

  18. #31198
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Quote Originally Posted by YmoBeThere View Post
    G-A was freshman only by the time I got there.

    I was Pegram, Central, House H, House H.
    I was Epworth, Wannamaker, House HH, off-campus.

  19. #31199
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    North Country, New York State
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueTeuf View Post
    G-A,G-A,G-A, House CC
    Trivia time! What is 100% singular about the sequence G-A, G-A, G-A?

    Quote Originally Posted by YmoBeThere View Post
    G-A was freshman only by the time I got there.
    Well that's the essence of the question - Gilbert-Addoms went all-freshman in the fall of 1982. I was a resident for my frosh/soph years and would be back as a Resident Advisor (RA) in fall of '82 - which I believe to be unique.

  20. #31200
    You must hwve really liked that oval driveway!

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