2004-10-28 - 1:40 a.m.

The Red Sox Won The World Series

You only get to write about this once.

This is the strangest moment that I have ever had in my life. The Red Sox have won the World Series. This is the end of the Red Sox.

The team that was Boston, the life blood of the streets and meaning of Boston died tonight as they won the World Series Championship after slaying the once unstoppable Yankees.

To start, this means different things to different people.

1) The Rookie
The rookie is someone who doesn�t understand the Red Sox. Sharon is a rookie and doesn�t understand the Red Sox legacy. She started watching them this year and enjoyed their games and watched the greatest comeback from the Yankees, and then their sweep in the World Series. She enjoyed it and cheered that they won. This is a normal and rational reaction. But in the end it�s just another game and the rookies have no sense of the impact on the culture of Boston or comprehension of the event they just watched. It would be like if a high school student watched Ben Franklin discovers electricity; utterly lost in the ignorance of the significance.

2) The Third Generation
This is someone like me. This is a person born in Boston that grew up watching the Sox, but tempered their love because they knew of their history, but still they believed. Their fathers and grandfathers watched the games together and saw the overwhelming bitterness and martyrism of the fans. They didn�t understand, and were hopeful for great things until last year when Arron Boone ended the playoff run with an improbable home run.. This was the introduction to the pain and torture of 86 years of being a Red Sox fan that brought the third generation an understanding of Red Sox Nation.

3) The Second Generations
My father is a second generation Red Sox fan. He couldn�t believe what was happening. The first thing he said to me is �I wish my father could have seen this� and this is because his father, my grandfather is dead. To understand that statement you have to understand that nothing makes ME happier than for my father to see this and second, the Red Sox winning this series is akin to nothing else that has happened in this Region. It was built to the be the single greatest moment in this city.

4) The First Generation
This is my grandmother who was keeping score with her scorecard at home like she as for the past 86 years. I called them before and she was literally beaming with hope and jubilation at the fact that she could see this day. She told me that this day would be something special that she hopes that I could understand. I can only try.

This is why ESPN wrote about how angry Red Sox Nation has become at the bandwagon. This is why we have been so non-accepting of the people who joined in the Sox cheers. We feel like the pain of the city has been lifted, and the impossible has occurred.

We are in unknown territory. For the past 86 years this team has been the tragic hero of sports. We are personification of heartbreak and the little train that could of competition. . It has been a long climb up a hill that we kept falling down and all the while no one really believed that we could make it we finally made it to the top of the Apex.

But this is why our team is the very soul of bittersweet; for while this train just reached the top of the hill we now know that there is NO where to go but down.

I am the father of the bride, and I am giving away my daughter. You have to understand that I was happy. I was happy with the losing and the heartbreak and the pain of being a fan, just as a father is happy with his daughter as she grows up despite the pain she might cause him. But today, I have to give up the heartbreak, the loss, and the curse.

Today I have to give the Red Sox away because they are no longer the team I loved. This doesn�t mean I can�t still love them but they cannot remain the same team they once were.

They are the heroes that broke the curse. I am happy for them, but at the same time there is such sadness in the fact that they are gone. The mythos and legend of the Red Sox has dissipated into the city with this series sweep of St. Louis. The team will become the living legend and the city will honor them in such a way that no sports team has ever been honored.

But I am so sad that the poster above this computer that says �Reverse the Curse� is now an antique that I will laminate and save so that when I have children I can tell them about this day. They will come to know the stories and the triumph and I will try to show them that anything is possible.

But I am sad that they will not be able to learn this for themselves and experience the joy and sadness of the Red Sox.

No one else will ever be able to write about this. No one else will be able to understand this. No one will be able to understand how much this meant to the tradition and culture of this city.

The �B� on our Boston caps stood for believe.

We believed and our wish was granted. We are the Champions for a day. I will remember this for my entire life as something I never thought could happen.

But I will also remember that now the �B� just stands for Boston and I am left with the old saying �be careful what you wish for�

Because we got it.

before - After

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