My Pilgramage
I had been there several times before, as a boy, I would go there with family members. Maybe I was too young, maybe I didn't realize the importance of my journey then. But that has all changed now, I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen what lies on the other side. It's plush green grass, and red clay infields, its tall green walls and giant coke bottles, its Citgo signs and foul poles. It is Fenway Park. Yesterday I sat on top of the world in Section 1 Row 3 Seat 3 atop the Green Monster. There are no words to describe the beauty I saw, America's pastime being played at the highest level in its most beautiful and most storied field. The game was absent everything that has turned the past time brown, there were no talks of inflated salaries and steroid filled muscles, only larger than life stories told over mustard filled Fenway Franks. We searched for Ted Williams seat in centerfield, I touched the same foul pole Carlton Fisk willed his home run into in 1975, I patted THE wall, the Green Monster the same monster that Ted Williams and Yaz, Jim Rice and Mike Greenwell, Manny and Freddy Lynn all shagged fly balls off of. I was able to watch the K Crew hang up 8 red K's for Pedro. And then somewhere, after the wave, but before the seventh inning singing of Take Me Out To The Ball Game I realized baseball isn't dying, even as the juiced up players, and the money grubbing owners hold a pillow over the face of baseball, it will never die. Not when you can high five the guy in the business suit after Nomar hits a double, then turn around and heckle Bernie Williams with the half naked man in the baseball mask. Baseball will live on forever, there will always be stories to tell, and opinions to be had. The could have beens and should have beens that go with baseball especially in Boston.