Christmas, 2004. Hanging out with the family, immediate and extended. And what do we discuss? What do we re-live? What is on everyone’s minds? Christmas cheer? Reveling in family parties? Presents? Gifts? Santa?
Absolutely not.
It’s all about the 2004 World Series. Naturally.
I haven’t seen all of my cousins since that momentous life-changing occurrence – and so we all had to re-hash it all out. Some of my first memories involve Fenway Park, and being there with all of my cousins (er … of course there are about 40 of us. You know. Catholics.) So it was all about:
“Hi, how are you!” Hugs, kisses. “Merry Christmas!” Brief pause. Then – “HOW BOUT THE SOX???” Screams in the kitchen, etc. Stories needed to be told. We’ve all got one.
“So where were you?” Etc.
Funny – we would all talk for about 2 seconds, calmly, about the specifics of the Series – and then it would hit us all over again, and we would start jumping up and down, high-fiving, whatever.
We still CANNOT BELIEVE IT.
The NESN video “Faith Rewarded”, of course, was involved. Siobhan gave copies of it to my brother, my dad, and on Christmas night, we all sat around, full from my mom’s amazing turkey and stuffing dinner, and watched the entire season unfold again. It was FABULOUS. It was as though we were seeing it all for the first time. We all erupted into cheers at the same moments, we howled like gladiators when Varitek shoved his mitt in A-Rod’s face, we roared with laughter at Mentkievitch’s thoughts on being traded (whatever, don’t spell-check me on that name) – He described walking into the locker room on the day he was traded to the Sox, and seeing Nomar packing up his bags. Mentkievitch said, in an interview, “I was like … Please tell me I didn’t just get traded for Nomar Garciaparra. I mean … I think I’m a pretty good player … but … I’m not that good.” heh heh heh We marveled at Pokey Reese. We cheered Curt Schilling. We marveled, once again, at the bloody sock … and were in awe of the look on his face. It was obvious he was in agony … but there was armor over the agony. He needed to get the feckin’ job DONE. We laughed at Manny Rivera’s goofball 3 Stooges behavior in the outfield – tripping on NOTHING. And then the famous under-handed Foulke throw to first … We still can’t get used to it, we still can’t believe it … We clapped, cheered, whooped, hollered … NO TIME HAS PASSED. The shock-waves of our triumph have not settled down. It still has reverb.
We saw the Sullivan cousins and the O’Malley cousins (and aunts, and uncles, and significant others, etc.) on Sunday … and it was pretty much all Sox all the time.
I got that DVD for Christmas (shocking, I know); it rocks. I love the cooking with Ortiz extra.
I like the handshake segment. Hysterical!!
Dude, I was in Quincy on Sunday. For about 2 hours. I looked for you out of the window of my car. Only … I don’t know what you look like.
:) Hope you had a nice holiday.
I look Irish mostly.
Next time you’re in the neighborhood you gotta call.
“I look Irish mostly”. heh heh Doesn’t everyone in that neck of the woods??
We drove through Quincy Center – it looked gorgeous.
//Doesn’t everyone in that neck of the woods??//
Pretty much.
And yeah, the lights look lovely there this time of year. You probably passed with in a block of me. Very odd to think of, ships in the night and what not.
My dad’s side of the family is almost entirely Catholic. (Our wee Protestant branch is the exception, thanks to my Presbyterian great-grandmother. Big scandal back in the day.) My husband met the bulk of them for the first time at our wedding.
As we left the church, he said, “I’ve never met so many Joes in my life.”
Dan – I know. I wondered where you lived, and all that jazz. We came into Quincy on the … er … Forsooth Parkway? I know that’s not the right name, but it’s something like that.
It’s probably good we didn’t hook up, though, because I am now sick as a dog. With some horrific 24 hour thing, involving barfing and other unmentionables. I woke up with it this morning, but I am sure I was a “carrier” of it on Sunday night.
//I know that’s not the right name, but it’s something like that.//
I think I’ll call that from now on. It’s so… Shakespearean.
Let’s see… Sunday night? Was riding out the storm down at the local. Prolly not the best place for an ailing young woman.
Ah, the 2004 World Series – the ‘gift’ that will keep on giving?
You know, I was in Boston for a series of meetings at the coporate office the week of Games 5,6,7 of the ALCS… Didn’t get hardly any work that I had played to get done because Monday through Thursday nobody could seem to get to work on time (if at all) and if and when they did arrive many were too hung over to be of any use to me!
Still I’m glad I was in the Boston area that week rather than New York.
BTW, watching the ALCS made me a big fan or Manny Ortiz…
(umm. being relatively new here, is making fun of John Kerry verboten here?.. If so I apologize)
I am a big fan of making fun of anyone if they do or say something stupid.
The Manny Ortiz comment was fully lampooned in all my Red Sox posts this fall. :)
On the serious side, Ortiz was an obvious choice for the ALCS, but I’m kind of miffed he didn’t get it for the WS. So I did a little research:
Sure Manny had a higher batting average but David had a higher slugging percentage and the same number of RBIs and HRs (both were equally important first inning shots that put Boston was ahead).
In the critical game one, don’t forget it was Ramirez that had back-to-back errors that let the Cards back into the game. Meanwhile, Ortiz had 4 critical RBIs in that game. Even though Ramirez went 3 for 5, he left 4 on base.
Game 2, both played okay, it was never close after the fourth.
Game 3, where Ramirez has his best case for MVP, he went 2 for 4 with 2 RBIs. He also threw out Walker at home for the third out in the first (bases were loaded)… BUT, it wasn’t that difficult of a throw (he was coming in on an easy fly to shallow left center) and he almost blew it by missing the cut-off man causing an “almost” double hop which Veritek did a great job of digging out and had to reach way out to make the tag. PLUS, Ortiz playing 1B, with a man on 2nd and 3rd and no outs, makes a hugh heads up play. After making the easy out at first, he throws a bullet to third to tag out Suppan… Instead of men on 2nd and 3rd one out; it’s a man on 2nd, 2 outs.
Game 4 another game that neither man was the hero although Manny was thrown out at home on an non-forced fielder’s choice…
Add that to the fact that the key to the ALCS comeback was Ortiz (I know, I know, we’re not supposed to look at that for WS MVP… but the previous statement IS true) and the fact that Ortiz was payed 1/4 of the amount that Ramirez was and I think you have the right MVP in Ortiz.
NO???
Red Sox fans here may already be aware of this, but there’s a kick-ass rock & roll band from Boston called Dropkick Murphys who have been huge boosters of the hometown teams. They put out a CD-EP called “Tessie” a while back in support of the Sox – you ought to grab a copy if you get a chance. Besides being crazed Boston fans, these guys are good.
I forgot to give the link – here’s the page with the
story behind Tessie.