Beth and I dropped our bags off at Suzy Dempsey's apartment, the very same one that Max Cascone lived in a few years earlier. We hit up an Allston party hosted by the Shern, the New Orleans native who surprised us all by providing a tasty keg (and a full bar). Thanks Shern! Chilling with Brian Merz, Austin, Suzy, and Farragh made me feel like I never left and not a minute had passed. But the truth is that time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'...

Saturday was a perfect day for baseball: sunny, warm, and pleasant. Before heading over to the Park ("pa'k"), we enjoyed a greasy meal at the Grecian Diner on Harvard Ave. (Some things never change.) Then it was down to business--the game. David Wells, in his second start of his second stint on the Yankees was taking on an injured and shaken Pedro Martinez. I walked down to the bullpens from the bleachers and told Boomer to go get 'em. I didn't say a word to Pedro but wondered if I was seeing the end of a legend. A Red Sox fan commented about Matt and I wearing a Red Sox and a Yankee cap, respectively. "That's an interesting friendship," he said. Matt and I agreed and smiled.

Pedro got rocked in the top of the first, giving up a bases loaded triple to Jorge Posada and letting one more runin for a quick 4-0 Yankee lead. Beth, Suzy, and I started hollering, and the rest of the bleachers just gave us dirty looks. The Red Sox fans saw not only the end of the game in front of their eyes but also the end of their season with Pedro's ineffectiveness. However, he settled down and ended up striking out seven in just over five innings. The Fenway Faithful, to their credit, were just that. They stayed in the game, jeered every Yankee, and uttered their mantra "Yankees suck" over and over and over again.

The game featured some real history. Rickey Henderson, batting leadoff for his eighth major league team, walked to start the fourth inning, setting a record for most walks in a career (2,145). He proceeded to steal second base, his first with the Sox and number 1,397 for his career (also a record). His teammates moved him around, and he set another major league record with his 2255th career run. I wasn't happy that Boston was mounting an improbable comeback, but I was glad to see Rickey Henderson in his prime--at age 43.

The fans in the bleachers cracked me up. The Pedro guys below were bummed by Martinez's performance, but at least they looked cool. The guy with the "It's Not Over" sign was too much. He had to think of making that sign before he went to the ballpark. He had the premonition to know that the Red Sox would probably be losing, and the crowd could probably use a pick-me-up. I noted that while a game is truly never over until it's over, the Red Sox season is usually by Memorial Day.

There were some real meatheads in our section. Two schmucks wore matching jerseys; one read "Yankees Suck" on the back, the other read "Jeter swallows." Classy. Four dudes from South Boston were straight off the SNL skit where Jimmy Fallon plays a Bostonian who talks about Nomar Garciaparra and sucks his girlfriend's tongue every few minutes. The guy below, nicknamed "rubber band" for his elastic and cartoonish movements, experienced the highs and lows of being a Red Sox fan (and of being an alcoholic).

The Red Sox ended up stealing one away from Mariano Rivera that day, and the place went wild. We were silenced. The 7-6 game ended in dramatic fashion when Alfonzo Soriano got caught stealing. I spent several minutes after the game trying to explain to Red Sox fans that the "Yankees Suck" chant doesn't really make sense. "If the Yankees won the pennant last year and they suck," I reasoned, "how much must the Red Sox suck, if they didn't even make the playoffs?" My logic almost got me beat up. But Red Sox fans have to keep on chasin' that dream, though they may never find it; they're always just behind it...