Sox clinch home field!

Boston Red Sox - Red Sox - Boston.com

Well, it al came together this weekend - finally! After some serious anxiety the past month as th Sox allowed their lead over the Yankees to dwindle, the Sox secured the division and then home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Phew! Now it's on to the dance...

Dice-K appears to have been demoted to the #3 slot in the rotation, with Schilling moving up to #2. In a short series, that's a great 3-man rotation, especially if Dice-K and chill pitch like they did their last outings. And the Angels have been hurting lately - lots of players banged up or coming off injuries. And even JD Drew is on fire! Now that's a good omen! :-)

October baseball in Boston... it has meant so much to me. I went to my first Sox game the last game of the '67 Impossible Dream year - and my dad and grampy went to the home games of the Series - have two of the tickets hanging in my house! The end of the '75 series was the first time I saw my father cry. I was at the Bucky Dent playoff game in '78 - and had been at every game of the horrific September Massacre that led up to that nightmare. The Buckner '86 Series I was living in Mexico, so it was a bit surreal and cloudy for me - thankfully.

The 1999 playoffs were incredibly exciting - rejuvenating my love of the game. 2003 was the worst experience since '78. I was in a bar in NYC with a Yankee fan friend watching game 7 of the ALCS. Screamed when Grady Little left Pedro in the game - I still can't beliee it. And felt my heart being crushed in a staggering case of deja vu, with Aaron Boone playing the role of Bucky Dent.

But then came 2004. Redemption. Rebirth. that season felt special from early on. Things had changed in the fall of '03. Fans no longer fell silent when the chips were down - they got on their feet! '04 began to take on a feeling of a new destiny. The old Shakepearean tragedy or late season collapses was no longer to be. When then Sox swept the ALDS, I WANTED the Yankees in the ALCS! I wanted revenge. I wanted to beat the best. I wanted all the questions answered, all the doubts erased.

Falling 0-3 to the Yankees in the ALCS tested all of our faith, but it seemed like every at bat from game 4 on was like new blood coursing through the collective veins of Red Sox Nation. Looking back, this was the way it as meant to play out - the way it had to play out. To show the Sox fans and the world that the Sox no longer were destined to fall short, ripping out the hearts of their faithful. A new era had been born. The Yankees were the ones to choke, to fall jut short of nirvana. The Sox would prevail.

After that ALCS, the momentum was palpable. A sweep almost inevitable. My friend Martin, who was living in China at the time, called me after the ALCS and asked where I was watching game 1 of the WS. When I told him I'd be right there in my living room, he said it wasn't true: I'd be at Fenway! He had secured tickets to every game and was flying back to Boston. And I was the lucky person who would accompany him to see history being made - game 1 of the first WS the Sox would win in 86 years!

Yawkey Way was incredible! I got there very early to soak it all in. I collected every free thing - signs, magazines, newspapers - people were giving away to commemorate this historic occasion. Martin still gives me crap about all the crap I had in my arms that night. There was so much electricity. If ever I had doubted that the universe is really just made up of eneergy and that we humans can control our own energy, that night should have put it to rest. It felt like Red Sox Nation could power an entire country that night.

We moved inside the Park and found our seats. So there I sat - next to WEEI's Glenn Ordway and his family, right behind the Sox dugout!!! It was a cold, but that didn't matter. I was sitting in the same Park where my grandfather had sat when he watched the Sox win in 1918. I felt like some kind of cosmic family circle was now being completed. My father had lived his whole life and never seen his team win it all. But I would - right here, right now.

Game 1 was by far the most exciting - and high scoring, high energy game. From the introductions on, it felt like a unique moment in time and space. And it was.

The rest, as they say, is history. I passed on going to game 4 in St. Louis (money was tight) and watched at home as the Sox finished the sweep. I couldn't believe it. I cried, I screamed. My cousin Carolyn - who is my Red Sox soulmate - and I spoke on the phone. I was euphporic and a bit sad - my father had never known this joy and relief.

Carolyn and her daughter Tricia and I went to the parade together - extending the joyous celebration.

So here we are - sorry for the long trip down memory lane! But it's amazing what gets triggered when the Sox return to October baseball. Full of hope and possibility. Play ball!