WORLD SERIES GAME 6

I'm in love!!! That's the best way to describe how things went down the night of October 30th, 2013.  Watching the play offs and the first 5 games of the world series had been a little rough on us.  We were up late almost every night (we needed travel days as much as the team did), and after a certain game in the World Series I couldn't sleep at all.  Well as fate would have it we were up 3 games to 2 going into game 6 when the series was coming back to Boston.  It was the day before we had to fly out to go to Washington D.C. for Hahn's Sealing, so we REALLY needed to wrap this one up that night.  

When we won in 2004 and 2007 I was out at BYU for both victories.  Though those were some of the happiest times I can remember, I was also left feeling sad that I wasn't home with "my people" to celebrate these victories!  They would pan the streets and show the crowds celebrating and I was wishing I could be there sharing in the elation.  

2013.... Here's my chance. It was a Wednesday night and I had to go to young women's that evening.  I was walking out the door as Dane was walking in, (literally - but different doors in our building so I didn't get to see him) but we had our plan. I was going to leave YW's and go pick him up and we would head down on the T to Fenway and bask in the atmosphere.  Then WHEN we won we would be in the center of it all.  The Clovers were going to join us, but Jeremy had to finish up Young Men's in the Spanish Branch he is serving in.  So we whisked Katie away with us and headed down to Kenmore Square.  

 The T was full of people doing exactly what we were doing.   Everyone just wanted to be down there by Fenway.  There was one guy on there with us that had his own liquor bottle that he kept sipping on.  At one point he dropped it and it slid down to Katie's feet.  She picked it up and handed it back to the guy.  Dane was just laughing watching this cute little Mormon girl handing alcohol back to this big burley guy.  Katie thought about it and decided that was the first time she has ever held alcohol.  It was a night of firsts.  :)

We got down to Lansdowne Street and walked around and tried to find a TV where we could watch the game.  The bars were all full and one place even put posters up on their windows so people wouldn't come up to the glass to watch the game.  One resident on Brookline was projecting it onto a sheet over their windows so we could all see.

Katie wanted to buy a Red Sox hat and I needed to use the bathroom so we headed off to go find a place to do both.  We found Katie a great looking hat and decided she better get it so she could tell her story of the night the Sox won the World Series and was there by Fenway when it wall went down.  In the mean time Dane went to check out this spot he was eyeing to see if it would be a good place to watch the game.  It was the parking lot right behind the Green Monster.  He started texting me that we needed to come to this parking lot when we were heading back.
Once we made our purchase we started walking to some of the bars to see if they would let me use their bathrooms.  They were all locked up and not letting anyone in.  If someone left, they weren't allowed back in.  The Mayor also made a statute of some sort that alcohol could not be served after 5 or 6 that evening.  That made sense considering mob mentality... more on that in a minute.  :)  So, it looked like I was going to be out of luck.  Katie and I headed over to Dane and found that he had discovered the best spot in all the surrounding area to watch the game.

The people we joined were there with gloves for any home runs that might sneak over the Green Monster. they also had a sweet set up with the game streaming on a laptop and a radio with the announcers giving a good report of what was going on.  It was a sweet set up.
At this point I asked the parking attendant if there was a restroom I could use.  He told me that I should go downstairs and ask his co-worker if I could use their facilities and if he said no, I should just go behind some cars there in the garage.  ....OK! You said it my friend.  So I headed downstairs and found this one port-a-potty that almost every cop in the area was lined up to use.  I just stepped in line and hoped for the best.  Other civilians saw that I was in line and got in line with me.  While I was in there I heard the parking attendant yelling at them, "not a public bathroom!" and telling them to go away.
Back up top we had so much fun listening to the crowd and could tell when something good or bad was going to happen.  When the crowd would scream the guys with the gloves would snap to attention to catch anything that may be heading their direction.

 Since the TV was about 15-20 seconds behind the real deal we could predict what the pitch count was, like the pitcher had thrown a ball if we hadn't heard anything for a while.  Or if we put one of their guys on base when we heard a sigh from the stadium.  Then when there was excited screaming from Fenway those that had strayed away from the TV would rush back to see what had happened.

Here's a video of the time delay between Fenway and our little monitor. Blogger won't let me embed it.

 We were up off the street level a little so it was fun to look down and see everyone milling around down on Lansdowne Street.  After a while there was a small mob of about 30 or so people that got that crazy mentality going, and got the bright idea that they were going to break into Fenway to see the game.  They tried to shake down or push in the gates of the park.  

They didn't come close and ended up getting themselves all kicked out of the area.  The cops ended up closing down the whole street and a few blocks in every direction.  There were several "check points" someone had to get through in order to get close to Fenway.  The cool part was that they left us alone.  They didn't make those that were in the parking lot leave.  There were a few people that tried to sneak up to the parking lot so they wouldn't get kicked out of the area, but the parking attendant was having none of that and made those guys leave.

 After that it was pretty quiet down on the street and the parking lot people were the only ones that were in the area outside.  The downside of this was that Jeremy hadn't gotten into town yet, but was on his way and his phone died.  He called Katie from a strangers phone and said that he would try to make it in, but with three police check points between us it didn't look good.

 Ultimately we ended up saying bye to Katie as she went to watch the last few innings with her husband.  We had fun with our little group in the parking lot

Here's a video link to our Sweet Caroline experience   

And to sum it all up......  The Last Pitch!!!!

We have a bunch of videos of the celebrations that are just so fun! It was a mad house down by Fenway once we won!  The bars cleared out - and actually kicked everyone out once the game was final.  We were walking through crowds chanting and dancing, everyone giving high fives to police officers,  giving high fives to each other.  As we were walking away from Fenway we walk over a bridge that goes over the Mass Pike.  All the truckers and cars were blowing their horns and honking as they drove past Fenway! Everyone was celebrating.

 It was one of the most memorable nights of my life.  We were THRILLED!!!! I will forever remember that night as one of the best.  It was just a blast and I'm so glad that Dane was sporting he Red Sox gear under all his layers as well.  We even ran into Jenn, Dane's classmate that sat next to him in Pre-Clin.  Walking back to the T was also fun.  People crowded the streets and the intersection in front of Burklee was a party of people dancing and cheering.  

Best. Night. Ever.