Championship Cat
There it is. Unreal. This is not photoshopped. THE trophy was at our second (OK, maybe third) home. Saturday, May 28th at 12:30PM the Red Sox trophy team stopped by the Brass Cat for 15 minutes. We had less than one day of warning. Regardless, at least 60 people showed up. My Dad, Mom, Uncle, Grandmother, Grandfather, Jen and I were all there for it. As the hour was approaching we all started to get a little nervous. Mike Lavalle (one of the owners of the Cat) said "God, I hope this isn't a hoax". I was standing outside looking down the street waiting to see the Red Sox car that the trophy travels in. Yes, the entire car is painted with Red Sox logos and whatnot. When they finally pulled up I waved them into a parking space and introduced myself and thanked them for making it. They were very gracious. As we entered the bar we heard an explosion of clapping and hooting and hollering similar to that grand evening of October 27th. Hundreds of pictures were taken.
Baseball is talked about (and written about) to death in this area. Please bear with me. I wish to briefly join that heralded (and sometimes, ridiculed) community.
I didn't think it would be as moving as it was. After all, it's just a piece of hardware. Just a static, inanimate object. Big deal. My dear friend, Eric Poulin said the same the night before. It's just a trophy, we all have them. Eric's entire family was there too. His Mom, brother, sister and all their kids. He relayed a story to me the night before game 4 of the World Series. His brother, Donny pointed out to him that this was much, much more than just a baseball game. This pulled people in a similar direction. It helped make people who were already close, closer. It also made friends of strangers. The Sox winning it all would be justification to so many, in so many different ways. Eric and I are very similar. We were raised by a thinking man's blue collar family. We were born with gloves and bats in our hands. If I wasn't playing baseball I was talking about it. If I wasn't talking about it I was thinking about it. The Red Sox were the core unifier in that way. It made you new friends. It made conversation for you with people you might never have had the chance to talk with otherwise. See, in New England (specifically, Massachusetts) it's the only constant thing. The seasons all change. People move from town to town. The factories all close but remain as giant, ghostly reminders of failure. But no one ever speaks ill of these things. They deal. They move on. They continue to support and believe in the people around them. The Red Sox embody the famous quote "The more things change, the more they stay the same". Players hop around like hired mercenaries. The ballpark is run down and broken and filled with inevitable failure. You always think that this must be the year. Even the 65 year old snakeskinned mechanic thought that '46 was their year. Or '67. Or '75. Or '78. Or Goddamn '86. That is, until October 27th, 2004. They did it. The Red Sox became World Champions. People rejoiced. Strangers hugged. Teenagers ran down the street jumping and hollering. Church bells rang. Car horns honked. Fathers hugged their sons. Sons hugged THEIR sons. People wept. Wept like they never had before. Something died that day. Peace blanketed everyone. Kept us like the woods at night during a snowstorm.
So here we are, Eric and I. Cheering as they march the championship trophy into our front yard. The jaded and rough edges of our opinions dropped and lost to the overwhelming accomplishment of those 25 men. I had my photo taken with my father and grandfather. Three generations of silence finally vindicated. Eric stood with his brother and sister and their kids. Also three generations. Eric's mom refused to be in the photo. She just wanted the kids to be in it. Nestled in Eric's somewhat freakishly large arm was a photo. A small, wooden frame decorated with tiny baseball gloves and bats and balls. The picture in the center was that of his father and himself as a toddler. See, Eric lost his father, Don Poulin Sr., to chronic lung disease in 1999. The man that taught him everything. The man that always made sure he kept his faith. His belief. His hope. The Red Sox were one of their strongest bonds. Baseball and all its gentle prose. And all it's vigilant passion. I've got a great picture of all of them. Everyone beaming from ear to ear. The small picture of their father gently tucked in Eric's arm. When it was winding down my father grabbed Eric and hugged him. And just like that this sterile piece of gold and platinum leapt to life. Telling wordless stories everywhere in that room. Beautiful and strong and filled with an odd familiarity. It really happened. We were really there for it. We are lifted. So high, as a matter of fact, that you can almost feel those hugging you who are no longer standing here with us. Yes, it was that important. The tears came from nowhere. I saw him and grabbed him and lost it myself. "He's here, man. He's right here." I kept whispering to him.
On behalf of everyone I love, thank you Red Sox. Thank you more than you'll ever know.
11 comments:
Well, shoot, you did it again, Mark. Wrote a post so effin' open and honest that I got a big baseball-sized lump in my throat.
You're right, it's so much more. And pity to those who don't feel it.
Thanks.
Wonderful words for a cherished experience. Life as it is meant to be and people as they intend to be. Great job Mark!
I'm weeping!
Thank you for putting in words how amazing and loving it was to be with families and friends celebrating the impossible possible.
I moved to Easthampton around this time last year. In those early days at my new house, in my new city, I was taking trips to the hardware store almost every day. On one morning I emerged from Manchester with a gallon of paint and I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the mountain, looked at the pond, looked at the old buildings and thought: "This is where I want to be when the Sox finally win the Series."
I don't know why that thought suddenly popped into my head on that hot morning. But I do know that it was a privilege beyond any I've ever imagined to share that night last October with everyone at the Brass Cat.
With you, Mark, who has summed up what that night meant so beautifully in this piece; with Eric Poulin, who, during the obligatory ninth-inning montage of Sox disappointment yelled, "It doesn't matter any more!"; with Richard Lavalle, a guy I'd never met who, after the final out, put his hands on my shoulders and just smiled at me with big, teary eyes; with Jim from Mt. Tom's ice cream, who was seeing this lifelong dream come true just a year after realizing the dream of opening his own business; with Eli, a kid from California who got wrapped up in the whole saga and came to love the Sox like a native; with all of those faces in the crowd who were friends and neighbors and strangers sharing this great experience in this great city.
Go Sox. Go Easthampton.
Go Sox.
Mark: Well written! Everytime I read an article that truly shows the feeling us fans have for the Red Sox, it brings tears to my eyes. The passion is immense. I have been in Florida for 16 years now and I miss the camaraderie of fellow fans. There's NOTHING like it down here and people just don't understand how people can be so passionate about a franchise.
Regards,
Pete Lavalle
Sharing the passion for the Red Sox is more than just "for the love of the game" for the Brass Cat family. It is about acceptance, friendship, and loyalty. It is your past disappointments, your present hopes, and your future dreams coming together under one roof. It's your "best friend" on Cottage Street.
This is an email I recieved from Don Poulin Jr. that I thought you ALL should read. It really hits home with me. He makes the deeper point that I was searching for. Cheers, Mark
Hi Mark. I love your article, it really captures the day. I too was not expecting much, but it turned into a very joyous event and somehow was a just a little spill over from all the joy of last year. I have never quite figured it out, but some how the Red Sox mark the time and history for my family and many families in New England. So many things are so much more important than the Sox, but then again, nothing is more important than the Sox because nothing is more important than your family. Eric, my dad and I spent years and years loving and complaining about the Sox. Often I thought we enjoyed the complaining more, given the cynical New Englanders that we are, but really it was just a way to continue to enjoy the Sox and each other even when times were not so good. You know what they say, if you can't laugh at yourself, complaining about and laughing at the Sox was and is like laughing at yourself. This is something the newbee Sox fans don't get. You know, all those converts that are long suffering Sox fans going back all of 3 maybe even 4 years, a period in which the Sox go to the playoffs almost every year. Don't tell me NOT to be down on the Sox, on Manny, on Pedro, on Bellhorn, on Franconia, etc. it does not mean I don't love them and pull for them to succeed, Hey, they are a long line of family and you always complain about your family. One of my dad's favorite guys to complain about was Yaz, but you know he wanted him to succeed and loved the Sox throughout. So, the Sox become our family and our family becomes the Sox, or at least the Sox experience. That's why winning the series meant so much, not because our local baseball team finally won something, but because it was our family and the memories of our families and even our younger selves coming back to be part of it. How many times did we watch critical games and pennant races with the Yankees? So who better to go through and take down. The joy of better the Yankees was so extreme, I won't say better than, but on par with winning the world series.
This week Eric and I were pallbearers for a dear relative of ours. She was my mothers 2nd cousin, so hardly related to Eric and I at all, but she was like a dear aunt and like a sister to our mom. Proof that family is not about DNA but the people your heart connects with while here on earth for our short stint. She loved the Sox, so much so that Wally and a Sox hat were on her casket. And what was the big talk at her wake and post funeral gathering? How the Sox has dropped 2 bad ones to St Louis, but at least the Yankees had lost 9 out of the last 10. Yes, there was lots of talk about what a great woman and community person she was. What a strong family she lead and how much we would all miss her and how she left us way too early (sounds just like my dad, pretty much, died at the same young age of 68), but how did people comfort themselves and reflect upon her at least in part, taking about, even complaining about the Red Sox. In her death notice in the paper it listed lines and lines of community accomplishments, interests and family, but it concluded by saying she was a life long resident of Easthampton and an avid life long Red Sox fan. It means that much because family means that much.
Thank you for honoring my family and particularly my dad. God Bless. Donny
Thanks for writing the piece, Mark. Being alive in the year of the Sox win means more than I can say. I watched the final game with one of the many "Sox Biggest Fans", my brother. Through the pain and tribulations many people experience as kids sometimes my only good memories are of he and my dad laughing and yelling and delighting in the Sox games. Your recounting brought some of that back, as did some others' comments. On another note, Stephen King and his co-author didn't do the experience proud or right by any means. Somebody has to research and write a tight, real history of the Sox in 2004. Something as real and heartbreaking and revivifying as the story of Seabiscuit, something like that. How about you?
Nice piece, Mark. I skipped class to drive out to my grandmother's and watch Game Four with her. You should've heard her phone ringing off the hook with that last out. She kept answering it with, "I told you we'd win!"
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