"Life is what happens while youre busy making other plans." --John Lennon.  The Beatles were the first music I knew when I was a kid.  My mom used to play "Octopus Garden" , "Yellow Submarine" , "Let it Be" etc etc etc ...to my discerning young ears they sounded like angels.  But what I think of mostly these days when I read the "making other plans" quote is the fact that I am not the starting thirdbaseman for the Red Sox.  That was my plan.  Hahaa...yea, today I manage a New Balance store.  Life is ironic. 

And at the same time my father & grandfather mostly had the Red Sox game on the television or radio listening and playing chess in the family room.  Television was different back in the 1970's. Laughter was rampant in our family. Just writing of it now, in my mind I can almost hear the hearty guffaw of my grandfather.  I speak of him often for one reason alone.  He was a great man.  Chess, Red Sox and the Beatles remind me of one day at my folks house on Balmoral St lost in the time continuum known as 1976.

we'll skip ahead so as not to bore you any more than i must...hahaaa....When the Sullivan/Larue front office gave away Lynn, Rooster & Pudge all in the same off-season I felt the same way I would later feel when rejected by my first girlfriend.  I was crushed.  I was dumbfounded.  Every soul in New England sighed in disgust and betrayal as the news spread across the Northeast.  I was broken hearted.  Besides Yaz these guys had been my heroes for 5 years or so at that point.  5 years to a 12 year old is a lot more significant than to a 40 year old.   A couple of years later my parents followed Rooster and Lynn to the west coast.  My dad had received a job offer he called "too good to pass up" so being the well-trained loyal trooper I was I packed up my trunk filled mostly with old programs, box scores, newspaper clippings, baseball cards and other 12-yr old wanna-be big leaguer type stuff and jumped on the bus.

My life to this point in life was 100% BOSTON...the kids out there got me in a whole lot of trouble my freshman year in high school for the relentless mocking of my accent....Yea, I pahhked cahhhs...and no wahhhm beeeeaahhh...and go faaaahhhk yaaaself cause the RED SOX AHHH WICKED AWESOME!!!

Now, some naysayers might say only 14 1/2 years in Boston? but I tell ya...YEAH, thats right! a lifetime's worth of memories in 14 quick years.  I replay them in my mind on a daily basis knowing damn well that those were the Good old Days...never to return. When you start life out that great, it makes it difficult sometimes to measure up to the beginning.  I am not complaining or whining, dont get me wrong.  I can just solemly attest to the truth in the fact that other than isolated moments of greatness and glory, life was at its best when I had these times with my Pops and Gramps.  It is these memories which drives and inspires me to give my own kid's the same sort of loving memories from their youth.  I have some big shoes to fill. But it is with this same love of family and memories that I treasure from my youth that I LOVE THE RED SOX...this is why to me FAMILY goes HAND IN HAND with the BOSTON RED SOX.....

When my folks moved us across the country in the summer of 1982 I had a whole lot on my mind....new beginnings are new opportunities to re-invent yourself which is always tempting to a 14 year old, but I was entirely too much of a BOSTONIAN to waver from the course.  Ya see, my family is the roots of DIEHARD NATION....well, I am sure every kid in Boston thinks that at some point....But HELLS YEA WE LIVED AND DIED WITH THE SOX FROM ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT...like it was hereditary or something.

But when I moved all the way across the country and didnt know a soul in the new town we moved to...I will admit it ..I was a just a little lonely so I wrote a lot of letters to my grandfather (he answered every one) and cousins and uncles and friends back in ANDOVER and STONEHAM mostly....and what was the content of these letter you ask? well, you didnt really, but ......THE ONE THING THAT KEPT ME AT HOME IN MY HEART AND MIND WAS THE BEST TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS.....THE GODDAMNED BOSTON RED SOX....

I had always been a glutton for punishment when it came to stats.  My grandfather instilled this in me from an early age.  The box score meant everything.  He taught me to inspect the box score like detective searching out facts in solving a crime in a manner that the less scrutinizing eye would miss.  I have put lots of quotes up here in previous blogs that really would be applicable but these are all my words. this time is 100% Jester.

I kept up with the RED SOX from SO CAL like a law student studying for the BAR EXAM...I remember watching Yastremski get old....at the same time I watched my grandfather getting older...but I was "just a kid"......YEAH, sure.

I remember seeing Dwight Evans mature and bat in about every damn spot in the order each year I would watch.  I remember every time Pudge Fisk came to town he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, maybe an extra pinch of revenge stuck between his cheek and gums.  I remember the years of no pitching...I remember all of this like it was the movie I watched last night before bed.....But my point is that whenever I called or wrote we talked about the RED SOX.....baseball...the RED SOX....and baseball...and about the RED SOX AND ABOUT SOME BASEBALL!!! RED SOX AND BASEBALL!!! EVEN THEN THE LADIES ASKED "DONT YOU GUYS CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BESIDES THE RED SOX?".....hmmmm..lemme think...NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I remember watching Yaz get his 3,000th hit with my grandfather in 79 I think it was....a less than great hit, but in the box score the next day it was a SHOT!! My grandfather spoke a lot about Yastrzemski and Williams (and Mantle and the Dimaggio brothers).  I remember everything.  From Ralph Houk manning the helm in 1982...Hey Caligrown, CARNEY LANSFORD...great hitter. I remember YAZ last games in 1984..I used to talk for hours on the phone with my people in MASS until my parents started making me pay for my phone calls and then I would still call, but I think I still owe my father money for those phone bills, come to think of it......

THE RED SOX WAS OUR BOND.....STILL IS.......IT KEPT ME FAMILY EVEN WHEN THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US DID ITS BEST TO COME BETWEEN US...

TO ME THE RED SOX TRANSCEND SPACE AND TIME AND LINK ME TO A SIMPLER LIFE.....A TIME WHEN BASEBALL WAS STILL JUST A GAME.....

when I die (hopefully many years from today) i will be buried in my YASTREMSKI home jersey....PUT THAT IN THE BOOK! LETS GO RED SOX!! FAMILY IS INDEED FOREVER!!!

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