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The Red Sox Family Tree..
June 2, 2008
So, I was perusing the blogs this late evening, since I don't have to be to work tomorrow until 1 PM, and I saw that SoxFanNean posted a very, very thought provoking blog.
Now, SFN, I was going to reply in your comments section, but it really brought some memories back for me..so I thought they deserved their own space. No disrespect, obviously..
I've been a Red Sox fan since birth. I'm in the Boston Globe Archives as an adorable three year old boy, decked out in his Red Sox gear outside of Fenway Park with my Mom and Dad. My brother is Sox fan, my Father is a Sox fan, my Grandfather was a Sox fan, and my children will be Red Sox fans. My ex-girlfriend is a Red Sox fan.
Some of my earliest memories date back to sitting on my grand parents couch, watching UPN4 (which, before MLB TV rights and black out restrictions was broadcast in Albany, NY) Mike Greenwell, the last days of Jim Rice, the emergence of Mo Vaughn..
molding my little league swing off of Wade Boggs, then cursing him years later in disbelief as he rides a horse around Yankee Stadium.
My grandfather was a big dude. He was Six and a half feet tall, and weighed over 300 pounds. His voice was commanding and thundering, yet soothing and loving. He was a mans man, and old school dude from a different era. He served in the military, active duty, in World War II and the Korean War. Bob Cahill commanded respect, yet gave it back ten fold. He used to watch Red Sox games with me..and eventually my brother with the TV on mute. He couldn't stand the announcers. Every year, for as long as he could remember, the Red Sox let him down.
He passed his passion for the game onto his first son, my father. Every year we would head out to Fenway on opening day. It was a Cahill family tradition. We would all pile into a van and drive out to Boston, take in the city for the day, and score tickets. Grandpa would get a program and help me keep score, until I would get bored or too excited to keep track. This tradition kept on for years.
When my grandfather got very ill, around 1997, we took our customary trip to Fenway on opening day. This trip in particular I will never forget. He smoked for years, and it finally caught up with him. My gigantic (teddy) bear of a grandfather had finally withered down to a shell of himself. I pushed him, in his wheel chair through the turnstiles at the Fens, and we trucked on up the ramp. Our seats were right on the first base side, in the handicap section. We sat there all game, and to be honest, I don't even remember if the Sox won or not. It didn't matter. I was only 13 years old, but I knew what that moment meant, at that specific time. I knew that my first hero instilled in me the one and only true love of my life. Baseball.
The feeling of getting off the train from Riverside at Kenmore, walking over the bridge and seeing a carnival in front of you. The smell, the feeling.
That game, that was his last time at Fenway. He passed away about eight months later. If only we could've seen how it all shook out together. A lot has changed since my grandfather passed away. He never got to see them win a championship, though my grandmother brought the news up with her, and I'm sure he would have had something to say even about that.
So while we all reflect on this weekend and remind ourselves of memories in the past, try and remember exactly why you're a Red Sox fan. I'm sure it's not just for the love of the game, or the passion it brings. I've always found that more often than not, true Red Sox fans have it passed down, almost as if it's stamped on the birth certificate...it should be anyways, right?
By the way..my best friend is a Yankee fan. When we were younger we went over to my grand parents to hang out, and Vince was wearing his Yankee gear, a hat, a Don Mattingly jersey. We were about six years old at the time. My grandfather wouldn't let Vince into the house until he turned his shirt inside out.
Did I mention we were six years old?
Resuming Radio Silence..
-Moooooo
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