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the last time the red sox went to the world series i was 12 years old and could've cared less about baseball. fast-forward almost 2 decades later, now i follow the team religiously, watching most of their regular season games on television, going to a game or two every year. it is within my lifetime that the red sox have once again entered into the world series, with the very likely possibility that they may in fact win it all this year. this time i'll be sure to watch.

the red sox beat the yankees tonight. beat the yankees to advance to the world series. beat the yankees that just a few days ago were on the verge of eliminating us from the playoff. beat the yankees to rewrite baseball history, that history that said no team facing an 0-3 deficit could come back and win the next 4 games. if we had gotten in the world series without first going through the yankees, it'd cheapen any eventual victory. having trounced the evil empire, the red sox now have the legitimacy to consider themselves the best. no one can argue that, "hey, you never beat the yankees," because the red sox have beat the yankees, beat them 4 consecutive time during the playoff. this more than makes up for last year's debacle. the red sox should've won last year, were it not for pedro giving up the runs to let the yankees tie up the game, and eventually win. it's only fitting that the yankees didn't win last year, actually lost to a vastly inferior team, poetic justice in action.

almost everything in the game tonight seemed to be going in red sox's favor. derek lowe was pitching an amazing game, i've never seen him do so well against any opponent. johnny damon finally got his groove back, and scored a double homerun as well as a grand slam homer, to add to ortiz' double homerun. this, after trying to score in the first inning and getting tagged out at homeplate. when the red sox have both their defense and offense firing on all cylinders, they're impossible to beat. going into the game, i also felt the red sox were due to have a big scoring game, which was exactly what happened tonight. the lead was so much, and lowe's pitching was so stifling, the yankees threatened a few times but could only chip away at the lead, never quite enough. julie, on the verge of an anxiety attack, was nervous throughout the game. watching her squirm her way through 9 innings actually calmed me down (not to mention the big lead). the yankees tried to rally in the 7th inning when pedro martinez came in to pitch. the crowd started getting into it with "who's your daddy?" and "pedro" chants. as much as i'd like to see pedro close the game to make up for what happened last year, the yankees have his number and were hitting him at will. it seemed like a long inning, and we escaped with the yankees scoring only 2 runs. early on in the game it seemed the red sox would probably win, and as the game progressed, it seemed more and more likely, so when they finally got the last out to beat the yankees, it was almost anticlimatic, the arrival of in the inevitable.

julie and i literally ran into harvard square, the honking and cheering growing louder the closer we got. we weren't the only ones, there seemed to be an exodus of fans migrating to the square, just to congregate with other people and break into spontaneous hurrahs for the home town team 250 miles away. there was a band playing on top of the T station which seemed like the logical rallying point, but they were a school band and only knew marching or football songs.

police had blocked off traffic going into harvard square, forming human chains to maintain the crowd. most of the people were young college kids, and some looked like they were just in bed, walking the streets in their pajamas or bathrobes. mass avenue was still opened, and the slow trickle of police-directed traffic honked their horns in support of the red sox victory, the occasionally head or fist thrusting out the window shouting solidarity.

having seen enough, julie and i walked down mass ave back to my place. that stretch of road was much more subdued, but cars would drive by honking their horns, with coeds poking out of the moon roofs wooing into the brisk autumn night. we came back and watched some live coverage on television of kenmore square (fenway park area), where the crowd (some of them probably drunk) was on the verge of rioting, and from the helicopter you could see people vandalizing property and setting fires. the riot police were called in and they dispersed the crowd in a matter of seconds, we've never seen a mob of people run away so fast before. ground cameramen were getting footage of the mild chaos: we saw a vicious girl-girl fight and people trying to overturn a car.

earlier today i programmed for a little while, then spent some time paying the bills. i went out to run some errands: to brooke's to see if they have my aromatherapy hand soap (they don't), to the bank to cash some checks, to the post office to get more stamps (including the cloud stamps, which they were all sold out), to pier 1 to find a good throw rug for the guest bedroom (i ended up buy some more candles), to the dollar story to rummage for tissue paper for making lanterns, then finally all the way to the harvard square post office to see if they had any cloud stamps (they were out as well). along the way, i saw signs of "bosox" support. one of my neighbors had rolled her car on top of my plastic trash bin lid. not knowing which neighbor, i had no choice but to leave a note on the windowshield telling her to free my lid when she got the chance. i'm afraid the lid is well crushed though, she owes me a new lid.