"Hot dogs, peanuts, and go get 'em."

Opening Day (Night...whatever), 2010

I remember in October of 2004, when the Yankees were up 3-0 in the ALCS. It was my sophomore year in college, I was taking the maximum amount of credits, involved in every organization humanly possible and working 2 jobs. I'd had acid reflux for three days, not merely because I hadn't slept--because I had to do my homework after the games--but because the Yankees were making us look foolish. Again.

I spent an hour at the gym listening to "Who's Your Daddy" until I was so angry I started swearing at the tv on the elliptical. And, in the process, scared an emeritus professor so badly he had to leave. I had to endure the taunts and jibes of the morning janitor at the campus coffee shop who wore his Yankee hat to work every morning. Student employees weren't allowed to wear hats, but they made an exception for me when Joe and I became the Tuesday morning favorites for our good-natured heckling. I sat through class with a die-hard Yankees fan who made of point of sitting next to me each morning.

The morning of Game Four, I called my house to check in, and to check in on my Grandfather, who was staying in my room while I was at school.

"How are you doing today, Grampie?" I asked, trying to sound chipper. Trying to sound conscious.

"I went out and bought a Yankees hat this morning." He grumbled. I knew he was kidding, as it was 7:00am, but my heart still sunk a little. "I've been watching these bums for eighty-seven years, and they're breaking my heart all over again. I'm done with this."

"Ok, Grampie." I answered. "I'll tell them for you, ok?"

That night I had a class that went until 9:30pm. I went because I had to, but I made sure to sit in the back and to the side so that my professor wouldn't notice I had earbuds in and the game on a walkman. And between the lecture and the game, I still managed to nod off in class.

I woke up to the sound of wild cheering. Hysterical yelling. That didn't stop. Blinking furiously, I sat up and pressed the earbud as inconspicuously as I could manage. And started kicking my friend sitting ahead of me.

"They tied it up." I whispered, and watched her start bouncing up spastically. "Bottom of the ninth and they flipping tied it up!"

I ran home and didn't move from in front of the tv for the rest of the night. When it was all over, and I was still going to have baseball on TV the next night, I called home. Grampie answered.

"I returned the Yankees hat," he declared with a chuckle.

Fast forward--to October 27, 2004. Right around 11:40pm. One of my closest friends (who had never watched a full baseball game in her life) was sitting next to me. "I thought it was important to watch this. With you."

"No," I remember whispering. I was convinced it wasn't 3 outs. That there was some rule that stated that if the pitcher underhanded the ball to the first baseman, the out didn't count. That this was really a ten-inning game.

"Yes," my friend whispered. "I think you can be happy now."

It took about an hour before cell phone service was restored and I was able to call anyone. My father was in Japan and sniffly. My mother was crying, so my Grandfather got on the phone.

"I can't believe it," he said, talking faster than I could remember hearing before, "I...I just can't believe it. I can't sleep. I'm too happy to sleep. I'm happy! You told 'em, Bridie!"

"What was that about a Yankees hat, Grampie?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He called me back. At two in the morning. Too happy to sleep.

The only other time I talked to him that late was in 2007. The Red Sox won and the phone rang.

"Hello there, Johnny!" My mother answered the phone. I grabbed the extension.

"I knew you'd be up!" I cried, at the same time as Susan said "I thought you'd be in bed by now!"

"Are you kidding? I've been dancing with Papelbon all night!"

.......................

It's been 175 days since I last watched an official Red Sox game. And believe me, when you're in Boston without baseball, the winters are colder, the nights are darker and those 4,200 hours end up feeling like about eight years. You shovel and you plow and you have plenty of evenings free to think.

Plenty of time to remember watching grown men in suits skip work and climb trees to cheer on their team in a post-season rally. To remember the sound of church bells ringing in the middle of the night in October of 2004, because the one prayer on everyone's mind had finally been answered. Plenty of time to remember going into work on the train with people who had been up all night watching a west-coast, extra-inning game the night before, or going home during a post-season game with some guy yelling out the scores down the length of the car and the conductor threatening to throw any Yankees fans out at the next station.

Because the sight of baseball on the screen means infinitely more than some guys in cleats and helmets. It means that the sun will once again shine and the fans will once again sing "Sweet Caroline" so loudly that the batter won't be able to step into the box. It means that homeless guy in Harvard Square will sit next to the man in the three-piece suit and $800 shoes to listen to the game, and people will block traffic when they sit outside Cardullo's to watch the TV in the display window. It means that, after 7:05 at night, very little matters in the outside world. Because it's the Red Sox. And it means that, even if only for one night, everyone believes that there is just enough hope, just enough potential, just enough luck, to see us all through another year.

It's remembering where you are and why you belong here and that, in the midst of all the nonsense, it is all worth it.

It's baseball season and once again, all's right with the world.

EDIT: Just after posting this, the Red Sox tied up the season opener against the Yankees. It's now 5-5 in the bottom of the 6th inning.

Somewhere out there, Grampie's smiling.