Sox fans suffer a bitter end
Diehards share the pain as a dream dies -- again
They were carrying each other on their backs for victory laps, Red Sox Nation was.
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In the bars around Fenway Park, they couldn't stop hugging. They counted down the outs -- 9, 8, 7, 6 -- from Kenmore Square to Quincy Market and beyond.
And then: Heads went down. Cursing. Bottles slammed on tables. Misery. The game, the series, the season -- they watched it all slip away, one run after another, until Aaron Boone's blast.
"This is all I thought about for the last three weeks," said Liz Deflurin, leaving a restaurant near Fenway Park, wiping away tears. "And this was very important to me. My heart is broken."
Others were not so calm. Boston police officers took several misbehaving fans into custody near Fenway Park, as well as pushing others with billy clubs. There were several scuffles. Officers ushered several crowds away using their horses. Dozens of motorcycle officers prevented groups from gathering.
One bridge near Fenway Park was closed. Hundreds walked down Commonwealth Avenue knocking over trash cans and plants.
At UMass-Amherst, site of riots after recent Red Sox wins, bottles were thrown out of dorm windows and firecrackers went off. Police used a pepper spray device to disperse fans. Several fires were also started and put out.
Boston Police Commissioner Paul F. Evans, operating, he said, under the assumption that the Red Sox would win, deployed a significant number of extra police to patrol city streets, particularly in areas where loud crowds gather to drink and watch the game.
Some police officers, he said, would have video cameras ready to tape activity and help identify law breakers.
The rowdy fans, however, were a minority throughout the city. Many more were just depressed -- very depressed.
"You never felt we had it," said Mark Odlum, 26. "It's part of the Red Sox tradition to be disappointed."
Last night's 11th-inning loss took Sox disappointment to new levels. There were tears throughout the city, tears that streamed across the river to the Cambridge Common pub, to Amherst, to New Hampshire, throughout New England.
The Curse lives. And Sox fans were looking for others to blame: from Grady Little for leaving Pedro Martinez in too long to a new theory that "the wind in the Bronx River helped the Yankees hit home runs."
In a jubilant scene at Yankee Stadium, the theme "New York, New York" played on the loudspeakers, over and over again, and it seemed as if every fan in the ballpark was singing along. Chae W. Kim, 23, a recent college graduate from Worcester, stood silently in his Red Sox jersey in the left-field upper deck, smoking a cigarette and listening.
"I could say that I was here, you know," he said glumly. "It was a great game."
His friend Chuck Capone, 22, of Abington, also said he had no choice but to drive into New York yesterday morning and cheer in his corner of the stands and keep up hope.
"Oh, it's worth it," he said. "I just wanted them to win, you know. I'll stay here 50 innings if they're gonna win."
The brave Red Sox loyals who ventured to Yankee Stadium weren't afraid to wear their hats, their T-shirts, their "Garciaparra" jerseys. But some of them had resolved not to be too loud about it. And they left their cowboy hats at home.
Compared to the noise in Boston bars, this was a stunning exercise of restraint. When Trot Nixon homered in the second inning -- and Kevin Millar homered in the fourth -- fans in the upper decks high fived, but quietly. They clapped, but kept it brief. They spied other Sox fans in faraway sections and pointed across the stands.
And goodness knows they needed compatriots, in the temple of the superiority complex. Yankee fans, it appears, are all about rubbing it in. Many of them had traded in their Yankee caps for caps that say "1918,"the last year the Sox won it all.
One woman wore a Boston hat, crossed out the "B" with duct tape, and taped a rudimentary "1918" in its place.
But despite the overwhelming animosity -- and the pictures of Babe Ruth, and the swearing -- Red Sox fans held their heads high.
It was all they could do, in the end.
Joanna Weiss reported from New York. Marcella Bombardieri of the Globe staff, from Amherst, and Globe correspondents Sasha Talcott, Jared Stearns, Ron DePasquale, and Brendan McCarthy in Boston contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
