"I Hope the Sox Win It All."

“The leaves are really turning," Bill Rabbett said. Driving on the Massachusetts Turnpike on a sunny October afternoon is always amazing, but this day held something above and beyond beautiful foliage for Bill and his son, Kevin. They were headed to Fenway Park for Game 3 of the ALCS; Red Sox-Yankees, Pedro vs. The Rocket.

 

Four days earlier Kevin had posted a special message on AOL saying this may be dad’s last October, and, since Bill is a 78-year old lifelong Sox fan, Kevin is pulling for Boston to reverse The Curse. No big deal, right? Except 50-year old Kevin’s favorite team has been and always will be their longtime rival, the New York Yankees.

 

Thousands of AOL members responded to Kevin with heartfelt wishes, stories and poem for father and son. It had become such a big story that Kevin and Bill awoke on this Saturday morning with their faces on AOL’s Welcome Screen (read the story) and their names in the newspaper (USA Today, Boston Herald and Hartford Courant). Now, they were headed to Boston where AOL would hand them two of the hottest tickets in Beantown sports history.

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The streets outside Fenway made up the world's largest outdoor looney bin. Folks had slept on sidewalks for two straight nights trying to get tickets. Faces were painted, anti-Yankees propaganda was everywhere, and wide-eyed kids, belly-baring beauties and beer-breathed loudmouths had one goal in mind: Red Sox victory. Kevin and Bill ducked into the Cask & Flagon, a Fenway institution, to get off the streets. Once inside, three college kids recognized them as "those guys from AOL." The Rabbett's were known in this town.

After having a beer and a few smiles, the pair left to go meet the press. A half-dozen Boston TV stations had reporters there to meet Kevin and Bill, and now it was their time to shine. They answered the questions just like the hard-working, small-town guys they are: straightforward, open hearted and unapologetic. All the while the Fenway loonies strained to see these two gentlemen on camera.

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They headed into the grandstand for their seats along the first-base line. From the beginning, the crowd stood and sat in unison, verbally abused the Yanks and endlessly chanted "RAAAH-GAAAH, RAAA-GAAAH" to taunt The Rocket. The game went their way until New York plated a few in the fourth and Pedro threw a heater at Karim Garcia's head. Then, for all the wrong reasons, the game became one for the ages. In Kevin's words, "This is better than I thought it was gonna be."

Boston slugger Manny Ramirez led off the next inning, and Clemens buzzed one high & tight on him. Both benches cleared and on the periphery a Sox player threw a Yankees coach to the ground. No one knew what happened, so everyone around got on cell phones to find out. Then a guy shouted, "Pedro threw Zimmah!" Bill said, "I just hope they start playin' again, because I gotta wait till the end of the game to use the bathroom."

From there, not one, but two Yanks fans were thrown out of the Rabbett's section. Beer sales were cut off, and one fan yelled, "Fenway can't handle its lickah." The stands were rowdy, and in the midst of it all, Kevin winked, smiled and said, "This ain't as bad as it used to be in the '70s."

New York's slim margin held up going into the bottom of the 9th, when something strange happened. Security and Yankees ran towards the Yanks' bullpen. There was a scuffle, and Karim Garcia hopped the right-field wall to get after somebody. Everyone assumed a crazed Boston fan had gone into the pen, but none was to be found. The crowd was confused, and the electricity that had been coursing through Fenway just moments before was totally gone. Mo Rivera set the Sox down 1-2-3, and that was that. Yanks 4, BoSox 3.

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Sitting in the parking lot waiting to hit the road, father and son weren’t so much disappointed as wired from a day unlike any other, one where they had their names in the paper, on AOL and the TV, and had served eyewitness to a classic battle between two great rivals. Despite the misfortune of Boston’s ill-fated team, these two men shared something so many others should be fortunate enough to have: a day in the sun, at the ballpark, together.

After such a long and exciting day, Kevin asked his dad, “You’ll sleep good tonight, huh?” Bill thought for a moment. “Nah, I’ll be hearin’ RAAAH-GAAAH, RAAAH-GAAAH.”

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