Fenway Park at Dusk: Nine Innings in Heaven

Have you ever experienced a dream so vivid, so real, that once awoken from you used everything you could think of to enter its surreal shadows again?

Or perhaps at such a place that you were completely at peace, perfect amid your surroundings like you actually were made for this world?

Those moments are few and broadcast with great care throughout one’s life journey. They are so rare indeed that by the time you find yourself within the ethereal grasp of one, anything past has been long forgotten, dismissed somewhere between a dream and a fantasy.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a small Massachusetts town. My home was a  mere 20 miles or so south of Boston during a time when there wasn't a boy anywhere who didn't go to bed at night chasing the dream of being Tony Conigliaro, Carl Yastrzemski, or that young fireballer Jim Lonborg.

Then, while at breakfast one early August morning, that remarkable moment was about to transpire. My dad reached into his shirt pocket and removed an envelope and tossed it down on the center of the table, almost into the pot of oatmeal.

My younger brother and I never looked up until Bobby, the oldest, piped up, “Dad, are those Red Sox tickets?" Before he could reply, Bobby exclaimed, as our heads raised up from that creamy, delicious oatmeal, "For tonight, dad? Tonight?”

An explosion of excitement rattled the kitchen as my father pushed away from the table saying, “Be ready when I get home."

“When’s that, dad?” I yelled.

"By about 4:00,” he replied. Needless to say, we were ready to go by 9:30 a.m. and spent the day as restless as a couple boys could be.

We left on time, piling into dad’s car. Bobby sat in the front, my younger brother and myself on each side of the back. At that time I don't recall ever seeing Boston, and as the skyline appeared some 30 minutes later, I stared transfixed and nearly catatonic out my window.

Soon enough we pulled into some dirt-top parking lot.

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