A Nation Comes Alive

Like a fish to water and a bee to honey, The Nation came to life last night as we welcomed our boys of summer back. The plush green fields of Fenway opened it's doors to the first game of it's business at hand, and the proverbial blood began to pump through every Red Sox fan throughout. It was electric, and even if you weren't a true fan, you stopped for a moment to marvel at the hometown team as they took center stage.

In a surprising maneuver, Pedro Martinez, wearing of all things, his old number 45 Red Sox jersey, came from behind an enormous American flag to hurl out the ceremonial first pitch to Jason Veritek. Just like the old days. Pedro was "our daddy" and the crowd went nuts and began chanting "Pedro, Pedro, Pedro..." There might not have been a dry eye in the house as he embraced Red Sox favorite Johnny Pesky.

Josh Beckett got the nod against our arch rival nemesis, the returning World Series Champions, Evil Empire New York Yankees and about two seconds after the first pitch, it felt as if they never left us for winter. Beckett was hit hard in the first few innings, and I have to admit I went to bed with the Sox trailing 5-1 early, thinking this was going to be a long year.

I should have known better than that.
I should have known that our boys had some pixie dust left over from 2007.
Because I woke up to find that my team had done it, yet again.

They beat the Evil Empire 9-7 and I couldn't get to the TV quick enough to see what I had missed. Pedrioa, Youklis, and a few new faces scraped and clawed their way up and out of the loss and brought us a victory. I even forgave Papelbon for his monumental, season-ending choke last year, and I was glad to see he closed it out for the win.

Ah, Sox baseball is back, and I couldn't be happier. Today we have a better record than the Yankees in the AL East and right at this moment, all is as it should be.