It has been an especially bitter winter here in New England. If that damn edible rodent from Punxsutawney is right, more winter is on the way.What is a little winter to New Englanders? Snow? Cold? Yeah, whatever.
Yet, it does wear on you.
That is why today is often one of the more exciting days of the year for the denizens of Red Sox Nation.
What is it?
It’s Truck Day 2009.
Today is the day that all the equipment, personal belongings (including motorcycles and various effects that the players leave in Boston during the winter) all gets packed onto a couple of 18-wheelers and starts the 1,480 (or so) mile treck down I-95 to Fort Myers, where the Sox call home for the spring.
The temperature read 27 degrees and it was sunny. If you know cold, having the sun out is kind of mocking. It provides illumination, nothing more. It does not remind a person of waves of sunlight and afternoon tilts against the Yankees, This is not baseball weather. Yet, the crowd is assembled to watch the equipment of a baseball team on the first step of a new year, a new journey.
Wally the Green Monster was out and about. I asked him for a quote and he looked at me, pointed at his (non-existent) watch, put his hands on his hips and then stretched like he had just woken up. Then he started running in place as if it is time to get this show on the road.
Well Wally, it is. Literally.
The event is much more a media blitz than an actual celebration and send off. The crowd was decent, yet a reporter can tell when he is surrounded by other reporters, television cameras not withstanding.
There was a woman who works for Boston University who preferred not to be identified because she was supposed to be in the office.
“I never miss it,” she said, “I look at the banner and think of warmth.” She, like many of the non-media members of the crowd, was taking pictures with her cell phone of the truck and the guys loading it up.
I then came across Karen Russel, a woman on her bike who described herself as a “collector of autographs and memorabilia” on a fixed income. This was her second Truck Day, having last year chased the 18-wheeler all the way to the expressway on her bicycle.
Yes, this is Red Sox Nation.
The trucks then pulled away to the fanfare that can only exist in Boston. Where most teams have some mild send off ceremony or just slink away in the night, the Sox turn it into an event. The fans would not have it any other way.
Little Johnny Pesky climbed in the driver’s seat of the big rig and hit the ceremonial ignition button. Time for 2009 to blast off.
So, it is time to get ready for baseball again. I am excited, are you. After
