Beer-can pitches wild as Red Sox fans party
BOSTON — Confetti cannons boomed and huge crowds of fans cheered wildly on Wednesday as the Boston Red Sox rumbled through downtown aboard duck boats to mark the team’s fourth World Series championship in the past 15 years.
One of the team’s championship trophies and team manager Alex Cora were hit by flying cans of beer that Boston fans have made a practice of offering their sports heroes during recent victory parades. Neither Cora nor the trophy was badly dinged, but a bystander hit by a beer can was urged to get treatment for a gash on her nose.
The rolling rally set off from venerable Fenway Park and wound its way through major city streets lined by fans numbering in the hundreds of thousands, some who arrived before dawn.
Bits of red, white and blue paper rained down as team officials, players, and their families waved from the amphibious, Second World Warera vehicles.
Some autographed balls and drank beers tossed to them from the jubilant throng.
Many in the sea of Red Sox jerseys and ball caps took advantage of the fact that the parade coincided with Halloween.
Young children dressed up as comic book and Disney characters, 20-somethings from the city’s numerous colleges sported full-body panda and dinosaur outfits, and fans took selfies with a doppelgänger of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan roaming the crowd.
“It’s been nothing but love. We’re out here having a good time,” said Jarrick Fidalgo, a New Bedford, Massachusetts, native with his face made up to look like the Joker from Batman movies.
Patrick Connolly, a 19-year-old from Sandwich, Massachusetts, was charged with assault and disorderly conduct for allegedly hitting Cora with an unopened beer.
Connolly told the arresting officers, according to the Boston Globe: “I love Cora. I didn’t mean to hit him.”
Police Commissioner William Gross said there were five other parade-related arrests, including a 17-year-old charged with illegal firearm and drug possession.
Security was tight along the route, which took the team past the site of the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.