The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Boston throws a party for Serieswinning Red Sox
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 in recent years of offering sports heroes during such parades, but neither was seriously injured and it didn’t take any varnish off the shine of the overall celebration.
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, World War II-era 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.
Along Boylston Street, the main parade thoroughfare, young children dressed 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 doppelganger of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan roaming the crowd.
“It’s been nothing but
love. We’re out here having a good time. We’re turnt up,” said Jarrick Fidalgo, a New Bedford, Massachusetts, native with his face painted in the diabolical red, white and black of the Joker from “Batman.”
But it wasn’t all carefree fun. Team manager Alex Cora, one of the team’s four World Series trophies and a bystander were among those hit by errant beer cans. Cora and the trophy were barely scathed, but the bystander was urged to get treatment for a gash on her nose, The Boston Globe reported.
Patrick Connolly, a 19year-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 Globe: “I love Cora. I didn’t mean to hit him.”
Security was tight along the route, which took the team past the site of the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
Public drinking, in theory, was banned, but many fans still liberally swigged from small vials of liquor and cans of beer.
Throughout the day, spontaneous anti-Yankees chants rang out, a nod to the long-running rivalry between the American League squads.
Countless Boston-area youths skipped class to take in the parade.
“I heard there were six people in my history class today. Everyone is here,” said Max Colognesi, a 16year-old
from nearby Chestnut Hill who joined friends near the ballpark. “I have a lot of homework when I get back, but it’s worth it.”
During a pre-parade ceremony at Fenway, Cora thanked fans for supporting the team as it won a teamrecord 108 games before beating the New York Yankees, Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs.
“I’ve been saying since Day One, this is crazy, this is madness,” he said.
Boston fans learned even more good news Wednesday when pitcher David Price announced before the start of the parade that he planned to stay in Boston, declining a contract option that would have enabled him to become a free agent.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Price said on the field at Fenway Park before boarding a duck boat. “I came here to win, and we did that this year. That was very special and I want to do it again.”
Price will earn $127 million over the next four years, the remainder of a sevenyear, $217 million contract he signed before the 2016 season that gave him the right to opt out after the third year. It remains the richest contract ever for a pitcher.
“There wasn’t any reconsideration on my part, ever,” Price said.
On Tuesday, the team announced they were exercising their $15 million option for next season to retain another star pitcher, Chris Sale.
Bob Gardner traveled up from Newtown, with his wife and their 17-year-old grandson, Andrew, and took in the spectacle from near Fenway.