Week 3 Theme: Fenway Sardines

The passenger train rumbled loudly into the humid subway pulling a cloud of hot air with it. It stunk. My mother, brother, and a family friend waited anxiously to jump on board. There were people flooding down the staircase so as not to be late. Around one hundred people waiting there at the edge of the rails. I looked around and noticed that almost everyone had some sort of Red Sox apparel on them, myself included. Apparently all of us were heading to the same place.

“Look...at...all the people,” my mother said in amazement.

“I know,” responded my brother Kevin. “How are we all gonna fit?”

“You going to the game,” I asked to a couple standing near us.

“Yeah!”

“Awesome. Apparently everyone else is too,” I said laughing.

Another man standing behind them did not appear to be going to the baseball game but offered some late advice.

“You guys are leaving awful late.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. The game's in ten minutes.”

“How long does it take to get there,” I asked, now nervous that I might miss something.

“At least fifteen.”

“Oh well,” said my brother. “It could be worse.”

It was easy for him to say. He wasn't going to America's most beloved ballpark. I had asked him and our friend if they wanted to go to the game while we were down on vacation, but they both said no thanks. My brother said it would be boring. I had tried my best to convince them but to no avail. My brother, who, months later, nabbed a free pass to a Cincinnati Reds game, would later tell me he wished he had come; that it wasn't boring at all. “Oh well” is right.

The doors opened and the myriad of faithful fans poured onto the train. We stepped on board but quickly found no place to go. The train was filled and filled and filled, until I knew precisely what the proverbial sardine can metaphor was intended to convey.

I looked at some of the locals and saw them nervously laughing as they observed what was becoming a ridiculous situation. I was standing with my back to the very back wall of the train. More and more people poured on, ending with a group of very attractive South American girls. I thought to myself, “well, it could be worse.” Yet suddenly, after spending the entire day walking the Freedom Trail in the hot sun, my very next thought was, “Oh man I stink!” As if in some magical never-land world I'd somehow find the love of my life crammed in the back of this train. The train lurched forward to the sound of squealing and giggling passengers.

“Oh my gosh this train is packed!” said one man next to us.

“We're all gonna die,” joked another another.

The train struggled to pick up speed as it turned the first corner that would take us west and up the back bay. Loud screeching erupted from beneath us as the wheels and breaks struggled to gain a hold of the tracks.

“We're gonna flip,” yelled out someone up front.

“Hang on,” I said to my family.

As the train took one turn and then another, stopping and starting again, you could not help but bump and nudge everyone around you. Shoulder to shoulder doesn't quite adequately describe it. One of the foreign girls in front of me was not ready for the train to stop so suddenly and began to trip up (though I doubt she would have reached the ground with so many people stuffed in there). I reached out and gently grabbed her back as she reached of and latched onto one of her friends arms. She looked back for a just a second.

“Sorry,” she laughed as her friends laughed with her, continuing their conversation in Spanish.

Like I said, it could have been worse.

Though no one may have actually said it without joking a little, I think everyone on that train believed that we could have derailed on our way to the field. Even the locals looked a little concerned. The train came to a stop and the multitude pour out of the car and into the subway. Some jokingly gasped for air. We jumped off and followed the crowds up the steps, onto the street, across the bridge, and onto the hallowed street of Yawkee Way. The man back at the train was right. We were a little late. And we had been crammed on a subway train that had almost derailed. But yet, as I looked up at the beautiful sign hanging over the one hundred plus year brick doorway that read: “Fenway Park”, I again thought to myself, “It could be worse. I could be a Yankee fan.”

I handed my ticket to the doorman and walked into ecstasy.