Opening Day: Fenway Park

The Red Sox Nation is real. Ultimately, however, the reality of the RSN is that of a group of people pledging allegiance to an illusory vision of America that can only find purchase in New England. That said, from the field box of Fenway Park on opening day, you wouldn't know it for the fever dream it is.

The sun shines down from a clear sky, providing a crisp day with just the right amount of warmth for a baseball game. The light lends a clarity and depth to the colors: the grass  is emerald, the caps crimson and navy. In the stands, a sea of white faces. On an equally pale blanket in center field the Boston Pops plays the national anthem against the backdrop of an American flag draped over the Green Monster. Planes fly over. Bill Buckner, freshly released from the gulag, throws out the first pitch. Every sense tells you that this is America as you understood it when you were six, when finding a lizard sunning itself on a rock was still a major life event.

On some level, I can appreciate the allure of that pollyanna vision and all that it encapsulates, from Field of Dreams to apple pie. But it's not my America. One of the things that I miss the most about NYC is the sheer overwhelming diversity of the place, the dizzying array of faces, colors, clothes, sounds, sights and smells that pervade the city. Similarly, at a Yankees game there's a variety you just don't find at Fenway. Fatcats behind home plate, latinos, nuns, Italians, blacks, straight brims, bent brims and on and on. Thousands of people from thousands of different Americas screaming, yelling and drinking to the same team. 

So yes, the Red Sox Nation does exist. It has a uniform, an anthem ("YOOOOOOOUK!") and legions of jackbooted irregulars. And, while I have my problems with the whole "Yankees Universe" idea, it does capture the bewildering diversity that makes NYC and the NYY so much fun.