Being here in Massachusetts in the midst of a Red Sox World Series championship feels kind of odd. In 2004 and 2007, I was here in Arizona and thousands of miles away from Ground Zero. The greatest memory from 2004 was sitting in a Chili’s surrounded by Yankees fans watching Johnny Damon’s grand slam off the hapless Kevin Brown. It was one of the most amazing feelings I’ve ever experienced – not only did you feel miracles were indeed possible, but it gave you license to dream that a World Series championship was equally as possible. And when it finally happened – when the Sox swept the Cards and won Game 4 in St. Louis – it felt entirely anti-climatic, as if by beating the Yankees as no other team in a seven-game series had ever done prior, the result was a foregone conclusion. In 2007, I don’t even remember much about the playoffs except for J.D. Drew’s amazing grand slam in the Indians series. I didn’t even watch the clinching game – just listened to it from another room while I was busy doing work (that’s how engaged I felt).

So this year it feels a little different. Not having the baseball package on DirecTV I didn’t really get up and close with the Sox this year. I followed them in the Boston Globe and Herald, but that’s not the same as watching them night in and night out and learning all the players and what they’d done during the year. So I felt like a bit of an intruder as they began their romp through the playoffs on TBS and FOX. Still, it’s pretty cool to be able to flip on the radio and here all the good baseball chatter, and even cooler to go down to the local Dick’s Sporting Goods and see all the 2013 World Champions gear laid out across so many tables with fellow fans checking it all out. Very cool.

How he does it I don’t know, but Goodboy Ron “Cubby” Myerow always finds his way somehow into the limelight when it comes to Boston sports championships. Me, I just write about it all from a distance; Cubby schmoozes up to Sox hurler Felix Doubront at the Modell’s where he works part-time:

Very good, Cubby. You DA MAN.