I am not what you would normally call a sports fan. In fact, last night’s Sox/Rangers game was the first time I’d ever been to a professional sports game of any sort. Not only that, but I live near Fenway and I live with the park’s impact on the neighborhood: trash, traffic, parking lots and bars and schlockerias that cater only to the summer crowds. And don’t get me started about not being able to walk down Yawkey Way on game days.
But inside the park, I understood it. The buzz of thirty thousand people in overpriced uncomfortable seats on an unseasonably chilly night to witness a dream. Yes, I know it’s the team that won, not me. But I don’t care.
But there really is some sort of magic to it. I felt all the excitement of the child who gets to come out onto the green and say “Play Ball” after the anthem and before the first pitch. Well, almost: the kid they had last night stood up at the mic, then froze and fainted, and his parents carried him away.
So, tonight, I can hear the music play, an announcer mumble Nomar or Manny, and the crowd cheering faintly, and I know why, and that makes me incredibly happy.
Secretly Ironic 
There’s something to it, isn’t there? Rushdie says being in a crowd is the closest thing to sex there is, because in both cases you can lose yourself completely in someone else. That might be slightly hyperbolic but there is certainly some magic there, especially at Fenway in the summer.
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