Paranormal State 3 Ticket (10/22/11)

I thought with tonight being the 25^th anniversary of Game 6 and Buckner’s error, I’d also write about a horror movie I recently watched.

First, Game 6. I was a 12-year-old in 7^th grade at Westboro Junior High. My favorite bands were Ratt, Motley Crue, and Cinderella, my favorite coed was a girl named Suzy, and my favorite teams were the B’s and Sox. And the Sox were on the brink of winning their first title since 1918.

That day, my younger sister (who was 6) accidentally shut the van door on her finger. We should have taken it as an omen for what was to come, but once she was stitched up and AOK the McGraths continued with the evening’s plans.

That night my younger brother Tom had a bunch of his friends over for a World Series/Birthday party. After the cake and presents, we all glued ourselves to the TV. The game went back and forth and was tied after 9 innings. When the Sox got two in the top of the tenth, my whole family started freaking out. Then when the first two Mets got out in the bottom of the 10^th, the screaming and jumping started. They were really going to do it.

That’s when the hits started. One after another, they got hits. Even though I was only 12, I knew I had to do something. I went into the kitchen and started watching it on the little TV we had in there. It didn’t work. The Stanley wild pitch and the Buckner error tore a part of my heart out. They lost. I went back into the partyless family room and my parents tried to console me with a reminder of game 7. It didn’t help.

I went to bed crying that night, trying to figure out how the Sox could have done that. How can you get so close to something and not get it? How could they ever bounce back and win game 7? Why, oh, why did Stanley throw a wild pitch with someone on 3^rd?

This game stuck with me for a long time. I never watched a replay of the Buckner error, turning my head away anytime it was on TV. Whenever I was watching the Sox on TV or at Fenway and they were ahead by two runs in the last inning with two outs I would remind those with me, “This is how close the Sox were to winning the Series.” It was an early life lesson that no matter how hard you work for something and how close you are to getting it, it can be taken from you right before it’s in your hand.

Thanks to the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox, this story has a happy ending. I am now able to watch replays of the Buckner error (and Boone’s homerun from 2003 - which I never saw because after the Yankees tied it, I left the house and drove around listening to the rest of the game on the radio), and I’m almost glad that game 6 happened because it made 2004 that much sweeter.

By the way, if you haven’t seen this RBI Recreation of the bottom of the 10th, you must. It’s really unbelievable.

Okay, time for another horror story that doesn’t have a happy ending – Paranormal Activity 3. If you liked the first Paranormal Activity and Part 2, you should like this one. It has a lot of the same elements, and parts that make you jump no matter how prepared you are. It’s hard for me to really judge this movie because I’ve lived with my share of paranormal activity. Although not as life threatening as the evil force in the movies, once you’ve lived it, it’s hard to be scared when you see it in a movie.