Take me out to the White House…
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In so many ways, it was just like a day at Fenway Park…
When the 2007 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox stopped by the White House Wednesday, fans were packed into the seats, there were obstructed views, the weather was questionable, and the politicians had all the best seats in the house. There was plenty of anti-Yankees talk, plenty chants of “Let’s Go Red Sox!” and the pack of scribes huddled way in the back did their unsuccessful best to keep any scent of Red Sox bias out of their copy.
The team, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney (whom Bush called his “battery-mate” – no artificial pacemaker pun intended…) looked out onto a South Lawn packed with fans wearing red, blue, green and pink Red Sox hats, men and women raising Red Sox pennants and children with David Ortiz jerseys standing on the shoulders of fathers.
(Jason Varitek, Hideki Okajima and Mike Lowell)
But it wasn’t all Norman Rockwell and cotton candy: Baseball has to have a healthy dose of trash talking, right? So it was, then, that one White House staffer sported a hat with the Yankees logo crossed out. President Bush took a swipe at missing Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez: “I’m sorry that Manny Ramirez couldn’t be here; I guess his grandmother died again” (the dig was a reference to Ramirez’s penchant for going AWOL at inopportune moments). And even the journos couldn’t help themselves. When CNN’s Ed Henry took a more wonkish tack during a post-ceremony stakeout and asked a few Sox players for their opinion on Roger Clemens and steroids, one journo hissedand another mumbled, “Oh shut up,” clearly preferring that the Fourth Estate keep the conversation to peanuts and cracker jacks.
But will they be back? Who knows. But catcher Jason Varitek told a scrum of reporters after the ceremony that “this time was a lot more fun” than in 2004. “It wentso quickly last time.”
Photo Credits: Patrick W. Gavin
