Page 2 columnist
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- It is 10 o'clock on Saturday night, 15 hours before the Red Sox host a spring training game against the Yankees, and there are three Boston fans -- Larry Scott, Dave Dybala and Patrick Whittle -- spreading out gear on the sidewalk in front of the ticket window at City of Palms Park.
"They're putting more tickets on sale at 9 o'clock in the morning,'' Scott explains, "so we decided to get in line now instead of waking up early. That would be crazy.''
Yes, rather than setting the alarm for 8 o'clock, it's much more practical to spend the night sleeping on the sidewalk outside the stadium.
Apparently, rooting for the Red Sox does things to a person, especially after a devastating playoff loss followed by an offseason trade of the league's best player to their hated rival. The game -- which will be completed by players who will spend the summer riding buses in the minors -- was sold out two months ago and a radio station sold a pair of tickets for $450.
Four hundred fifty dollars for a spring training game! And you thought Grady Little was the only moron in Red Sox Nation.
"This is the first meeting between the Red Sox and the Yankees since everything went down last fall,'' Scott says. "I think it will have the intensity of a playoff game. It's not your average spring training game.''
I'm not sure what they're expecting. That Bob Sheppard will attack Pedro Martinez for throwing a beach ball too close to the dugout? That Tom Gordon and Travis Lee will assault a special ed teacher in the bullpen for playing a Jimmy Buffett tune too loud? That John Henry will challenge George Steinbrenner to a Texas cage match for buying up all the good sunscreen? It's a spring training game, for crying out loud. It will be shocking if the starting pitchers even scowl at each other while running wind sprints along the warning track in the fourth inning.
Camping out the night before a grapefruit league game? This is unprecedented. Lining up 15 hours before the first pitch of a game that doesn't count in the standings? That's certifiably insane. Sleeping on the sidewalk so you can see a few veterans put in their required four innings with less enthusiasm than Manny Ramirez? This is something no one else besides these three Red Sox fans would possibly do.
"You guys Red Sox fans?'' say Eric Ferraz and Guy Sepielli as they stroll up at 10:30 with a half-case of beverage. "We've got the beer.''
OK. There is beer now. So the wait will go a little faster and be a little more pleasant. But still. Down here in south Florida, roughly 1,000 miles from Fenway Park, these must be the only fans mad enough to endure a concrete mattress for a spring training game.
"You guys Red Sox fans?'' a man yells from a car as it pulls up to the curb at 11 p.m. Sam King, a 55-year-old man in a Red Sox cap and jacket hops out of the car, grabs an armful of supplies, leans lightly on his cane and joins the five. "I knew there would be others here.''
Has everyone in Red Sox Nation gone insane?
"I've got my wallet,'' King says, "just in case the guys with the butterfly nets come and take me away.''
What sort of fans would spend the night on the sidewalk to get into a spring training game? The sort of fans who are convinced that Mia Hamm cost the Red Sox a trip to the World Series because she distracted Nomar with wedding plans -- "What were they doing planning a wedding in November so close to the World Series, anyway?'' -- the sort of fans who are convinced Aaron Boone tore his ACL as karmic punishment for hitting the series-deciding home run off Tim Wakefield.
"I was watching the game at my brother's house. None of us even watched to see where Boone's home run would land because we knew it was gone,'' Scott says. "My brother just got up and turned off the TV and started walking away. I asked him whether he wanted us to lock up or what, and he said, 'No, I hope someone breaks in tonight and murders me.' He didn't come out of the house for two days.''
This is what it's like to be a Red Sox fan. Yankees fans win so often that even losing a World Series barely registers -- "You should be able to rip them for losing to the Marlins; but when you do, it doesn't faze them,'' Dybala complains -- yet every loss for a Boston fan is permanently recorded for posterity and carried around like the tattoo of an ex-wife.
Root for the Yankees and you expect to win every year. Root for the Red Sox; and deep down, you always wait for that moment when Bucky Dent's home run sails over the Monster, the grounder bounces between Bill Buckner's legs and Grady Little places the bullpen phone on his own personal Do Not Call list.
Being a Yankees fan means buying World Series tickets in March. Being a Red Sox fan means every possible victory over your arch-rival is so precious that you're willing to sleep on the sidewalk to see a spring training game.
The Sox fans say they're glad the A-Rod trade fell through and they still have No-Mah at short. "I don't trust anyone who says he wants to be traded to the Red Sox and then goes and gets himself traded to the Yankees,'' Scott says. "There are just certain things you don't do in life.''
Everyone is sure the bullpen will be so good that Pedro and Curt Schilling will only need to give the Sox six good innings each start. Ferraz boasts that Ellis Burks will hit .300 with 30 home runs. And Scott says he's actually glad that A-Rod is with the Yankees. "We want the Yankees to be as stacked as possible when they finally fall to us.''
Near midnight, they are so optimistic about the upcoming season they are saying that reaching the World Series will seem cheapened if Boston doesn't beat the Yankees in the playoffs to get there.
Well, why not? It's spring training and last October's pain is almost five months away. It is a warm March evening in Fort Myers, yet this October seems close enough that these fans can almost see the World Series logo painted on Fenway's grass.
Or maybe that's just because it's still there from when the Red Sox foolishly painted it before Game 7 last fall.
"Hopefully, we'll all remember this night when we win the World Series this year,'' King says. "We'll look back and say, 'That's where it all began'."
And with those words, this all-night vigil suddenly does not seem quite so insane. Perhaps this is where it all begins and where an 86-year wait ends. Perhaps this year really will be next year. If so, break out the beer and the camera -- this is a night for celebration, a night that must be recorded for posterity.
The six gather for a photo; and as the photographer prepares to snap the picture, they smile and shout the rallying cry that defines our country's cradle of liberty, "Yankees Suck!''The flash bulb doesn't go off.
Without missing a beat, someone moans: "Great. We're going to lose this year.''
Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com
Caple