One Nation, indivisible . . .

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, December 26, 2004

The card arrived the other day, a happy couple in Red Sox gear standing outside Fenway Park on the day of the victory parade. Thousands of people across New England and beyond, I'm sure, had put similar pictures on their Christmas cards, but this was different. This had a letter attached.

When we got to the parade we parked where you always park, it said. Give us a call, it said. It was signed "Karen and Anthony".

The message was similar to dozens, if not hundreds, that anyone with an emotional attachment to the Red Sox -- which is just about everyone in these parts -- had sent and received in the last two months. We had shared the pain and the angst and the frustration, and now we were sharing the joy. Like a family. Just like a family.

Thing is, I didn't recognize these people. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out who they were.

THE RED SOX' World Series victory is being hailed as the top sports story of 2004, and many organizations -- Sports Illustrated, most prominently -- say the reason goes beyond the sweep of the Cardinals, the crawling out of an 0-3 hole against the Yankees, the courage of Curt Schilling, the heroics of David Ortiz and the resiliency of the "idiots." Bigger than the story of the people who produced the triumph, somehow, is the story of the people who rooted for it.

There's been a realization in recent times that the essence of the Red Sox is not the organization or the players, but the followers. Two years ago, the Sox gave filmmakers almost unprecedented backstage access to the team for a documentary of the 2003 season; quickly, they realized the six sets of fans they chose to follow as an adjunct to the action were far more interesting than anything they filmed in the clubhouse. When HBO produced its Curse Of The Bambino special, the tales of ordinary people reacting to extraordinary events were the backbone of the program.

But beyond the resonance of the stories is our need to tell them, to seek them, to share them. I had heard so many tales of how people responded to the ALCS loss to the Yankees in '03 -- the Aaron Boone game -- that I put out a call for fans to share their experiences with us for our baseball special section last April. We were inundated with entries, far more than we could use (and we used enough to fill four full pages). After the Sox won the World Series in October, a one-day notice for victory accounts produced three pages' worth of material in our commemorative Red Sox section.

We have a basic instinct for connection. There's no denying the Red Sox have become a local rallying point in a society increasingly devoid of common interests. Maybe that's why the couple sent me the letter, I thought. They knew of my attachment to the Sox and felt compelled to tell me of theirs.

MY STORIES are no different than anyone's, except perhaps brighter than most. I never wallowed in the agony of defeat, because I never felt most of the losses were all that agonizing. I accepted the 1967 World Series loss to the Cardinals with consoling memories of a magical season. In 1975, the joy of Game 6 eclipsed the disappointment of Game 7. The Sox' comeback -- their 12-wins-in-14-games sprint to the finish to force the playoff -- was what I took away from 1978, not a hard-fought, well-played, one-run loss in a playoff game between two great teams.

I have to admit, though, 1986 was different.

My '86 story: I was working here the night of Game 6, in charge of the section on what we all felt would be an historic night. I'd had a partial season-ticket package with a friend named Tony for years, and we felt we should be together when the Sox finally reached the mountaintop. He planned to watch the game with friends, but after I got out of work he was going to come over to my house and we'd drink champagne together.

The game began. The unthinkable happened. The night became historic, all right, but not in way we'd anticipated. And as we were rushing to put the paper together, I got a phone call.

"What?" I snapped into the phone. I literally had no time to talk.

It was a mutual friend of mine and Tony's named Mike; Tony had watched the game with him. "Listen," he said. "You gotta talk to Tony. I'm worried about him."

"Why?"

"As soon as the game ended, he turned off all the lights and walked over to the window. He's just staring out, and he won't talk to anyone. I think he's gonna kill himself."

I smiled to myself. That's probably how I'd be reacting, I thought. "Put him on," I said.

"I don't want to talk," was Tony's greeting.

We'd been friends forever, and, using the shorthand of friendship. I cut to the chase. "It ain't over 'til it's over," I said.

"It's over," he spat back. "And you know it."

"I don't know that," I responded.

"Oh yes you do," he answered. "I don't want to talk. I'll call you later." And he hung up.

He was right. It was over. And, yes, in my heart I did know it.

We kept the tickets for about 10 more years, but after a while his interest seemed to wane. He gave up the package and eventually we stopped going to the games. We lost touch five or six years ago. But I often thought of him, and I never forgot something he once said that I thought should serve as a Red Sox fan's manifesto.

"I just want to win one," he said. "That's all. Not five. Not three. Just one. Just so we can say we won it."

I thought of him on Oct. 27. You got one, Tony, I thought to myself as I contemplated all my friends who were celebrating on that night. You got one.

AS DID WE ALL. And it meant something special, even if was a hard concept for some to grasp.

After the Sox won the World Series, "[my] three children all called to congratulate me as if I had done something impossible," wrote Harold L. Trafford of Coventry in a letter published in our Oct. 31 special edition. (Disclaimer: Harold is a retired Journal employee.) "All I had done was stick it out . . . "

But that's the point. Winning the World Series . . . well, someone wins the World Series every year. That singular act -- the on-field victory of the 2004 Red Sox -- was nice, but not really much different than the Marlins in 2003 or the Angels in 2002 or the Diamondbacks in 2001 or the Yankees in 2000, etc., etc., etc.

This was a triumph of the spirit. Of the very best human qualities. Faith. Loyalty. Perserverance. Even love. The bonds that tie the Red Sox to generation after generation of New Englanders not only weren't broken by years of failure and heartbreak, but were somehow strengthened. We stuck it out. In our disposable society, a place of snap judgments and instant gratification, we stuck it out. You did do something impossible, Harold. We all did.

Remember when the Grinch stole Christmas? And he was stunned on Christmas morning to find all the Whos in Whoville still gathered in the desolate town square, holding hands and singing happily? We're the Whos. Fenway Park is our Whoville.

And two months ago, for the first time in almost nine decades, the Grinch brought Christmas back to us. That's why this is a story not just for this year, but for the ages.

BAFFLED BY the card, it stayed in my mind for days. I kept searching for potential connections -- friends of my wife? friends of a family member? -- and kicked their names around.

Karen and Anthony.

Anthony.

Tony.

Tony!

I grabbed the card. I'd never met Karen, so I hadn't recognized her name or her face. But, sure enough, it was Tony. He was older, his face was fuller, his goatee was full of gray. But it was him.

"Anthony paced," Karen wrote, "smoked cigarette after cigarette out on the deck and sometimes couldn't look at the last inning of the World Series." I smiled. That's him, I thought.

When it ended, she added, "he was thrilled and happy for you, too!"

One more connection -- or re-connection -- of the 2004 Boston Red Sox.

Art Martone is the sports editor of the Providence Journal. He can be reached via e-mail at amartone [at] projo.com