Major League Baseball

Red Sox's walk-off, Boston Marathon make for special Monday in Boston

Published Oct. 12, 2021 12:27 a.m. ET

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

BOSTON — It was a once-in-a-universe day in Boston sports.

In the morning, there was the first-ever October edition of the (COVID-rescheduled) Boston Marathon, perhaps the world’s most famous endurance event and an annual New England celebration. And at night, the Red Sox walked off Tampa Bay in Game 4 of the ALDS on a Kiké Hernández sac fly to advance to the ALCS.

That's two distinctly Boston sporting gatherings, held just hours apart on the same day. From afar, the vibe at each might seem pretty different from the other, with the marathon a celebratory, low-stakes affair and the Sox playoff game a gut-busting tension-fest. But as I took in the day as an outsider, I realized that the two most important events in the city’s sports culture are actually more similar than you might expect.

In a typical year, the marathon takes place on Patriots Day, a regional holiday celebrated on the third Monday of April to commemorate the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord. All schools in the area are closed for the day, as are most workplaces. The Red Sox play a late morning game, with an 11 a.m. local time first pitch, the only of its kind on the baseball calendar. You might remember this year’s edition as when the normally sharp Lucas Giolito got rocked and Tony LaRussa left him in much too long.

While the Red Sox and the race have always been linked, the relationship grew stronger in the aftermath of the 2013 marathon bombing. The baseball team became a source of comfort and community for a city in mourning, with Fenway at its center. Big Papi delivered his unforgettable "This is our f---ing city" quote just a week after the tragedy, and the team went on to win the 2013 World Series.

Patriots Day represents a unique day in and around Boston. Kids love it because they get a day off from school, a day no one else in the country gets. On that day, many people will get up early, throw back a few, head to Fenway, watch the Sox play and then filter out of the ballyard to cheer on the runners about a half-mile from the marathon finish line.

But with the pandemic throwing the entire sports calendar into disarray, the 2021 Boston Marathon was moved to the morning of Monday, Oct. 11. As it turned out, fans got a potential series-clinching postseason baseball game and the world’s most renowned endurance race crammed into the same day.

I, a non-Bostonian with zero Boston Marathons run or watched, set out to absorb this very unique Marathon Monday as a complete outsider. I woke up around 10, more than 90 minutes after the elite male runners set off from the starting line in the town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and made my way toward the finish line on Boylston Street.

Eventually, I posted up on the corner of Boylston and Hereford, just beyond the race route’s final turn around mile 25.8. As the runners, exhausted, with sweat soaking their neon, nylon dri-fits, turned that final bend and laid eyes on the finish line, their gaits quickened, their jaws relaxed, and smiles crept across their faces.

I was expecting a good marathon crowd, even a loud one, but I was unprepared for just how constant and noisy the onlookers were. There were cowbells, there were horns, there was lots of clapping, and I learned that the voice box of the average Bostonian does not mess around. The slower the runner who turned the corner, the louder the crowd would grow to cheer them on. The loudest cheers, in fact, were reserved for those pushing their marathon partners down the home stretch.

"All these people, here near the finish line," a Bostonian named Keith explained to me, "got up today and said, ‘I’m gonna go to the marathon and cheer on thousands of people I don’t know.' Which is pretty amazing."

The unrelenting wall of noise I experienced at the corner of Boylston and Hereford reemerged later, around 10:38 p.m. local time, when, in the bottom of the ninth inning, pinch runner Danny Santana raced across home for the second Red Sox walk off in two days. The Sox bench emptied out of the dugout as Austin Meadows’ optimistic heave swerved offline.

Fenway went full Vesuvius, erupting in delight, as loud as an outdoor ballpark can get.

The Red Sox are not what they used to be. They’re bigger now, no longer the despicable losers, the hapless franchise forever close, yet forever far. Nowadays, the fan base carries itself with a swagger that could not have existed before 2004. This franchise today is a juggernaut; no other team has more 21st-century trophies. That bravado is exhausting when you’re on the receiving end of it, as the Rays and their fans were Monday, but for Bostonians, it must feel incredibly deserved after 86 years of pain.

That energy manifests itself through noise, ear-splitting noise. The volume was pumped up from the jump Monday, but things really roared to life with Rafael Devers' huge, three-run, intergalactic blast in the third inning. And even as the Rays inched back into the ballgame in the middle innings, culminating with a two-run eighth to knot things up, the Boston crowd kept the noise and the spirits up. When Rays reliever Luis Patiño jogged to the mound to pitch the bottom of the sixth, he was greeted by the always classic "WHO’S YOUR DADDY?" chant.

Many of the same Bostonians who, just hours before, were screaming to encourage a marathoner who’d slipped and hit the pavement to continue on to the finish showered Tampa Bay outfielder Randy Arozarena with "RAN-DY, RAN-DY" taunts every inning. The juxtaposition was hilarious. The two polar opposite vibes — one uplifting, the other ruthless — were so interesting to observe and so perfectly Boston.

But the Fenway crowd is more than just taunts and "Yankees suck" chants. It’s a symphony of volume and passion. Boston and its people show up and show out, for the things they care about, whether that be the Red Sox or strangers running 26.2 miles. On a very special Monday, the morning marathon was perfect cheering practice for the evening thriller.

It was a long day for sports fans in Boston, but clearly, they’re built for this.

Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.