Bottom Of The Barrel

Red Sox Billboard

This is a billboard that was put up in the Fenway neighborhood this spring by the Red Sox to promote the 2006 season:

what is actually in the photograph is something so much more then just Trot Nixon and a couple of Sox fans. This photograph was taken after Trot hit a home run in the 11th inning against the Oakland A's in the 2003 divisional playoffs and pictured is Dennis Thomson [pictured on the far left, rally cap on] and two friends, one of whom had caught the ball in the center field bleachers [second person in the picture - note ball in hand]. They immediately tried to find Trot and get the game ball signed, which they did. The Red Sox picked this photograph [out of literally thousands] to use for their billboard this spring but what they didn't know was "the rest of the story".

You see, Dennis Thomson is a member of Red Sox nation, baseball player and a young man serving in the US Air Force. Dennis was able to get to Boston to see game 1 of the 2004 World Series, which of course your very own Red Sox won after 86 long years of waiting for another World Series title. On the day of the Red Sox championship parade in Boston, Dennis was in a car accident [collision with a drunk driver] while he was on his way to his base in Florida. He died a few days later, only 20 years old. He was laid to rest in a Red Sox jersey because his mom said "you don't dress a baseball kid in a suit".

ESPN had the most wonderful video clip about this billboard but unfortunately it is no longer available on their website. Maybe someday it will get posted again. In the meantime, both HDH Channel 7 and WBZ Channel 4 have short articles on this and please disregard HDH's misreporting that the ball came from a Yankee game, it was an A's game.

Call it fate, call it divine intervention, call it what you will but for this picture to be used can not be a coincidence and it stands as a reminder of how short and unpredictable life can be. Please take today [and this weekend] and live it to the fullest.

posted by TheWino @ 7:22 AM