An excerpt from: Postseason
a clean slate for Red Sox
No bad karma to battle -- just the White Sox
By Bob Hohler, Globe Staff
October 4, 2005
A year ago, Mayor Thomas M. Menino took to a sidewalk
outside Fenway Park to participate in a prayer service for the
Sox. He quickly lapsed from worshipper to prognosticator, issuing
a prescient statement with his comically skewed syntax.
''Much like a cookie," Menino declared last
October, ''I predict the Yankee dynasty will crumble and the results
will be delicious for Red Sox fans."
This year, Menino has rarely missed a Sox home game,
even as he has tried to fend off Councilor Maura Hennigan in his
bid for reelection.
''I look at it the same as last year," Menino
said in a telephone interview. ''This is a team that will not
die, and the Yankee empire will crumble again."
Hennigan has tried to capitalize on the Sox championship
by distributing business cards adorned with images of Fenway Park
and the word ''Believe." She has produced T-shirts with
''Believe" emblazoned across the front. And she has likened
herself to last year's ragtag pack of Sox who stunned the Yankees
for the AL pennant.
''Dare I say [Menino] is the guy
in pinstripes and maybe people see us as kind of like that lovable
band of idiots," said Hennigan's campaign manager, Mitch
Kates. ''But guess what, we do believe. We believe that this fall
a woman will be mayor."
Menino's response?
''You can say the mayor does wear
pinstriped suits," he said. ''It's part of his natural attire,
but he's not a fair-weather fan. I've been a season ticket-holder
for 25 years. Maybe they just realized there's a team in Boston."