Thru Fenway Park, Boston Streets
BOSTON – Confetti cannons boomed and huge crowds of fans cheered wildly on Wednesday as the Boston Red Sox rumbled through downtown aboard duck boats to mark the team’s fourth World Series championship in the past 15 years.
One of the team’s championship trophies and team manager Alex Cora were hit by flying cans of beer that Boston fans have made a practice of offering their sports heroes during recent victory parades. Neither was seriously injured and it didn’t take any varnish off the shining celebration.
The rolling rally set off from venerable Fenway Park and wound its way through major city streets lined by fans numbering in the hundreds of thousands, some who arrived before dawn.
Bits of red, white and blue paper rained down as team officials, players, and their families waved from the amphibious, World War II-era vehicles. Some autographed balls and drank beers tossed to them from the jubilant throng.
Many in the sea of Red Sox jerseys and ball caps took advantage of the fact that the parade coincided with Halloween.
Young children dressed up as comic book and Disney characters, 20-somethings from the city’s numerous colleges sported full-body panda and dinosaur outfits, and fans took selfies with a doppelganger of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan roaming the crowd.
“It’s been nothing but love. We’re out here having a good time. We’re turnt up,’’ said Jarrick Fidalgo, a New Bedford, Massachusetts, native with his face painted in the diabolical red, white and black of the Joker from “Batman.’’
But it wasn’t all carefree fun. Team manager Alex Cora, one of the team’s four World Series trophies and a bystander were among those hit by errant beer cans. Cora and the trophy were barely scathed, but the bystander was urged to get treatment for a gash on her nose, The Boston Globe reported.
Patrick Connolly, a 19-year-old from Sandwich, Massachusetts, was charged with assault and disorderly conduct for allegedly hitting Cora with an unopened beer.
Connolly told the arresting officers, according to the Globe: “I love Cora. I didn’t mean to hit him.’’
Police Commissioner William Gross said there were five other parade-related arrests, including a 17-year-old charged with illegal firearm and drug possession.