A few months ago Veri-husband and I StubHubbed some Red Sox tickets for yesterday’s game. We decided to make a day of it, getting to town early to climb the Pru, stroll along the Charles, and grab a bite down Landsdowne Street a couple hours before the game.

But as we sat in our cramped bleacher seats, I had the slight twinge I always get when I go see professional sports. These days tickets need to be saved up for, and I often wonder at the investment: I could comfortably stay my house for free and watch the game with all the camera angles I need rather than pay a small fortune to sit cramped, either baking in the sun if it’s baseball season, or freezing if it’s football season, squinting at the action from the not-so-cheap seats.

As if to underscore this point, within two innings a recovering Dice-K dug us an 8-run hole, and the stadium collectively wilted. Suddenly my couch seemed softer, my 6-pack cheaper, the line to my fridge awfully short. During the seventh-inning stretch a handful of fans groaned through “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as the first beat-the-traffic fans started to trickle out of the stadium.

Then, as the Sox limped along, the other end of the bleachers started an enthusiastic wave. After roasting under relentless sun for three hours watching a deflated team, they defied the glum atmosphere and stood up and cheered like we weren’t five runs behind with the errors mounting. As the wave circled through the stadium, fans ignored the carnage on the field and jumped up — each round becoming more fervid than the last. By the time “Sweet Caroline” was pumped through the speakers fans were smiling, reaching out to each other and pumping fists into the air.

And then I remembered why going to games is so special, so worth the traffic, the weather, the growing price. Somehow being at a game brings people together in a way I’ve never seen anywhere else. Thousands of fans screaming, and cheering, propelling their team’s players to great heights, and holding them to task when they don’t live up to potential. People laugh at me when I talk about teams using “we,” as in: “We can’t seem to get our defense together” — but when you’re at a game, living and dying with each play, you do feel — for a fleeting time — like part of the team.

Fenway from the Pru:

The Pru from Fenway:

Fenway (with the Celtics logo from their honoring the day before):