The place went absolutely giddy-bonkers. “Dirty Water” was playing, but you could hear nothing but the bass line pumping out of the speakers. The rest was lost in the delirious chant of the crowd, not Papi, Papi but Da-VEED! Da-VEED! The cops in their riot gear, who came out to protect the sanctity of the field from marauding fans in their YANKEES SUCK T-shirts, tried to hold on to their stern don’t-tread-on-me frowns, but most of them couldn’t do it for long; they broke into delighted winner grins, smothered them, then had to do the smothering all over again as fresh grins broke out. Best of all, I turned around and saw the woman who’s been my mom since my own mom died, hands clasped below her chin, beaming like an eighty-one-year-old cherub. I had some doubts about taking her and her oxygen tanks to a potential clinch game with thirty-five thousand rabid Red Sox fans in attendance (and when I checked that second tank later, I saw that she used as much oxygen in the half an hour following Big David’s home run as she had during the entire previous four hours of the game), but now, an hour later, there’s not a doubt in my mind that tonight I did her a mitzvah. And she did me one. And the team did one for both of us and all of Red Sox Nation. There’s more work to do, but tonight there are plenty of mitzvahs to go around.

After El Jefe’s walk-off we hang around, dancing on our seats, singing along with “Shout” and “Joy to the World” and “Glory Days” as the locker-room celebration plays on the JumboTron. WHY NOT US? Pedro’s T-shirt reads. Euky Rojas empties the bullpen ballbag, tossing its contents to our suddenly lucky section. Thanks, Euky!

Down at the dugout, Ellis Burks does the same. We’ve moved to the tarp along the first-base line to get closer to the celebration. Dave McCarty (not even on the roster!) comes out and sprays us with beer. Gabe “The Babe” Kapler gives us some skin. Manny and Kevin Millar jog past, slapping hands, and Mike Myers, in a Dominican flag do-rag. Johnny sits in the passenger seat of a groundskeeper’s cart while David Ortiz rides in back, kicking his legs and waving to us as they go all the way around the track to the garage door in left. It’s a good hour since the game ended, and there are only a couple hundred of us diehards. Unforgettable.