Counting Down: Sox Equipment Truck Departing on Monday

The opening chapter of my book about the Cape Cod Baseball League includes this observation:

“Here in New England, winter begins much earlier than it does else­where, for it is marked not by the moment of solstice, but by the final out of the final game of the Boston Red Sox baseball season .... Happily, though, spring arrives much earlier here too. Well before robins appear on suburban front lawns, the Red Sox equipment truck is loaded at Fenway Park and, in an event no less ceremonious than the ground hog’s annual appearance in Punxatawney, Pennsyl­vania, departs for the green fields of Ft. Myers, Florida, where spring training will soon begin.”

Rejoice, Sox fans: the truck leaves on Monday, and with it go the hopes and expectations of a region.

Godspeed, U-Haul. Would that we could ride with you!