Sailor Gets A Home Run During His Reenlistment

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Boston Globe
May 19, 2007
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff
When US Representative Joe Courtney, a Connecticut Democrat, sat down in the cramped mess hall of the submarine USS Alexandria to eat breakfast with the sailors, he was expecting questions about national policy.
Petty Officer Second Class Nicholas Vecchione had bigger things on his mind.
"He said, 'OK, congressman, we have one question for you,' " Courtney recalled yesterday. "I'm bracing myself for the war in Iraq or education. And he says, 'OK, Red Sox or Yankees?' "
With some apprehension, Courtney acknowledged being a lifelong Red Sox fan, an admission that can be treacherous for elected officials in Connecticut, where loyalties are split, often fiercely, between the Red Sox and Yankees. To the congressman's relief, Vecchione, a 23-year-old Falmouth native, whooped with approval and enthusiastically rattled off symptoms of his devotion. Among them: A dream of hav ing his reenlistment ceremony in front of the Ted Williams statue outside Fenway Park.
The moment might have passed as just another happy encounter between glad-handing politician and constituent, but Vecchione's feverish enthusiasm stayed on Courtney's mind. Days later, back in Washington, Courtney directed his staff to ask the Red Sox if the team would open the ball park so that Vecchione could have the ceremony in front of the Red Sox dugout.
The team agreed, and yesterday Vecchione's parents, brothers, fiancee, family friends, and fellow sailors huddled in the drizzle, as a Red Sox official lent Vecchione a bejeweled World Series ring. The machinist and Navy diver placed his left hand on a Bible and swore to uphold his commitment to the service for five more years.
"It's a sacred place," Vecchione said of the park. "I had [the ring] on my ring finger as if I was married to the Red Sox for a few minutes."
Vecchione is an archetype of a certain brand of Red Sox fan. He devotes an entire room in his four-room condo in Ledyard, Conn., to Red Sox memorabilia. For years, he carried in his wallet a 2- by-3-inch chip of red and white paint that he had peeled from the lettering on the Red Sox dugout.
He and his 25-year-old brother, who turned up yesterday wearing a Yankee Hater cap with a ball and glove in hand, both have a piece of brick from Fenway's crumbling walls tucked away in their homes. Their mother, who wore a red team jacket yesterday, sent Vecchione American League Championship and World Series hats in 2004, after the Sox won each. He received the gifts when his submarine pulled into ports in Greece and Spain.
"I've been all over the world; I've been in war zones; I've been in the Arctic," Vecchione said. "I always have the Red Sox with me, whether it's with a ball cap or a keychain I keep in my pocket or a necklace I wear. . . . I'm just a fan."
Courtney, who could not attend yesterday's ceremony because of business in Washington, has similar leanings, also having grown up in a passionate Red Sox household. For Vecchione and his crewmates, Courtney's baseball fanaticism came in handy. The men were stationed in the Arctic Ocean a few hundred miles south of the North Pole, cruising under the polar ice and relying on sporadic e-mail updates for news. Reports on baseball were sparse.
"When I got there, it was right when Papelbon made the decision not to be a starter," Courtney said. "Because the submarine is incommunicado they hadn't heard that."
The news thrilled Vecchione, who had been in agreement with much of Red Sox nation about Papelbon's value as a closer.
"This is a guy after my own heart," Courtney said. "He's been through all of the pain, as well as the glory."
Three weeks after his meeting with Courtney over omelets, Vecchione's captain told the sailor he would be reenlisting at Fenway.
Reenlistment is an important moment in the Navy, Lieutenant Tommy Crosby said yesterday. Sailors decide where and how they want to sign back up, with the only requirement being that an officer performs the honors. Sailors have reenlisted underwater, in airplanes at 30,000 feet, and with dozens of others on their ship during dignitaries' visits.
"It is something special that we try to honor them with," Crosby said.
For Vecchione, there was never any question about a reenlistment pilgrimage to Fenway Park. He just never expected to make it inside the grounds.
"Thank God, he happened to be a Red Sox fan," Vecchione said of Courtney, "because personally I probably wouldn't have voted for him next year" if he hadn't been.
 
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