Weekend Red Sox Victory Parade Draws Crowd

Members of “Red Sox Nation” lined the streets of Boston to catch a glimpse of this year’s World Series champions as they rode on the city’s iconic duck boats for Saturday’s victory parade.

Proudly displaying their 2013 World Series trophy, the players started at Fenway and headed down Boylston Street before launching into the Charles River waters, following a similar route to the 2004 Red Sox parade.

For Dan Wheatman, a Bostonian and longtime Red Sox fan, this year’s win was especially significant because of the tough year Boston has gone through.

“We built over the bombing, but now, with an event like this, it brings us back together.” Wheatman said. “We’re still strong. We’re one city.”

In a somber moment, members of the Red Sox paused and gave tribute to victims of the Boston bombing by placing their trophy and a team jersey on the Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston Street.

Other attendees at the parade said that they were especially ecstatic this year because of how unexpected the Red Sox win was. Although the team swept the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series, the Sox have grappled since then, finishing last in their division at the end of the 2012 season.

One Red Sox fan at the parade carried a sign bearing the words “The Worst-to-First Red Sox,” a moniker fans gave the team after they clinched the title by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 6-1 on Wednesday.

“I had given up on them. No one thought they were going to do anything.” said Kevin George, a fan from greater Boston at Saturday’s celebration.

Bostonian Jeff Fagan agreed with the unexpected success of his hometeam.

“The players this year had more heart. They started to get better and better and better, but no one expected this,” Fagan said.

Some fans in the passion-filled and diverse crowd trailed the parade route from beginning to end, and many members of the Harvard community were in attendance.

“Being a student here, and being so close, it’s so easy to get over to Fenway Park,” said Andrew G. Kalina ’14, a senior who watched the parade from the Charles River.

Kalina described himself as a fourth-generation Red Sox fan, who lived in Arizona for 11 years and moved to Minneapolis, but whose mother was raised in New England.

“We’ve never been to the parade. It was quite the experience,” said Kalina, who also attended several Red Sox games in the year, including the Series win.

Unlike the Red Sox’s previous parades, this year’s rally took place on a Saturday, which many families said was a factor in their ability to come.

Jackie and Joey Broza, who brought along their two young children, said that they left New Hampshire at 3:30 a.m. in order to make it to the duck boat parade.

“We were born into being Red Sox fans,” Jackie said. “Hopefully [our children] will grow up to be Red Sox fans too.”