On May 23rd, the first Run to Home Base took place in Boston and Cambridge. This run was a fundraiser, requiring runners to raise at least $1000 for the Home Base Program, as well as giving runners the rare chance to cross home plate in America’s most beloved ballpark, Fenway. With such an incentive, I simply had to participate.
The official finish line for this 9K run1 was on the warning track in left field at Fenway Park, next to the famed Green Monster. However, in keeping with the race’s name, they also had a “photo finish”2 at home plate.
This was fortunate, as it solved an obvious problem – how was I going to slide across the plate while wearing shorts? If you’re running towards home plate at full speed (as in a game), you should be sliding, or at least barreling into the catcher. How can you do any less in a race? Upon learning that we’d be finishing earlier, and then have a chance to cross home plate at a more leisurely pace, the proper move suggested itself – the walk-off.
Perfected at Fenway Park by David Ortiz, the walk-off move involves flipping off your helmet and jumping onto home plate, before being mobbed by your teammates. This is exactly what I did.
Is that a great shot or what? The picture was captured by the race photographers, and included free with entry in the race. They didn’t arrange for individual shots, and later photos for many runners included other people. The lesson here is that if you want the best, you need to run ahead of the crowd.
Though not pictured, I did indeed mime flipping off an imaginary helmet prior to my jump.
Yes, those are the Vibram FiveFingers.
The man staring at my jump is four-star General George Casey. He’s the top uniformed officer in the Army, serving as Chief of Staff.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to tell General Casey that I think his “serious concerns” about repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are a crock of shit. Next time.
It’s possible General Casey is staring at my ridiculous shoes. It’s also possible he sees me riding some sort of invisible unicycle.
Supporters have long ago received a private email with my thanks, but for any who are reading, thank you again for supporting me and the Home Base Program. To anyone else, you can still support this very worthy cause at homebaseprogram.org.
Footnotes:
No, 9 kilometers is not an official race distance anywhere. I have no idea how they chose this distance. ↩︎
By that they meant a “finish line” just for taking photos. This is, of course, not at all what “photo finish” means. ↩︎
