A Win for Boston, A Win for Blue
by Piper Wright
Starlight Drive-In -- I call these the Blue Days. Not because of sadness. Not because the sky seems to have changed from the brown drabness and frequent radstorms. No, these are the Blue Days for a different reason. Because of Blue. You may know him as Nate Howard, the royalty of the Commonwealth. The Peacemaker. The Sole Survivor. Today the Commissioner of Baseball. But for me he will always be Blue.
I first met the man from another time just outside Diamond City. At the time the mayor of DC, Mayor McDonough, had locked me out because he did not like the news I was reporting. A fellow in a blue vault jumpsuit walked up on me, and the rest for me was history.
He was a man from before the war, frozen like a popsicle, but forced to watch his wife murdered and his child get kidnapped. He was desperate and manic, but I could see in him at the time that there was something special about him. And oh boy was there.
After time passed and he found his son and overcame his demons, Blue did something no one ever thought possible. He tamed the Commonwealth. Later, with the help of a trenchcoat-wearing stranger, Blue brought more than hope to the Commonwealth. He brought fun and taught people how to look forward to the next day, to have hope.
In the last few months, there has been a buzz louder than a horde of bloatflies. That buzz has been all about a game that has been around longer than anyone can remember. Baseball.
I know I would sometimes look at the pennants hanging in The Great Green Jewel. At the time, we called that structure Diamond City. Those banners had a peculiarity to them. The last pennant there read 1918, the last year the Boston team that played there won a championship.
Fun fact: the day the bombs dropped that formed this wasteland that we call the Commonwealth, Boston was hosting a team from Texas for the championship. The Boston team was up three games to zero and was set to win the championship for the first time in 159 years.
But they never did. That same day, Blue and his family was ushered into one of Vault-Tec's famed vaults where they were frozen in small metal tanks. That time was for 210 years. Blue was ready to see Boston win in baseball, but instead he had to wait 210 years to escape his ice prison. Nine years after that, Blue finally gets to see Boston win with the start of the Commonwealth Baseball Organization.
Today, four teams are gathered at Starlight Drive-In to play at Valentine Detective Agency Field. These four teams--the Lady Killers, Scrappers, Bloodbugs, and Treasures--are not playing in Boston proper, but they are representing Boston winning at baseball. Name one other place than the Commonwealth where baseball is being played right now? There may be a place, but it is doubtful.
In five other places in the Commonwealth, other teams are experiencing that same buzz: Greygarden, University Point, Finch Farms, Quincy, and Fort Hagen. People are more excited for the start of this tournament than anything else. Blue told me baseball was once considered to be America's pastime.
Now it's our, the Commonwealth's, pastime. Here's to Boston winning a championship for the first time in 378 years. Here's to Blue.