For Sox fan, once in an epic lifetime

The oldest man in the United States is a Boston Red Sox fan.

Considering that, it might seem as if Fred Hale, at 112, would sadly express how he's hung on just to see his beloved Red Sox win a World Series, how he's been waiting for it to happen for 85 long years, how he almost can't bear to watch the high-tension American League championship series between Boston and the New York Yankees that began last night.

Add to the mix the potential for the Chicago Cubs to represent the National League - the same club that met Boston in the 1918 World Series, the same club whose city is equally hungry for its team to win it all - and it would seem a good bet that Hale, of Baldwinsville, could be the national symbol for every distressed, neurotic fan.

That isn't the case. Hale is not only the oldest Red Sox fan, he may be the most relaxed.

"If it happens, it'll be good," Hale said Wednesday, during an interview at the Syracuse Home Association, the Baldwinsville nursing and rehabilitation center where he lives. He answered questions by reading them first from a sheet of paper. Asked if it would mean a lot to him to see Boston win it all, Hale replied, "Yes, but I'm not going to let it worry me."

Even so, as he spoke, he wore a Red Sox cap.

Hale was 27 during the 1918 World Series, and he said he doesn't really remember it. Loyalty to the Red Sox grew on him as he grew older. He lived in his native Maine until he was 109, when he moved to the Syracuse area to be near his son, Fred Jr., 81, a retired General Electric engineer.

"Whenever I come in," Fred Jr. said of visiting his father, "he asks me how the Red Sox did."

While Hale goes to bed too early to follow the late-night scores, he'll watch any Boston games in the afternoon. It is difficult for him, because his hearing is all but gone and his eyes bother him. "When I watch," Hale said, "I'll catch an inning or two, here and there."

He has outlived his wife and three of his five children. Hale is officially the second-oldest man in the world, and the 10th oldest human being on earth. Sitting in a wheelchair in Baldwinsville, his hands covered with cloth to protect them from bruising, Hale shrugged when asked about his global eminence.

Fred Jr., accustomed to that response, only smiled.

"Down deep," Fred Jr. said, "I think even he's amazed."

As for the Red Sox, they matter to Hale. He just doesn't base that affection on the need to win it all. "They're native, you know?" Hale said, in his strong Maine accent. "From Massachusetts? New England?"

In other words, win or lose, they remain a bridge to home.

His favorite player, without question, was the great Ted Williams. In the late 1950s, Hale retired from a career as a railroad clerk with the U.S. Postal Service. He began helping out at Lord's Lobster Pound in Maine, a place co-owned by Hale's daughter, Carolyn. Hale steamed clams. He pulled the meat off lobsters.

Every now and then, Williams would come walking in the door.

"My daughter always said of him, 'Oh, he's so pleasant,' " Hale recalled. "He never talked baseball with us. He had friends in New Hampshire, and he'd come in with them once in a while. He'd put in big orders for lobsters and clams. He was very friendly, and very inquisitive about how things were going.

"He was just a commoner, you know?"

Coming from Hale, that is high praise. His wife, Flora, was a Red Sox fan who'd listen to games on a big radio in their living room. The Hale children, from the cradle, cheered for Boston. Hale noticed that devotion. He took Fred Jr. to Fenway Park for the first time during the 1930s, at a time when the family didn't have much money.

It was a beautiful day, and they made the 100-mile drive in an old Plymouth. Fred Jr. recalls the power of the moment when he walked into Fenway, how the stands and the green field opened up before him. Most of all, he associates it with his father, who still refuses to accept any praise for finding a way to give his boy that gift amid the Great Depression.

"He got enjoyment out of the crowd, or one thing or another, that's all," Hale said.

Through his wife and children, Hale became a fan. He is more than four years older than Babe Ruth would be if Ruth were still alive. He knows all about Boston selling Ruth to the Yankees, but he doesn't buy the idea of a curse. Hale pins Boston's long drought on a less mystical cause.

"They just don't have deep pockets," he said, taking a shot at the team's willingness to shell out for great players.

The Red Sox also remind Hale of his daughter Carolyn, who would talk baseball as they worked long days in the lobster pound. "She was the one," Hale said quietly, meaning that Carolyn may have loved the Red Sox most of all. He knows she would have been a nervous wreck this week.

Carolyn died 11 years ago. In a way, Hale's hopes for the team are a way of reaching back to her. He is rooting for Boston to take the World Series because the Red Sox remind him of his home, and because Carolyn never got to see it happen, and because he knows how much Fred Jr. cares about the team.

"I want them to win, yeah," Hale said.

But he's also better than almost anyone at waiting till next year.

© 2003 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.